An Interview with Authors Elaine Mongeon and Glen Zipper

Authors Elaine Mongeon and Glen Zipper have a brand-new book out entitled, Devastation Class, and we here at NTG were lucky enough to sit down with Elaine and Glen to discuss their new novel and the craft of creative writing.
 
Nerds That Geek: What got the two of you into writing?
 
Glen Zipper: For most of my life, writing was a private indulgence. As a fertile ground to exercise the muscles of my imagination, it was something I enjoyed immensely — but it was also something I lacked the confidence in to share with others. I’m not sure what I was afraid of. Perhaps it was the thought that if my writing was rejected it would also be rejection of the inner life of my imagination. And because that inner life brought me so much personal nourishment I suppose I was terrified at the prospect of it somehow being corrupted. I guess eventually I figured out that a rejection of my writing could be compartmentalized. It wouldn’t necessarily mean there was something wrong with imagination, but rather more a question of how I was articulating it.  And the latter was something I could keep working at and improve upon. Also, it’s completely possible that when someone doesn’t like something you’ve created they’re just… well… wrong. 
 
Elaine Mongeon: My mom, a writer as well as an English teacher, would encourage my siblings and me to tell stories from the time we could talk. We'd tell the stories, and she'd write them down and draw the pictures. And then once we could write and draw, she encouraged us to write and illustrate our own storybooks. Having her encouragement allowed my imagination to grow, and I started writing on my own when I was ten or eleven because I had ideas and characters that just seemed to want to have a life on paper, even if I never showed them to anyone. And then in high school, my English teacher was the first person other than my mom to encourage me to write creatively, which was another huge impact on me. But it wasn't until I went to college – when I dropped out of being a pre-med biology major and decided to major in film and television (once again thanks to my mom's support and encouragement!) – that I realized that maybe someday what I had previously thought of as something that I did in my spare time for fun could actually turn into what I wanted to do with my life. 

NTG: What can you tell us about your new book?
​
EM: The book is set in the distant future, with seven military cadets and seventy civilian students aboard a starship on a scientific mission of learning. Suddenly and without warning, the ship is attacked by the Kastazi, a vicious enemy alien race that humanity had once already defeated in a brutal nine-year war. Our protagonists – best friends and cadets JD and Viv – are forced to make an impossible choice that will change their lives forever: obey their superiors and die, or rally their comrades to mutiny to save the ship and the lives of everyone aboard. However, not everything is what it seems. What at first looks like an obvious re-invasion by a former enemy turns out to be something much darker and shocking, and a mystery eons in the making will have to be unraveled for them to have any hope of surviving.
 
GZ: Devastation Class is a multi-POV story, so we get to spend time in the heads of more than one character. Viv and JD are trying to succeed under the weight and long shadows of their war hero parents. There’s Nicholas, a cypher whose intentions and motivations are shrouded in mystery, and who is also struggling with terrifying questions about his own identity. And then there’s Liko, an exceedingly intelligent character who wears the "scarlet letter" of being the son of a man most people view as a traitor. While these characters are all quite different from one another in the way that they process the world around them, they all share one commonality — they must battle challenges beyond their control that are not of their making. There’s a diverse assembly of other characters we spend time with, all of whom are on the ship for a very specific reason (spoiler alert: reasons sometimes not even obvious to themselves) and while we don’t get inside all of their heads, all of them are battling the same challenges that are totally out of their control. Many of these characters also perceive one another as a threat, so a big question of the book is whether or not they’ll be able to learn to trust one another to fight the much larger threat that’s stalking them all. 
 
NTG: What are you most excited for your readers to experience?
 
EM & GZ: Getting acquainted with our characters, investing in them and being shocked and surprised as to where their journeys take them over the course of the series. Warning: Don’t get too comfortable with anyone. 
 
NTG: What is it you two love the most about creative writing?

GZ: Working so much in film and TV, everything is about compromise. There are so many talented people required to come together to makes something great, and, inevitably, this leads to conflict. Not coming-to-blows conflict, but rather just a competition of ideas. And your idea isn’t always going to win. Which can be terribly frustrating at times, particularly when you know in your heart that the choice you want to make is the right one, but you aren’t able to win the battle. With writing it’s really just you and the page, and, if there is any competition, it’s really just a question of which of your own ideas is better or more exciting than some others. 
 
EM: That in the worlds that we create, anything is possible and there are no rules. 
 
NTG:  What is a unique story that both of you haven't tackled yet that you'd love to write?
 
GZ: I pitched Elaine an idea for a female-driven (no pun intended) young adult iteration of a Knight Rider film, and it’s something so much better and bigger than just a kid-in-car-that-talks movie. I remember Elaine being skeptical when I told her I had an idea that lived in the Knight Rider universe, and by the time I was done her eyes were as big as saucers. We don’t have the rights, and it will probably never see the light of day, but people would lose their minds if they saw where it could go. It has the heart of an Amblin film and the blow-you-out-of-the-back-wall-of-a-theater vibe of the first time you ever saw Die Hard. Am I overselling? Nope. 
 
EM: I’m all in on the Knight Rider idea. And there are some pretty badass women from Celtic mythology and Irish history that I’d love to write for film or television. 
 
NTG: What's next for you two after this release?
 
GZ: It’s pretty much Devastation Class all day, every day right now as we’ve already begun writing Book 2. I am also excited about Challenger: The Final Flight, the documentary series I developed and produced with Bad Robot that was released on September 16th and is getting a wonderful response And season two of Dogs on Netflix is also coming soon. A whole new batch of stories of some goodest boys and girls and their human best friends.
 
EM: Devastation Class is the priority! I'm a little superstitious about talking about other projects that aren't finished or are in the early stages because I don't want to jinx them – but what I can say is that I'm actively working on two feature film concepts that are in different stages – both female-driven, one’s sci-fi.

---

Authors Elaine Mongeon and Glen Zipper (Photo by Charles W. Murphy)