“Look for The Bellwether American to cancel the author’s writing career.” Waikato Times
“Mr. Long’s style is the literary equivalent of visual Dada art: elementary, anonymous, spontaneous, provocative, random, primitive, organic, and biomorphic.” Waikato Times
Excerpt from interview on TikTok:
Can you tell us about your forthcoming work Private Islands? Is it complete or a type of performance art?
It’s real and it will be released when the time is right. Probably mid 2024 at the precipice of a new scare. It’s an extensive book. I’m not here to dissuade readers. Stay tuned!
Any projects beyond that?
I don’t like to discuss what I am working on…but that next book will be my fifteenth novel and it’s about Antarctica, the Bermuda Triangle, DEWs, and an elaborate kidnapping all tied together nicely.
Excerpts from the LANDFALL Journal (Otago University, New Zealand) interview:
Can you go on record here and explain why is it that you don’t do public readings of your book?
In this over-mediated world the last thing we need is to know more about our artists. A little bit less would be more. I mean, when I was a kid we had no idea who these writers were….I mean, was JD Salinger a man or a woman?
Can you give us a peak into the your writing process?
I don’t know what you want me to say but I can tell you that it gets dark, extremely dark at times. I have to decompress after writing sessions so as not to freak out on my family. I don’t fully internalize the main characters but I do pick up on their paranoia and I start to believe I am being followed. Under some kind of electronic surveillance by the FBI or NSA. I don’t have proof but I am still not sure.
If you could say one thing to your detractors what would it be?
You need to understand that I only write Tennison Long novels. That is all I know and want to do. I don’t have time to read other authors. If you want to burn calories trolling me understand you’re wasting your energy.
And lastly, can you explain your popularity here in New Zealand, and relative anonymity in the States?
I think the main part of it is Glorious Verve was tested out on the Kiwi market ahead of anywhere else in the world. And people here like to read edgy stuff (laughing). The Royal Christchurch Reading Society have helped immensely with their book club endorsement. I must thank the founder of The Congregation (the author’s fan club) who was a young Muslim girl who secretly loved my first book Glorious Verve and found me online and we formed a covert friendship as her husband would never have allowed for her to be corresponding with some older male in California, let alone admit to reading what can be considered an anti-Islamic novel.
Her name was Ansi Alibava and she was killed in the Christchurch Mosque Massacre. I will forever be inspired by her bravery.
The author lives in Northern California. He can be reached via fanclub@tennisonlong.com