On Monday, April 2, Sci-Fi/Fantasy author Andy Duncan graced the stage of Molnar Recital Hall in Wygal Hall with stories that ranged from the weird to the poignant right back to the weird. The event was featured as the final event to the 2011-2012 Authors Series and included a question and answers section, a reception and a book signing with works of his sold after the event.
Described as having "the Southern penchant for telling stories," Duncan spoke of his authorial works, including "Alabama Curiosities: Quirky Characters, Roadside Oddities & Other Offbeat Stuff," a nonfiction book that compiles strange, yet true anecdotes from Alabama. Mark Wingenfeld of The New York Review of Science Fiction described Duncan's stories as that they "cross genres from the fantastic to the horrific to the mainstream, but they are all written with Duncan's graceful combinations of history and legend, wit and charm, a wonderful mix of Twain's southern humor and Poe's Southern Gothic."
Duncan has won multiple awards and nominations, including two World Fantasy Awards, five nominations for the Nebula Awards, two nominations for the Hugo Awards and many more over the course of his works. A journalist at heart, Duncan admitted to always being on the prowl for a new story, taking inspiration from research dug up from cut out magazine and newspaper clippings along with random Wikipedia pages aimlessly crossed upon.
Inspired by true stories, happenings and characters, Duncan will commonly place what research he finds into his own stories. "All that stuff winds up informing my fiction," said Duncan, clarifying that even so, "It's still made up." Duncan described each of his works as having "some sort of nugget of fact," but that overall, each story was 95 percent invention. From his book, "The Pottawatomie Giant & Other Stories," Duncan read the first act of his three act short story, "Close Encounters," detailing bitter, over the hill Buck Nelson, a farmer from Arkansas, who would organize picnics in an attempt to gain attention from an alien he had encountered named Bob Solomon.
Set years after his encounter, the character of Nelson is left desolate of trust for the world that also can't seem to trust his own supernatural close encounter, saying, "All the people who believed in me died." "The inspiration for this was an article in the January 2011 issue of the Fortean Times," said Duncan, adding that the article featured contactees of the 1950s and 1960s.
"They pretty much sabotaged the UFO movement just as it was on the verge of getting some serious scientific and government attention. These people come along and make it a laughing stock, pretty much." One of the individuals included in the article was Buck Nelson. "I have no idea how the real Buck Nelson was like," said Duncan. "I hope he was happier and less lonely in his later years than I imagined."
When writing, Duncan said his focus to each story was the sound. "To me, if it sounds good, it is good, whether it makes a lick of sense or not. I can figure out how it fits if it sounds good, but everything I write, I read aloud to myself, like, 50 times," said Duncan. For those writers in the audience, Duncan suggested, "If you want to teach yourself writing, read aloud any three pages of [Ernest] Hemingway and read three pages of William Faulkner, and decide where you want to orient yourself in that vast gulf between the two of them."
Overall, Duncan emphasized that each person should write what one most wants to write. "If you didn't write it, nobody else would. That's what you have to keep following, that's what you have to focus on, and the rest can take care of itself and will take care of itself."
