-The following program is a West Tennessee PBS special presentation made possible through the generous financial support of viewers like you.

Please visit westtnpbs.org and make a donation today so that we can continue to make local programs like this possible.

Thank you.

-He grew up in one of the snowiest cities in the nation where his dad was a snowplow driver, but he dug his way out and found his way here to Tennessee.

He's creating lots of stories.

Coming up next on Tennessee Writes, we're sitting down with author Kevin Del Principe.

We'll find out about his novel, why he now calls Tennessee home and all the other ways he's telling stories.

Don't go away.

-Books about Tennessee.

-Books that come from Tennessee authors.

-Books and stories with a Tennessee twist.

-West Tennessee PBS presents Tennessee Writes.

-Welcome to Tennessee Writes, the show about books with a Tennessee twist.

I'm your host, Peter Noll.

You know how lots of people say they should write a book?

Well, these people actually did it.

Some authors are from Tennessee, others have moved here, but they all have a connection.

Grab a cup of coffee, your favorite comfy chair, as we talk books.

Today, Tennessee Writes welcomes author Kevin Del Principe.

He was raised in Buffalo, New York, but life has brought him here to Tennessee.

In addition to writing books, he's a director, TV and film writer, and podcaster.

He's been a college professor, too.

Please welcome Kevin Del Principe.

Welcome to Tennessee Writes.

Buffalo, New York to Tennessee.

You're in Memphis, Tennessee?

-Yes, sir.

-Tell us, that was a direct route, or there was a few other stops along that travel?

-Yes, nothing about my life has been direct.

I actually came to Memphis by way of living in Los Angeles for about eight and a half years.

Then chose to move to Memphis because that was like the next thing for me in terms of my life, creatively, professionally, and personally.

It has been a good decision.

I've stayed the last-- it's been almost five years .. and I really enjoyed being in Memphis.

-What draw you to Memphis and Tennessee?

-Well, I was really looking for a city that I could be entrepreneurial, that had a reasonable cost of living, great people, good culture.

I'm more on the independent side of art-making and filmmaking.

I really didn't need to be in Los Angeles to continue that aspect of my career.

In fact, my view was that, for me anyways, there was more energy and excitement about being in a place like Memphis and continuing my career.

Despite any like even, personal things I've gone through or any difficulties, there's been that tremendous opportunity to grow in Memphis.

My intuition has been good.

-When you were back as a boy living in Buffalo, New York, with snow drifts, building snow forts, having snow fights, watching your dad plow snow.

If any of my living in Minnesota memories is accurate, they start plowing like at 2:00 in the morning when there's snowstorms coming, correct?

-Yes.

-He would get up.

Did you know that you would be doing this back then?

What did you think you were going to be doing?

-No, I didn't know.

One thing that's funny about my dad-- my dad loves when I mention him on interviews-- is like my dad always say when he saw snow, he would see green because .. My dad was out of the house a lot to make overtime to provide.

My mom worked hard as well.

-School nurse, by the way.

-Shout out to school nurses.

-Yes, my mom was a school nurse.

I guess, in my neighborhood, there weren't a lot of people that did the sort of things that I've ended up doing in my life.

It took a while to figure that out, to figure out what it was that I was supposed to be doing.

Almost like, I guess, I would say a calling.

I was always connected to creativity.

That was always present.

Really a big way in for me was through music.

That's how I started out as really, creatively was like first some like probably lyric writing that then turned into songwriting.

I played in a band when I was young.

One thing I'll just mention was a neat thing that happened.

The guitarist in the band that I grew up playing in when I was young, he ended up becoming the director of photography on my movie Up on the Glass.

we're talking just about 20 years later.

This is this guy, Mark Blaszak.

There was a lot of creativity and people moving in that direction.

It wasn't like there were a lot of people in the neighborhood that I could lean on for this specific type of journey.

It's miraculous in many ways that I've met just the right amount of people to put me on this path and to keep me here.

Then I try my best to do the same for other particularly young people to guide them along their journey so they can feel less isolated.

Especially if they're in an environment where there's not a lot of other artists around and they can feel more like, hey, that they can have a life and a good life.

-A lot of storytellers I found are just looking to tell great stories in whatever medium.

When you look up your IMBD, you're telling lots of stories in different mediums, a book, TV shows you've written, movies.

