An Interview with Firelands Author Michael Jensen

Q: Your first novel, Frontiers, was historical fiction. Now you’ve published Firelands, another gay historical novel. Are you the gay James Michener?

MJ: I could live with that description!

Q: I understand Firelands is a sequel to your first novel, Frontiers. Does a person need to have read Frontiers to be able to follow the story in Firelands.

MJ: Not at all. Firelands is a “stand alone” sequel that doesn’t require the reader to have read the first novel in order to follow the new story. Characters from Frontiers appear in Firelands, but readers won’t be the least bit lost if they read Firelands first.

Q: So Firelands is about the same characters from Frontiers. You had some very unique ones as I recall.

MJ: John, Palmer, and Gwennie, the main characters in Frontiers, all play a part in Firelands. The two main characters in Firelands, however, are Cole Seavey, a settler, and Pakim, a Delaware Indian who fall in love. I’m certain fans of Frontiers will find Cole and Pakim just as engaging.

Q: Speaking of gay love, didn’t Frontiers “out” an American icon?

MJ: It did. John Chapman, better know as Johnny Appleseed. Firelands continues the tale of how John Chapman went from being a lost young man to an iconic figure in American history.

Q: What makes you think Johnny Appleseed might have been gay? Did you find lost love letters or a journal?

MJ: For such a famous person we know remarkably little about the man. We do know he left home when he was young and went about as far west as was possible at the time. He never married or had a sweetheart, and when pressed on the matter he claimed God had shown him a vision of his true love waiting for him in Heaven. Added to that was the fact that when he did occasionally settle down, it was always with a man. Taken together, I thought the facts suggested someone who might very well have been gay.

Q: I see Firelands is also being touted as a mystery/thriller. What is the mystery exactly?

MJ: It centers on the Native American legend of the wendigo and the havoc the demonic creature wreaks on Hugh’s Lick, an isolated settlement in the Ohio frontier. When the book opens, tensions between the settlers in Hugh’s Lick and the residents of the local Delaware village are already verging on open conflict. When someone--or something--starts attacking both the settlers and Indians it’s up to Cole and his friends to unravel what is really happening before a border war erupts.

Q: What is a wendigo?

MJ: The Native American legend of the wendigo varies from tribe to tribe, but all involve a man who has become a cannibal and then preys on humans. In various incarnations, the man becomes a giant with long, bony fingers. Sometimes it can fly and change shapes, and the only way to kill it is to burn its heart which is made of ice. It’s also said that once the wendigo has singled you out by name, there is no escaping it. When food was plentiful it was believed that the wendigo would revert to human form and not remember the terrible acts it had committed.

It’s interesting to note that the legend of the wendigo comes almost exclusively from northern tribes, where long winters often led to starvation. Some anthropologists believe the legend arose to help people deal with the fact that during the long, brutal winters people were occasionally driven to cannibalism--sometimes even eating their own family members. People couldn’t accept that normal folks could do such a thing. It had to be a weak person who could be possessed by a demon.

Q: Sounds creepy.

MJ: I think so. I’ve spent time camping in the old-growth forests here in the Northwest imagining what it would be like to have a wendigo chasing me. Those forests can be eerie and unsettling enough without any demons.

Q: So you have a gay romance between a Delaware Indian and a settler. Has that been done before?

MJ: I don’t think so. And it was quite fun to write. I was able to interweave not only the Native American legend about the wendigo, but also a wonderful Indian tale about discovery of fire. Tattoos also play an important, rather sexy part.

Q: As a writer, is there a particular reason you’ve decided to focus on gay historical fiction?

MJ: I think it’s fascinating and largely underrepresented. Some of the most positive things said about Frontiers, and now Firelands, are that I have reclaimed part of history for gays and lesbians. Sometimes it feels as if we didn’t exist in this country until Stonewall. I also write historical fiction because I find there is generally a dearth of variety in gay fiction. You can only read so many books about gay men living in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles before you start to get a little bored.

Q: You used to work as a flight attendant. Is that still the case or have you been promoted to pilot?

MJ: Not likely with my sense of direction! Yes, I’m still a flight attendant and I travel with my laptop so I can keep working. I don’t think too many other authors can claim their novels were literally written all over the country.

Q: So which came first—the writing or the flying?

MJ: I’ve wanted to write ever since I can remember so that definitely came first. Income wise, however, being a flight attendant did—and still does—pay the bills.

Q: When most of us think of flight attendants we think of glamour—attractive young men and women, beaches in Mexico, dinner in Manhattan. We usually don’t think author.

MJ: That’s true, but trust me the world of glamorous flying is long gone, although people are still certainly interested in what I do. It drives my partner, Brent Hartinger (author of Geography Club) crazy that whenever we’re at a party and tell people what we do, it’s always my flying that people are interested in as opposed to the fact that between us we’ve published or sold eleven novels.

Q: I imagine in your fifteen years of flying you’ve just about seen it all.

MJ: And then some. I’ve been assaulted by drunks, dealt with people high on drugs, given CPR to a heart attack victim, been pinched on the butt, evacuated a plane, had an emergency landing, verbally abused more times than I can count, fogged in for days at a time in Alaska, and the list goes on.

Q: Do you actually like what you do then?

MJ: Oh, I love it. Maybe not so much the work part. Picking up dirty cups does get old after a while. But every month I get to spend time in Boston, New York, Miami, Chicago. Many of the places have become as familiar to me as my own neighborhood. Who wouldn’t love that?

Q: I’ve talked to other authors who say they have to get up at 4 am in order to get in a couple hours of writing before they got to work at their day job. Is that how it is for you?

MJ: Not at all and that’s one of the best thing about being a flight attendant. Now that I’ve got some seniority I can pretty much control my own schedule. I usually only work ten days a month and even on some of those days I can still do some work on my layovers. Many of them are twenty-four hours long, but it can be rather hard to make myself stay in my hotel room when all of Manhattan awaits me!

Q: Poor baby. I understand your partner, Brent Hartinger, is also a successful novelist. Quite the power couple, aren’t you?

MJ: We’re working on it. Brent has become a very successful young adult author. His first novel, Geography Club, did tremendously well and he has at least one novel a year coming out through 2006.

Q: Any rivalry there?

MJ: Only about who the cats like best. We actually work well together, each editing the others work. But always in a gentle, positive way.

Q: Do I detect a little sarcasm there? You don’t have to answer that. So will you be touring again?

MJ: Definitely. But I’m also focusing on the internet. I’ve got a web page, www.michaeljensen.com. I always encourage people to visit and let me know what they thought of my books.

Q: So what’s next? Are you going to out Paul Bunyan?

MJ: Hmmm, now there’s an idea.