Author Spotlight: Tom Mangione
Tom Mangione
Tom Mangione considers himself to be a poet first and a musician, songwriter, blogger, promoter and journalist after. However, telling people that you’re a poet requires great gall (or an unhealthy amount of alcohol), so Tom usually introduces himself as something else. Tom has published fiction and poetry for Shanghai’s own HAL Publishing and the Urbanity Project. As a local journalist, he has written articles for the Global Times, Urban Eyes, Smartshanghai, SH Magazine and Talk Magazine. He blogs regularly about poetry, China, his life and the amazing lexicons of both Chinese and English at Scruta.org. As a musician, he performs American folk rock music every Monday night at Anar as Ho-Tom the Conqueror.
Tom’s Featured Poem – Monsterum Poeticum
Five Questions for Tom Mangione
HAL: What is the one book that can make you weep every time you read it?
TM: The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño
HAL: If a nuclear bomb struck Fiction Land what one character would be transformed into a city destroying monster of Godzillian proportions?
TM: Judge Holden from Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian
HAL: Stock question: Pens or keyboards? What method do you prefer to use when writing?
TM: Pens for poetry, keyboards for prose
HAL: What happened at the end of the movie The Notebook?
TM: I’ve never seen The Notebook.
HAL: In 3 words or less describe the writing process. Go!
TM: Patience, persistence, passion
Check out more of Tom’s work here
Did you miss Tom at our Garden Books Reading? Did you see him but still want another sip of this tall drink of water? Check out United Verses this Saturday at Anar. Tom and a whole host of talented local/ expat writers will be doing the translation thang!
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Tom Mangione’s story “Number 100” appears in H.A.L. Publishing’s, “Party Like It’s 1984: short stories from the people’s republic of” which is available for order to all over the world from Powell’s. If you are living in Shanghai you can pick up a copy in store at Garden Books. In Chengdu or Beijing? This title is available in store at The Bookworm.
