P.S. “Pat “Conway, Poet-Episode #395

My guest today, P.S. “Pat “Conway has published more than 50 poems across four online journals and 16 poetry anthologies. Two of those anthologies have been Amazon Best Sellers.

Pat released his first poetry collection, Echoes Lost in Stars, in March 2024. To date, it’s garnered significant critical acclaim. In 2025, Pat released Life Sucks: Memories and Introspections During the Great Covid Lockdown, a compilation of satirical essays written during the pandemic.

I’ve read Life Sucks and can tell you it’s a witty, acerbic, wry look at life and its many foibles as viewed through Pat Conway’s unique lens on the world. If you like satire written with tongue firmly placed in cheek, I highly recommend Life Sucks to you.

A two-time Pushcart Nominee, Pat also has served as the 2024-25 Poet-in-Residence for the online literary journal, The Fictional Café. He finds fascination in words birthed from dark, literate, and emotive places.

Episode Transcript

Steve Cu (00:00):
On today's Story Beat.

(00:01):
Yeah, I think stick to your true voice. Right? Isee a lot of people trying to be. I mean, I love
George R.R. martin as a writer, but even it's alittle bit too much on the nose to be, you know,
JRR Tolkien. There's a lot of writers who want tobe Stephen King that lack the authenticity. To me
is just maintain your authentic voice. Peopledon't need near similars. People need original
today. You know, I've heard this kind of before,but give me something new. Give me something

(00:25):
interesting.
This is Story Beat with Steve Cuden, A podcast forthe creative mind. Story Beat explores how masters
of creativity develop and produce brilliant worksthat people everywhere love and admire. So join us
as we discover how talented creators find successin the worlds of imagination and entertainment.

(00:51):
Here now is your host, Steve Cuden.
Thanks for joining us on Story Beat. We're comingto you from the steel City, Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. My guest today, P.S. pat Conway haspublished more than 50 poems across four online
journals and 16 poetry anthologies. Two of thoseanthologies have been Amazon Best Sellers. Pat

(01:16):
released his first poetry collection, Echoes Lostin Stars, in March 2024. To date, it's garnered
significant critical acclaim. In 2025, Patreleased Life Memories and Introspections during
the Great COVID Lockdown, a compilation ofsatirical essays written during the Pandemic. I've
read Life Sucks and can tell you it's a witty,acerbic, wry look at life and its many foibles as

(01:42):
viewed through Pat Conway's unique lens on theworld. If you like satire written with tongue
firmly placed in cheek, I highly recommend LifeSucks to youo. A, uh, two time pushcart nominee,
Pat also served as the 202425 poet in residencefor the online literary journal the Fictional
Cafe. He finds fascination in words birthed fromdark, literate and emotive places. You can find

(02:07):
more about pat [e-mail] and poetry byps.com so, for all those reasons and many more,
I'm deeply honored to have the poet and authorP.S. pat Conway join me today. Pat, welcome to
Story Beat.
Oh, uh, thanks, Steve, for having me. I appreciateit.
It's, uh, my great pleasure. Trust that. So, let'sgo back in time a little bit. How old were you

(02:30):
when you realized that you liked words and poetryand writing?
I mean, we can go back to 7 or 8 years old. I, uh,co authored a book with my aunt called OG Son of
Fire, and it was about a little flame who grew uptrying to be a fire. And he called, couldn't get
there fast enough. And we sent it into macmillanPublishing and got a rejection letter really

(02:51):
quick. It was really, really a good opportunity tolearn something at 7.
But this was your 8? Or 7 or 8.

PS Conway (02:57):
Yep.

Steve (02:58):
Wow. Was this your idea?
It was, yeah. My aunt was, uh, a bit of a closetartist, so she designed some sketches. So we made
a kind of a picture book out of it. And I wrotethe words from, you know, seven years old.
You've been creating stories and using words andlanguage your whole life then. I mean, it's been
something that you've done.

PS Conway (03:15):
Oh, for sure.
And. And were you a big reader as a kid?
I was, um, I. My first book, I remember vividlywas the Hobbit in fourth grade. It was a reading
assignment at the time, but I got into fantasyand, uh, sci fi really young, so was a avid reader
of literate sci fi. And, like, I really got intoASMoV and like, the big names in the space.

(03:38):
Tolkien, obviously. I read everything Tolkien'sever done probably 20 times. But for me, yeah, I
was a rabid reader when I was younger, for sure.
It's fascinating to me that when you think aboutTolkien, he's about as poetic a novelist as there
ever been.
He's a lyricist. I mean, what he writes isabsolutely beautiful. I think of his connection to

(03:59):
nature particularly, which feeds, I think,probably some of my poetry to some degree. He was
truly an early environmentalist before there wassuch a thing, I think, and a naturalist that had
been around a long time. But really his commitmentto the environment in that post World War I kind
of Europe and what was coming out from behind itwas absolutely incredible. World War I and World
War II.

(04:19):
Truly true. And you get people like Vonnegut thatcame out of that era, these extraordinary writers.
Um, did you study writing in school?
There's always a story, right? Um, so I was a premed when I started college.
Naturally. Naturally, a pre med becomes a poet.
Of course, I went to. I had a full academicscholarship to University of Rochester. Um,

(04:40):
decided I liked rugby and joining a fraternity anda lot of fun things along the way. That
disappeared the scholarship. So my dad, basically,I got my first day in an English class and I said,
okay, I could write, I'd like to read, I like towrite. I might as well be an English major. And
transferred, uh, schools and eventually became anEnglish major. So I did read and write basically
through the back half of college.
And were you studying poetry at that time?

(05:02):
I don't know. Poetry was always something I Didfor me, but I never had really any. No. I mean,
the honest answer is no. I had a poetry professorwho, who was the ultimate hippie in college. I
love this guy. And he got us reading all kinds ofavant, uh, garde poetry, like really bleeding edge
stuff. And I really was fascinated by it. So. But,but for me it was always private. Poetry was never

(05:25):
to share. Poetry was my uber nerd coming out inevery possible way for myself.
And who did you study in the poets? How did youeven get into it in the first place? And then who
did you admire?
Yeah, I mean, at the time we started this class.
Now this is not avant garde, but WB8's uh, for mewas a huge influence on my writing. Uh, my
family's of Irish descent. I mean, so we were,we've grown up fascinated and, and kind of

(05:50):
addicted to Irish heritage, Irish culture, Irisheverything. And so Yates for me was fun,
fundamental in that we did, I mean, the reallypush to the bleeding edge of Ginsburg at the end
of this course, and some of Ellen Ginsberg's morekind of homoerotic poetry. And it was, I mean, it
blew my mind. I'd never read anything like thatbefore, shockingly. And it was, it opened my eyes,

(06:13):
opened my mind, I think in ways that probablycouldn't have without being exposed to it. Um, so
yeah, we went from Yates to Ginsburg in asemester. I mean, it was a trip.
That's a big stretch. You know, I think poetryover time, clearly, it's maybe the oldest of the
literary, uh, arts, uh, going all the way back tothe beginning of time. But I think it has lost a

(06:35):
little bit of its luster in the last, say, 40 or50 years. Where it used to be that you would find
poets on TV and you know, they were lauded allover the place, not so much anymore. What do you
think has happened there?
I thought, well, you know, I blame the Internetfor everything. So I think at the end of the day,
I think social media has really taken over ourworld. Um, and I'm guilty as charged for it too.
Every morning I get up and there's a word promptand I'll write a poem on my Twitter feed, or X

