Dragon Attack on A Sole Survivor: A Note for Daughters

Jozef Imrich has two daughters and the story of his escape is tailored for them. As we all suspect, the mother of storytellers, literature, is a different value system. Like God and success, it fails us continually. Like God, we have legitimate doubts about its existence but, like God, literature leaves us with footprints of wonder. We sense there is more to life than the material world can provide, and literature is a clue, an intimation, at its best, a transformation.

Jozef Imrichs roots are in Bohemian mountains, but his branches are on the Antipodean beaches. However, Jozef's alphabetical leaves of letters devoted to burning the midnight fire are stored inside the omnipresent http://www.double-dragon-ebooks.com >Double Dragon.

Jozef was born in Czechoslovakia in 1958 and escaped through the Iron Curtain to Austria in 1980. Two of Jozefs best friends had drowned during the dramatic crossing of 7 July 1980.

Jozef was the youngest boy in the family of six and therefore, statistically, the person most likely to seize upon the rebellion culture, the child to keep the family awake at night.

Everyone is born with some special talent, and Jozef discovered early on that he had two: a good sense of where to hide samizdat magazines and good research skills. Jozef has lived and worked in Australia for 20 years, for almost 18 years of which he worked as a reference officer and a researcher at the NSW Parliament. Indeed, life doesn't get much stranger than that.

http://www.authorsden.com/jozefimrich>Website Story by Jozef Imrich
[ http://www.authorsden.com/jozefimrich]

(Interview with Anette Gisby for The Dragon Tails Newsletter of the DDP - January 2003 Issue)

When did you first start writing?

Since my story, Cold River, has been published, it's one of the questions I'm asked most often. But I've got to admit, each time I hear it I am always tempted to fib a little. I want to say, 'I've been writing stories since the day I could walk.

The truth is, though, as a child growing up in communist Czechoslovakia I had absolutely no interest in writing whatsoever. And not only that, I avoided writing. For me, a writing assignment was about as enjoyable as marching at the communist May Day celebrations.

This isn't to say, however, that I thought I was completely without imagination. I loved to tell stories.

In 1980, at 22 years of age, I escaped across the Iron Curtain and the urge to stay up at night and read also gave in to writting things down. So my first attempt at writing was in Austria, trying to write a story about a little boy and his experiences growing into a sole survivor who spent his first year in exile swimming in the sweat of nightmares.

Why do you write?

This one is easy question. I have realized some time ago that I am not the most talented writer. But I have the determination needed to succeed. In the region of my heart I somehow feel that I needed to endure my own suffering in order to make people believe in a struggles of freedom.    

From the first nightmare I experienced as a a lonely exile, I was hooked on writing. I became a collector of spirits and sounds. For years, spirits appeared at the foot of my bed and at the edge of my mind I could hear howling Bessie, my dog who also survived the Iron Curtain crossing. Most of my nightmares, emotions and feelings have moved to reside inside the pages of my manuscripts. There have been plenty of times when I have felt I owed a goodnight sleep to ink and a blank piece of paper.

Deciding to write things down in your diary and actually becoming an author are two completely different things. The first was a decision I made for myself. But the second was up to my soulful friends and mentors like Lauren Rossiter, Kendy Mclean, Russell Cope and James Cumes who encouraged me to submit my story for publication. Well, all I can say is sometimes you get lucky. After many rejections, a publisher said yes.

What sort of books do you like to read?

I love reading anything, anywhere, anytime in paper or electronic formats.

Writers at the Double Dragon Publishing (DDP) are a proof that a creative life can start on the internet or that is is never too late to revive a tradition of storytelling.

Indeed, it is beyond excited to know that DDP has won three spots in KnowBetter.com's Best of 2002 Reading List. Especially since all awards were decided by the readers.

Shakespeare is a master of storytelling. He or she or them seem to know every possible trick and magic of suspense. I am partial to Slavic writers and their sense of slavery, identity and daily rituals. Dostoyevsky helps me recreating myself anew. Kafkas kabbalic stories are very powerful. The graveyard may be the happiest place in the Kafkas book, but I still admire Franz who would in 2001 enjoy reading Franzens' family saga entitled Corrections. Havels talent for the theatre of the absurd, when read in the context of the communist experience, is just mind boggling. Just read me aloud the title of Kunderas book 'the Unbearable Lightness of Being, and you make me feel moved.

Do you think that the internet has helped people to accept ebooks as an alternative to paper books these days?

Indeed, writing on the Internet is like cooking food, is mostly to do with comfort, filling us up and making us feel nourished or just sated. There is no specific boundary or hunger to stories on the web, it begins and ends in our minds. And the Internet like food is here to stay.

The Internet is bringing people from the whole world together. The Internet is opening their eyes and they are discovering things which they could not imagine. I know that many people will get information about my forthcoming book 'Cold River through internet, many will go and read the story, many will like it , many will say it is ancient, but Cold River is the symbolic voice of every survivor which Internet will help to spread rather than suppress.

I use a blog, entitled Media Dragon http://amediadragon.blogspot.com >Media Dragon[http://amediadragon.blogspot.com], to share stories of interest with writers and readers.

Who is your favourite author or has influenced your writing?

A former Australian Ambassador in Vienna, James William Cumes, has written a book Haverleigh. One day soon this story about WWII and Kokoda Trail will become an epic like 'A Fortunate Life by Facey. I am still amazed that it was an Australian writer, Thomas Kennealy, rather than some European writers who weaved a testing tale about the Czechoslovak, part saint and part sinner, Schindler.

If you could meet any character from a book, who would it be and why?

Schindler, part sinner and part saint.

What are you currently working on?

Cold River was a non-fiction. My next book is going to be fiction in order to protect the guilty I came across in the parliamentary environment. The story is tentatively titled: How To Ruin Your Parliamentary Career.

What have you found to be the best way of promoting your book?

Being in a great company of many great writers and one great publisher. As Deron Douglas, the publisher, proudly noted, DDP has won three spots in the KnowBetter.com's Best of 2002 Reading List. All awards were decided by the readers. This is after all the Golden Globes of Ebooks.

And finally, what advice would you give to writers starting out?

I understand that S. L. Viehl's response to every rejection letter she received was : "HEY, YOUR LOSS!" I would not advice anyone to do that, however, it is wonderful to see the power of individuality even when it comes to rejections.

On a more realistic note, whatever you do try not to listen to any advice from writers or anyone else. Tears, anger, bribery might work better for some writers than developing a thick skin. Time and patience must be in long term supply.

We should, however, heed Holly Lisles command: May you have the courage to fail, because it is the courage to succeed.