BROOKS, Fairleigh 1953-

PERSONAL:

Given name is pronounced "Fare-lee;" born November 20, 1953, in Louisville, KY; son of Charles and Anne Brooks; married August 23, 1991; wife's name Lisa; children: Caroline. Ethnicity: "Caucasian." Education: Spalding University, B.S., 1985. Politics: Independent.

ADDRESSES:

Home—1104 Fenley Ave., Louisville, KY 40222. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer.

WRITINGS:

Notes of a Would-Be Astronaut (fiction), Publish-America, 2002.

Author of a monthly column in Louisville Computer News, 1999-2002.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

Tales from Quarter-Acre Lots, a collection of short stories with a common suburban theme; Dylan's Birthday, a novel about a "a counter-culture hanger-on who comes to grips with his lot when suburban sprawl dislocates his idyllic life;" The Eighty-one-Year-Old Hippie, "the story of a boy in about the year 2020 and the erosion of middle-class life;" research on the impact of emerging technologies on existing culture.

SIDELIGHTS:

Fairleigh Brooks told CA: "I write because it is the one pursuit for me that evaporates time, and I write to find out what will happen next. I often don't know what a character will say, or what he or she will do after saying it.

"My writing process is horribly without productivity and would make those who outline scream. But then, what does productivity have to do with creativity? Nothing, I think, or at most very little. I read what I've written and then do it again and again until I reach a saturation point. Then I shove the pages in a drawer, or these days just close an electronic file. A few days later I hit the story fresh. A few days later, whatever was in my subconscious emerges and the changes to make all but pop from the page.

"I long ago discovered the glamor of writing, which is of course none. A room. Solitude craved at the moment yet later reviled. Once paper and pen, but now, somewhat sadly, a screen. I only recently grew up enough to be content with it all."