Some writers are very intentional. They sit down each day with the intent of writing a story, one they intend to be published in a magazine or journal, and then collected in a book with their name on it.
But in the following email interview about A Bucket Full Of Moonlight (paperback, Kindle), his book with his name on it, author Christopher J. Burke says these short stories actually, “…started as a writing exercise…”
To start, is there a theme that connects the stories in A Bucket Full Of Moonlight?
There isn’t one specific theme to A Bucket Full Of Moonlight, but the stories share a connection. Each one of them started as a writing exercise, some prompt that I answered in the four years before I started putting the collection together.
Sometime in 2020, I started collecting these responses into one big file before they disappeared into the Internet ether. I might’ve lost a couple of replies. I realized that I had more than enough material to create a book. The two biggest problems were, first, many of the shorter stories were really scenes and not completed tales, and second, since everything was technically already published, I assumed no editor or publisher would want to look at it.
Putting a pin in that second thought, I read through more than one hundred pieces. I wanted a balance of fantasy and science fiction. I probably leaned on fantasy more with multiple stories with angels, devils, and demons, as well as vampires, werewolves, magic, and superheroes. I didn’t have any superheroes in my first book, so I wanted a couple for this one. Also, two of the fantasy stories share settings with stories in In A Flash 2020 [his previous short story collection].
At this point, I still thought I’d have to self-publish this book. However, when Danielle Ackley-McPhail (my editor from In A Flash 2020) heard about it, she showed interest. That meant I had to kick it up another notch, which is what I spent months doing before I sent it to my first readers (my brother, cousin, and a few friends).
A Bucket Full Of Moonlight is your fifth short story collection after In A Flash 2020 and the three in your Burke’s Lore Briefs series. Are there any writers who had a big influence on any stories in Moonlight that were not as big an influence on anything else you’ve written?
If I had to point to a couple of authors that had some impact, the first one would be Ray Bradbury. In particular, “The Illustrated Man” might’ve been on my mind when I decided to rewrite the ending of the lead story, “I’ve Seen Empires Fall” and make it into a wraparound story that also ends the book. At one point, I considered that the collection could be stories that the old traveler or the farmer witnessed, but the settings are too varied for that.
The second author who had an influence was Alex Shvartsman, whom I’ve met a few times. Alex was at the first reading I ever did. I read three or four short pieces in my allotted time, including a couple of stories that would end up in A Bucket Full Of Moonlight. Afterward, we spoke, and he gave me some insight into the nature of a “funny story” in general and some advice about my stories in particular. For one thing, a couple of them didn’t have endings. They just stopped.
Several stories had rewrites after that.
How about non-literary influences? Were any of the stories in A Bucket Full Of Moonlight influenced by any movies, shows, or games?
There are a few non-literary influences, probably more than I realize. I couldn’t tell you when it dawned on me that Bing Crosby once asked me if I’d like to “carry moonbeams home in a jar.”
There isn’t any story that I’d point to and call a Star Trek or Twilight Zone story. That said, Unity Station, where many neighboring races live and raise their kids, is Babylon 5 in an “it’s not Babylon 5” way. The alien races comprising the Council of Grunchon could be delegates from Journey to Babel, except that I have animal, vegetable, and mineral representatives.
Visually, the dapper devil Tantoque would likely fit nicely into a 1950s-era movie. My community theater experience came into play when I had to block out a scene with him and the fallen angel Castitas because at one point, I lost track of where in his private sanctum they’d been standing or sitting.
Funny that you should mention video games. The ’80s arcade games Asteroids and Time Pilot get a mention in “Bonus Points” because a quirk in their programming is similar to a quirk of time loops, and both can be exploited in the same way.
And, last, and possibly best, “The Who, What, Where, When, Why And How Of Werewolves: A Nature Study” should be read using your best Marlin Perkins voice. “The wolf, busy sniffing the carcass of a deer, doesn’t seem to pay the duo any mind at all.” [Perks was the host of the nature show called Mututal Of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom from 1963 through 1985.]
And what about your day job as a math teacher; how do you think this influenced A Bucket Full Of Moonlight? Oh, god, are the stories in Moonlight all word problems? Because I haven’t thought about two trains heading to the same station but at different speeds since 1978…
For the people afraid that because I’m a math teacher there will be word problems included, allow me to allay your fears. Even though 15% of the stories in In A Flash 2020 were math-based, there’s nearly no math present on the pages of A Bucket Full Of Moonlight. The calculations of the spin gravity of Unity Station didn’t make the final edit, nor did any quadratic functions for subjective time elapsed during time travel.
The only place where my job as a math teacher factors in is in “The AI Takeover Wasn’t So Bad,” which takes my usual day and adds a lot of AI. I could only hope that the future works out this well because while you may fear math, I fear AI taking over the teaching of math and all other aspects of my life.
Hollywood loves making movies out of short stories. Are there any stories in A Bucket Full Of Moonlight that you think could work especially well as a movie?
“Fallen Angels” would be my pick for a story to make a movie out of, particularly if I could get Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris involved [Reiff and Voris are screenwriters and producers known for the TV show Knightfall]. I like the way they handle demons and devils. (Also, I name-drop them because I have a sort of friend-of-a-friend situation with Ethan that goes back decades.)
“The Girl With The Rose-Covered Grimoire,” set at the Carrowmore School of Magic and Wizardry, may be too short for a movie, but it’s open-ended and full of potential given the school and the nearby town with its hidden magical creatures.
Tooting my own horn, there’s enough material for a couple of seasons of a streaming anthology series. Did I mention my community theater experience if they need a dashing host?
So, is there anything else you think people need to know about A Bucket Full Of Moonlight?
One thing I’d like the readers to know is that if you like upbeat stories that don’t stray too far, too often, into the dark place, A Bucket Full Of Moonlight is for you. Apparently, I’ve been writing cozy fiction since before I knew what that meant. And while I’m a sucker for a happy ending, not everything is going to end happily, just to keep you guessing.
Also, I hope you’ll find that the wit is sometimes dryer than a martini, while other times you’ll find the sarcasm dripping off the page.
Finally, if someone enjoys A Bucket Full Of Moonlight, what short story collection of someone else’s would you suggest they check out?
Funny, I haven’t read too many single-author collections recently, and unlike A Bucket Full Of Moonlight, many of those I have read were about one character or group of characters.
That said, I would recommend Jane Yolen’s The Midnight Circus. While that book isn’t the same in tone as mine, Yolen is a great storyteller, and I hope I’m on my way to being one, too.
