10 questions with CD Bonner
“I pounded Morse Code for a living for a decade. Saving a few lives was cool, but zipping a few people into body bags was memorable, not cool.”
This week, we explore ten questions with Alabama author and AWC member C.D. (Dean) Bonner.
1. Your favorite novel.
My favorite novel is Tom Sawyer. The writing style becomes invisible as you get caught up in the action that Clemens paints so well. And I’m still a kid splashing around in creeks, even at my age.
2. What inspired you to start writing?
As a teen, I wrote fiction to vent frustrations, and poetry to capture poems that came to me essentially complete — sometimes in my sleep.
For 30 years, I only wrote military communications procedural guides and intelligence reports. But the reason to get serious with writing was to capture family stories, which were mostly humorous, before they were lost.
3. Do you have (or have you ever had) a muse? If so, who/what?
Hmm…. My muses include dreary days that set a (comfortably) melancholy mood; Bob Dylan music, and nature.
4. Your favorite poem.
My favorite poem is a devilishly simple, hard-hitting one, “Death of a Ball Turret Gunner” by Randall Jarrell:
From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
5. Your favorite Alabama plant.
I love the look of azaleas. They remind me of the two times I lived in Mobile.
6. Five words which describe you.
Funny, determined, curious, unpredictable, passionate.
7. One way in which AWC changed/impacted your life.
AWC first impacted my life when, much to my surprise, I was a a nonfiction winner in the 2013 writing competition. I’d only been writing seriously for a year.
8. What is currently on the stove?
I’m working on a second collection of nonfiction humor memoir stories, and on an audio comedy CD of original humor.
I’m also working on a 1951 Studebaker and several antique tube radios.
9. Your favorite place in Alabama and why.
I love the peace of Hillabee Creek above Goldville, Alabama. It’s also a good place to pan and sluice for gold.
10. One thing you need right now to help you as a writer.
I just need more time. I have so many story ideas jotted down but so little time to write them. Apart from battling the writer’s greatest enemy (namely, Time),
C.D. has lived in Guam for two years, witnessed the Northern Lights, dug gold from uncharted places, flown a C-130, albeit briefly. You can learn more about his writing and hobbies online at http://www.cdbonner.net.
Don’t miss the opportunity to catch up with C.D. Bonner this June 17th, 2017, when he will be participating in Authors on the Lake in Guntersville.