AUTHOR PROFILE
Dan Nielsen is old. Early influences include Howdy Doody and Hopalong Cassidy. Raised above a Polish meat market, he fed apples to the horse that pulled the wagon driven by the farmer who delivered the vegetables. Educated by Polish nuns who barely spoke English, Dan taught himself to read and write. Dan likes to read. He’s pretty good at writing. Dan lives with his girlfriend Georgia in a house in Wisconsin a few blocks from Lake Michigan. He’s happy.
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Dan's work appeared in Pond 53
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Why do you write?
I write for fortune and fame. So far so good.
What other creative activities are you involved in?
I’m in a band with my girlfriend. We’re Sugar Whiskey. Please listen to us on Spotify. Sugar Whiskey on Spotify Say sometime nice about us and we’ll send you a free CD, or maybe a thousand dollars.
Who is your favorite author and why?
Don DeLillo is my favorite author because he wrote my favorite book. It’s called White Noise. If you haven’t read it, you should.
Tell us about the mechanics of how you write.
I think in jokes. It begins with an operative word or phrase. The point is to purposefully misinterpret the obvious. Operative word: jelly. I like jelly. Favorites: grape, cherry, strawberry. What else? Petroleum! “My least favorite flavor of jelly is petroleum.” I use that joke in every show and it always gets a laugh. I try to fit my jokes into FLASH. It seldom works. But sometimes it does. Dan's website That’s my website. Everyone has one. You might have one without even knowing it. Mine is mostly stories and art. If you look at my website, I’ll look at yours.
Finally, what do you think about Carp, the fish, not our website?
Lake Michigan carp are the size of atomic submarines.