By day, author, world traveler, and career counselor Mark Bloom helps students and locals find work at the NC Works Career Lab, one of A-B Tech’s community partners. In his other life, Bloom also works as a professional writer and editor, crafting copy for the web and assisting aspiring authors with writing and publishing. A longtime writer of fiction and nonfiction, Bloom has just published his first book, “Don’t Even Go There: True Tales from a Twisted Traveler: Anecdotes, Incidents and Lessons Learned”. Bloom has described his book as an antidote to the typical travel guide because it focuses on misadventures, as opposed to postcard-perfect moments. Written in a playfully sardonic tone, “Don’t Even Go There” is often laugh-out-loud funny. We recently took time to interview Bloom about his new book.
Q: Could you describe what you were aiming for when you wrote this book?
A: Many of these stories have haunted my memory, giving me nightmares. Writing them down and making them funny was an act of healing the trauma. I still, to this very day, will wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, but now it's more often because I forgot to turn on the A/C.
I've been writing all my life: short stories, novels, screenplays. While I've published in collective works, I've never had a book of my own. This book represents that accomplishment for me. My next project may be writing a Major Motion Picture, although I'd settle for writing a Minor Motion Picture. My dream is to win an Oscar, which I believe is a type of hot dog…
Q: What is one of your favorite stories in the book?
A: "Good and Bad Lands" describes an adventure that took place somewhere not many human beings have ever visited. It's an exotic land where the tourist season lasts for about a month. It's so far off the beaten track, you have to use a compass and a dowsing rod just to find the beaten path. I'm writing, of course, about North Dakota, where an ice scraper is a practical birthday gift, even if your birthday falls in August.
Find a copy of Mark’s book online at Amazon.com and Firestorm Books. It is also available at Firestorm Books in West Asheville, as well as from Lit Local Books at Pennycup Coffee Co. in Haw Creek; at Filo Pastry in East Asheville; and at Ginger's Revenge in North Asheville. For more about Mark Bloom’s work, visit his website at Mark Henry Bloom.