As a creative director at Young & Rubicam advertising in New York, today's interviewee developed brand advertising and award-winning commercials for some of the world's leading companies, an experience that led to his new novel, The Futurist. The first chapter of said book appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review and was named a finalist for the National Magazine Award in Fiction.

Has your outing as a 'soulless ad guy' turned off some of the literati? I used to think that that was outdated--that journalists and novelists think you're useless if you're in advertising or pr--but maybe that's not the case.I'm sure it has turned off some people. Or maybe it's led some to believe I woke up one day and decided, Instead of writing about yogurt today, I'm going to write a novel. Yeah, a novel! It's probably my just being overly sensitive to the whole thing. I mean, even though I got an MFA in writing from NYU and have been writing (but not necessarily publishing) fiction for more than 20 years, I did work in advertising for a long time. Having a soul-challenged protagonist who works on the perifery of advertising and touting my former job in my book jacket bio may be contributing factors as well. And the truth is, the ex ad-guy angle probably got me a lot more press, because the middle-aged white guy writes a book angle isn't the most differentiating way to position a supposedly literary novel. Then again, I guess the best way to deflect attention from my advertising past would be to do what Don DeLillo did: write a bunch of brilliant novels.

If you're giving advice to a fresh college graduate who is interested in writing and considering turning to advertising, how would you advise them on figuring out whether they're right for the ad world or not?
When I started in advertising, I had no preparation other than the fact that, at various jobs, people thought I was a good, clever writer, and also a decent strategic thinker. I never intended to be a creative director. I was basically trying not to be a mason, which my father was and which I was from adolescence right through college. Today, it's much more sophisticated. In recent years, we had interns with fully developed portfolios working for us. Kids who studied creative ads like a broker would study the stock market. It's extremely competitive and unfortunately, waiting until you graduate probably isn't a good idea. If you love strategic thinking, working ridiculous hours, seeing most of your good ideas die at the feet of twelve housewives from Teaneck on the other side of a two-way mirror, than you have a chance. On the other hand, you
get to work with some incredibly talented people and can make very good money if your work gets produced. It's not a great profession for an idealist because your brilliant ideas often get killed or compromised. The younger creatives who worked for me I always encouraged to have outside interests. Novels. Screenplays. Photography. Plenty do, and it not only keeps them happy, I believe it makes them a more rounded creative than those who only immerse themselves in the business. I know I've said at times that advertising probably slowed down my career as a fiction writer, but it also made me a better writer. Writing on deadline, cutting
copy with a pissed off client next to you and a primadonna actor in the sound booth, playing with voices and learning the power of a provocative human insight are all skills I honed in adland that have made me a more well-rounded novelist.

Was it difficult to switch your creative brain from advertising mode to fiction mode?
No. Because if I was onto an idea, if I found a tone of voice and a rhythm and an attitude that worked -- as it did for The Futurist -- I could write anytime, anywhere. On the train, in the morning before the other creatives arrived. At night. In fact, during the last chapters of The Futurist, when I had already secured an agent who was waiting for my final pages so we could sell it, I fell out of my chair in my office at home at 3AM. The only difficult thing was partitioning my time between my paying job and my fiction, and I couldn't really focus on the fiction until my other stuff was done first. And sometimes that would take weeks.

When you were a publicist, which client was the most difficult and why? If you can't name names, then just give us a good anecdote.
When I first got out of college I got a job at a publishing house as a publicist and I was lucky enough to be assigned the great (though I didn't know it then) Richard Yates and Kurt Vonnegut. Two very different writers but two writers who influenced me in profound ways. They were serious, dedicated artists and I was able to get a glimpse of what it took to be a writer and, in Yates's case, what being a writer took out of you. I think they gave me those types of authors basically because I wrote nice press releases and was one of the all-time worst phone people. One of my stranger moments (and I only did this for six months or so before moving to an ad job) was when I had to book a six or seven city tour for Joan Rivers and her entourage, including first class seats for her dog Spike. I worked on that for what seemed like months and then she cancelled at the last minute because of a highly publicized fued she had with Johnny Carson. I always felt bad for Spike, having been denied that cross country, first class junket, because of petty human hubris.

What was the most difficult part of getting the Futurist published? The actual writing itself? The editing?
If I hadn't struggled to be published for so many years, this would
probably piss a lot of people off, but The Futurist was the easiest thing I ever wrote. I had published some short stories and had come close with two novels that were all quite serious and ambitious. But The Futurist came easy. I loved the idea of a character, circa 2004, whose job was to make sense of a world turned upside down. When I realized that he should be very bad at his job -- yet championed nonetheless, I knew I had something. And the voice, this kind of ironic, funny, yet disturbing voice, just kind of flowed. A longtime friend of mine read the early chapters and told me I had tapped into my inner voice and I knew he was right and that this is what I should have been doing for years. The first chapter was published by The Virginia Quarterly Review. A few days after it came out, agents began to call me rather than me scratching at their doors. Then a friend directed me to David Gernert, who loved the early pages and, more importantly, seemed to get me and what I was trying to do better than anyone else ever had. Fueled by positive reinforcement and a National Magazine Award nomination, I cranked on the last third of the book. David sent it out on a Wednesday and we had three offers by Thursday morning. And the edit. Pessimist that I am, I was all set to get my back up the air and take a stand against the horrible suggestions that were to come (advertising prepared me well for this), but Bill Thomas at Doubleday wrote me this brilliant letter, six or seven single-spaced pages that praised the book and then suggested what we might want to do to make it better. Shockingly, I agreed with almost everything Bill said. Even the publication process has been terrific. I realize most novelists, let alone first novelists of a certain age, do not get the kind of push I got for The Futurist. The reviews have been good, the buzz is still lingering and so far, no angry futurist has made an attempt on my life.