Staff Spotlight: Lew Andrada

Interview

Why did you choose Stonecoast?

Simply put: I love writing popular fiction, and Stonecoast loves teach­ing it.  When I first began my quest to find the perfect MFA program, I was dis­heart­ened to learn that most of them frowned upon pop fic and catered solely to lit­er­ary fiction.  It felt like going to a county fair while craving a slice of straw­ber­ry pie, but somehow winding up in a pie-eating contest offer­ing only banana cream.  Both deli­cious flavors, sure, but I want my blue-ribbon straw­ber­ry pie.  Thank­ful­ly, Stonecoast had exactly what I desired: a pop fic empha­sis, amazing faculty, pas­sion­ate stu­dents, intense res­i­den­cies, and a strong focus on craft.  All the ingre­di­ents for a perfect slice of MFA pie.  I’m so glad I took that first nibble. Mmm. Pie.

What do you write? 

I used to write epic fantasy, but now I’m more into comic/humorous fantasy.  I also like writing horror and science fiction on occa­sion, and recent­ly, I’ve begun dab­bling in magical realism.  All of these genres I’ve exper­i­ment­ed with during my time at Stonecoast, a place that’s allowed me to have my cake and eat it, too.  No lie.

Who is an author or artist who has influ­enced you?

It’s impos­si­ble to name just one person who’s influ­enced my writing, but the biggies are as follows: Agatha Christie, for her remark­able char­ac­ters, witty dia­logue, and infa­mous plot twists; Octavia Butler, for her bold stories explor­ing gender, race, and humanity’s place in the cosmos; Harry Tur­tle­dove, whose alter­nate history novels made me appre­ci­ate the impor­tance of research; and finally, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, for defin­ing my child­hood with their cre­ation of four ter­rapin martial artists with a passion for pizza (a passion that I also whole­heart­ed­ly take part in).

What is your best Stonecoast memory?

Trying to find a working restroom in the Stone House during my first res­i­den­cy.  There were times when I thought hunting for Bigfoot on Mars would have proven more suc­cess­ful.  One of my absolute favorite mem­o­ries, however, is Steve Cave per­form­ing “The Three Little Pigs” in Japan­ese for the Follies.  I’ve never laughed harder at a big bad wolf microwav­ing fresh ham.  Mmm.  Ham.

What do you hope to do in the future?

In the imme­di­ate future, I intend on eating a deli­cious lunch because I am clearly very hungry.  In the not-so-distant future, I’d love to publish more short stories and even­tu­al­ly put togeth­er my own col­lec­tion.  After that, I’m sure the fame, glory, and movie deals will come rolling right in.  Then I can finally build a vault, fill it up with shiny gold coins, and achieve one of my child­hood dreams in becom­ing Scrooge McDuck.

If you could have written one book that already exists, which book would it have been?

The Dic­tio­nary by Noah Webster.  Imagine all the fun he had making up ridicu­lous words, like “argle-bargle,” “wayz­goose,” or “spitch­cock.”

Featured Work

Over Yon Mountain

Excerpt from a short story

Ed approached the mouth of the cave, car­ry­ing a worn wooden shield in one hand, and a dull sword in the other.  He sniffed the air and received a strong whiff of rotten eggs.  It was dank, but he had to admit, the air up here smelled much better than down in West­shire.  At least there was only one odor to contend with rather than a whole pletho­ra of stench­es.  Ed took a few timid steps closer to the entrance, and the rotten egg smell grew stronger, from three parts to about eight parts.  His knees quiv­ered, and his nose twitched like a fly stuck in honey.  Ed let out a soul-shaking sneeze.  He cringed, half-expect­ing a smack across the back of his head, but his lovely Diana waited for him at the base of the mountain.

He took a deep breath.  He thought about all of the reasons driving him to slay the dragon: glory, fame, fortune, smelly vil­lagers, a round duke, a wife who could wrestle a panther.  All good reasons, of course, but maybe not in that order.  Yes, Ed would prob­a­bly put his wife right after fortune but before the smelly vil­lagers.  He shook his head, jumped up and down, and banged his sword against his shield twice.  Ed readied himself for a suc­cess­ful slaying (or death – more likely).  But before he could charge in, a deaf­en­ing roar bar­reled out of the belly of the cave.  Ed couldn’t find the courage to move.  In fact, he was fairly certain he could feel every ounce of courage leaving his body and forming a warm puddle by his boots.

The dragon emerged from the dark­ness. First, its rep­til­ian head appeared: eyes black as charred oak, a pair of sharp ivory horns at the top, and a mouth filled with jagged teeth.  Ter­ri­fy­ing, but it wasn’t as bad as Ed imag­ined.  Then the rest of the dragon fol­lowed the head, forever chang­ing Ed’s def­i­n­i­tion of “tall.”  The dragon was huge.  Its slick, green scales glis­tened in the moist air.  It stood up on his hind legs, flexed a pair of great wings outward (the wind created nearly knocked Ed off yon moun­tain), and stared at Ed with an almost expec­tant look.  As their eyes met, the flow of time grew thick and viscous, like dark molasses.  Ed spotted his dis­tort­ed reflec­tion in the eyes of the dragon.  His mus­tache twitched and snapped him out of the momen­tary daze.

“Hello,” said Ed.  He wasn’t sure why he chose “hello” as his final word to utter in this life, but Ed’s mother always taught him to be polite when­ev­er meeting someone for the first time.  At least he would make his mother proud by leaving this world the same way he entered it: meek and wet.

Lew Andrada began writing stories at a young age, pri­mar­i­ly fan fiction star­ring char­ac­ters from his favorite video game (Final Fantasy 6) and cartoon show (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles).  By the time he entered college, he had ditched fan fiction in favor of writing orig­i­nal short stories.  In 2006, he grad­u­at­ed from UCLA with a B.S. in biology and minor in English.  Then in 2012, he com­plet­ed his course­work with the UCLA Exten­sion Writers’ Program and received a cer­tifi­cate in cre­ative writing.

He is cur­rent­ly a student in the Stonecoast MFA Program at the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Maine, with a focus on popular fiction.  Lew enjoys writing fantasy and science fiction, though he does dabble in other genres, like horror and humor.  His work has pre­vi­ous­ly appeared in The UCLA Beat, The Lit­er­ary Hatchet, and The Journal of Unlike­ly Entomology.

His home on the web is at http://lewandrada.wordpress.com.