How did it all come to be?

Did you go, oh, this story would best be told on television, or in film, or in book?

-That's a great question.

I guess I would say this way, it's like as a creative person, it's just I can't not make things and I can't not tell stories.

Then I think it's almost like being like water.

We're just sort of going where the opportunities are.

I don't like to waste time.

I don't want to talk negative about being in LA, but you can be in LA and a lot of LA can be like taking meetings.

Meeting after meeting and trying to network.

I like to create things.

Even when I was in LA, I was writing this book at a kitchen table.

A book on animals writing that at a kitchen table or writing that in a cubicle or in a library as I'm doing college teaching.

Because I always wanted just to actually put my creativity towards something and to be able to share.

I think that mentality is like led me to go on these different paths.

Then as I guess matured as a creator, I've learned how to create my own opportunities, and then not only my own opportunities but now I'm at a place that I'm happy about where I can now create opportunities for others.

I think that's how it all came about to go in these different mediums.

-You taught in LA and you've also been a professor, taught lecture in Memphis.

-Yes, I taught a little bit in Memphis here and there.

I've taught at Rhodes most recently.

I may end up teaching there again, but it's sort of like intermittent.

I wouldn't mind getting more into teaching again because it's such a passion for me.

It really is just about the right opportunity.

Yes, I was teaching in LA at Loyola Marymount University.

It's like a top-10 film school there.

I was also at the same time given the way I am and I was also teaching at Pasadena City Community College and Santa Monica College.

I think that's what it's called for a semester.

I'm always juggling different things.

Even with teaching, I really like being around different sorts of people.

Even the community college stuff, more working-class young people or people, period, and helping out.

I have a passion for that wherever I am.

-Speaking about working class, so I've noticed on your resume that you'll have been a college professor and then also a blue-collar job.

-Right.

-It's sort of a juxtaposition.

Why?

-Yes, for me, it's been this amazing thing because I sort of-- I don't want to say got trapped, but we all have a certain mindset of the person we're trying to be and that we think is like the path for us.

For me, one thing I couldn't understand is being a teacher.

I even taught in high school years ago and I'm being a college teacher, college professor.

That made sense to me because I grew up so blue collar it's a vocation.

There's a salary to it.

It has suited me in many ways.

Prior to that, I was growing up working class, doing working-class jobs.

I got away from that for a long period of time.

Really, it was just a few years ago I worked a job at a-- basically, Simplified was like a podcast company for a year and shorter.

I became senior writer after a few months.

I started out there.

I just say this for people in the grind.

I started out there on a contract basis, almost like independent contractor for hire was the contract.

Then right away because I did a good job became full-time with a set regular salary.

Within six months, I was senior writer.

It's heavy production.

I sort of was getting burnt out, like I'm doing all this work for other people and for this company, it's not to say anything bad about it.

After about a year, I was like, "This is not the life that I want."

I wanted to get back to my creativity, get back to teaching when I could.

Then also, I just had the opportunity to start to go back and do more working-class stuff like blue-collar work.

To be honest, it really helped heal my mind because I had gotten caught up in perfectionism in a way with some of my creativity.

Maybe some of the things that I went through even personally as a coping mechanism, well, if I just couldn't be perfect, then things are going to be okay.

Of course, that's false, that doesn't work for anybody.

When I was able to do more working-class things again and build things and work with other people in that way, I was able to learn that it's all about what works.

Things don't have to be perfect, but does it function, does it suit its purpose?

Then being able to do that over days and days and days, it helped to retrain my mind.

It's not something I still struggle with my creativity at times, but it has been a really big help.

Then the physical aspects are wonderful if you have any sort of anxiety.

If you're working hard physically, it's really kind of nice.

It burns a lot of that off and it gets stronger, not only physically, but mentally.

[music] -Let's dive into I Animal.

This was your first book.

-Yes.

-I don't want to give out any spoilers, so tell us a little bit about it.

-Yes, the simple version is it's about a guy who's living in LA as a writer and he is really compelled to go back to his hometown area outside of Buffalo, New York to care for his mom that's struggling with her health.

That's really the setup where it's like for this character, it's really the last thing in his mind that he would want to do because he was desperate to leave his hometown and to become somebody.

