http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_OZ2zdMj4s

Hosted By: Andrew Wice
When: Tuesday Oct 21, 2008
at 6:00 PM
Where Collected Works Bookstore
208 W. San Francisco St.
Santa Fe, New Mexico|32 87010
United States
Description:
Andrew Wice

Click Here To View Event

On July 2, the Santa Fe Reporter published the following article about me and my novel. The online version is also available -- there's a picture of me!

Performing Arts / Books
Drunk With Power
By Charlotte Jusinksi

Published: July 2, 2008

A story of insatiable thirst and a Western water war.

US forces in Afghanistan are having a hard time doing just about anything they set out to do. This isn't necessarily a testament to the competency of the soldiers or their leaders—it is simply because they are Americans in Afghanistan. The terrain is harsh and unforgiving. Americans searching for rebels in the Sanglakh mountains could be a lot like…say…Texans hunting for rebels in the Cerrillos Hills.

The aesthetic similarities between the Afghan borderlands and the New Mexican badlands is not lost on novelist Andrew Wice.

"You see pictures on TV of Afghan soldiers standing on a ridge just like that one," he says as he gestures up to the hill rising behind the Old Coal Mine Museum in Madrid, NM. "And that got me thinking: If anyone were to invade New Mexico, it would be over water, and the invader would be Texas."

This scenario is the basis of Wice's To The Last Drop, a novel set in the near future when water is $7 a bottle and restaurants are forced to close due to lack of sanitation.

The story is narrated by a spectrum of desperate, hesitantly heroic men. Eddie Brown, an often-stoned biologist, discovers water deep under the desert by Hobbs. Once New Mexico starts pumping up that agua, it pisses off Texas State Guard Commanding General US Armstrong, whose advisers tell him that the water does, in fact, flow underground from Texas to New Mexico—and thus belongs to Texas.

All hell breaks loose when renegade drunken half-breed and New Mexican patriot Billy Ortiz knocks down some power lines at a Texas pump station. Texas State Guard good ol' boy Taylor John Bridges, between fantasies about facefuls of poon and pow-pow-pow, busts up a New Mexico State Defense Guard water truck in retaliation.

With the National Guard (still) caught up in the Middle East, Armstrong and his men take it upon themselves to invade New Mexico. They quickly take control of the world's largest cache of nuclear weapons. From there they seize control of city after city until they hit the Colorado border.

Fighting back, Oritz teams up with the gnarly Diablos biker gang and they have some pow-pow-pow of their own. Brown, along with radical lesbians Lilah and Joanna, commandeer a pirate radio station and spearhead a rebel group. As the tragic-comic story unfolds, allegiances are formed and broken, towns are leveled and shantytowns built, and all along the reader is left to wonder, "Wait…what?"

As I neared the end of To The Last Drop, I flipped back to the beginning to try to pinpoint the catastrophic event that set off this civil war. Did I miss something?

"No," Wice says when I ask him about the moment. "I didn't want there to be a big event, a USS Maine or anything in this story."

Indeed, this is often how wars like these come up; someone pops Ferdinand and Isabella, or Saddam Hussein gives the stars and bars a dirty look, and suddenly folks are hurling grenades.

The testosterone-fueled insanity that grips the territory of New Texas spawns a sublimely offensive nickname for the New Mexican insurgency: the "Tortilla Terrorists." Never mind that the majority of the New Mexican rebels are white. Familiarly, if they are "terrorists," they must have dark skin, and vice versa.

There are many nudges, as well as all-out jabs, at the United States' occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.

I just had to ask, "Is this novel a satire?"

Wice shakes his head, a darkly amused smile on his face. "This government is beyond being able to satire," he says. "It's just so over-the-top, all we can do now is ridicule."

The federal government isn't the only one in the spotlight here; New Mexico is just as guilty. "We just keep building more golf courses and more people keep moving here, and there's no foresight," Wice laments.

Is To The Last Drop a prophecy? A foreshadowing? A carefully calculated answer to the equation we're still writing with each gallon down the drain?

Wice finishes his iced coffee—a drink that is 98 percent water—in Madrid, a town whose pipes carry gray, non-potable H2O. Revelers at the gypsy fest down the street kick up clouds of dust next to a bone-dry arroyo. Rocky hills rise up around Madrid, closing in on thirsty people and dripping taps smelling of sulfur.


© Copyright 2000–2007 by the Santa Fe Reporter

Here are highlights of my interview published on Associated Content, conducted by Alexis Cairns. The complete interview may be found here.

To The Last Drop imagines a present-day war over water rights between Texas and New Mexico. The Texas State Guard invades and occupies New Mexico and provokes an increasingly violent New Mexican insurgency. How did that idea come about?

I live in a former coal-mining town in New Mexico, and the diminished quantity and quality of water confronts me every day. Quantity, because it's the high desert near Santa Fe which has an enormous demand for a very limited supply. Quality, because the water is contaminated with heavy metals, coal, sulfur gas-it reeks of rotten eggs and isn't fit for drinking.

That pointed me toward the importance of water. The war aspect was inspired by the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. In watching the footage of our soldiers, I was struck by how similar Afghanistan's mountainous terrain is to New Mexico's. It certainly looked like a place where the defender has an enormous advantage, and I imagined that New Mexicans would fight with the same tactics as the mujahideen.

So I had the primacy of water in one hand and the imagery of a dirty guerilla war in the other. I simply made mud.

What did your preparation for writing the book involve?

I prepared for the book by grinding out nine months of research before I started the first draft. I continued to do research while I was writing, as gaping holes in my knowledge opened up.

