 I'm James Milan and welcome to this episode of Talk of the Town. As you know, Talk of the Town kind of, we get to talk to a whole bunch of people with local connections here and today I'm getting to talk, particular privilege I think, to talk to a local author about his first book, not his last I don't think, but also somebody with another connection here at ACMI and that is a, he, Derek Mola is my guest and he is a former intern for ACMI of a few years back, you'll hear more about that shortly, but we are here to discuss Derek's book, Anansi's Web and first of all let me just thank you for being here. Thank you for having me back on it, it's wonderful to be back. Yeah, it's your first time back in the studio since your internship was rather abruptly terminated. Yeah, unfortunately, very unfortunate. Yeah, so let's take people back. You know, obviously we're going to talk mostly about the book, but I want to start by, you know, talking a little bit about your own personal journey, so to speak, to get to the writing of the book, but also, you know, that connection that you had with ACMI that did get cut short. You, unfortunately, had probably the worst start date for an internship at ACMI that you could, which was the spring of 2020, right? Yes, yeah, I was going to school at Emerson College. I was going to school in Georgia, transferred over here, and then I happened to, I forget where I saw the internship originally, but I wanted to join. It seemed really interesting, and I had, I have great memories of being here, such a wonderful time. I learned so much, and it was just really nice to be involved with, like, the local community, something that I never really, you know, you spend so much time doing movies, and it feels impersonal. You're just trying to, you're trying to make art, but this felt very personal, and involved in using the medium of art and television to do something, something nice. But yeah, then the pandemic hit, and then I left, and unfortunately it was cut abrupt. Yeah, I mean, it was only six weeks in the end, you know, and again, all of us went home and just got to have no contact with each other for the rest of that internship term. So this is particularly gratifying to be able to welcome you back after, again, not even getting to say goodbye in a sense. I know. So I was talking, though, with, you were talking about how you did some really great and rewarding work here, and I've had confirmation of that. Talking before you and I started talking, I was talking with our production manager, Katie Chang, about the things that you had done that she did when you were here, and that includes an opening to one of our other shows. Michael Brown's show. Yeah, he was wonderful. He needed an intro done, and I was somewhat proficient in editing. I had self-taught myself premiere, and so I was able to put something together. And just knowing that that is still used and is still talked about is very heartwarming and very rewarding just to know that I've something, done something while I was here. This is great. Absolutely, which does go on and on, which is the good thing. Again, just for your reference, folks, out there, Michael Brown has a show called We Hold These Truths, and he talks with very, very interesting people about very important topics. But that opening is this man's work right here. So we thank you for that, Derek. Of course. Let's talk a little bit more, though, about what happened with you and what happened with you, I'm not going to say to you, from March of 2020 on since we last saw you. How was it even to finish college at that point? Yeah, I remember being in one of my classes. I don't remember which one, but the teacher had said, like, oh, Harvard just closed their classes. And I didn't really know what they were talking about because COVID was still seen as, like, it's all the way over there still. I had no concept of, like, it's really going to come over here. And then I remember leaving that class, going to another class. We were in there for, like, 20 minutes. And then the teacher was like, OK, everybody has to go home now. Literally in the middle of a class. Yeah, in the middle of a class was like, COVID is, everybody has to go home, mandate, we'll figure it out. And so I had to, and I was with my grandmother at the time. So I had to, like, call her and call my parents and literally grabbed all my stuff and headed back home to Lemonster. And then it was online classes for about a month, which that was the worst part is I had, like, a month left to graduate, which, you know, it had its pros and cons. It was great that I didn't have to commute into Boston every day but I loved living with my grandma. That was very nice. And it was kind of nice to just wake up and open the laptop and just go into class, get it over with. But it was difficult to, because we were still getting movie assignments, like, you know, short film assignments. So that was kind of difficult to, like, figure stuff out, like, by myself having to act. How are you going to do that all by yourself? No budget, thinking of, like, just anything I could do at my house, inside my house. So that was difficult, but I finished. Thank God. And then afterwards, I moved back to Georgia. I had originally had gone to the Savannah College of Art and Design, moved back to Georgia to try to make a name for myself. Back to Savannah itself? Back to Savannah, Georgia, yeah. I lived there for two years. Couldn't find any work. It was COVID. Yeah, as with COVID and everything. It was difficult. And then I had a few other bad. There was a lot of things leading up to me eventually deciding that I didn't want to do the film industry anymore. And I decided to take a break from just art in general. I was just surviving at that point, in my apartment, working, trying to save money. So I was like, I'm just going to take a break from everything. Eventually I got back into writing short stories again. I got really into, like, horror and fantasy. And that was starting the creative