He's mid-aged, maybe is not the person that he hoped to be, and his career is maybe not exactly where he would have wanted it to be, and he has to go back to deal with his mom being sick and her mortality.

We can talk more about the details if you like, but it pushes him ultimately to really grow up as a person.

It's a funny book, like it's very quirky.

It's not, say, super sad or super dark necessarily, -but it's a journey of-- -There's some heavy points in it, though.

-Yes.

-There's some heavy points that deal with depression, that deal with where is my life going, and anxiety.

I think that story, we all know people that are like, "Hey, how did you end up here?"

"Well, one of my parents was sick and I came back to take care of them."

The first thing that always goes through my mind is, "Wow, how nice of you."

-When someone does that.

-Yes, when somebody says, "I moved my life bac.. to care for a parent."

That's what I kept, as I read them, like I just had respect for anyone who does that, that uproots their life or pushes pause on their real life and goes back to take care of an aging parent.

-I think about that, too.

When I even meet people and someone will talk about being concerned about their parents as they're getting older and even have that in the back of their mind.

That they might need to return home to be a caretaker, immediately, in my opinion, I think, "Okay, this is a solid person."

Then the main character in this book, he's willing to do that.

It says something.

Then maybe there's some forgiveness for some.. more difficult aspects of his personality.

-I read the book and then I started researching you and I saw a whole bunch of parallels because I didn't want to research you.

How much of this is based on real-life or maybe different characters, maybe aspects of it, because you lived in LA, you're from Buffalo.

-Yes, that's a great question.

It's always a tough one to answer.

The way I explain it is if someone was trying to read deeply into my .. that would probably be a mistake.

On the other hand, of course, this book is so close to my heart.

I created it and I sort of-- almost like the town next to the town where I grew up in my neighborhood it's like-- the neighborhood that's creating here is like I said, mine, it's like a fictitious version of my neighborhood.

Just as one example, my parents had, I think-- yes, it was a crab apple tree in the front yard for many years.

They don't have that specific tree anymore.

I was imagining where I grew up and then even some of the locations are locations that were very familiar to me.

Then some of the people, I felt very connected to.

I wouldn't be able to talk too much, I guess, about the specifics of all the aspects.

There definitely is a lot of characterizations and also the area that was just very meaningful to me.

-It's funny, it's serious.

How would you describe if you had to put your book in a genre?

-Well, this is sort of the issue of my career, it doesn't fit very well in any one area.

-That's when new genres are created.

-Yes.

It is a literary fiction book.

It has these different elements, but it's a challenge.

This is what I find and I don't mean this in a bragging s.. but I mean this in that when I'm able to produce something that's like ..

I find that a lot of people resonate with it.

It's just that sometimes it might have a hard time fitting into the certain box that then the corporate machine can get behind.

I find just being around people and people that check out something like this it resonates with them, I think.

-After someone reads your book, what do you hope they think?

What do you hope it gives them?

-I've had a question like that before, and I think the answer I still would lean into is I'd like someone to feel less alone.

That it's all normal.

Being a person is terrible.

It's also great.

There's so much suffering that's just part of life.

Then it's like, what do you do with it?

It's really about your response and resiliency.

I've created a character that for all of his issues is pretty resilient.

I would like other people to be able to feel more connected and less alone.

[music] -Kevin, we've come to the part of Tennessee Rights we call the lightning round.

It's where we ask our authors a series of quick book-related questions and see how many you can answer in two minutes.

Do you want to play?

-Yes.

-Okay.

Two minutes on the clock started after I aske..

Favorite book of all time?

-I'm going to go with George Saunders' CivilWarLand in Bad Decline.

-What book are you reading right now?

-What book am I reading?

Well, I'm reading a friend's book, actually, that I'm going to be writing a quote for.

I'll just leave it at that for now.

That's what I'm reading right now.

-What author, living or dead, wo.. to have dinner with?

-I'm going to go Hemingway.

-Paper books or e-books?

-Paper books.

-Who would you want to play the main character in your book if it was made into a movie?

-That's tough.

I'm going to pass on that.

-Favorite place to read books?

-When I have time, it might be cliche, but I like to go to the coffee shop.

If I have like half hour to read, that would be a nice thing.. -How many books are on your nightstand right now?

-I think there might be like a couple, but then I have this bookshelf and then it's very complicated.

