Author Interview ~ Marvin Olasky

Dr. Olasky is editor-in-chief of World Magazine, a senior fellow of the Acton Institute, and a professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He and his wife Susan have been married for 30 years and have four sons. He has written 17 non-fiction books and has also started (with several others) a Christian school; he has been a crisis pregnancy center chairman, a foster parent, a Little League assistant coach, a PTA president, and an informal advisor to George W. Bush. He is a graduate of Yale University and the University of Michigan.

What book or project is coming out or has come out that you’d like to tell us about?

Scimitar’s Edge, my first novel after writing about twenty non-fiction books. It’s a story about the war on terror personified in the experience of four Americans in Turkey who face kidnapping; then, those who survive have to decide whether to fight back.




What about the Armenian holocaust captured your interested, and why did you it play such a heavy theme in your novel?

Turkey was the proving ground for the first sustained governmental attempt at genocide, as Turks killed Armenians or sent them to concentration camps; Hitler admired that effort. Since I wanted to set the novel in Turkey it became natural for me to make my hero an Armenian-American and have him explain the history that weighed heavily on him.

So, characterization and instruction went together.

Why did you choose to stage the novel in Turkey?

I spent a month there two summers ago and liked the exotic locations. I also wanted to approach the war on terror metaphorically rather than directly.

What is it you hope the average American will take away from your novel?

I hope it's an enjoyable and stimulating read, and also one that gets readers thinking about standing up to terrorist evil.

Two years ago, World Magazine sponsored a fiction contest with Westbow. Have you noticed an increased interest in fiction among your readers?

Hard to say; my guess is that the interest has been there for a while.

Will World Magazine host another contest?

It was fun, but given our small staff it's not in our current plans.

What's the best way for a writer to break in to World Magazine?

We almost never accept freelance material, but we are interested in developing young reporters. Writers with journalistic experience can mail me (at the address in the magazine) a resume and clips of their news or feature stories; those who show exceptional talent may then receive a tryout assignment or two and be invited to a summer training course for potential World reporters.

Baseball scouts talk about five-tool players: those who can run, field, throw, hit, and hit with power. Our goal at World is to grow five-tool reporters who can discern, report, analyze, write, and write with edginess. Right now we're also looking for the right person to do some movie and TV reviews.

Tell us about your journey to publication. How long had you been writing before you got the call you had a contract, how you heard and what went through your head.

I’ve written just about all of my non-fiction books with a contract already in hand, but I spent about nine months writing Scimitar’s Edge and then wondered if anyone would publish it – so the feeling upon getting a contract was largely one of relief.

Do you still experience self-doubts regarding your work?

Not about the non-fiction but about novel-writing, definitely. I’m still not sure that I should pursue fiction further, but I enjoy the process of creating characters and plotting.

What mistakes have you made while seeking publication?

Not getting from publishers enough information about the marketing plan for a book.

What’s the best advice you’ve heard on writing?

Show, don’t tell. All the advice in Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style is good.

What’s the worst piece of writing advice you’ve heard?

Write when you feel inspired to write.

What’s something you wish you’d known earlier that might have saved you some time/frustration in the publishing business?

Some publishers will accept and publish a book with no plan to spend any of their resources marketing it. They are good publishers for those who do a lot of speaking, with book sales immediately afterwards, but are not good otherwise.

Is there a particularly difficult set back that you’ve gone through in your writing career you are willing to share?

I learned twice in the 1990s that books which demolish liberal myths but also challenge myths held by conservatives don’t gain conservative support.

My book Abortion Rites: A Social History of Abortion is a strongly pro-life book but it shows that the U.S. had lots of abortions in the two decades before the Civil War; challenged the political pro-life myth that our problems began with Roe v. Wade.

Another book I finished during the Clinton-Lewinsky morass, The American Leadership Tradition, profiled thirteen American leaders from Washington on and showed (among other things) that adultery is a leading indicator of untrustworthiness in office. Some conservatives did not like my criticism of Thomas Jefferson or my reporting on sex, so this book also became somewhat of an orphan.

What are a few of your favorite books? (Not written by you.)

I’ll mention several novels, because the non-fiction list would be too long: All of Walker Percy’s work. Gironella’s The Cypresses Believe in God. In current popular fiction, John Lescroart’s work.

What piece of writing have you done that you’re particularly proud of and why?

The Tragedy of American Compassion had the most impact, because it contributed to welfare reform in 1996 and the development of compassionate conservatism and the Bush faith-based initiative. But I like the fictional characters developed in Scimitar’s Edge.

Do you have a pet peeve having to do with this biz?

Requires too much self-promotion. As Christians, we should not be thrusting ourselves forward, yet in this biz he who hesitates is usually lost.

Can you give us a view into a typical day of your writing life?

Get up at 7:30 and check the news on my computer, go to bed at midnight finishing up email, and in between spend work time largely in non-fiction: I write a lot for World and edit the magazine, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays teach at the University of Texas. My fiction writing time comes when non-fiction seems under control.

If you could choose to have one strength of another writer, what would it be and from whom?

I can plot but I need to work on characterization; my wife, Susan, is strong in that area.

Do you have a dream for the future of your writing, something you would love to accomplish?

World has 130,000 subscribers, most of whom are supportive, so I feel I’m writing for a regular group of intelligent folks who know me and look forward to what I have to say. I’d like to develop a regular audience like that for my fiction.

Was there ever a time in your writing career you thought of quitting?

No, because I was cut from my sixth grade baseball team and realized I had little chance of becoming a major league player. That would have been my first choice of career.

What is your favorite and least favorite part of being a writer?

Favorite part: writing. Least favorite: marketing

How much marketing do you do? Any advice in this area?

Very little. Advice, probably bad: Don’t toot your own horn so much that it’s embarrassing to the cause of Christ.

Parting words?

How about, “Enjoy the journey as much as the destination”? Seriously, Eric Liddell said (at least in Chariots of Fire), “When I run I feel God’s pleasure.” Writing should be the same.