juices again. And I was like, well, let's go back to the, we should go back to the very beginning because I wanted to be a writer in high school. That was my original dream, was to be an author. So I thought I should just go back. Let's go backwards and start writing stories again. And that eventually led to me writing this. This is really the beginning of that, of just collecting all the short stories that I had written over like two years and deciding I'm just going to publish them by myself. Well, I mean, to publish them by yourself, there's much to discuss there. We will get to that. But okay, so you had been a writer. You diverted as you moved from high school, I guess, into college more into the visual arts and specifically into moviemaking. And you returned to your roots, in a sense, in this way. And that makes sense as well in that larger context that we're talking about, where COVID stripped us down, right? To have us figure out really what matters to us and what can we do, et cetera, without a lot of the distractions that are part of our usual lives. Yeah, it was a weird hard stop that I needed, in a way, because if I had just kept going, I probably would have been extremely burnt out and would have maybe gone into an industry that I did not like being in anymore. So it was a weird, necessary, hard stop for me to really look at everything and really assess, is this really what I want to continue doing? Over time, I realized with the writing that I really should have just been a screenwriter at the beginning. I should have just stuck with, because I really wanted to try to do directing and writing. And I think that put way too much on me and I should have just stuck with writing screenplays. But I wasn't a big reader back. Funny enough, I really didn't read a lot. I watched a lot of movies, so I thought, well... Right, this must be the thing for me. I want to write, but I don't read. I should go into the visual medium. And it wasn't until COVID happened that I actually started reading more and realized, oh, I should probably just stick with doing this. Well, I got to say, you must have read quite a bit, because quite a bit has found its way into Anansi's Web. First of all, talk to a... Tell me how is it that you decide... I know enough from my memories, again, of reading to and with my children when they were young about Anansi, this trickster God, spider character, from, I'm not sure if you call it African mythology or not, but that was a staple of my children's reading for a while. So I have a sense of what that figure is. But tell us about the book and how it is that you decided to write in this kind of vein. Yeah, it really starts back with a book called The Illustrated Man. It was written by Ray Bradbury, a famous author, Fairknife451. Pretty good author. Yeah, I read it in high school, and that was the book that made me want to start writing, because I'd never read anything like it before, where it was these really interesting short stories, and they were very dark in science fiction, and they didn't have happy endings or even complete resolutions. It was just kind of like a cliffhanger, and I was blown away. That's what I want to write is something like that. Fast forward to when I started writing the book, I thought back to that, and my goal was I want to write The Illustrated Man but of fantasy instead of science fiction, do fantasy. And the thing with The Illustrated Man is that the short stories don't connect, but it's called The Illustrated Man because the prologue and the epilogue feature is a man who has these tattoos, and each of the tattoos is the different stories that are featured throughout the book. So the visual depiction of the stories themselves. So I thought, okay, I want to do something like that where there's this somewhat vague connection underlying all the stories. I just didn't know what it was. So you needed a conceit that could tie all these things together. Exactly. So I was writing the stories, and I was thinking, I kept that in the back of my head of like, what do I need? What do I need? And in my research of mythology and reading through different folklorists, I discovered Anansi, and he is the literal god of stories in folklore. And I was like, that's it. That's perfect. And the image of his, like, a giant web, his giant web, and each strand is one of the different stories. It was perfect. It was the perfect character to sort of be our guide, our figurehead for the continuing of the stories. Yeah, I love that you recognized the analogy between the illustrated man, as you said, where you have a man with tattoos, and that gives you enough cohesion to then be able to go into all these different stories. You found it totally workable. It was really, it was by accident too, and I had known of Anansi because he kind of became popular in pop culture with Neil Gaiman's work, with American gods, and his Anansi boys, and he probably is featured in the Sandman comics at some point. But I didn't realize that he was the god of stories, and I thought that he was just the perfect character to do that. And you have really a mix of tones, a mix of content. You are not restricted to the African continent by any means for these stories. Tell us about that variety. Yeah, I wanted to really encompass the entire world of folklore. I didn't want to stay restricted to just African folklore, or even just like American folklore, like a lot of the British folklore that we are familiar with. I really wanted to go at least to every continent of the seven continents. So we have Anansi, who is our figurehead of Africa. There is some Australian folklore in there, Chinese and British, some South American. There is a good, I tried to do a good mixture of everything because I wanted to show my love of folklore mythology and having it across the world because there are so many different types and there are so many interesting characters throughout this world. Again, I will just note that it is pretty funny to hear you say earlier that you