(06:59):
feed, whatever it's called now, and share itaround all my social medias. So, I mean, I do that
on a daily basis just to, I don't know, it's like
30 you're up and what else will you do besideswrite? But I really do think the intelligent
poetry that like took T.S. eliot type poetry,right, get your modernist and Your postmodernist
that came in and their work was so deep and hardthat I actually believe we've kind of dumbed

(07:24):
ourselves down as a culture a little bit. And nowwe want to read, like, sound bites, as though they
have depth to them. And I feel something's lost inthat.
Of all the literary arts, it's the one thatchallenges people the most. Maybe Shakespeare is
also extremely challenging, also poetry. But, uh,you know, you get to an EE Cummings, and that gets
very challenging all by itself. But that's quitesome time ago. You get to Ogden Nash, and it's

(07:48):
pure delight. But there are very few, if any, whatI would call famous in the Zeitgeist poets right
this minute.
Agreed. Um, you know, I think Eloise Gluck isprobably one of my favorites that's in the
Zeitgeist right now that, like, I. I see somesimilarities in my writing to hers. I. I see a lot
of what I've come to term is like, literary ordomestic realism. Like this sense of, like, uh,

(08:13):
when you read, like, big journals now, right, youlead Agni or you read Paris Review or. Or poetry,
you tend to see these poems about the handle of acup of. And somehow finding this profound meaning
in the split of the handle of a cup. And it's. Idon't know. M. I was raised on the. More, um, what
I would call traditional poetry. Uh, that reallystill speaks to my ear, that lyric poetry.

(08:36):
Well, there's a principle in storytelling thatI've taught over time in terms of screenwriting,
but it applies to almost all kind of writing. Andthat is this, uh, the principle of habituation,
that as people get habituated to certain genres orstyles or violence or sex or whatever it is that
they're seeing lots of in their world, therebecomes a tendency over time where they need to

(08:58):
push the envelope further. So I think what you'realluding to there is that poetry was this kind of
traditional way of saying things, and people gotmaybe burnt out on it or tired of it, and they
started to go to these little tiny niches. That'swhat you're talking about, right?
It's exactly. Exactly right. It's. It. People. Youknow, we all have our tribes. I find that now that

(09:21):
tribalism is a really big thing online too, wherepeople love to go where they're heard or. And. Or
seen. And I think that, you know, um, I don'tvalue that personally that much, but I guess from
an ego standpoint, it's always nice when you get acommunity of people reacting to what you've
written to. So.
So obviously you've written and published bothpoetry and prosecution. Do you have a preference?

(09:43):
And you say you write poetry every day. Are youmore. Do you think of yourself more as a poet than
a, than a prose writer or are you everything?
It's a great question. Um, I probably identifypoet first. Mhm. Uh, it's what I, I mean, it is.
I've got three works in progress right now, youknow, that are, that are getting shopped for a
publisher and all poetry. All poetry, yeah. One'spoetic prose. I mean, one's kind of a story. I

(10:08):
lost a friend in high school. And it's kind of thestory that builds up to that. So it's poetry and
prose together. And talk about a niche audience.
Who's the audience buying that book?
Well, the question is, who's buying anythinganymore? I mean, there are 50, 60, 70,000 books a
year published and very few authors are actuallyselling enough books to sustain themselves. It's

(10:29):
very, very difficult right now, and especiallywith all these many distractions like the Internet
and other things. Have you been a journaler? Doyou keep a journal? Is that how you remember all
these things?
Uh, yes. Now, historically, no. I mean, I had astint from college until I was 50, almost where I
barely wrote a thing. I, I didn't journal. I wasvery career focused. I kind of almost gave up art

(10:51):
to a degree.

St (10:52):
What brought you back to it?
COVID lockdown brought me back.
The COVID lockdown brought you back.

PS Conway (10:57):
Isn't that crazy?
Yeah, no, you, you. It was something that occupiedthe time that was no longer occupied by your
occupation.
Yeah, I, I went to work for a startup company thatwe, um, we were not ready for COVID lockdown. And
so we were probably working 10, 12, 15 hours aweek on an average week. And so the mind wanders,
the mind has time and all of a sudden, you know.

(11:17):
And I was angry at the world at that point in timetoo. I was angry at politics. I was angry. You
could see it in the book, right? I mean it's.
Oh, oh, yes, there's plenty of anger in the book.
We'll talk about that in a moment.
It's acerbic, uh, I think is how you opened it.
And I think that's probably a really good, uh,word for it. So it was done as a lark. I had, I

(11:39):
don't know, by the end of it, probably about 5,000people following this weekly blog that were
friends and family, then extensions of friends andfamily that were all middle aged Kind of people
that got the referential humor, the Dennis Millertype humor where you're making a lot of pop
references in between. And it was a lot of funbecause I got a lot of positive feedback, at least
in the beginning. Towards the end, as it got morepolitical. It definitely turned some people off.

(12:01):
Well, that's the state of our. Our state at themoment, that's for sure. So how does writing
fulfill you?
It. Well, since 2020, for sure. What I. What I. Ialways had this kind of. I always called it my
skeleton closet. And there was just. I kept itlocked for all those years because there are all
those crazy ideas bouncing it. You always felt itas. There's always there, that undercurrent. A

(12:22):
couple beers would loosen that up once in a while.
And so I always knew it was there. But when Iopened it, I didn't realize how big the closet had
gotten it done. It's kind of like a Narnia closetalmost to a degree where it just endless and
endless heading back. And um. It fulfills me nowbecause the urgency of it. I have to write. I wake
up at three in the morning and I have to write. Iam in the middle of a meeting at work and I cancel

(12:45):
my next meeting so I can write. I mean, hopefullymy boss isn't watching this, but. But I mean
there's some realities of that that the momentstrikes and it's fresh still. Five years later,
six years later, it's still very fresh and eager.
I don't know how else to describe it. There's aneagerness that needs to be expressed. And I think
it's all that pen up years I didn't write.
Your yearning has turned into burning.

(13:07):
Oh, I like that.
Yeah, that's how that works. I mean that. And thatdoes happen. And there's no rhyme or reason as to
when that will happen in a person's life. It couldhappen to you at 6 years old. It could happen to
you at 70 years old. There's no rhyme or reason toit. And if you're able to answer that call, it's
usually a pretty good thing because even if itgoes nowhere, it fulfills you.

(13:28):
Oh yeah. My. I have a one word document that'severything I've written since 2020. And it's like
1700 pages long now of poetry. It is. There's so.
And it's. And it's still every morning fresh. It'sstill knock on wood. I know writer's block's
coming at some point, but I've been fortunateenough to, uh, not experience.

