Editor Interview: Tucker Lieberman and Andrew Tivey

Today I interviewed Tucker Lieberman and Andrew Tivey, editors of the anthology Never Hit by Lightning. Come back tomorrow for a guest blog by Tucker!


Jennifer Walker What inspired the anthology Never Hit by Lightning?

Tucker Lieberman: Andrew and I were scheduled to have our work included in a literary anthology that unfortunately was canceled prior to publication. Along with several other contributors, we discussed the idea of self-publishing our own anthology. Andrew and I became the editors and others submitted their work.



Jennifer Walker: How did you choose the work that went into this book?

Tucker Lieberman: Much of the selection was already done for us, given that the contributors were largely re-submitting work that had already been approved for another publication. Never Hit By Lightning just picked up where the other publication left off. The initial entries to Never Hit By Lightning tended to be a bit dark and brooding, so we declared that to be the theme of our anthology, and further entries were solicited on that basis.

Andrew Tivey: The only thing regarding the selection we needed to do was determine who out of the original contributors wanted to contribute to the new anthology we were organizing, which took some time with it being totally organized through email.



Jennifer Walker: Where did the contributors come from?

Tucker Lieberman: The editors and contributors live in Europe and North America. Most are creative writing students or professors or have some background in writing. We found each other through the previous publication.



Jennifer Walker: Do you have any other anthologies planned, or have you done others in the past?

Tucker Lieberman: This is my first anthology. I can imagine doing another one but I'll probably take a break for a while. It's quite labor intensive, and I have many other creative projects in my cauldron.

Andrew Tivey: I'm hopefully going to work on another anthology of sorts in the next few months with the Creative Writing Society I help run here at Portsmouth University, but since term has only just started it's still early days.



Jennifer Walker: Tell me a little about yourselves.

Tucker Lieberman: By day, I'm a beta tester of financial software. As far as my creative work goes, I have degrees in journalism and philosophy and I enjoy writing thoughtful and investigative essays, as well as fiction and poetry. I'm a fact-checker for articles on Helium.com and a co-organizer of a monthly spoken word event in Boston.

Andrew Tivey: As mentioned above, I help run the Creative Writing Society here at Portsmouth University in the UK, and have done for two years now (this being my third year). At the moment, I'm studying my third year in a degree in English Literature. My writing is more of a hobby at the moment, but getting into a more professional interest with it is one of my aims.



Jennifer Walker: You and your co-editor did not contribute to this book. Do you have your own writing projects you'd like to tell us about?

Tucker Lieberman: Currently I'm working on a "choose your own adventure" serial story, Command Pashmina (www.commandpashmina.com). It's about a robot that's been programmed to determine whether God exists. It's called Command Pashmina because the reader has the opportunity to vote on how to command the robot's next move. It's written in 300-word flash segments. For me, part of the amusement is the drawn-out discovery of whether this proof for God will be at all credible, given that it is generated with an element of randomness.

Andrew Tivey: I have a few projects all in their early stages, such as a collection of war poetry, the Creative Writing Society anthology, and possibly writing the story behind an iPhone/iPod Touch game my friend would be programming. Before this I've also been a script-writer/voice actor/editor for a machinima company, Chairleg Productions (www.chairleg-productions.com), though at the moment with all our group at University our work has slowed down somewhat.



Jennifer Walker: What is your favorite genre of books to read?

Tucker Lieberman: Philosophy, pop science and psychology, and arrestingly beautiful novels. I like to learn something that I can integrate into my work or else be transported.

Andrew Tivey: I suppose gothic literature, though that is in itself quite vague - more or less any kind of poetry and any literature with a poetic style to it I can enjoy.



Jennifer Walker: Do you have any guilty pleasures? Tell us about them.

Tucker Lieberman: I bake way too many chocolate chip cookies.

Andrew Tivey: I guess I play too many games? Though I do need something to do where I can just switch off.