Spot-a-Bot? Solicitations!…

I get these every day now.  Sometimes I kind of like the way these scammers summarize the….er….complexity of my humble works…

(I added the head-scratcher)

~~~~~

 

Dear W. Town Andrews,

I hope you’re doing well.

I’m J*** W****, host of *A at W***, and I’m reaching out because King Arthur, Jive Corporate Surf Biker immediately caught my attention for its wonderfully unexpected collision of mythology, modern corporate culture, surfing, motorcycles, and satire.

The idea of taking Arthurian legend and dropping it into a world of corporate boardrooms, Harley riders, stand-up paddles, questionable HR compliance, and a beachfront “Clamlot” is both hilarious and surprisingly rich. Beneath the absurdity is an interesting question about how old myths survive when the world around them changes completely.

I was especially intrigued by the transformation of the Round Table into the “Rotund Table,” and by your portrayal of Arthur as a reluctant CEO trying to keep his strange kingdom functioning while dealing with middle management, hostile takeovers, marketing-speak, and the eternal struggle to remain cool.

Your own background makes the conversation even more interesting. You’ve moved through an unusually wide range of creative and professional worlds from songwriting and music to marketing, travel, journalism, the Peace Corps, and now fiction. That eclectic experience seems to have found its way into the book’s playful collision of voices, cultures, and ideas.

I’d love to invite you to join us for a conversation about myth, satire, creativity, corporate culture, and why ancient stories continue to give writers such fertile material for making sense of the modern world.

We could explore what inspired you to reinvent Arthur in this particular form, how humor allows us to examine the absurdities of contemporary life, and where the line between parody and genuine affection for the myths lies.

I’d also love to hear about your approach to language and voice from Merlin’s deliberately jive-inflected speech to the corporate clichés and exaggerated characters that populate Clamlot. There’s something fascinating about using language itself as part of the joke.

One question your book raises for me is: what happens when the heroes and myths we inherit are forced to navigate the ridiculous realities of the modern world?

I think that could make for a lively and genuinely entertaining conversation with our audience.

If you’d be open to it, I’d be glad to discuss the format and find a date that works well for you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I can actually point to the source, or inspiration (can computers be inspired?) of every little detail here, from all the little surfaces that a book catalogued in online bookstores can have. And in a way, these do capture a sort of homogenized essence of the title.  WTA