Interview with Casey Charles

Question 1: Casey, I want to say that reading the description page of your book, Undetectable sounds quite pulling, emotional and sad for me and I would like to ask you, why did you decide to tell this striking story about your life? ask you, how did this book come about? What inspired you to write this book?

I am not a fan of the memoir genre, which I find self-indulgent, but a close friend, Azita Osanloo, convinced me that my story made for an important insight into HIV longterm survival, so I undertook the project, which began as an ethno-memoir, interspersing my story with those of others I had interviewed, but the memoir became more self-focused when I found my publisher, Running Wild.

Question 2: For readers who haven’t read Undetectable yet, and without giving much information away, could we have a sneak of what we’d expect in terms of themes picking up the book?

The book is about the dangers of love, or more abstractly, about how the deepest intimacy or connection can lead to potentially lethal disconnection. But beside detailing the narrative of my HIV positivity, Undetectable explores the double stigma of queerness and disease, detailing my struggle to survive in the face of a death sentence that eventually evolves into a fight with opportunistic infection and the side-effects of drug regimens. Along the way, I encounter other HIV longterm survivors around the world.

Question 3: What have you learned from the experience of HIV? Also, what do you wish readers to take away or garner from reading?

Survival in the face of serious obstacles, I have learned, can be a messy, frustrating, and troubling endeavor, but out of the physical, emotional, and social strife can come lessons about common ground among people of all backgrounds, about persistence, about the way the self is enmeshed in the political and social makeup of the world. Readers hopefully will come away from reading with a greater respect for endurance in general and more specifically the way HIV has brought people together.

Question 4: You also have a book in the name of The Trials of Christopher Mann, could you tell us about the making of that as well?

The Trials of Christopher Mann, The Monkey Cages, and Out in the New World (forthcoming in 2027) are three novels that have grown out of my study of gay history and identity, especially in terms of the legal and social roadblocks that have challenged those for whom same-sex love is part of their makeup. All three books involve some form of legal trial, which somehow mirrors the “trials” of queer identity. Christopher Mann dramatizes the coming-out vicissitudes of a law student in San Francisco at the time of the Harvey Milk assassination in 1978. The Monkey Cages sets its love story between student and teacher against the backdrop of the Boise sex scandal of the 1950s. Out in the New World follows a Polish immigrant to the United States in 1886, a young Christian anarchist who is forced to leave the old country because he refuses to marry.

Question 5: Casey, would you like to tell us about your career as an LGBTQ right activist and how it influenced your writing career?

When I began teaching at the University of Montana is the early 1990s, I discovered there was hardly a queer presence on campus other than a student group. I worked with other professors to teach the first gay studies courses, to win same-sex health benefits, to eventually overcome the sodomy statute, and to establish a curriculum and support system for the faculty. This work led to the creation of what is now called The Center, a LGBTQ community organization in Missoula, Montana.

Question 6: I’ve always been fascinated about how authors, especially novelists like yourself craft long sentences and bring words together in a way that eventually makes a great novel. This always leaves me thinking about how exactly they got their ideas and inspiration. Now, as far as writing is concerned, how do you get your inspiration and ideas?

My inspiration on the sentence level comes from teaching Shakespeare and Milton, admittedly canonical, but also from reading widely in 19^th and 20^th century literatures. I admit to finding style in many ways as important as content in writing, in part because I see writing as art and have had training as a poet. That said I am very much interested in telling a story, in the drive of narrative.

Question 7: Apart from Undetectable, The Trials of Christopher Mann, and The Monkey Cages, do you have any other works you’ve authored, or currently working on?ideas come to align together?

Out in the New World (forthcoming from Rattling Good Yarns Press) tells the story of a Polish immigrant who comes to America in 1882, His idealism about the true teachings of Christ and the egalitarianism of anarchy lead to a series of trials—especially when those ideals conflict with his dedication to same-sex love.

Question 8: Could you tell us what publishing is like for a published author like yourself? Are there any challenges you’ve encountered in the process of writing this book and ever since you got published?

Publishing a book is one thing; gaining readers is another. As my current publisher maintains, the small press culture cannot and should not necessarily compete with the corporate publishing industry, with its agents, advances, and marketing money. The small press allows authors to retain control over the content and quality of their work, but the challenge remains: how to attract readers, how to get readers to share their ideas about titles? Book groups, social media, readings, even self-promotion become part of the journey of the author, however unaccustomed she or he is to extroversion.

Question 9: Is there anything that you’ll love to share with the viewers about your books that we didn’t mention in this interview and you’d love the viewers to know? Also, what sort of advice do you have for writers hoping to publish a memoir?

A good memoir often involves the story of an interior as well as an exterior or social drama.

Question 10: Would you like to read a short section of your book to the audience? It could be your favorite line, paragraph or page. And also where can readers get a copy of your book?