We were lucky to catch up with Tim Cummings recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Tim , thanks for joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

My debut novel, ‘Alice The Cat’, was released this past May. I wrote it during my years as an MFA candidate at Antioch University Los Angeles. It’s an exploration of something that happened to me when I was a teenager: my mom died of cancer and after it happened, our family cat tried to commit suicide. A weird, sad experience that I buried for decades. It all got unearthed one fateful day, and an entire coming-of-age novel was born, an adventure about death, grief, anger, friendship, ghosts, the afterlife, and forgiveness. I wrote it rather rebelliously, not hemmed in by the scrutiny of the middle-grade and young adult genres. I never thought it would get published and didn’t really want that either. But it happened because, I guess, I didn’t lie to myself while I was writing it.  My follow-up novel, ‘Thistle-Glass-Snake’ (working title) is an exploration of theatre kids and epilepsy, two energies I know rather intimately. I am overwhelmed by this book…but I don’t want to give anything away!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I find myself at a very intriguing place in my life. My debut novel was released four months ago. It is my life’s dream coming true. I feel everything. Elation, ebullience, pride for achieving the impossible. I also feel vulnerable, and sometimes sad, about my book being in the world, at the mercy of an astounding amount of exposure. These are all normal, healthy feelings, of course. I made a promise to myself when I first booked the deal that I would show up for each and every emotion. That’s what I’m doing. This is where I am. I feel like I have had to take a few steps outside myself, outside my life, in order to be able to do this–to be fully present. I feel like my own shadow, observing, learning, and morphing with the many ways the light casts me in different shapes and sizes.

The book is a Bildungsroman about a 13-year-old girl who has suffered a great loss and then goes on a quest to save her suicidal cat. It explores grief and forgiveness with wacky humor, deep emotion, and adventure. One of my favorite reviews, from The Washington Post, said, “It’s fantasy, it’s mystery, it’s creepy, it’s funny, it’s about grief and friendship and the middle school years. If Neil Gaiman and Tim Burton are your jam, this is your book. Librarians should definitely have this on the shelf!” I loved that the reviewer encompassed so much of the book’s spirit in three sentences!

Shortly after I earned my MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles, I began leading Writing Workshops (at first in my home, then over Zoom after the pandemic began) because I wanted to build community, exchange knowledge, offer a safe, creative space for empaths and literary emissaries, and build a little side hustle for myself. Now, in my fourth year of running these workshops, I have taught 20 of them, and have been hired by UCLA Extension Writers’ Program to teach, as well as The Townies Inc in Ojai. I’ve been coaching privately, offering manuscript consultation, and leading one-off seminars and lectures via varying writers’ organizations in Los Angeles, like the CBW-LA (Children’s Book Writes of Los Angeles).

The other intriguing aspect of all of this is that I spent nearly forty years of my life working as a professional actor. I began when I was a kid, and have worked on over 200 projects across theatre, film, television, dance, voice-over, new media. I’ve traveled the world performing and received over dozen significant awards, including four Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards for my work on the stages of Southern California. And yet, I wanted to evolve as a human and a storyteller, which is why I dove headlong into grad school a few years back and have nary surfaced for air. I don’t know what the future holds. I’m fine with that. I have a second and third novel in the queue, and next week I head up to Lake Arrowhead for a writing retreat, where I aim to finish my fourth novel.

Stories are important to me. Stories are how I have created an identity, and survived, and how we as a species have evolved. There is a tremendously wondrous book called “Wired For Story” by Lisa Cron, and it explores this notion vividly, that our brains respond to stories, and are in fact trained to respond to them. Our physiognomy is literally intermingled with story. I love that.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I have faced an inordinate amount of loss. My mom passed when I was 16 years old, my next eldest brother died from epilepsy when I was 23, my eldest half-sister died of viral infection when I was 30, my dad passed on my 36th birthday, and another of my brothers died suddenly of a heart attack a few years ago. It’s uncomfortable to admit this, to talk about, to put people in the awkward position of having to face this simple truth about life. And while it has been more painful than conveyance allows, it has also suffused my will and passion and heart with a kind of existential fuel to live life as fully as I can. It has helped me shape a substantial, prismatic life, where I aim to be present in every moment, not waste time, help others, be kind, be patient, be creative. I build family as I go through the work I do as a writer, a teacher, an actor, and a coach. Because I have lost almost my entirely family, my subconscious is always busy at work bringing people together. Friends, students, artists. But, isn’t that what it’s all about? In the end?

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Pay them. Bridge the gap.
The inequity is inestimable.
It’s disgusting.
Some artists make billions, while the others–the majority of them, really– can’t pay rent or afford health insurance or ever buy a house or save any money toward retirement.
And that majority is no less talented or deserving, just not as lucky, perhaps. Or not a nepo-baby, anyway.
We need to fix and heal society so that it distributes wealth and opportunity more equitably.

Contact Info:

• Website: timcummings.ink
• Instagram: octospark
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maximumcummings/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@octosparkTC

Image Credits
Main Photo + Photo with dog: Ken Sawyer Photography