Ste (13:45):
Don't, don't jinx yourself.
I know. I feel like Kai basket on that one.
All right, so let's talk for a little bit aboutLife Sucks, uh, which is, uh, the title itself
tells you many things. Just those two words. Whatinspired you? Was it just the COVID lockdown that
inspired that title and why you wanted to writeit?
Yeah, the idea came to me about literary comedicnihilism. It was this kind of phrase I came up

(14:07):
with in my head. Ah, LCN was. And it was like atagline. I used to market it all the time on
Twitter and build a pretty good following at onepoint on that. But the idea was that I did have a
well read background. I love literature. I mean,my library at home is just full of great books
that most people would call it classic literature.
I wanted to use that in a way to have socialcommentary. So I wanted to give some, some, you

(14:30):
know, academic review of Troilus, uh, and Cressidaor something ridiculous, but then tie that theme
into some social commentary that's outrageous.
Like completely unhinged from the academic pieceof it. So I called that literary comedic nihilism.
Because, you know, you read it, you read it anduh, you basically forget about it when it's all

(14:52):
done because nothing really matters anyway. So.
Thus the name of the book too. Life Sucks.
Well, you. I'm going to quote something here. It'sa nice little chunk of quotes, so hang with me for
a moment. You wrote, and I quote, I created acharacter, P.S. conway, a pseudo me, an
amalgamation of me, a, uh, not me, and an alphaasshole who is christened Pygmalion Shitake, aka

(15:14):
Pig Shit, aka P.S. conway. This is where thenihilism comes into play. Some readers took what
they read at face value. This created a perceptionthat, that this character was me speaking my
opinions, the real P.S. not the character P.S.
geez, when I put it that way, how could there haveever been any confusion? Okay, so my question is

(15:34):
how much of the book is actually youautobiographical and how much of it is totally
fiction?
So you know what's interesting is I think the partthat the book where I've gotten the comments from
readers that I love is the self deprecation. Someof the things where I'm actually being pretty
personal in the book and sharing parts of my lifeabout ulcerative colitis would be a great example.

(15:55):
I love to joke about colonoscopies and there's awhole couple sections of the book on just, you
know, poop humor through Those. It was. It was ajuvenile way of getting poop jokes out there into
the world.

Steve Cuden (16:05):
Indeed.
It worked. Um, so I would say the parts that,like, speak to my family, speak to me and my
personal health condition, the things that are,like, outrageous are like, 10 reasons I'm better
than you or like, different things, differentsections of the book that are so over the top and
are meant to be. Like Jonathan Swift on acid. Imean, like, just this kind of social commentary.

(16:26):
That's rough.
And it's. I didn't count how many chapters. It'snumerous chapters. Each one of them takes sort of
a jaundiced eye at life. Uh, and sometimes there'sa nice outcome to it, but often there isn't. Uh,
there's. There are a few chapters in there thatdon't really have an ending. They're just. Just
little brief takes. Um, and so, uh, the book isalso clearly, as you point out, satirical. I'm

(16:51):
curious, from your perspective, what do you thinkdefines satire? What makes satire satire?
So I think it's. It's a way of making fun ofreality. So, first of all, you have to have a real
situation that you can exploit, and then you haveto take that and make it 50 times worse than it
actually is. You have to. Or that was my take onit for satire, was to, you know. But I do go back

(17:11):
to even like, Modest Proposal and Jonathan Swift,where, you know, the starvation problem in
Ireland's solved by eating the children. I mean,that's pretty radical for its time. So trying in a
way not to mirror that. You know, I really did tryto keep my own unique voice to it, but it was
meant to be a Dennis Miller on steroids kind ofapproach to humor and to throw things in people's

(17:34):
face that hopefully they think about it a littlebit afterwards, too. Cause I think what good
satire does is. Makes you think.
So it's coming from you and your life, but you'reexpanding it or making it larger than it really
is.

PS Conway (17:46):
You're.
You're, uh, making it, in a way, palatable becauseit's not just. Just mundane life.
Right, Exactly. Because, I mean, think aboutlockdown was all of us sitting around. I met my
wife, and I just felt like, you know, we need togo to AA when we were done with it, because it was
like a case of wine a week coming through thehouse. We just. I mean, it was fun till it wasn't

(18:06):
fun. And the writing, for me was an anchor toforget about the crazy that was happening all
around us in the world. World too.

Steve Cuden (18:12):
Mhm.
And the death, which isn't funny obviously. Imean, all the things that were happening, clearly.
What is it that you would like people to take awayfrom the book? What, what are you hoping is the,
the message? If there is one?
Yeah, I think the message at the end of the day isto, to not accept things as they're spoon fed to
you, but actually question it and pull it apartand maybe even make fun of it a little bit and

(18:34):
then think about the impact of that and it doesn'tchange. Change how? Alter how you think about
things again. Like break the tribe once in awhile, get outside your tribe, get, get into
another tribe for a while or try to walk in theshoes of another tribe a little bit.
Uh, describe the process in developing the book.
Did you write the entire thing during COVID or didit take longer?
Yeah, it was a weekly. Uh, I held myself to 3,000words a week. And it was going to be just a blog

(18:59):
I'd written and I put it up every week. And whatwas cool, what motivated me was the fan base was
actually starting to grow pretty quick. Likefriends of friends pulling in and people really
reacted to it. I mean, and it was, that's the fuelfor me is if, you know, people pay attention to
you, all of a sudden you want to be the jokesterand the funster and the. Push it even further a
little bit.

(19:20):
Of course.
So that was the motivation at the time. It startedas the blog and the book came five years later.
Um, actually through fictional cafe. The, thegentleman who, um, owned the fictional cafe had
been a publisher all his life. And, and he startedreading and I sent him the transcripts from the
blog and he's like, oh my God. And he's like, wehave a book here. Would you want me to do a book
for you on this? I'm like, do you think it'srelevant still? He goes, yeah, it's relevant.

(19:44):
Well you, it's not really about the lockdown orpandemic. There's a little touchy stuff in there,
but not, not really. I mean it's just life ingeneral. So yeah, of course it would be. Still be
relevant. Totally. It's relevant now. It's goingto be relevant many years from now, I think. All
right, so I'm going to ask you questions aboutthings that I read in the book that I found
fascinating and interesting. Do you think therehas been an actual diminishment of critical

(20:07):
thinking in society?
Oh my God, yes. I mean, I profoundly believe that.
I agree with you. By the way, uh, what do youthink has happened? Do you think it, once again,
going back to. You think it is the Internet thathas caused that?
I think in part, I think, um, there's somegenerational differences, right? Like, you and I
were not raised on social media. We were outshooting BBs at each other. Like some of the

(20:30):
stories in my book, like the Games withoutFrontier section of the book is real. I mean, that
was stuff we did as kids. We used to hunt eachother on snowmobiles with BB guns. I mean, I can't
picture my girls doing that today. So, yeah, I dothink, I think social media has made us more self
aware than we've ever been and maybe even a littlemore insecure than we've ever been too.

(20:51):
I, you know, I come from that generation, uh, asperhaps you do too. Where Saturday morning came,
my brother and I and friends would just run aroundthe whole day. Our parents had no idea where we
were or what we were doing or whether we werebeing safe or not. And we'd show up for dinner
later that night. And that was all, that's allthat ever was.
But there were two rules in our house. You nevermissed a dinner, no matter what, and you never

(21:11):
missed church on Sunday. Those are the two rules.
Growing up Irish Catholic that, like, we nevercould deviate from, no matter how hungover, didn't
matter.
So you write, quote, even the sweetest lookingclowns seem to be hiding something under their
painted faces. It's in the eyes. Close quote,expand on that. What is it about the eyes that
makes them so significant?
Yeah, I think when, um, I see it in thisgeneration, all the time, my daughters and I have

(21:34):
this running joke for certain actresses of thisgeneration that have dead eyes, shark eyes, they
look like that. Life is just like, where is. It'snot even vapid. They're dead in their eyes. And
the, the emotion on the face isn't real. It'shere. Eyes have become more prevalent to me
because of social media. You see people's eyes,you hold eye contact longer maybe naturally than
you would have. And so for me, like, you know, Idon't want to be cheesy eyes are the windows to

(21:58):
the soul or something like that. But I thinkpeople's eyes tell you everything you need to know
about them when you're speaking with them.
Well, I also agree with the notion, and this hasbeen a notion for a long time, that, uh, clowns or
comedians tend not to be happy people. They tendto be kind of sad people. And that the clowning in
them, the comedy in them is a cover for thesadness.

