Speaker 1: I don't know if you check it out yet. It's
Arrow dot net a r r oe dot net, not
just a podcast. It is twenty different podcasts to choose from.
Maybe you need a daily inspiration, a shot in the arm,
an affirmation. You'll find that on the Choice. Yeah, it's
an opportunity for you to just kind of let your
hair down and just be you without judgment. The choice
only on Arrow dot net a r r o e
dot net. Enjoy your exploration. Hello, and good morning everybody.
Speaker 2: Good morning. All right, let me get the pronounce it arrow? Yes,
all right, good to be with you.
Speaker 1: How did you lean on arrow? Most people go, is
it a rowie?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 3: It's a good question, but no, I read it. I
have kids with funny pronunciations. Their name, my last name Schlosberg,
which can sometimes be very very amusing.
Speaker 1: Oh, I see. It's moments like that that I wish
I had a pen and a sheet of paper and
sitting in a doctor's office or a dentist office, so
I can just sit there and watch everybody's reaction when
they come out there and do that. You're going, God, no,
will they ever get this right?
Speaker 2: Yep? Yep, No, it's not.
Speaker 3: Uh, it's not fun, but uh, I'm glad I landed
on it, and it's good to be with you.
Speaker 1: Dude. You got to tell me about this book because
I grew up in the nineteen seventies as a teenager,
and this was the kind of story that I couldn't
get enough of, because I mean, in the nineteen seventies,
we really did think about the end of the world.
And I think that's one of the reasons why day one,
what was it, nineteen eighty or eighty one when it
came out, I wanted to know what was going on
afterwards as well. And that's your focus.
Speaker 3: It will it is, and it was a I took
a slightly different tact with it because we all see
what happens in the dystopian societies where the nuclear bomb hits,
where the meteor hits, and everybody's left, and I've read
a bunch of books like that, and you know, I
grew up in the nineties, so I've seen no shortage
of movies about it. I wanted to take a different tack.
I wanted to try to figure out what would happened
when the missile hit, like you see Armageddon, where you know.
Speaker 2: Everything's okay, the world goes on. Okay, let's let's stay.
Let's follow that for a second.
Speaker 3: And I sort of tried to approach it from that angle,
and the entire time I was really curious to try
to examine how society would look.
Speaker 2: And how screwed up things would be.
Speaker 3: The irony for me from a personal perspective is it
wound up being an unintentional COVID allegory because I started
it before COVID but finished it after and realized it was.
There were there's a lot of parallels in my book. Specifically,
it's a young adult books, so focuses on a seventeen
year old protagonist to the book ultimates with the world
not ending and society trying to get back on track,
so you have, you know, breakdowns in law and order
and people trying to get up and running and essentially
restore civilization.
Speaker 2: My main character.
Speaker 3: The book takes place on in a boarding school because
I wanted to try to create an isolated environment to
really examine what would happen within this petriot dish. So
in the scenario highlight out, there's the rise of a
cult because society broke everybody's miserable society was broken to
begin with, and it's him trying to fight off this
cult and get people to engage in the real world
with real fact, real information and facing their problems head on.
And again, I wasn't setting out to do COVID, but
it sort of wound up being a parallel.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, do you think that's because that's all we've
heard about for decades is that it's gonna happen. It's
gonna happen, It's gonna happen, and then all of a sudden,
when it finally does, we're gonna go that's it. Can
you give me something a little bit stronger next time?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well that's that is a very good way of
putting it. And that was again kind of what I
was going for there, try to figure out just how
bad things would be if the world didn't end, And
I was just trying to come up with a unique
angle for dystopian fiction and wound up settling this way.
Speaker 2: And I hope it's an interesting story. Well far so good, Mike.
Speaker 1: You you give it a big spin here. This is
where you really captivated my heart, and that is that
what about those people that aren't ready to again, who
the hell takes that kind of a look?
Speaker 3: But you.
Speaker 2: That was that was exactly what I was going for it.