were not a big reader before. That is what had kind of led you into the visual arts more. Because clearly you did a lot of reading in terms of, again, immersing yourself in these different folklores with the different influences of the cultures that they come from. Yeah, in my research and reading of folklores, it became very apparent of how similar they are. The more you read into different mythologies and folklores, the more you realize that a lot of them overlap and there are a lot of characters that are almost the same and very different. A good example is Odin and Zeus, the two god heads of thunder, both patriarchal figures across two different... Odin being the Norse god and Zeus being the Greek god. Yes, and then you have the Roman gods who are literally mutated versions of the Greek gods mixed with some earlier pagan gods. The more research you realize how similar we are but how different we are at the same time, that we borrow from each other all the time, but we also do have our own uniqueness and are able to create something new out of something old. I wanted to share the love of that. From different cultures we are different, but we are similar. I'm hoping that someone from Africa might be able to read the Chinese folklore story and might see similarities and realize how similar we all are but how different we are at the same time. You're looking to identify touchstones for people to then themselves, be able to see themselves reflected or see their culture reflected even as they're reading about something that seems far away. Exactly. That's cool. You were saying that part of it is about taking the old and making it new. Talk about the old part of that piece because you've thought pretty deeply about what the significance is for us as a species, for humanity to these very old stories that you have taken and put your own touch on here. Yeah. I'm fascinated by the old stories, our old mythologies because they are, for the longest time, they were not stories for us. They were reality for us. It was our science, it was our philosophy, it was everything. So to be able to take those old stories and maybe move them into a more modern context or a more modern philosophy, to me that's what storytelling and the purpose of stories is all about is being able to take our old stories, the ones that we feel very deeply connected to. Especially when I read those old stories, I feel very connected to, I guess you could say connected to your ancestors or you feel connected to your old ways, you feel very nostalgic for those stories and to be able to sort of steal from them like an artist would and be able to remix them for the modern day, I think that's what stories are all about. Going back to talking about religions and mythologies, that's what we do all the time. We take our favorite parts of our religions and our mythologies and sort of modernize them for our modern day so that we're able to live on through that tradition. So I think that's really where all that came from is just that love for those old stories. You know, I am curious about something. I mentioned at the outset that my own familiarity to the extent that it exists with Anansi comes from reading stories with my children when they were children, quite small. But obviously the audience for both your book and for these old stories as we are calling them, is not restricted by any means to young children. So as you were writing this, as you begin the process of marketing it and publicizing it and letting people know that it's out there, who is it that you're envisioning as the readers for this story or for these stories? Yeah, I think, I guess if I had to get very specific for an audience, like if I had to say an age group, it would probably be like high school and up. I feel like a little bit more of a mature audience will understand the sort of remixing of the stories. And there are some mature themes in some of these stories. But those old stories also have mature themes as well. I mean, we could even look at a story like Cinderella where there's the cut, like when they put her slipper on or the stepsisters are putting on the slipper, one of them cuts off their own toe to try to put the slipper on. So even those old stories that we know and love have dark, mature themes. I mean, a story like the Kelpie in Irish mythology, any sort of water creature is sort of like a cautionary tale. It's sort of something like a boogeyman. You tell it to your children so they don't do a thing. You tell a story about the Kelpie, don't go near the water. Don't go near running water. Well, why? Well, because the Kelpie's going to grab you. It's much easier to put fear into a child than to tell them not to do something. Because they're just going to do it anyway. But if you tell them there's a monster that's going to grab them, that's a lot. They're definitely not going to do it now. So I do think that a younger audience can find enjoyment out of this with parental discretion. But I did have a more, somewhat more mature audience in mind. I think it's important for people to understand that. Because, again, they may make associations like I did in seeing Anansi's Web, seeing that name in the title. So it's good to clarify that, in fact, there's both thematically, tonally, et cetera, it's really a book for adults. Yeah, definitely, at least for high school age, maybe youngest, maybe 14, 15, and 15 and up. All right, good to know. Time is racing, but I want to talk a little bit about the process that you have been through. Clearly, I'm very interested in the creative process itself, but we have spent quite a bit of time talking about the book. Let's talk in practical terms. You're a guy in your mid-20s who comes out of college in the middle of COVID or at the beginning of COVID, lots of options foreclosed, et cetera. How on earth did you get from the conceiving of this idea to having this book? Yeah, it started with writing short stories and submitting them and getting rejected. And rejection is a normal part