Friday , March 29 2024
"This will probably sounds strange to anyone who's read the book, but I'm working on a DVD reading tool for kids" - Glasgow Phillips

An Interview With Glasgow Phillips, Author of The Royal Nonesuch: Or, What Will I Do When I Grow Up? – Part 2

This is the second part of a two-part interview with Glasgow Phillips.

As he said on the title page of the book:

The Royal Nonesuch: In which the author, a failure at literature, fails likewise at pornography; founds a corporate branding consultancy and a New Media Empire; impersonates the antichrist; plays nursemaid to a homeless street performer in a bear suit; battles oblivion and the Big She; and attempts to answer the one great question that troubles his generation: What will I do when I grow up?

What was the reaction to this book? I enjoyed it but expected it to be more funny when instead parts of it were just tragic and sad.

Well… yeah. It's received different reactions in different circles, ranging from extremely positive to extremely negative. I wish all the reactions were extremely positive, but that's how the cookie crumbles.

As to the comedy/tragedy ratio, that's just been my experience with life. Some stuff is funny and some stuff is sad, and some stuff you wish was funny is sad, and sometimes it's hard to tell whether something is funny or sad, because it's both.

You make quick reference – without elaborating – to a TV show you did about Siegfried and Roy. Did I read right that you did this show about their animals and then it was soon after that one of them was bitten by one of their animals? Talk about bad timing.

Yeah, the timing could have been better on that. The event was a good deal more inconvenient for Roy than for anyone else, though. The show was called Father of the Pride, and it was a lot of fun — I was bummed when we didn't get to go past one season on air. It was a 3D animated sitcom produced by Dreamworks Animation. I know it's available on DVD now.

For those reading this who watched the South Park show, what seasons did you write for the show? Was it a fun show to work for?

I worked there during Season 6 — and yeah, it was an incredibly fun show to work for. It was really cool to get a window into how Matt and Trey work, and the other writers they bring on are really talented. They have a great staff. Plus it was right down the street from my house, so I could ride my bike over.

What are you working on these days?

This will probably sounds strange to anyone who's read the book, but I'm working on a DVD reading tool for kids. We're shooting a test for it in a couple of days. Super good times. I can't say too much more about it since it's kind of under wraps right now, but it's a combination of puppetry and animation that I think is going to come out really neat.

The target age group is kids 4 to 7 years old — kids in the process of language acquisition. It's based on an idea I had a number of years ago, and essentially it delivers a reading-aloud experience electronically, with a new twist.

Thanks to Glasgow for the interview and his patience as I finished the book and the second half of the interview. Read part one of the interview.

About Scott Butki

Scott Butki was a newspaper reporter for more than 10 years before making a career change into education... then into special education. He has been working in mental health for the last ten years. He lives in Austin. He reads at least 50 books a year and has about 15 author interviews each year and, yes, unlike tv hosts he actually reads each one. He is an in-house media critic, a recovering Tetris addict and a proud uncle. He has written articles on practically all topics from zoos to apples and almost everything in between.

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