PS (22:21):
A hundred. I totally agree.
And so what you're seeing, you're saying you'reseeing the sadness in their soul, in their eyes,
is what you're saying.
Edge of a tear, right? Like just on the edge of atear. You'd see it with people.
Exactly. And. And you write about having a morbidfear of clowns. Do you actually have that morbid
fear?

PS Conway (22:38):
Oh, I hate clowns.

Steve Cuden (22:39):
You hate clowns?
Yeah, that first, like, it was probably theshortest section in the whole book. But, like,
that section for me, so real, ever since I was alittle kid, clowns terrify me.
What happened? Did you go to a circus and getscared?
I would love to know the answer to that question.
It's in the closet somewhere. I just got to pullthat closet open a little bit wider and see what's
lurking back in there.

(23:00):
So then you also confess to being afraid ofmonsters.

PS Conway (23:02):
Oh, for sure.
Are clowns and monsters in the same category?
Uh, the right clown. It like, you think ofPennywise. Right. I mean, that's a pretty good
example of it. And yet I'm morbidly fascinatedwatching it. Uh, or, uh, reading as one of my
favorite books of all time, too. I mean, it just.
Stephen King has a way of getting under one'sskin.
But all the fears that are natural fears, heexploits them. He's really good at it.

(23:26):
That's correct. The interesting part for me aboutKing is the joy that you can feel reading his
work. You can feel how happy he is writing it.
Oh, and he's loving that. He's screwing with yourbrain so hard. He is in there like a little weevil
munching around like Pet Sematary. Still is one ofthe scariest books I've ever read. The whole
notion of reincarnating your dead kid, and theycome back something awful. Oh. Uh, horrible.

(23:50):
How do you think these fears that you've had yourwhole life have affected your work?
Well, I think in my poetry, it comes through. Ithink, um, I always feel like I'm in some sort of
existential crisis. Right. If you read my poetry,it's. It's very, um, questioning of God,
questioning of faith, questioning of humanity.
There's unanswered questions throughout it. And Ithink that's kind of how hardwired my DNA is

(24:12):
there. So I think to your point, my cover is humorat times, too, to mask over getting into something
a little bit deeper than that. Then the tears docome to the eyes and get A little bit more
challenging to deal with.
Well, there's no question that if you are usingsomething as a mask, that mask is not going to
usually last forever.

(24:33):
Right, Exactly.
So it's going to come through whatever it isthat's bothering you or you're troubled by. Even
though you're masking it, it's somehow going toshow through in how you're saying it, the way
you're saying it, what you're saying, et cetera,et cetera.
My, uh, wife, um, is a clinical social worker. Soshe's worked her whole life with people with
different press. So I'm like a test case for heron everything. I mean, it's half the challenge in

(24:54):
the relationship. And I remember actually when shewas doing her master's thesis, she wrote a paper
about a fake patient. It was really me she waswriting.

Steve Cu (25:04):
You're the guinea pig.
Um, I am. Um, yeah. There's a story all behindthat too. Yeah. Humor works to not have to deal
with the real stuff.
So I want to hear you just discuss, um, thevarious idioms and expressions that you take issue
with, that language is not static and thatmeanings have changed over time. Uh, explain.

(25:30):
So, um, I think of George Carlin when I think ofthat. Right. I mean, George Carlin did wonderful
bits on that about post traumatic stress disorder.
Right. It was shell shocked originally, and thenlater in life it comes post traumatic stress
disorder. Are homeless now, are unhoused. Uh, theway we. The way we water down language to account

(25:51):
for not offending people and that delicatesensitivity we have today not to offend. I think
it's kind of fun to offend sometimes, then backaway from it and see what happens.
It's a shame because language is so beautiful inthat ability to offend.
I think if it's. There's. You can offend people ina certain way, right? There's wrong offense, which
is racism, which is, you know, um, ethnocentrism,which is. There's ways to offend. That is

(26:15):
inappropriate, probably, in a grand cultural senseof it, sure. Um, but I think offending to get the
best of someone. I always call it the Irish humorto some degree. That little twinkle in the eye
that like, I gotcha. I like that type of offense,if you will.
You write that people should relentlessly controltheir children that over. You actually write over

(26:38):
parent the shit

PS Conw (26:39):
out of them, obviously.
Is this based on your bringing up your kids?
Oh, my God, Are you kidding me? My daughters grewup knowing if they didn't bring a 95 or better
home on a certain exam. I mean, I definitely was ahelicopter parent trying to set them up for
success. Right. In the real world. I would love tosay I was just kind of get along to get along
parent. I wasn't, I was, my wife was more thatperson. I was definitely the um, the

(27:00):
authoritarian, if you will.
So when you say relentlessly control, is it likenon stop?
Yeah. I mean, tongue in cheek, non stop.
Yeah, but it's, that's why I asked because it's.
You write in a very, uh, certain way that makesthe reader uncertain whether you're being serious
or not.
It got me in trouble. It's gotten me in trouble afew times with the book.
Sure, sure. You also wrote that Jesus knew kidswere dicks. In what way?

(27:25):
Kids are evil. I mean, you ever watch kids whenthey're together? It is all about power, control
and domination. That's all it is.
As I recall, at one time I was a kid.
Bingo. And I was probably king of the a hole clubin that group.
You also write a chapter, a lovely chapter aboutgames. Do you think we're better off as a species

(27:46):
having games to play?

PS Conway (27:47):
Oh, I do for sure.

Steve Cuden (27:49):
Why?
I think a couple things. One, it's a releasevalve, number one. Right. For all the pen up,
whatever you might be dealing with. I think thatunadulterated joy of game is just something. It's
almost like a childhood feeling you can't reembrace as an adult at times it's that sense of
freedom that I think the strictures of the worldkind of crunch in and crunch in and crunch in as

(28:11):
you get older and your behaviors get inside rails.
When you're a kid, you don't care. You don't care.
You're the most natural you you've ever been. Nowyou're kind of a shit at it. But it's, it's
authentic at least.
Well, that's for sure. Lately, I don't know whyit's been. Lately for me, I've been thinking about
sports, uh, and games and, and war. And thatsports are very much akin to a kind of safer, more

(28:36):
gentler way to have war with someone or to betribal. It's my high school versus your high
school. It's our country versus your country. Itis tribal in a way. And so I think that games
foster a degree of tribalism because one has towin and one has to lose. So it's my win over your
loss. Do you think that that's the way we're at itnow? Do you think it's good for culture or do you

(29:00):
think there's a problem there?
So I always say culture. There's a phrase use inthe book cultures. You know, we're one power
failure away from finding out what culture reallymeans.
No kidding.
I don't know if culture is a real thing. Right. Iquite, uh. That's me questioning authority thing.
But, um, I don't know that, you know, I don't knowhow to answer that question. I mean, the rebel in