Speaker 3: I appreciate that you've got the crux of the books
are either you're smart or I did a halfway decent
joggle explaining it well, But that was that was one
hundred percent because we already like, let's lay out the
scenario in my book. Because in my book, there's there's
a four month period where the asteroid is coming and
we're all probably going to die, and nobody actually thinks
we're going to live. In that four months, you would
have breakdowns the law and order, financial systems, nobody would
actually show up at work anymore, and you'd have but
you'd still at the same time, just like during COVID,
you'd have heroes. You'd have people willing to face it
and willing to try to fight back, and then you'd
have everybody else who.
Speaker 2: Just wanted to live their lives.
Speaker 3: And we all, if this were to start right now,
we already know there's no shortage of problems in our society,
and just like with COVID, everything bad would get magnified,
Everything problematic would get a trillion times worse, and trying
to readjust in the aftermass of this massive collective trauma
that impacted billions of people. I thought it would be
an interesting story to tell.
Speaker 1: Well, see, I kept thinking that when when you identify
the cult, because I went through the COVID lockdown, I
chose to go to an essential job because I just
wanted to be with people. So I took a job
at a grocery store, of all places, because I just
wanted to be with people. But the one thing when
I was thinking about your cult was I think it's
coming from the people of homelessness, because they know how
to survive, they know how to get through things and
to help lead people. I'm going, oh my god, this
is where he's going. This is where he's going. Yeah,
but you're spot on because people will forget they've got
their own mind and they would rather give it to
somebody else to decide for them. I mean, you're spot
on with this book, dude.
Speaker 3: I appreciated that, and that that was exactly what I
was going for. The struggle would be so and the
way that the cult kind of evolves, it's and this
is the way cult that thinking works in general. Right,
you get a group of people who are for one
reason or the other. They either get great normal people
can get bringwatching.
Speaker 2: Into a cult.
Speaker 3: That happens all the time, but people are who are
really susceptible to it tend to be the ones who
have problems, who are predisposed to turn over aspects of
their life to others. And in the instance of collective trauma,
I think you'd really like the end of the world,
or not the end of the world, almost the end
of the world. I think you'd really see a lot
of people who were much more interested in letting somebody
else do the thinking in the heavy lifting form. And
lord knows, there's never a shortage of Charlatan's in the world.
Speaker 2: We see it all the time.
Speaker 1: See. I would love to be that guy that sits
down with Corey and just talks to him. I just
just tell me what you're thinking, Corey, because it's like,
even though he's such a young kid, as far as
I'm concerned, they're wise. And now that he's gone through this,
he's even more wise.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, And I also I kind of use Corey
as a obviously as a huge contrast to everybody else's
in the cult. But the backstory of the characters. He's
grew up with a single mom because his dad was
an abuser, and he almost kill them once and go
through the collective trauma of that. And it shows how
some people, and it's absolutely true, to use trauma for
personal growth and to make themselves better and to orient
themselves around others, whereas other people go through trauma and
turn inward and are more likely to either be selfish
or to just not adjust properly and not care about
anything else. Toori is the best case scenario of society.
Other characters in the book are the worst.
Speaker 1: Please do not move. There's more with Mike Schwasberg coming
up next, the name of his book, Almost the End
of the World. We are back with author Mike Swasburg.
What's really interesting is that everything that's been taking place,
let's say, in the past five years, is you know
how this we're going to react. I mean, the fires
in California with everybody getting out there with their guns
to protect their property. You've got Gaza, You've got Ukraine,
which have been ripped apart with this is what the
world is going to look like. And it's like, Wow,
You're saying, hey, look, you know what's happened in your life,
let's look at it this way, and and and so
you just really invest in our imaginations.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm glad you think so.
Speaker 3: And that's it's there's there's a parallel to it to
everything going on in the real world right now, and
it's something and truly the irony. I wasn't going for
that in the beginning, and then after Covid it became
clear what was happening and that there were more parallels
than I anticipated.