My main areas of research were water rights, hydrology, biology, military history and theory, Southwest history, Afghani history and some computer science. My knowledge had to quickly broaden; limits of my time are responsible for the shallowness of my understanding. To protect me from my ignorance, expert readers helped me out enormously, particularly in the legal and military areas.

The great majority of my research was done at the Santa Fe Public Library, supplemented by the internet. My research time included more immediately pleasurable activities such as inventing characters and shooting guns.

Shooting guns?

Shooting guns, indeed. New Mexico, like most of the Western states, embraces the Second Amendment. It's a well-armed populace with a fair distrust of government. That would contribute to this territory being difficult to occupy-just like Afghanistan.

So as part of my research, I got the feel of the guns I had to write about. I'm not a gun-blazing man by nature.

You are a published haiku poet. When and how did your interest in haiku develop?

J. D. Salinger introduced me to haiku in his brilliant Seymour: An Introduction when I was in high school. Investigating, I came across a haiku that made me see and feel poetry so clearly and powerfully. Nothing in literature had ever done that before. It was this poem, by Basho:

So cold are the waves
the rocking gull can scarcely
fold itself to sleep

It hit me with great force. Nothing extra, nothing missing, and absolutely true and sincere. I've been writing haiku for many years now, trying to abide. Here's one I wrote last year visiting my little brother in Japan:

Some unnamed scent,
some unseen bird's song
haunt this cool green bamboo forest

Tomorrow is the biggest event in my writing career. I'll be reading from my book from 7-8 pm at the Mineshaft Tavern. Everything has come together very well and I think it will be a great night. Nonetheless, I'll probably need a wee little nip of courage before I hit the stage. I've never read before a large live audience before. I hope too many people aren't out on the porch smoking while I'm doing my thing.

Great local press and enthusiastic boosters have grooved a nice fastball over the plate. I just need to crush it.

After a long time alone in the bottom of the well, one of my novels is being published today. An entirely different world has finally opened up to me. It is subtle, but I am different.

My book release party is tonight (4/21) at the Mineshaft Tavern from 6-9. I hope that I sell out my supply. The novel is available on Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble. There is a direct link from my novel's website Tothelastdrop.com.

In the course of my career I have experienced great faith, great doubt and great endurance. And if just one person reads my book ... I'm going to have a lot of extra books.

I am looking for reviews, whether feature articles, freelance pieces or Amazon/B&N.com. There is no question my book will need help to become known. I need you, gentle reader. I need you.

I finished my first novel twelve years ago. I have been trying to get published since then, collecting around two hundred rejections for my six novels.

My novel To The Last Drop will be published on April 21st. I certainly hope that this is the beginning of a long writing career. Everything I endured is about to be justified.

And yet, I’m unsettled. Because my publisher is so small, I’ve been working on promotions and scheduling book readings. Together with re-vamping my novel’s website, these tasks have kept me busy. Tomorrow I’ll be attending the New Mexico Filmmaker’s Conference, trying to pitch the screenplay adaptation of To The Last Drop. All this is assuredly necessary, but it feels awful.

The business side of writing is new to me, and bold self-promotion isn’t among my few strengths. It all seems so insincere. And it’s tedious. Lord, it is tedious.

There’s more to my uneasiness. It is difficult to admit, but I am nervous. I am worried that no bookstores will carry my book, I am frightened that no one will review my book, I am anxious that no one will even know that my book has been published.

This is probably a natural way to be, but it’s such an alien strain of stress that sometimes I find there’s nothing I can do but listen to The Who’s Live At Leeds at toothache volume.

I want to be writing. I’ve only been able to chip away at my new novel, The Object: a love story. I need to dive into my writing and stay immersed. Eight hours of writing, six days a week ... that would cure me. But I can’t right now, my published book needs me. And so I’ll grind on a bit longer.

"The true conqueror is he who is not conquered by the multitude of the small." -- Chuang Tzu

UPDATE: The conference went well, and I fumbled my way through a couple pitches. I met a director and producer. It could take years of this to ever get a bite on the screenplay. Ad Astra per Aspera.

I can inform my friends (et al) that my novel To the Last Drop has been accepted for publication. After 11 years & 6 novels & 150+ rejections, the door has finally been cracked open just a wee bit.

The novel is about a war over water between Texas and New Mexico, set in the present day. In the story, Texas invades New Mexico and occupies it for its trickle of water. An insurgency grows in the oppressed territory of "New Texas" and it's all brilliantly executed. If you're interested in learning more about the book, please find your way to: this link

My novel will be published within the next 12 months by the press wing of a research institute in Boulder, CO called BAUU. They mostly publish hard science, social science, native american anthropology etc but, in their well-educated wisdom, they've decided to take a chance on my novel: "We believe that the book has merit and the topic is inventive and pertinent to today's times ... we are excited about working with you and bringing this book into production."

That sure beats the hell out of the form letters that begin "Dear Author," I must say. So pucker up, buttercup, I just wanted to give you one last kiss before I forget all about you and start driving to them fancy parties in my solid-gold yacht.

Promotional stickers for my new novel TO THE LAST DROP are now available for free.
Send me a message and I will send you stickers. What fun!
You can see an image of the sticker in my pictures or below the "About Me" crap

I finished the 2nd draft of TO THE LAST DROP tonight. This means that is now ready for my first readers to see what it is I've got. I have two legal experts, two hydrological experts, one military expert and two experienced 2nd draft readers. This week I will be sending them copies and beginning the 3rd draft. I am still on track to have this big monster (440 pages and ready for the cruel scalpel) going out to lucky publishers by the end of the summer.