(29:23):
me says, uh, you know, buck the system and let's.
Let's just go do it. I think there's an inherentneed for people to be accepted and belong. Let's
start with that, right? I think that'sfundamental. I think it's. It's, um, Maslowian to
some, right? I mean, I think it's all that kind ofsafety and shelter and all those bottom pyramid
needs we have that are evolutionary. So thatcompetitiveness. I believe we're kind of, uh, as a

(29:50):
species been groomed to be that too.
Well, we needed to be early on in order not todie. You had to. You were fighting against nature
and animals and the fires and whatever was comingyour way. You had to be competitive and you had to
have that strong desire to want to win, to stayalive. But that's now become in a society

(30:10):
sometimes in a society where that need to winactually is. Becomes problematic on a societal
level.
No doubt. For sure it does. Um, the challenge Iput to people in this book is some of the things
pushes so far out there is to say, are we goingtoo far? Are we a bridge too far? Have we really

(30:31):
taken ourselves too selfishly, toonarcissistically, too seriously, that um, we're
hurting the greater good through that behavior. Ithink that was like instinctively in my mind
through the whole thing.
So this is really good. You are attempting, Ibelieve then in the book and correct me if you
think I'm wrong, you're actually holding up amirror to ourselves and say, take a look at this,

(30:51):
guys. This is where some of the problems in ourworld lie. This is, I'm, uh, making light of it,
but it's a serious subject.
I mean, that is in the back of my mind in almostevery essay in that. Other than the weird stuff
like the middle little weird vignettes and stuff.
Those are just meant to be bizarre.
There are some weird vignettes in. There's nodoubt about it. So you definitely write about. You

(31:11):
spoke about it a moment ago, but you definitelywrite about being Irish and that you say
something. I found Fascinating. You said oneshould never take anything the Irish say at face
value. Why is that?
Because it's all about having, having a littlegame with you, a little bit of fun with you. But
it's. We go to Ireland every year, we're going ina couple months, and I love to sit in a pub and
just sip a pint and just listen to people banterwith each other. It is, it's how people are webbed

(31:35):
together and woven together in that tapestry overin Ireland is they just like to have sport with
each other. They like that twinkle in the eye.
Right. There's always a little joke behindeverything.
And the Irish say it better than anybody else.
They do, they have their phrases and the way theysay, uh, is its own little bubble.
It is. And it's culturally a little bubble too.

(31:56):
Right. I mean, if I only could annex itself fromthe world and be its own little 4000 year old
culture and Irish culture, they would do it in aheartbeat. No doubt.
Oh, no doubt, no doubt. Now, we talked about thisa little bit earlier. You do deal with a lot of
anger in the book. A lot of the pieces that feelangry, like you're angry about it. Would you say,

(32:19):
as a person, as the normal Pat Conway, are youeasily set off?
I am. I go to. My wife will tell you I could gofrom, if a pot drops in the kitchen, I go 0 to 100
with about 15 expletives. And then you instantlyback down to 0 again too. But it's that moment of
just like psychotic. What the f. Uh, kind ofmoment. I hate to admit it, but I getting old

(32:41):
enough, I can.
Now, anger is not an exclusive province of theIrish. No, but, but the Irish are known to get
angry, as are the Italians, the Germans. You know,there's a lot of people that get angry quickly,
that they have a quick point to rise. And so howhas that helped you as a writer, do you think?
Well, I think in those moments, I do find my pulsequickens when I write, when I'm into something

(33:03):
good, especially poetry, when I know I'm writingsomething good, there's. It's a quickening. It's.
It's right, you know, it's not anger, but thatnext stage would be anger for sure. It's like if
someone interrupted me or like, I mean, uh, I'mgoing down that tunnel and I'm good in my little,
you know, introverted space. That anger is lurkingunder there, waiting to come out.
What, what happens to you if you're on that rollin that zone? And you're going. And somebody, say,

(33:28):
your wife or someone else comes in and says it'stime to go. We need to do X, Y, Z. And you're
right in that zone. What happens to you?
The reaction can vary. Let's say the generalreaction would be, give me a second and not turn
and look right. You just stay here and just hopethat's enough. Uh, my wife knows every way to deal
with me, though. She'll just be like, hey, listen,you get up every morning. I don't bug you. You do

(33:51):
your writing Saturdays and Sundays. You're at itfor hours. So that. That'll wind me down a notch
for sure.
So when you're interrupted like that, are you ableto put a, you know, stop finishing what you're
working on at that second? Are you able to put apin in it and come back to it, or do you lose the
steam?
I never feel it's as good if it's not in themoment, like when I have to come back to

(34:11):
something. It's what's hard about writing a bookfor me, like, uh, like an extended book, right,
where you're developing a character out in a wholeplot line and plot series. That for me is. I
almost, um. You know, I'm not a pantser when itcomes to stuff like that. I really am a plotter. I
have to outline everything if I'm going to everwrite a real book.

S (34:28):
Are you a pants or otherwise?
For poetry? I am, yeah. I mean, my best poetry is.
Pants are poetry, for sure.
And for the listeners that may not know what theheck we're talking about, a pantser means you're
working by the seat of your pants. You're lettingit fly, as opposed to a plotter or a planner. So
your poetry is all on the fly. And then when youdo something. Did you outline the various, uh,

(34:50):
chapters in Life Sucks?
I did, yeah. And I went back and kind of cleanedthem up a little bit to be. Some of them were just
so of the moment on a certain week during 2020,when I wrote it, that I kind of. I had to clean up
a little bit of it too. So it was more, uh,generalized and not, as, you know, some people
aren't going to remember what February 16, 2020felt like. I mean, it just. They're not.

(35:11):
All right. So you also write that bad grammarpisses you off, and. And, uh, it does me to a
certain extent, too. But I'm not a linguist. I'mjust a writer that I work, you know, quite
naturally. I'm Not a well trained writer, uh,though I've learned to become a pretty decent
writer, I think. How often do you find bad grammarin your life and work and what do you do about it?

(35:33):
First of all, I'm self editorial. I mean it's.
There is my trip word all the time. The variationsof there. I write when I mean T h e r e. I write T
h e I r all the time in emails. And I willliterally withdraw an email, pull it back and
rewrite it because I'm so embarrassed. Like Iwrote the wrong there, there. Just terrible. So

(35:55):
I've been very self critical.
As you know. I taught screenwriting for 10 years.
I still teach occasionally, but I taught full timefor 10 years. And you're dealing with 17 and 18
year olds in today's world. Uh, and they allegedlywant to write and they really don't understand any
of it. And so that's a very interesting thing thatpeople will think to themselves, I'm a writer, I'm

(36:19):
going to be a writer. I want to be a writer nowI'm going to write. And they can't get any of it
proper. Uh, it's a problem.
Well, I mean I would make the analog to that beingyou want to be an artist and all you can do is
stick figure. I mean it's kind of. That's whatgrammar is to me. Right. It's, that's the basis.
Well, but, but here's the sad thing about thatcommentary. There are actually artists who do

(36:42):
stick figures and are hanging in museums. Wow.