-What book took you the longest time to finish reading?

-I'm not sure.

I'm going to pass on that.

-Do you own more paperback books or hardcover books?

-More paperbacks.

-What's your favorite movie based on a book?

-I guess I could go with-- The Talented Mr. Ripley, that's based on a book, right?

Maybe that one.

-Do you prefer fiction or non-fiction books?

-Fiction.

-What's the last audiobook you listened to?

-Gosh, the last one, I'm not sure.

There's this book by Richard Rohr I've been listening to, I forget the name of it, but I guess I'll just leave it at that.

-Name a fellow author you would like to go on a book tour with.

-A fellow author, there's this guy, I think his name is Mike Wilson, he seems like he'd be-- I like his writing, he'd be cool.

-Who did you give a copy of your first published book to?

-Which first person?

-Yes, first person that got a copy.

-Gosh.

I made sure my parents got a copy, that's for sure.

I know they bought a few to hand out though.

-How many pages would the book about your life be?

-I think I would treat it like a poem and just go with like a page.

-What animal best represents your book?

-Well, I think a wolf.

-Two minutes is up, how many did he get?

-You got 14.

-Is that good?

-Yes, that's pretty good.

[music] Kevin, would you do us a favor and do a reading from your book?

I think it's always very powerful when we can hear the author reading the words they created.

-I'd love to.

At this point in the book, the main character Tommy is going to speak to the woman he calls his aunt, and he's going to find something out about their relationship and some of the dynamic that's been going on in his family for many years.

Here it is.

Audrey kisses my cheek and ushers me into her house graciously like a queen from Depew might.

She wears a long garment I've only ever seen Italian grandmothers wear.

Italian women of that age buy these dresses in the plus size section at department stores like Kmart.

The gown's purple and has a floral pattern on its very bottom edge.

I can tell Audrey's ankles are swollen with water.

After Big Sal died, Audrey took up drinking booze.

She sometimes will still refer to Big Sal as her husband because they never officially divorced before he passed on.

The truth is, they would have never divorced, no matter how long you lived, on a matter of principle because they were Catholic.

In a way, I admire that sort of resolve, sticking some institution out when it's utterly absurd, devoid of all prior meaning, and in fact likely detrimental to mental health by that point.

That resolve reminds me a great deal of my marriage to writing.

When Audrey finally gave up boozing a few years back, she began drinking water in its place.

Unfortunately, she drinks so much water her entire body swells up.

"Would you like some water, dear?"

Audrey asks.

I'm horrified.

Not only because I have the suspicion Audrey's organs are swimming in excess water, but because she pours herself a glass from the tap.

"I never drink tap water.

Foo-foo bottled water is my thing.

You have to remember, I'm Los Angeles now, baby.

I also never drink tap water in Depew in particular.

There might be carcinogens in the water from the old factory."

Even though Little Sal and I are second cousins, I always refer to Audrey as my aunt.

"No thanks, Aunt Audrey.

You're looking good."

Audrey pours me a glass of tap water anyway and places it in front of me at the kitchen table.

"I'm not.

You were always a flatterer.

Never had a problem with getting girls like my Sal did."

Sal never married.

Truly, I don't remember Sal ever having a girl..

I never found this weird.

Growing up, it was just a matter of fact.

Sal has always been the kind of guy girls don't like.

He just didn't have that it factor.

Whatever he did have implied a needy void no woman dared to fill.

Audrey's right about me, though.

I've never had a problem attracting women.

Picking the wrong ones and getting rid of them upon discovering their.. are separate issues.

I think women like me on account of my relative good looks and the general distant quality that seeps out of my existential being.

Tall, dark, and distant is catnip to lots of women.

It seems to me if you're partially detached from an incomprehensible, inescapable, tragic reality, it's quite easy to get a woman interested.

Women have historically always wanted to draw me back from my distant fantasy world toward the nearsighted abyss of reality.

I pretended to let some of them because I found them attractive or didn't want to be alone.

Sometimes I even convinced myself I could save them or they could save me.

In special circumstances, I even tried to love them more than myself, and that destroyed us more spectacularly than anything.

Maybe I'm just an asshole.

What went wrong between you and mom?

