Author and musician Frank Portman will be having a reading at 4:00 PM on Monday, May 4, 2015 at the Lyric Theater, located at 20 E Main Street in Frostburg, MD. This reading is, of course, free and open to the public. Frank Portman, also known as Dr. Frank is not only an author, but he is the singer, songwriter, and guitarist for the California punk band The Mr. T Experience, having released ten studio albums and five EPs. As a solo artist, Portman has released two albums entitled Show Business is my Life and Eight Little Songs. Recently, he had pursued a career in writing young adult fiction. His three novels include King Dork (2006), Andromeda Klein (2009), and King Dork Approximately (2014).

1. As a musician and writer, which art form do you prefer? Which is more rewarding as an artist?

Dr. Frank: Like anything else, they have good points and bad points. Writing is something you can do anywhere as long as you have something to write with and, significantly, never involves getting the cooperation of a drummer, while rock and roll, even with a cooperative drummer, is a complicated affair involving many moving pieces that often go awry. On the other hand, while playing rock and roll is just about the most fun you can have, writing is almost always really really unpleasant, to the point of torture sometimes. Writing a novel is one of those things that is nice to have done. I don’t know which is more rewarding, but it is nice to be able to do both. 

2. Why do you choose to write in the young adult genre?

Dr. Frank: It was proposed to me by an agent, so it wasn’t really a matter of choice. The assignment was, write a young adult novel for me to sell. But I have a great respect and affinity for the tradition of teen fiction, and many of my songs tended to be from a sort of generalized adolescent frame of mind, so writing from the point of view of teenager wasn’t much of a stretch.

3. What about YA novels intrigue you?

Dr. Frank: Adolescence is the point in life where a lot of things important things happen to you for the first time, and these are experiences that leave a mark and cast shadows over the rest of your life. This makes it an excellent, and perhaps the ideal, “frame” for an exploration of the self, or, in the case of my stuff, a satire of such.

4. Being an adult, how are you able to relate to young adult readers? How do you stay fresh and relevant to a teenage audience?

Dr. Frank: It’s not something I spend a lot of time worrying about. I just write the best, most interesting stuff I can manage and try to avoid being trite or dishonest. Above all I try to avoid being condescending. Young readers aren’t quantitatively different from any other kind of readers. And part of respecting them as readers means that you stay away from pandering and patronizing.

5. On stage, do you find it more intimate to play music or read to an audience? Why? 

Dr. Frank: It’s more difficult to be entertaining when you’re just reading (which is why having the guitar is a good crutch.) I don’t find reading my own stuff all that easy or compelling, and though I do do it, I think a little goes a long way. It’s better to integrate it into your general “act.” As for intimacy, the louder you are the less intimate it is, but the greater your chance of charging through uninterrupted, so it’s a trade-off.

 

 

Michael Schussler