PS Conway (36:45):
Okay.
I mean they're essentially stick figures.
Now if they could show me, they could paint like alandscape or something in addition to the stick
figures. I, you know, street cred goes way up onthat one.
You write the ghost Jesus had a holy pet namedReg. What in the world is that all about? How do
you know this?
The lambent of God. It was Easter that week. Icouldn't come up with anything good with that. And

(37:10):
I was just trying to think, you know, is it Jesusor the Easter bunny? And then making it being both
towards
the end and who the heck is Dingle Sneem McCarthy.
So that actually comes from autobiography. Uh, soDingle, we're actually going to Dingle, uh, in
Ireland in May. And my youngest daughter, my mwife was pregnant one of the times we went over

(37:31):
there with her. And so we stayed in Dingle andthere's a town called Sneem. So he said, God,
wouldn't it be great to have a kid named DingleSneem? Conway. What a great name. And so that made
its way into that piece. Because of that, it waslike a long standing joke. She was going to be
Dingle Sneem.
Oh my goodness. Uh, going through life with thename Dingle that just. Did you imagine that would

(37:52):
not be good? Maybe a last name? Yes, but not yourfirst name. That would be horrible. Um, you write
about Occam's Razor as well, which I thought wasreally, really good. And that it's the simplest
solution proposed for any problem is usually, ifnot probably the best one. Is that true for
writing poetry?
I think as I progress in writing poetry I believethat to be more true than I would have maybe five

(38:16):
or six years ago. I find compression and concisionin my poetry especially I submit to lit journals
and stuff like that. Trying to get some stuffpublished and getting out in the world a little
more authentic or um, academically, you know, alittle more street cred, little CV building. I
find it's helpful from M A reader perspectivenumber one, because most poetry readers today are
brainwashed social media, you know, acolytes thatneed to have things compressed and shortened for

(38:41):
them. So I think there's a commercial element toit for me there. The bigger piece though is that
it's harder to write less verbosely. It is. It'sreally hard to get big concepts done in 260
characters. It really is.
Well, I said this on a recent episode. You know,it's the alleged Abraham Lincoln quote about um.

(39:03):
I'm sorry that this letter is so long I didn'thave the time to make it shorter.
It almost sounds like Mark Twain.
Yeah, yeah, I'm paraphrasing but that's, that'sthe gist of it. Uh, and so yeah, it's really hard
to be concise. I guess there's an old cliche thatgoes brevity, uh, is the soul of wit. The more

(39:24):
condensed and tight something is, I think usuallythe better it is. But it's very hard to get there.
It's when you like there's a very conscious efforton my part to write staccato like I'm a drummer.
So for me, like I always think rhythmically when Ithink of anything and I try to write sentences and
non sentences. There is a bit of poetry to how Iwrite in this book in the sense that it's. They're

(39:46):
not sentences, right? They're thoughts with aperiod at the end of it, but they're short and
staccato and that kind of breath catch at Eachperiod to keep your, you know, it ups the tension.
Actually, to be honest, in some of the more angrylyric that I write in there, that it's, it's very,
um. To me, that was my attempt through a book inprose to be a little more poetic and capture that

(40:07):
sense of brevity in the sentences.
So you alluded earlier to Maslovian, which is um,a term for Abraham Maslow, who is a famous
psychologist. Uh, I guess he was a psychologistand also a University of Wisconsin badger. You
quote him by saying one can choose to go backtoward safety or forward toward growth. Growth

(40:28):
must be chosen again and again. Fear must beovercome again and again. And you've already
talked about, you have certain fears and clowns inparticular. Do you have any advice on confronting
fear and moving persistently forward, especiallyin the arts?
Boy, that's such a good question. I mean it's. Soit's a couple things I think it's about. It starts

(40:50):
with addressing fear because fear can be allconsuming. So I think tamping down the fear, not
that you can get. I can't get rid of it. It'sthere, the anxiety is there, lurking. You know, I
always know it by the back of my knees, sweating.
I just sweat on the back of my knees. I know I'min an anxious moment. And so it is kind of
pushing, you know, forcing your way through it alittle bit. Right. Smile until it means something

(41:12):
kind of. My mother in law used to, you know, saythings like that is that, um, it's amazing. If you
just make yourself try and be happy for a minute,you can at least extend the exterior of being
happy. Whether or not you're naturally happy, whocares? That's on you.
Well, I think a lot of life is faking it, fake ittill you make it. Right.
I mean, some of these idioms come around for areason. There's some truth in them, um, that I

(41:37):
find as I, as I get to know, especially as Ibecome more of an executive in business over the
years. Um, most of the people feel like they are.
They're waiting for the rug to be pulled out fromunder them. That the success they've achieved,
they really don't believe they're worthy of thatsuccess. And they got lucky. And it's not being
self deprecating, they genuinely believe it.
Well, that's, that's fear of success. Yeah, it's avery common problem, uh, especially in the arts.

(42:03):
People don't believe that they're as good as theyare and they think that they've Got everybody
fooled.
Yeah, it's a form of imposter syndrome, right? Imean, it's basically imposter syndrome. I feel
that every time I put a poem out in the world, Ifeel like it's like these people like it. It's
amazing.
Well, has anybody ever come to you and said youstink?
Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, we have. It's a funny thingthough, you know, um, if it's somebody like, I

(42:28):
know who, a background in writing or criticism orlike, has a literary background, that means a lot
to me. If someone said that, never had that personsay it to me. I think about. I did a, a Goodreads
giveaway, um, for my poetry book. And I was sopsyched. Like 5,000 people for 10 books signed up
for it. And one of the people left a comment said,your words are too big. No one talks like this.

(42:50):
Two stars. I'm like, come on, you're killing me.
Why, why would you put in for a poetry book?
Well, that's like, that's like the, the King inAmadeus saying too many notes.
Yeah. Bingo, right?
I mean it's, you know, that one
still sticks with me. My 12 star review and I hateit. I look back at it once in a while.

(43:11):
What, what is your proclivity toward Harry Potterand Severus Snape?
My daughter and I, my oldest daughter was. Came upat the exact same time all the Harry Potter books
came out. Every one that came out, we bought twoand we read them together and we would talk about
them. Then we started getting into some heavierstuff along the way. Like we got Harry Potter kind
of advanced us a little bit. Then we got to likehis Dark materials and some of this God is Dead

(43:32):
type. Really kind of not great for a 13 year oldwithout a parent. Kind of help him, guide him
through that thinking a little bit. But yeah, sheand I were relentless. It was a contest who could
be done first too. So we had a lot of fun.
So you used it, uh, it became an exercise infurthering her education.
Uh, for sure. I mean she. Yeah, she went toIndiana for opera actually, but ended up being so

(43:55):
competitive. Like, I mean these, the girls wereall. My daughter's very kind, gentle person. And
these girls were just cutthroat in the Sopranoprogram with her. And she just burned out of that
and became an English major. And she's, um, a verygood poet in her own right. She's a big excellent
writer.
Well, like, I think a lot of writers you talkabout in your book, uh, that you write partly to
leave Something of you behind. So this is. That'sa part of, if not entirely your legacy. Although,

(44:21):
of course, your children are your legacy. And whatyou do in work can be your legacy, but your
writing is leaving yourself behind. Do you thinkit should be that way for most writers, that
they're thinking about their legacy as they write?
I hate telling other people what to think. Youknow what I mean? It's like, for me, it is the end
result of writing. So for me, there's aselfishness in writing. Sometimes I'm feeling a

(44:42):
certain way and that feeling has to come out. Soto me, uh, poetry particularly is a form of
expressing feeling in words. So for me, if it'sgood and it lasts, cool, because my kids have
something to read when I'm dead that's kind ofneat. But I don't know if that's like the
forethought, it's kind of the afterthought of itall is like, huh, that's gonna be neat. There's a
couple books. If I never do another book, there'sa couple books in the world I wrote. And that's

