JD Glass was born in the Holy Land of Brooklyn and moved to the Forgotten Borough of Staten Island before she was old enough to use four letter words properly. She has since recovered and curses fluently in American English (such as it is).

She lives in New York, the city she loves so well, with her beloved partner, their spoiled doggie and their crotchety cat and is the lead vocalist and guitarist of Life Underwater.

Tell us a bit about yourself—what made you want to become a writer?

I don't know as I ever really set out to "be" one—I always wanted to be a rock star! Having said that, I've been writing music, stories, poems and essays, what have you, for about as long as I can remember knowing how to write. It's just something I do, all the time, a compulsion I can't explain.

Which authors, past and present, would you consider to have had the biggest influence on your own writing?

That's a huge question, because I admire so many authors. I always loved Thomas Hardy's use of visual metaphor, completely, perfectly evocative, and I always want anything I create to be as visceral an experience as he so successfully did. As far as poets, I'm a William Blake fan, especially "Songs of Innocence and Experience."
On the completely different end of the spectrum, writers such as Judy Bloom and her very honest portrayals of the ordeals of young people and Erica Jong's frank sexuality were also influential.
Ayn Rand—the first punk author. Amazingly strong, dedicated to her position, so brave in her commitment to her vision—inspiring—so Nietzscheian, and still so misunderstood (something she still shares with Nietzsche). Atlas Shrugged changed my life forever and I am so grateful. She took such risks, pushed against so many artificial barriers.
Then there's Kurt Vonnegut… God bless you, please, Mr. Rosewater.
Additionally, Lousia May Alcott is someone who tremendously influenced me, as was Marion Zimmer Bradley, and then of course, of the "most modern," there's Susan Smith. I love her frank approach and the way she offsets it with the mystical. Also Amy Tan. She has a beautiful balance of internal dialogue and external influence. But it would be extremely remiss of me not to mention Robert Heinlein for his views on our possibilities as people, Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez (of "Love and Rockets"), Mike Barr (of "Camelot 3000"), Neil Gaiman ("Sandman" series—"The king of dreams learns one must change or die and then makes his decision"). Oh, and Shakespeare. Can't write in English and not have been influenced on some level by Shakespeare.
A second edition of your first novel, Punk Like Me, is forthcoming from Bold Strokes Books in May 2006. Can you tell us a little about how the story came into being?

When I was a child, after I'd read everything there was to read in the home (including the toothpaste tube) I'd make up my own stories. When Punk Like Me was born, I was sort of in the same state I was as a child: I'd read everything I had several times and I was sick to death of the things I was working on. I was so busy writing "other things," that I felt I'd lost perspective on writing altogether, what it was all about. I remembered something one of my favorite teachers had said: "Write what you know." Well, that seemed like good advice, and I really wanted to feel and do something different for me, like write about something I actually knew, like music, comic books, and the whole underground scene and the city I love so well. From there, it felt very natural to use the voice of discovery, and the whole thing just sort of fell together. Originally, it was meant to be a series of connected short stories, each with its own title and point, with an overarching theme to be collected in one work. The next thing I knew, it had turned into an actual novel.

Some of the inspiration seems obvious; besides writing, you are also the lead singer/guitarist in the band Life Underwater. How has that helped with your research?

Actually, I write some of the lyrics as well. Research-wise, though, I'm lucky enough to be able to draw upon my own experiences and knowledge, as well as refer to friends, acquaintances, and "general lore" in the biz.

How much, if any, of yourself is there in Punk's lead character, Nina?

That's really difficult to measure. I suppose I could simply subscribe to the theory that anything we create is in essence a part of us, so that's as accurate as anything else. I can honestly say that we've read many of the same books and like the same music, we grew up in the same neighborhood, hung out in many of the same places, and have some of the same friends. She's done things I'd never do, I've done things she wouldn't dream of, and in fact would heartily disagree with (and vice-versa) and even be angry about, but we understand each other most of the time. We have great conversations.

With the second edition of the book, were their any specific parts of the story that you concentrated on reworking?
The editor I worked with, Shelley Thrasher, is phenomenal. I really feel that working with her put the shine on the work, if you will. There's a little more exploration of other characters' motivations, a little more history for Nina, and consequently (and hopefully) a deeper experience for the reader.

Why the decision to work the original into a second edition?

Because I moved the book from one publishing house to another, the team at BSB was able to really find the places that needed that polishing touch—again, making the reader's experience deeper and richer.

In terms of a specific type of story, Punk Like Me is a break from writing in another genre that you favor—speculative. Do you have any plans for writing a novel set in a more magical environment?

Yes, absolutely. There are links, actually, hints if you will, buried in Punk Like Me and its sequel that are little jumping-off points for another series I'm chomping at the bit to really dig into. All the preliminary work is complete, actually.

What is your work atmosphere like when you're writing?

I do most of my writing in two places (although I do subscribe to the "a writer writes—always" philosophy). I almost always have to have music on, and it can't be just anything. I have specific soundtracks I work with, and I'll waste way too much time getting it together. My cat will spend some time during the day attempting to jump on the keyboard until I'm forced to take a break and lavish him with affection until the dog gets jealous. After everyone is happy and I've decided that perhaps if I finally eat something I might actually write something, I restart my soundtrack and settle in.

The other is the commuting bus. No phones, no e-mail to compulsively check, no gotta-get-the-mood-right CDs to fool around with. There, I'm cramped in a seat next to the window writing in longhand as my seat-neighbor repeatedly whaps me in the head with his newspaper and the person behind me keeps kneeing my kidneys. I write some of my best stuff like that.