Speaker 1: So, now was that a wineglass moment? Because I always
bring that up in the way that there's strange things
happen when you go back in to do an edit
and all of a sudden you have a glass of
wine or you've got something besides you. You go, I'm
just going to take a chance. I've got the courage
to take a chance.
Speaker 3: So, like many many other writers, Covid unintentionally gave me
the clarity on this one. Absolutely it reshaped the book.
And I will say, I am so my day job
is I'm actually a politician. That's what I do for
a living. So I'm a state representative in Pennsylvania. And yeah,
it's a it's a weird contrast but it put me
in a position really to see the best and the
worst of COVID. But because I'm a politician, I can
sometimes get a little bit too esoteric. And the book
originally was kind of going in a different direction where
it was talking about how the students and how the
students reacted with the school administration.
Speaker 2: And then I was like, Jesus, nobody cares about this.
Speaker 3: So I did wind up changing the book from that
direction and hopefully hitting themes that appeal a little bit Bader.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it does, and that's it, and that's why
it's it's going to be so fun to sit there
and look at the books that that that that these
young adults are going to be carrying in their book bags,
or you just or if they come through that grocery
store and go, what are you reading man? The day
that they say almost the end of the world. I'm
gonna let me tell you right now what's going on here,
because it's that kind of story, because it's got mystique.
It's got if you really see down and think about
it and you let your imagination grow. I see the
animation happening, I see everything that's going on, which would
attract that younger reader. But but at the same time, I
also see the adults tapping into this because you ya,
writers have got a language right now that every age
group is listening to.
Speaker 3: Yes and that is that's say that it's that is
exactly the point. And I will absolutely say that Hya
is read by more than just young kid.
Speaker 2: I think of Y is read by adults absolutely.
Speaker 1: Because it's safe. You allow us to have that imagination.
You put us in places that we're thinking about or ooh,
I never thought about that. I mean it's because you
guys take chances. And that's why I've always wondered, what
does it play out like on on that on that
flat screen of your computer, because it's just they're just
words until you step in there and put yourself into
that thought process.
Speaker 3: So it's funny that you say that because I am
in a constant struggle. Like I said, I'm a politician,
I'm naturally self centered. It's an occupational hazard, but I
it's really you don't want.
Speaker 2: The main character to be completely you. You've got to
try to separate yourself from it.
Speaker 3: And I like to think that Corey is also my
best case scenario who in a dream world I would
have been when I was a seventeen year old, he
d But you've got to You've got to try to
grab other heroes and mix them up. Otherwise you wind
up writing the same thing over and over again, and
we're about the same person over and over again, and
nobody wants that.
Speaker 1: So then who did you study to make these characters
so authentic? Because were you out of Starbucks? Did you
walk through a Target store? Where were you? Because these
guys look so real.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you think so. And you know, there's a
lot of influences.
Speaker 3: There's no doubt that the main female character, Page is
unquestionably a rip on, and she's a riff on my wife.
There's a more distilled version. Let's go with that one.
The other characters, there's a lot of connections, I think
with there's there's definitely influence with my kids and my
kids friends. But there's also you draw upon your real
world experience. I'm lucky enough that I get to interact
with people all the time, and I will absolutely have
conversations with folks, see what they're doing and be like, oh,
that's a really, really good thing. And you kind of
twisted and manipulated into something that works for a manuscript.
Speaker 1: What are you going to do when something that's in
this book becomes a subject you're going to be talking
about doing your political thing. You're going to I mean,
there's somewhere inside your head you're going to go. You know,
I did some research on this. This is what I
found so handidly.
Speaker 3: There is an overlap with the way that people think
and with the way that some let's say, bolt like
thinking can sometimes overwhelm people's normal political beliefs. And I
want to be careful and respectful of political viewers of
all partisan persuasions at this point, so let's just talk
about this broadly.
Speaker 2: It can get really really easy.
