Interview with Curtis Orloff, author of Streetcar Sandwiches

Title: Streetcar Sandwiches

Author: Curtis Orloff

Publisher: Authorhouse

Genre: Performing Arts/Screenplay

Format: Ebook/Paperback/Hardcover

Streetcar Sandwiches is a screenplay showing the efforts the owner of a sandwich shop in Uptown New Orleans undertakes to keep her business running. Not only does she have to deal with a menagerie of all types of employees, she has to comply with onerous and often conflicting regulations from several government bureaus. How she handles what turns into an ordeal threatens to change her naturally optimistic and pleasant personality. It leads directly to an outcome that could only have occurred in the Big Easy.

PURCHASE HERE

INTERVIEW:

How did you come up with the title for your book?

It was easy to come up with the title of the work.  It is the name of the sandwich shop I owned, right across from Saint Charles trolley track, on South Carrollton street in Uptown, New Orleans.  

What is your writing environment like?

I can, and have, written anywhere but a desk.  I sit at desks only when typing final manuscripts.  Most of this work was written in a local coffee shop not far from my business.  I like the commotion and actually enjoy being interrupted by friends, for awhile anyway.  Creativity is very hard for me. It comes in fits and starts.

What are some of the best tools available to authors today?

The best tools for writers?  A blank sheet of paper and a fine point pen.  Ideas originate and are filtered in your head.  They don’t flow. I have no muse, as can be seen by all my scratch outs and insertions.

What inspires you to write?

Decades ago I found a book by H L Mencken in my parent’s basement.  It changed my life. Just like that I fell in love with the language.  He made it fun following his complex ideas. I can only compare the incident to the first time I heard Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.  Both astonished me that people could create something so thrilling. I always believed in passion. Nothing of consequence has been produced without it.    Today I still love Mozart and have a bin stuffed with manuscripts over a thousand rejections hadn’t deterred me from adding to. I have sent out for publication 69 works, short stories, plays, poems, 8 big thick books, over 30 Op-Eds I tried to get syndicated.  and this screenplay, which three publishers printed as a book . Two of the publishers had gone out of business. The format doesn’t bother me. It is all about content. The ideas presented and the story would be the same however it is presented.     

Did you learn anything while writing this book?

Every work I attempt teaches me lessons.  All are adventures, making me think about things I never thought before and finding common threads.  I feel compassionately about my characters. Afterall, since I create them, I need to represent them as best as I can.  I ensure each character is unique, and if not intriguing, is at least interesting. And, as always, I want the reader to have fun.    

What is your favorite quality about yourself?

My favorite quality? I embrace everyone.  Sure. There are bad people. I am not naïve.  But I think the vast majority just conform to their environment.  My business ran great because all my employees learned to take pride in making it great, and grew to think their coworkers were family.  I like being a coach, help people prosper.