Do you ever suffer from writer's block?

It's not so much writer's block as dissatisfaction; I'm still creating, just not really satisfied with the results. I slog through it and when I'm tired of slogging, I take a break and work in a different medium for awhile. Sometimes I'll actually visualize where I'm "stuck" right before I fall asleep, and usually by the next afternoon, or the following at the latest, it'll spring, fully formed like Athena, from my head. I love when that happens.

What are you currently working on, in terms of fiction writing?

I've just about completed the sequel to Punk Like Me (it will probably be complete by the time you get this)—Punk And Zen. I'm also doing some basic groundwork for the one to follow that (tentatively titled Punk Angel), as well as the more "speculative" work.

Besides your interest in various fiction genres, you're also a keen observer of what's new in current science trends, specifically quantum and astrophysics. What initially sparked this interest?

Metaphysics. I developed a deep and abiding interest in mythology and comparative religions when I was very young, and when I discovered some of the more shamanistic ones as well as the Eastern ones, I kept finding metaphorical parallels to certain theories in physics that occasionally merited an article or a special mention on a science program or even certain principles I found underlying the "future machines" of science fiction. I had to know more! Thus, a quest was born…

What do you think will be the next big scientific breakthrough?

I don't think our current environment (at least here in the States) is such that will allow for any tremendous leaps forward. The greatest things that have been done are not being used (super conductivity and its applications towards providing cheaper and cleaner energy, for example, or the new drug that was discovered that actually creates new avenues for blood vessels in cardiac patients, or the ethanol-based car that was built in the '40s) because these things threaten the current economic structure. If it ain't gonna result in returns to the shareholders on the Board, it ain't gonna happen, no matter what, unless it's going to drive double-digit growth in the bottom line.

What we will see are dramatic improvements over the next ten years in how we travel: several private companies are working on various forms of space flight, including vacation packages to one of the orbiting satellite stations, and we'll see some fantastic but limited work with tissue re-growth (they've been working on it for years now) and replacement. Also there's recently been report of replacement bladders (that were implanted as much as seven years ago), and the new research is on hearts. Additionally, there's some fantastic work being done in the marriage of mind and machine. Duke University created an implant that allows monkeys to manipulate a mechanical arm with their thoughts, which promises tremendous things for paraplegics and quadriplegics. If only we could find a way to reduce the heat factor for the tiniest of metals, the marriage of the implants with prosthetics, whoo-hoo! I look to nano-technologies to bridge the gap here to create the ultimate marriage of biology and physics, man and machine. Between that and the stem cell research, the race is on!
And I really think quantum physics will one day show us exactly not only how God plays dice with the Universe, but also reveal its face if there's one to be seen.

Tell us something about JD Glass no-one else knows…

Most of my socks have monkeys on them and so do my pjs. Make of that what you will.

What are the fundamental elements of good storytelling?

Tell me a story! Tease me, thrill me, educate me, take me some place I've never been or show it to me in a different way—and make me not notice you're doing it.
Oh, you want a real answer.

Okay. Solid characters. They should be three-dimensional and I should know more about them than their eye color or favorite designer if we're talking protagonists, and nicely fleshed out secondary characters (Radclyffe does a phenomenal job of this; her secondary characters are as fully realized in many ways as her protagonists).

If you have nothing more than a physical description to give me, go back and work on it. I can get that from Vogue. I want the inside.

A logical story line. Make it as fantastic as you want. Aliens? Fine. Mysterious notes left by the dead? Cool. Unknown arcana not revealed until we need to know? Awesome. But save us all from deus ex machina. Foreshadow as if you'd die if you didn't if necessary, unless it's somehow vital to the plot.

What are some of your favorite books from 2005?

I hope no one throws too many stones in my direction, but it's more of what I've read in 2005 than what necessarily came out in 2005. With that out of the way, here's my list (in no particular order and with no intentional omissions).
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince – JK Rowling
Harvest of Hope – Jane Goodall
Protector of the Realm –  goodness gracious, great God almighty, Gun Brooke
The Temple At Landfall – Jane Fletcher
Grave Silence – Rose Beecham
Terrors of the High Seas – Melissa Good
Emotional Branding – Marc Gobe (I do read for work, too)
Dude, Where's My Country – Michael Moore
The Laughing Sutra – Mark Salzman

What's the biggest challenge for you personally about being a writer?

Time, time, and the rush of ideas. Like anything else, you can only work on one at a time, and sooner or later, you do have to sleep.

What advice would you give to aspiring writers trying to get their break in publishing?

Don't give up, don't give up, don't give up. Reread your manuscript. Revise it. Revise it again. Submit again. And again. Keep writing. Keep submitting. Believe in your vision. Ayn Rand was rejected almost universally until a single editor, who understood what she was saying, published her. Someone will want it, someone will get it. Don't stop.

The five things every writer's partner must know and make peace with:

We really don't hear you when we're "in it"—we're sorry. Please try the maracas and the funny hat. Failing that, hot chocolate—applied liberally to the head and shoulders—works well. Might we also recommend you use a football twist to that toss? It's all in the wrist…
Oh, and should the house burn down? Save the manuscript first.

It's only the end of the book that's bad, right? The rest of the time we're okay? Right?

Yes, we're working hard on those edits. We need the Spider Solitaire game, and that exact CD and, oh, could you walk the dog?

Well, okay, the world might not end, but X and Y are in this situation, see, and we can't just leave them like that, can we?

Every romantic scene and every "I love you" is written with you in mind, every time.