Logan Terret
Logan Terret grew up in Northern Michigan but has lived in The Southwest for the last twenty years. Formerly the chief software architect for one of America’s largest financial firms, he is now retired and devotes himself to desert wanderings, mystery novels, international travel, machine learning, dog walking, and other pursuits. He is an inventor and licensed attorney. He lives in Phoenix, Arizona.
Are there particular films that have influenced your writing?
I am a visual person, and many films have influenced me. In Agates are Forever, Nick Cameron specifically mentions The Treasure of the Sierra Madre:
“That’s how gold ore usually is, even when it’s very rich. People think it looks like those gold-encrusted quartz specimens you see at rock shows. To most people, it just looks like a rock. Remember that scene in Treasure of the Sierra Madre where the old fart is jumping up and down, telling them they’re dumber than the dumbest jackass because they don’t even see the riches they’re standing on?”
“I remember it well. But he’s not jumping up and down, he’s doing a jig. Do they teach you to do that in the geosciences department?”
“It’s an interdisciplinary program. Geosciences and performing arts.”
Is there a genre of music that influences your writing/thinking?
I like all kinds of music, from Gypsy Punk to Highland Pipes and Drums. But the inspirational music for Agates Are Forever comes from Ennio Morricone. Morricone described music as “"energy, space, and time.” His desert music, particularly the soundtrack from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, captures limitless space better than any other music I have heard. And limitless space is the soul of the desert.
But I don’t listen to music while writing. I find it distracting. For me, silence is best.
What’s the oddest thing a reader has ever asked you?
“Why the diverse characters?” Because the United States is a diverse country, and I base my characters loosely on the people I have known, that’s why. This approach also avoids stereotypes, because individuals always diverge in many ways from averages for the racial, ethnic, or gender groups to which they belong. I have a Mexican son-in-law, a Laotian daughter-in-law, and a Jewish daughter-in law. If I wrote a novel with only White characters, it would be false to my life experience.
Have you ever experienced Imposter Syndrome?
Sure, but I quickly realized how silly it is.
Feeling guilty for having received more than you think you deserve? To quote Clint Eastwood, “Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it.” It’s not your fault if you were in the right place at the right time and somebody else wasn’t.
Feeling like a fraud because people think you have more knowledge and skill than you really do? It’s not your problem. You never told them you were a wizard, right? They came up with that idea on their own. Accept your role, ham it up, and move on.
Do you speak a second language?
Americans will say they know a language if they can handle “Où sont les toilettes?” I can’t claim true conversational fluency for complex subjects in any language other than English. I studied Spanish in high school. I studied Latin in college. Formerly I could carry on simple conversations in Italian, though I’ve forgotten most of that. I’m probably at the CEFR level A2 in French.
Do you think differently in that language? I thought differently in Latin because it is primarily a subject-object-verb language, but with fairly free word order. It is an inflected language with five declensions and seven cases, similar to conservative Indo European languages like Lithuanian and the Slavic languages. Very unlike English.
Does it influence your writing? Yes, and I think it’s helpful. I don’t think you truly understand you native language until you learn another.
