by Claude Alick

Editor’s Note: This is the second in a three part series on Claude Alick’s work, philosophy of independent publishing, and life history.  His most recent book, Dancing With The Yumawalli, is available through bookstores everywhere.

I’m the fifth of twelve children born by Anzilla Augustine.  I grew up in a small village called Jean Anglais, just up over Saint George’s, on the Caribbean island of Grenada.  Coming from such a large family, there are plenty of stories, and I take liberties with some of them.  One of these days my family may banish me for the practice of informing my fiction with attributes blatantly pilfered from their lives.  So far, I’ve gotten away with murder.

I’ve written and published two books:  Wet Storage and Other Stories (2005), and Dancing With The Yumawalli (2009).  Both of these books are self-published.  There are folks out there who harbor some inane notions about self-published books.  They are entitled to their poorly informed attitudes.  I bring this up simply for clarification and to cast some dispersion.  I prefer the term independent book, just like an indy record or an indy film.  My books, and the books of similar authors, are outside the influence of the filters and gatekeepers associated with the six  conglomerates that control the majority of the American book publishing industry.  Penguin Group, Simon & Schuster, Hachete Book Group, Harper Collins, Random House, and George Von Holtz Publishing Group (which is comprised of two German corporations, one French, one American, one Australian, and one English).  They control the bulk of what is published and consequently, what we see in bookstores and what we get to read.  Indy books, instead, are not reliant strictly on the profit motive or the return policies and delivery network central to all the imprints of these major publishing giants.  I see my endeavors, and those of like-minded authors, as very American.  Indy books are free enterprise, progressive, and have no filters or gatekeepers that insert themselves between readers and authors.

I see this contention between traditional publishing and self-publishing as emblematic of the convergence of technology and art.  Today, technology has made it possible to write and produce a great looking book for not much money.  But to deliver to the reader still requires some skill, always that dogged question of marketing.  I love to write, that’s what I do, and ever moment spent marketing a book is time not devoted to writing.  I have to wear two hats.  But technology is also removing barriers, and making it easier to reach an audience.  There is also technology in the experimental stages that’s quite intriguing.  For instance, right now you may go to a machine, insert the proper fee and the title of the book you would like to purchase, and the machine would print and bind  your book on the spot.

Here’s a testimonial from Mark Twain, extracts from Captain Stormfield’s visit to heaven.  Stormfield encounters a tailor from Tennessee called Billings who in life wrote poems that could have made Homer and Shakespeare envious.  But no company printed his poems and his foolish neighbors laughed at his efforts.  in the heaven that Stormfield visits, this wrong would be made right.  A little technology might have gone a long way to facilitate old Billings, help him reach a more enlightened audience, and get his just desserts here on earth.  Folks, I’m no Billings.  I have no intentions of waiting to be discovered.  I’ll leave the waiting to those in need of approval from the filters and gatekeepers.  As you may see, the term self-published rubs me wrong.  It leaves the impression that I went into my garage with a cardboard box, a few pages and Elmer’s Glue.  In reality I worked with a group of skilled editors and cover designers who helped me to produce a fine looking novel that I  chose to call Dancing With The Yumawalli.

Dancing With The Yumawalli is a hybrid, a mixture of past, present and imagination.  It’s a Caribbean story, alien to most North Americans at first glance, but universal in so many ways.  The setting:  Cargo vessels, yachts and the Caribbean Sea.  The characters:  Quirky oddballs.  And the writing, let’s leave that to the critics and the reading public.  I can’t wait to hear from some of them.

I write about ordinary people who find themselves in unusual situations.  Their lives are undermined by certain events, and they must work their way through, find stability again.  Not necessarily the same stability that they experienced before the seminal event, but a new one of their own making.  My stories are designed to fit neatly in the human mind, nothing big and bulky, just something that can be be held there, and integrated with your own perception of the human condition.