Speaker 3: To be overwhelmed by the way that somebody thinks, or
by what somebody tells you, and it can allow you
to ignore your own facts, to ignore what's in front
of your own mind. And there's really overlap there. And
again that wasn't explicitly what I was a set eighting
out to do, but it wound up becoming an anthem
for this environment in which we live. And you know,
a couple of times in the book I touch on
social media. I have viral kiktoks that are you know,
based on fake news, as the term goes. And that
was intentional because that's the real world, and that's the
way a lot of people, including any adults, get their information.
Speaker 1: Do you find yourself putting together a series of some
sort because every one of these this is three part
because I got that vibe because and I think it's
because I'm a binge watcher, and so therefore I've got
to have more than just a two hour movie. I
better have something here that's gonna give me at least
fifteen episodes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there was this is a three part Yeah.
Book book number twos with the editor. Book three is
an outline stage. I enjoyed this way too much, and
I like as as a writer, like you write for
a lot of reasons.
Speaker 2: I write for my own sanity.
Speaker 3: I write so I can build a world that reminds
me that there could really be a lot of reasons
to be hopeful, which is so hard to find us,
especially now.
Speaker 1: How many books are sitting in that computer that you
haven't even tested out here for the rest of us.
Speaker 2: More more than a few I had I wrote.
Speaker 3: I wrote a sci fi young adult mental health trilogy,
and I only got got the first book, Out the Door,
and there was a lot. That's a complicated story. I
had another book, a young adult book.
Speaker 2: And it's I find myself going, how do.
Speaker 3: I keep writing in adult books? And the answer because
it's kind of a weird saying to an exempt, but
the answer.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of answers.
Speaker 3: I think the primary one that I've settled on is
I think young adult books. I think they are that
period of young adult is a really really interesting moment
because you can explore so much. It's so easy to
question and to find out who you are. But there's
also so many parallels with themes that we still face
as as adults, and I think that that overlap can
make for really interesting stories.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I can just hear the people that
you work with inside that that building of law and
that is they're going to say, you know that Mike,
he's he's in touch with those young voters. We need
to get in to see what what is his studies?
What can we learn from Mike? So I mean, I
I totally see them reaching into your heart.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that would that would that would be lovely if
that's actually the case, and trying to get you know,
you know, what though, Like again, that was kind of
a theme of the book, that you have to care
about the world around you, that the only way we
survive is together, except for a privileged few who have
the resources and the expertise to kind of put themselves
on that'stians Island and go away. That's that's something I
really I don't ever want to lose track of that
in government and in politics.
Speaker 1: Wow, where can people go to find out more about you? Mike?
Because I want him to jump onto this train here.
Speaker 3: I really appreciate that. In my website Mike Schlossburg author
dot com. The book will be out in June, but
I have more information on that and we'll have a
pre order up shortly and take it from there.
Speaker 1: All right, So where can people Is there something that
they can read right now? Because I mean, I realized
June's going to be here in the blink of an eye.
But there's a drive about you that's just saying I
need something now.
Speaker 3: So the first book of my mental health sci fi trilogy,
which is the hell of a combination, but Here we Are,
is absolutely available.
Speaker 2: You can find that on my website as well. Mike P.
Schlosphgalthor dot com.
Speaker 3: You can bite on Kindle to buy it on audible,
or I can shift you a signed copy.
Speaker 1: Listen to you, man, boy, you're really eying that game.
Shake your hand. Here's those babies. Man, You've got that now.
Speaker 2: Really well, look, I'm a politician. I'm really good at
marketing myself.
Speaker 1: Well, you got to come back to this show anytime
in the future. In fact, as you get closer to
that that June date, you got to come back on
here so we can rejuvenate the listeners to get you
to that page.
Speaker 3: I am more than happy to and thank you very
much for having me.
Speaker 2: Thank you everybody who's listening. I'm looking forward to talking
more in the future.
Speaker 1: Will you be brilliant today?
Speaker 2: Okay, mister Mike, likewise, Zaro, thank you, sir,