(45:03):
kind of cool.
Absolutely. And you know, for me, as I've thoughtof it over the years, and I'm not the first person
to think of it, um, for sure. And that is thatwriting, words, literature, are the greatest form
of time machine that we have. That you can open abook written by someone 2800 years ago and read

(45:25):
what was in their mind, and you may not actuallyinterpret it exactly as they had it in their head,
but you're in their mind 2,800 years later. Andthat's a kind of a legacy as well, that is leaving
that behind. Do you find for you that that's whatdrives you or something else, drive you right now?
It's. It's, uh. It's is more basic. It's morefundamental than that. It's still that sense of

(45:47):
urgency, that need to create. I don't. If you.
People who write understand that comment, andpeople who don't write don't understand that
comment that.
Do you feel that the work that you do as a writeris not actually you. That it's coming through you.
You're a conduit for it.
I have definitely felt that before. Like, I alwaysjoke about my muses because they are the ones who

(46:07):
wake me up at three in the morning where I have towrite something. But there is a sense of, um,
occasionally, particularly a sense of voice thatdoesn't sound authentic to me when I write it.
That's not me. So what is it? Right? I mean, it'ssomething in me. Or, you know, maybe there is some
kind of weird. I don't know.
I've been. I. You know, I've spent years nowtalking to creative people. And it's a common
theme that most creative people don't thinkthey're doing the creating. They're responsible

(46:32):
for it, obviously, but a lot of it's comingthrough them from somewhere else. It's bolts out
of the blue. It's whatever phrase you want to use.
And so I was curious if you felt the same.
There's definitely been times. I mean, and I don'tknow percentage of times wise, but there's been
times where I just. I don't feel it's my voice,but I'm like, boy, it's pretty damn good. I mean,
I'll take it. Thank you.

(46:54):
Yeah, that's exactly right. It becomes yours.
Yeah, you should take some responsibility for itand take the credit for it as well. You know, the
book's called Life Sucks, that there's animplication in there that there's pain to life.
Life is full of pain, that there's problems withit. You also then write, if life sucks, laugh at
it. That's your. I'm quoting you there. How do youlaugh at life when you're in pain?

(47:18):
Yeah, I think, um, we were raised that way in myhouse. Let's start with that. We made fun of dark
situations. You know, someone died. You're notsitting bemoaning that death of the person. You're
telling funny stories about them. My grandma.
Grandma Healy's Hooley is one of my favorites inthe book because that is literally verbatim what
happened. I mean, that is autobiographical. And100% of the way we're puking, carrying her casket

(47:39):
up for her burial. After the night, we acted likeVan Halen coming to this little rural Adirondack
town. So, yeah, it's, uh. I don't know any otherway to be. You know, I mean, life has its crap,
right? I lost my parents in the last couple years.
It's hard, right? You deal with that stuff. Butit's more fun to tell the happy story, the funny
stories than sit. Oh, woe is me knowing the restof the world's being bombed over in Iran right now

(48:01):
and in Palestine, and, like, the world's got someserious problems. More so than me losing a parent
or two.
Well, yeah, and I think that this is, uh, evidentin your Irish history or Irish culture as it is.
In almost every culture that has a good sense ofhumor, which the Irish do. Uh, because if you've
run through all of these difficulties andstruggles and pain and whatever it's happened in

(48:24):
your society and for yourself, that the. For lackof a better term, gallows humor helps get you
through it.
And I think you'd find a good bit of gallows humorin this book. I mean, there's definitely and maybe
even beyond.
Oh, for sure. You have to actually read it and notthink to yourself, is this guy serious? Because
the first chapter I read, I thought, is this guyserious? And then I realized you weren't serious,

(48:45):
and then I was. Okay. But at first, it takes you asecond to go, wait a minute. Because you're quite
serious about it, but it's not serious.
You nailed it. I mean, that's the shtick, if youwill, of the book. Right? Is it sounds so
intensely serious, but undergirding. All of it isa bunch of just gallows, dark humor.
Yes. You're just jerking the reader around, whichis a lot of fun. Uh, I, like you, am a fan of

(49:10):
schadenfreude for the audience that doesn't knowwhat that means. What's schadenfreude?
Well, it's the joy of other people suffering.
Right. Taking joy. Other people pleasure in otherpeople's suffering. Germans have great. I love
that. That part of the book, too, because I justlove that Germans have these great broad words
that encompass these concepts. And schre. To me,it's like it's. I laugh every time I think of it

(49:33):
because it is just that. That's one of the darkerparts of the book.
And like certain German words, there is no actualother word in another language to describe it. You
have to describe it with multiple words.
That's right. Right. It's a concept encapsulatedin a word. What a talk about poetry. I mean, my
God, that's the essence of poetry.
You put one of my favorite Shakespeare quotes inthe book. Actually, two of them. You wrote, uh,

(49:57):
it's from Macbeth. It's a tale told by an idiot,full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. I love
that phrase. And you also have a quote from JuliusCaesar. What a terrible era in which idiots govern
the blind.
Welcome to America 2026. Huh huh.
And I was just going to say, it seems like we'reseeing more and more of these kinds of idiots.

(50:17):
What is happening in your. Your, uh, take on theworld? What is happening to us?
Yeah, I think the underbelly of America that wedidn't pay much attention to, has got the reins
right now. Right. That's kind of racist, whiteethnocentric, just terrible underbelly that. You
know, I was a lifelong Republican, but in a verykind of liberal Republican sense of a moderate

(50:40):
Republican senior since all my life. Trump won,you know, the reign of Cheeto Christ, as I call it
in my book. Um, what did it for me. And, um, itwas really the reason I probably lost so many
followers. I mean, the opener, you know, theopening section of the book, I talked the forward.
I talk about how I lost a lot of, like, lifelongfriends over politics. And, you know, it. I'm okay

(51:03):
with it now, but it really hurt a lot at the time.
Like, that bothered me that, like, I could writesomething that was serious, but also a joke and
that people through would take that as anindictment of themselves. And, um, that. That
bothered me a lot.
Well, you also talk in the book, in a chapter. Ithink the chapter is called My Favorite Positions.
I think that's the title of it. Uh, and thatyou're, you know, P.S. conway for president. What

(51:29):
would. President Conway. How would you run thingsdifferently?
The giveaway on that section of the book. It is. Imean, that is my most tongue in cheek section of,
um. What? We're going to take kids out of schooland conscript them to build roads and bridges.
Well, you're right. Legalize murder and education,confiscate wealth, white slavery, mass

(51:49):
immigration, leave earth, disarm the public,execute the elderly. America or else.
Is that what we're living in? Does that feel liketoday, though?

Steve Cuden (51:57):
I mean, sorta.
Yeah. Right. In a very dark, direct way.
Exactly. And you just put it right out there. It'slike there's no cover on there at all.
No. And a lot of people took umbrage with that,for sure.
I mean, I believe it. I'm going to leave the bookfor a few moments because, uh, we're starting, uh,

(52:19):
to ramp the show down a little bit. But tell memore about your poetry writing. Why do you write
poetry? What is it that drives you to writepoetry?
Yeah. So poetry for me, I have to write poetry.
It's the only way I can describe it. It's not, um.
It's less a desire and more compulsion right now.
Um, there is something in me that I will watchsomething on TV or see something online, or I'll

(52:41):
hear a phrase or a word I haven't heard in awhile, and all of a sudden I have to get to my
laptop and I have to. I have to get somethingdown. And I don't know how other describe it than
compulsive. Compulsiveness. Like it's a, um. Ican't stop it. Imagine having an itch and you had
no way to get at that itch and it just keptdriving. It's that physical of a thing.
Does writing then get rid of the itch?
It does until the next itch comes along. I mean,he just said it's like eczema you can't treat,

(53:05):
right? Just keep thinking at it.
Yes, the eczema you can't treat. It's poetry,right?