of the process. You have to get rejected because you have to know you're not perfect, you have to know that you're, especially when you're starting out, you're not going to be great, but that's part of the process and you have to revise and rewrite. But at a certain point, going through school and trying to be an artist, and you get rejected enough times that I decided, it's like, well, at this point, I don't really care if it's going to be bad. I really just want to create art, and I don't want to keep waiting for somebody to give me permission to keep writing. So then I started writing the stories, and I decided I'm just going to keep writing them until I get a good amount of them and then put them into some sort of collection. And then with each story that I wrote, I got a little bit better. I was able to go back and rewrite the ones because I had learned the previous lesson before. So really it was through writing and not worrying about what other people were going to say that actually made me a better writer and obviously reading a bunch. And yeah, and it was really just starting it, just putting pen to paper and every time there was self-doubt, just pushing it off to the side and you have to focus on the next... I just kept focusing on the next step. Don't worry about the big picture. What's the next step? And it was whether it was like, okay, the next step is you have to finish this next story. Or by the time the book was done, it was like, okay, the next step is just getting the cover done. You have to find an artist to get the cover done. Tell us about that. The cover, yes. Tell us. Yep, there you go. Yeah, this was created by artist Luisa G. Gaussian, a wonderful artist that I discovered on Fiverr, which is a sort of freelance site. Obviously I wanted to have the African theme with this sort of quilt patterns. The web is featured prominently obviously because of Anansi. Anansi is a spider god for those who don't know, so I have the spider down here. I think she did an absolutely wonderful job. She's a wonderful artist. Extremely attractive without being, you know, distracting. Yeah, I've gotten a... And whoever said, don't judge a book by its cover I think is... I don't think they know what they were talking about because I think a cover is so important for a book. It's the first thing that catches your eye and I think she did an absolutely wonderful job with this cover. So you hired the person to do this cover, as you said. Yes. You basically have done everything to get this book into book form. Yes. It's basically a self-published work. Yes. Tell us a little bit about that process. Yeah, this is very much self-published. That took a lot of research of figuring out what are the pros and cons of traditional publishing versus self-publishing. For me, the biggest thing with traditional publishing was that it just takes too much time. It was exactly what I was trying to fight against, which was there's a lot of gatekeeping, a lot of barriers you have to get through, a lot of waiting for people to give you permission that it's okay. Obviously, if it goes well and you make it past all the steps, similar to making a movie, then it's great. Then it goes out there and they handle the marketing, and that's awesome. For me, I just wanted more creative control. I wanted to be able to do it on my own time. In your own terms. Exactly. In my own terms. I didn't need anybody's permission to get started. It was just really myself. It was just giving myself the permission to do it and to fail where necessary and to learn the mistakes where necessary. I hired all the people to do the cover and the interior work and bought my own ISBN numbers and everything and paid for marketing, reaching out to you guys and to other outlets. Which you don't have to pay for. That was free, which is thank you. That was great. It was a lot of legwork. Funny enough, a lot of the real work started. The writing part is great. That's the real joy. It's everything else trying to get it off the ground. That was the real work. That was a lot of research. Really best of luck to you with that. It's not easy. You've already gotten this far, which is great. We've only got a minute left. Let's take that time to make sure that people understand important dates and deadlines coming up. When is the book going to be out? Officially? How do people get hold of it? Anansi's Web comes out January 22nd. You can buy it on Amazon for print and for e-book as well. I don't have any specific local bookstores yet, but if you follow me on social media, on Instagram or Facebook, Derek Mola, I'll be posting stuff about that on there as well. Great. I understand that at least one, you work at a bookstore now or at a retail shop. They will be featuring the book. Yes. Omar's World of Comics, January 22nd, will be available for purchase there. That's in Lexington? Lexington Mass. Great. Important things just to repeat. January 22nd for the book's publication officially, but you can get to it before that perhaps or at that time at Omar's in Lexington and Amazon, Kindle, et cetera. All different ways to access Anansi's Web. All right. I've been speaking with Derek Mola. Again, a former ACMI intern, but more importantly right now, a published author. Congratulations to you with that. I will enjoy reading this book. I have no doubt myself. Thank you so much. I'm a little bit older than high school, but I don't think it's going to be a problem. I think it'll be fine. I welcome the opportunity. I think, hey, you've said a couple of times, this is your first book. You're not done necessarily. No, I... And I look forward to having you back again for your second. Thank you so much. Yeah, many more to come. Absolutely. All right. Well, thanks again for joining us, Derek. Thank you, James. Yeah, thanks for having me back. He is Derek Mola. The book is Anansi's Web and this has been Talk of the Town. So, so glad that Derek could join us and that you could join us as well. We appreciate your time. We'll see you next time.