Labors of an Epic Punk by Mark and Sheri Dursin

Labors of an Epic Punk

by Mark and Sheri Dursin

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GENRE: YA Fantasy, Myth Retelling

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BLURB: Mac is an epic punk. No wonder: after his dad went off to fight in the Trojan War and never came back, Mac spent his childhood evading his mom's scumbag suitors—all one-hundred-and-eight of them. Of course, he turned out this way—a moody, friendless sixteen-year-old who blows off work, alienates everyone at school, and pulls pranks. But when he trains a flock of birds to defecate on the headmaster, Mac (short for Telemachus) goes too far. The administrators give him an ultimatum: prove that he's truly the son of Odysseus by doing something heroic—or get out. A school story that just so happens to take place 3,000 years ago, Labors of an Epic Punk is a tale of friendship and transformation, regret and redemption, and a reminder to us all that even heroes need to survive adolescence.

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Excerpt: No one on the field that morning had any idea that all Hades was about to break loose.


Well, one person did.


The stands were over-crammed with students, all chirping away about their summer travels, each one trying to out-fabulous the other. But Mac wasn’t talking to any of them. (No surprise there.)  Instead, he just stared at the empty stage in fist-clenching anticipation. For the entire morning, the entire summer, the entire two years he’d wasted at this gods-forsaken school, he’d been waiting for this moment. His moment of glory, of genius. The moment when he’d finally and irretrievably cross The Line— that hard-to-define boundary between tolerable and intolerable. Between a week of detention and expulsion. All he needed was for Headmaster Gurgus to blow on that shell.


Just when he thought he couldn’t wait any longer without throwing up, Mac heard the band play the opening notes to “Yielding Never,” Pieridian Academy’s absurdly overblown fight song. The Opening Ceremonies were officially underway. From his seat high up in the stands, Mac watched intently as the members of the so-called Grand Procession marched onto Garthymedes Field: the entire faculty and staff, wearing shiny red gowns and smiles full of phony reverence; followed by the honored students, also in ritualistic red, condescendingly waving at the crowd; followed by a grotesque, nine-headed Hydra.


Lastly, waddling ten paces behind the Hydra, in all his roly-poly, four-hundred pound glory, was Headmaster Gurgus.

AUTHOR Bio and Links:  For many years Mark, a high school English teacher, and Sheri, a freelance writer and blogger, wrote independently. No matter the writing project—newspaper articles, retreat talks, college recommendation letters, fan-fiction, blog posts on spirituality or 80s pop songs—they tended to work alone. Separate rooms, separate computers. But raising their twin sons helped them discover an important truth: All Good Things Come in Twos.

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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION:

Mark and Sheri Dursin will be awarding a $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Here is my interview with the authors:

What is your book about?

Our book, Labors of an Epic Punk, is a young adult fantasy set in the time of Greek mythology. It is the story of a sixteen-year-old rebellious loner named Mac (short for Telemachus), who has to undertake a series of missions, not only to keep from getting expelled from school, but to march out of the oppressive shadow of his famous father, Odysseus, who’s been off fighting in the Trojan War. He gets through all of this with the help of four friends, one of whom is Homer, the actual author of the Odyssey (only we’ve re-envisioned him as a teen).  

As my wife Sheri and I like to say, Labors of an Epic Punk is a “coming of age” story that just so happens to take place 3,000 years ago. Think Clash of the Titans meets The Breakfast Club. Yes, we have an adventurous journey with Minotaurs and Oracles and other fantastical creatures. But our characters also do “regular” things, like hanging out at the beach or going to a school dance. These are regular teens, with regular teen problems. Only our teens wear tunics.

Who is your hero/heroine? Is he/she based on someone in real life?

Mac is our protagonist, but he doesn’t start off looking like much of a hero. Instead, he is the “epic punk”—this surly, cocky kid with no friends and no ambition. He’s smart and resourceful—in the opening chapter, Mac pulls this major prank which causes a lot of havoc at his prestigious private school—but he’s definitely going down a dark path. Soon, though, we find out why: his dad Odysseus left to fight in the Trojan War when Mac was only three months old and has never come back. Mac has no idea if he’s alive or dead. And in his dad’s absence, all of these suitors have swarmed in—over a hundred freeloading, opportunistic slimeballs who want to marry Queen Penelope, Mac’s mother.

Of course, we based Mac on the character of Telemachus from The Odyssey. But Homer’s poem is about Odysseus, not Telemachus (who is nineteen when Homer first introduces him). Telemachus has a LOT of missing backstory. So we tried to imagine what it would be like to be this kid—growing up without a dad, trying to exist in a home overrun with these predatory suitors, feeling resentful at the whole world. Sounded to us like a recipe for the perfect “brooding YA hero”!

What are your favorite times for writing? Morning? Evening?

MARK: Basically, my favorite time for writing is whenever there’s time for writing. Sheri and I both have full-time jobs, so we have to fit in our writing when we can.The tricky thing about “fitting in” time to write is that you don’t always have the luxury of figuring out what you want to say in the process of saying it. You can’t just write for three hours, knowing that most of it is going to be unusable drivel, but you might be able to salvage one really good paragraph from the wreckage.  When you don’t have the luxury of time, you kind of have to get right to it.

  

SHERI: I’ve always been a night owl, so when possible, I love to write in the evening. The house gets quiet and peaceful, and inspiration seems to flow better for me. Writing with a partner is interesting because Mark and I have to figure out ways to match our preferences for writing.

Who are your favorite authors? Did they influence your writing, and if so, how?

MARK: I’m a high school English teacher, so I tend to revisit the same core texts every year—which is good and bad. Honestly, some of these texts get old to me. But for others, every time I teach them, I see something new in them. Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby, Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, and Milton’s Paradise Lost are good examples of this. Also, Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. I remember reading that for the first time and actually being mad, because I didn’t feel I could ever match up to her as a writer. I don’t know if any of these authors directly influenced my writing, but they all taught me something about the art of storytelling.

Incidentally: The Odyssey is a core text I teach every year, to my English 9 students. And I’ll be honest—it’s not their favorite thing we read. They love mythology, but they just can’t get behind The Odyssey.  Mostly, the archaic language trips them up. Once we talk about in class, they get turned around on it. But Sheri and I always felt our book could serve as a companion piece to The Odyssey, to help students gain a deeper appreciation for Homer’s original poem.

Did you have a favorite book as a child? Did it influence your choice to become an author?

MARK: I remember really loving Judy Blume’s Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. My mother bought it for me, because I was in 4th grade at the time. Over the next year, I read all of the Judy Blume books: Blubber, Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great, Superfudge, even Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret (which I don’t think I really “got” as an eleven-year-old boy). Now, I can’t say I read Judy Blume and thought, “I want to do THIS one day.”  But looking back, I learned a lot from these books—about voice, about dealing with serious subjects in a non-solemn way, about complex characters. I mean, Sheila Tubman—the narrator of Sheila the Great—is inherently unlikeable, but somehow we root for her. We want to see her change and succeed. And Sheri and I did a similar thing in our book.

SHERI: Some of my favorite childhood books were Anne of Green Gables, The Westing Game, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, The Secret Garden, and Little Women. These are the books that made me fall in love with the world of fiction. I love that feeling of getting lost in a world between the pages. I’ve been an avid reader ever since and that’s what set me on the path to writing.