Turns out he's not a jerk at all... YET! (The Indie-pendence Day Anthology Winner)

Russ Bickerstaff:
Theater critic, writer, not a jerk.

Hey, remember how we here at IWM put out the single most successful anthology of short stories ever, The Indie-Pendence Day Anthology Of Time Travel Stories?  Sure, you MUST remember it.  It's the one that took the world by storm and got made into a hit movie starring Matt Damon and Sofia Vergara and featuring Julia Louis-Dreyfus as "Time".  OR WAS THAT IN AN ALTERNATE TIMELINE?

No matter.  

The important thing is, we put out a book and it has been universally well-received, and now it is time to have it weller-received.  Well-receiveder? I'm sure Andrew can tell me which one is least incorrect.  So from time to time

(GET IT?)

I will be posting interviews with the authors from that remarkable book, and some of their stories, as well.  Today is actually the second of those; the first interview was with author Jeff Hargett and is in our August magazine issue, on sale over there to the right. Today, you get for absolutely free an interview with Russ Bickerstaff, whose story "I Will Be A Jerk" won first prize this year, making it the Best Time Travel Story of 2014.  Doesn't that mean it's The Best Time Travel Story EVER? Let's let you decide that.

The interview will be today.  Check back tomorrow for the story.  

I emailed Russ some questions, and he responded as follows:

Thanks for the opportunity to do this. As a theatre critic and arts journalist, I'm always on the other side of a set of questions like this. 

Here's my response:

1. Where did you get the idea for your story?

In idle moments I occasionally imagine going back in time to have a conversation with myself when I was in high school. When I thought about what it might be like to go back in time and specifically NOT say anything to me, it turned into a story. 

2. Have you written other time-travel stories? 

Time travel pops-up a lot in my fiction. Though I love technical treatments of time travel like the movie Primer or more insightful historical pieces like Moorcock's Behold the Man, I tend to focus exclusively on the people. My time travel tends to be more of a personal emotional journey for the characters. 

3. If you could travel in time, when would you go to and why?

I'd love to go 25 years into the future. I have a couple of daughters who are very, very young. It'd be interesting to hang out with them as adults. I'm anxious to see what they'll be like after childhood. 

4. Are you working on anything right now that you want to share?  

I've finally been getting around to finishing a huge number of short stories. In the past three months or so I have wrapped-up work on over 100 of them. 

The big ongoing project is a sprawling, unplanned, unedited hypertext serial about a character named Blake Morely. It's been a fun exercise for the past several years. The text is over 1 million words long now. It can be found online by Googling the name "Blake Morely." (The hyper serial is the first thing to pop-up on a search.) No real idea where the story is going. It's been a lot of fun to write, though. 

5. Do you have other stories or books that readers can buy/read online?

I've been getting a short story accepted for publication about once per week over the course of the past three months. The central intersection for all those stories can be found at my online Internarrational Where Port at: http://ru3935.wix.com/russ-bickerstaff

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OK, back to ME now.  I went and started reading his Blake Morely story, and it's an extremely interesting project, which is what you'd expect from a guy like Russ.  Check out his other stuff, and stop back tomorrow to read I Will Be A Jerk.

In the meantime, the ENTIRE BOOK can be had for only $3.99, which is less than a pair of socks, I think? I don't know.  Sweetie buys my socks.  The point is, go get the book by clicking here and you'll get 15 great time travel stories from the best indie writers around.