I already know the answer, but I still feel compelled to ask Aunt Audrey her side of the story by a force some people say is God, and I don't know for sure, but I do know it comes from deep within.

For me, it's usually positioned in my weak stomach, and it burns.

It always burns.

Some people don't have the burning.

Those are the people to avoid because they lack enough instinct to keep themselves and anyone in close proximity alive.

Not only does this sort of person never turn the wheel, they never even see the car coming before the crash.

Aunt Audrey cocks her head sideways for what feels like forever.

I can only imagine she is thinking deeply, and this is her rarely used posture for that activity.

Against my better judgment, I take a sip of water rather than run out of the room screaming to break the tension, "I loved your father."

I practically spit the water out of my mouth.

Then I overcompensate and suck it back down too fast.

I'm choking, and not the no big deal on..

This is the kind of choke if you're by yourself, you're slamming your torso into the end of the table.

I am not by myself, and Aunt Audrey was a cafeteria monitor in her heyday.

[music] -Thanks for sharing from your book.

That scene reminded me of the movie Home for the Holidays, where the daughter goes home to I think it's Baltimore.

A blue collar and sort of that, I've been living on my own and now I'm home again in this place that I was a little boy.

Movies, you've directed movies, you've written movies, TV shows, what's next?

-Well, I just had finished writing another TV show episode, so that's done now and that'll be out.

-What is that TV show about?

-TV show is called Wild West Chronicles, and it's had-- I think this is their fourth season, and each episode looks at a historical figure from the West, and it's been pretty fun to write on this show.

I wrote one for Season 3, and then I helped write another one for Season 4.

-Where can people watch that?

-They can watch that, it's on a cable station called INSP.

-More books?

-Well, I'm working on another novel right now called Skeleton Kings.

-Different genre?

-Yes, it's really, it's a mix of, I would say, some sci-fi and fantasy with some realism.

Again, sort of bending things a little bit.

It's based upon a screenplay that's unproduced, but a screenplay I had written probably about 10 years ago.

Probably 10 years ago, it was a friend of mine that said it should be a book, and I was horrified at the time, because I'm like, "This is a screenplay."

He was right, and I'm really enjoying working on it.

-You have movies that people can get on Amazon Prime.

-I have a movie called Up on the Glass that I co-wrote and I directed and helped produce, so that's something you can-- -What is that movie about?

-That movie, well, it does deal with a blue-collar theme.

It's about a guy named Jack who basically has an opportunity to reconnect to some old college friends that are from, I guess you would say, a higher class, or like they made more money, had more money going into even college.

This is years later where he hasn't done as well.

He was able to go to a college like theirs, like a elite school, but he hasn't been able to achieve success or e..

He goes back, and ultimately, I won't give all the details, but he has an opportunity to basically have the life that he always wanted.

There's a poisonous aspect of this, and there's definitely a moral tale to this movie, and it is quite a dark film in many ways.

-I Animal, is it available on Audible?

-No.

-Or any type -of audiobook company?

-No audiobook.

No audiobook, unfortunately.

-Okay.

Podcasting.

You mentioned earlier that you worked at a podcasting company.

Do you do podcasting?

Can people follow you, listen to you?

-Yes.

I have a podcast of my own called The Good Rascals, and people can check that out wherever they check out their podcasts on Spotify.

-Where can people get your book?

Where do you send them?

When someone's like, "I want your book, where can I get it?"

-Probably the easiest thing is probably throug..

There are certainly other sources, but that probably is the easiest place to get the book.

The podcast, just about that, is still ongoing.

I'll have more episodes out whenever people check it out.

There's even another podcast I'm helping produce called The Guiding, The Guiding Voice Sessions, that a friend of mine, Catherine E. Lewis, that I went to USC with, she's written, and her and I are producing it together, so that should be out as well.

-Where can people stay-- the best place for them to stay in touch with what Kevin Del Principe is up to next?

-I think the easiest thing is if they went to my website, so kevindelprincipe.com.

That's probably the easiest place.

Certainly, I have social media things, but I would say the website is probably the best place to stay up with what I'm at, what I'm really doing creatively.

-Okay.

Great.

Sadly, we've come to the end of this episode.

We're out of time, Kevin, but before you leave, would you mind signing your book for us?

-Yes.

Dear Channel 11, thanks so much for having me.

Always be an animal.