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Kitty Kuttlestone back again. I’ve edited out a lot of meaningless drivel from the taped interview, which didn’t leave me with much, but for what it’s worth, here’s more of my conversation with Brockway about HOT DISH.

KITTY: So, you acknowledge that you weren’t real nice to Fawn Creek.

Connie: Kitty. Lis-ten car-ful-ly. Fawn Creek is a fictional town. Populated by fictional characters who are an amalgamation of a type.

KITTY: But you weren’t particularly flattering to them.

CONNIE: Oh fer-- I wasn’t flattering to anyone. No one got off, not the network guys, the station owner, her New York agent, no one. It wasn’t a warm and fuzzy book.

KITTY: Ohhhh. So you’ve got something against warm and fuzzy?

CONNIE: NO! Look, Kitty I enjoy odd, quirky characters that are not always easy to like, ergo you presence in my life. I like dark humor and I like piling on increasingly bizarre plot points and only feel I’ve been successful if I can bring it on home without the reader pausing, scratching her head, and muttering, “That couldn’t really happen.” I want people to go. “As weird as it sounds, I totally buy into this world, these circumstances and I know these people.”

KITTY: You still haven’t told us what you have against warm and fuzzy. Speaking of which, have you ever done Fuzzy Navel shots—?

CONNIE: No. And I’ve been trying to tell you that I like warm and fuzzy fine. It’s just not my nature to look at something sweet and cuddly without suspecting it has teeth and then trying to find them.

KITTY: Okay. You can’t write believable warm and fuzzy so your book is bitter and vindictive. Do I have it right?

CONNIE: No. No. No. Geesh. Look, let me try to explain it this way. My brother (who was a priest) once said something that really resonates with me:  “If only people understood that all our sins are the same and that no one’s thinking up new crap.”

I want to write about people who are imperfect, unreasonable, grudging, yet, when push comes to shove, manage to be better than they know themselves to be. .

Sound of snoring.

CONNIE: Kitty? KITTY?

KITTY: Wha—What? Huh. Oh. Got it. Now let’s talk about sex. That’s a nice hot little scene in the diner and in the fish house.

CONNIE: Thanks, Kitty. Coming from someone with your experience, I’ll take that as a compliment.

KITTY: Don’t get full of yourself. Though Steve Jaax is quite the hero. Sort of a egomaniac, but I like a guy with confidence.

CONNIE: Me, too.

KITTY: So...I heard rumors that you based Steve Jaax on an actor. Who?

CONNIE: I did. But I’m not telling.

KITTY: Fine. Clive Own?

CONNIE: Nope.

KITTY: Toby McGuire?

CONNIE: Please. He’s almost fifty.

KITTY: Toby?

CONNIE: No. Steve.

KITTY: Mel Gibson.

CONNIE: Please. Steve is tall.

KITTY: Donny Osmund.

CONNIE: Enough.

So, that’s it folks. The HOT DISH interview. Brockway never did tell me who Steve Jaax was based on. Maybe some of you would like to take a guess. Whether or not you’ve read the book. Anyone bull’s eyes it, I’ll send them my copy of HOT DISH.