PS Conway (53:11):
Read my book.
Um, what do you think is the future of poetry atthis juncture? Is it all going to go over to AI?
Will there be no more human poets or will therealways be human poets?
I hope not. You know, I hope there will always behuman poets. Let's start with that. I mean,
that's, you know, I know hope's not a strategy andwhatever, but my hope is that humanity wisens up a

(53:34):
little bit and that I'm fine with AI we use AI atwork for all kinds of things about data mining and
finding out information. I work for an AI basedcompany that we do content based on AI so it has
its place. My fear becomes when real and unrealblend together and they become the same thing, or
they feel like they're worse. They're not the samething. They feel like the same thing. Ask an AI.

(53:57):
You could go out on ChatGPT right now and say,hey, write me a sonnet. Um, make sure it's an
iambic pentameter. Make sure it fits the form.
There's a volta, all the things you would haveacademically with a sonnet, right? And it will
write a passable sonnet. What it will also do istrigger word things. There's. There's AI trigger
words out there like fracture and rupture and thedebate over EM dashes and all the things that AI

(54:20):
does today that I think literary people arebecoming more in tune to it. And I think we're
going to develop AI that's counter AI to reject AIdriven work. So I hope that the humanity stays in
poetry because I don't know a thing that's neverfelt something trying to, you know, approximate
that just never is the real deal.
Well, I've been watching this for quite some timeand it scares the bejesus out of me. Uh, I think

(54:45):
what's coming is going to, uh, swamp humans, uh,badly. And it's. And part of that is in the arts
and what I do, what you do. I think that the AIwill eventually write high quality screenplays.
They'll write high quality, uh, novels and so on.
And it will be very hard for humans to tell thedifference. That's what I fear.

(55:06):
Uh, it's my greatest fear of all. I mean, I've gotthat little glimmer of hope in me that says we'll
get smart enough to it and stop it. I don't know.
At the end of the day, you know, for humanity toexpand, you go into the sci fi world like we
started with, right? And it's. Maybe we all needto be uploaded into some sort of master
intelligence to be able to actually expand.
And in fact, we might, at some point, we might allbe uploaded. AI may get into our own brains and

(55:30):
suck our humanity out of us and upload it into thecloud. And that's the end of it.
It's the Borg. It's Star Trek all over again. It'sthe Borg in the most real sense of it.
I would prefer if it was Bjornborg, but that's awhole other story.
That was my best tennis racket I ever owned as akid was my, uh, Bjornborg Danae racket.
Well, I've just been having a great Funconversation with P.S. uh, Pat Conway, and, uh,

(55:54):
we're going to wind the show down a little bit.
And you've clearly done a lot of things over yourlife and you've met a lot of people. I'm
wondering, in your writing career or in the artscareer, do you have a story that you can share
with us that's either weird, quirky, offbeat,strange, or maybe just plain funny?
The, uh, you know, when I go back to the book, thesection I wrote on colonoscopies, now there's a
personal element to. I was sick for a couple yearswith it, pretty bad. I mean, it's. I don't wish it

(56:18):
on anybody. It is a horrible affliction till youget a hold of it. Um, and it's been well managed
now for, knock on wood, the last 15 years. Butthroughout the book, you'll see that the colitis,
ulcerative colitis, actually rears its ugly head.
I mean, the true story about my wife and her firstbecoming our neighbor. And I was in the middle of
a colitis rampage on that. And I had to go like,my daughter drove into a pond at this guy's house.

(56:42):
This guy pulled my daughter out of a pond and Iwas in the middle of a colitis flare up at the
time when that happened, and I was like, I poopedmyself. It was just terrible. And. And it turned
out it was my wife's first, which just. We alreadymoved into our neighborhood, and it was her first
from way back in the day. And the funniest part ofthat was that, ah, this is all true story. No
names, but just. True story was that his wife, uh,hadn't realized she'd been out for a run. And I

(57:06):
was. I was going for a run myself by their house,and she was in the garage taking her top off. And
I'm like, there it is. I've seen your wife nakednow, too, pal. Now we can be friends.
So. So that's very. Yeah, that's the. That'swhat's reflected in the book, that rawness of
life.
Yeah. And some of it is very autobiographicalbecause you can't make up. Some things in life are

(57:30):
too funny not to get exactly as it was.
Exactly, exactly. And sometimes things in life arenot believable if you tell someone. And, uh,
that's part of storytelling is believability,because you can write something that's completely
not real and not believable and make itbelievable. And you can also take something that's
very real and write it or present it in a way thatmakes it seem not believable.

(57:53):
And I've spent a long time training teachingsalespeople, and I really work on the soft skills
of selling. Not the kind of product demonstrationprice quote, that type of stuff, but the, uh,
storytelling is the number one hiring point I hirefor. Can someone tell a good story? Do they make
me laugh? Do they. Do they engage me? Those arethings to me that, like, if you could bring that
out into life, whether you're right or not, you'regoing to be. You're going to be the person at the

(58:14):
bar. Everybody's kind of gathered around over apint.
I think that that's absolutely true. All right, solast question for you today, Pat. Um, what's the
best piece of advice or a tip that you can give tothose who are maybe starting out as writers or
maybe they're in a little bit trying to get to thenext level where they're maybe published and so
on?
Yeah, I think stick to your true voice. Right. Isee a lot of people trying to be. I mean, I love

(58:36):
George R.R. martin as a writer, but even it's alittle bit too much on the nose to be, you know,
JRR Tolkien, and just there's just a little much,a little too much of that for me, there's. There's
a lot of writers who want to be Stephen King thatlack the authenticity, the. The real believability
of it. So I think, to me is just maintain yourauthentic voice. People don't need near similars.

(58:57):
People need original. Today, everything's toomuch, derivative, too much. You know, I've heard
this kind of before, but give me something new.
Give me something interesting.
Well, this is absolutely true and great advice,which is to be yourself, to find your own voice
and to express that. And sometimes it takes awhile. It took me many years to find my voice.

(59:19):
I'm still figuring it out, so.
And. And I'm still figuring it out to a certainextent, too, but I. It took me forever before I
thought I had a voice. That's my point. And so,uh, I think this is very right on the money to say
be true to who you are and to just keep going atthat, because that's how you get there. Pat
Conway, this has been an absolutely wonderful, uh,show today on Story Beat night. Can't thank you

(59:44):
enough for your time, your energy, and for allyour wisdom. And for those of you out there that
are, uh, interested in more about Pat, uh, checkout, uh, either Life Sucks or, uh, Echoes Lost in
Stars. And you can check that out psconway.com.
pat, thank you so much for being on the show withme today.
Steve, this was awesome. Thanks so much. I reallyappreciate you.

(01:00:05):
And so we've come to the end of today's StoryBeat. If you like this episode, won't you please
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(01:00:28):
iHeartRadio, TuneIn, and many others. Until nexttime, I'm Steve Cuden and may all your stories be
unforgettable.