Interview with Mike Stetz, Author of Don't Stop the Presses

What's the story behind the story? What inspired you to write this book?

It’s a comic farce about a laid-off newspaper reporter who takes over a newsroom to save a story he was writing. The idea came from my reality: I’m a laid-off newspaper reporter. It was quite the blow, so I thought it would be fun to create a novel where a newspaper reporter gets revenge by holding editors hostage and making them squirm a bit. Spoiler alert: No one gets hurt. It’s just a cool, little fantasy.

What's your favorite genre to read? Is it the same as your favorite genre to write?

I like humor.

What scene in your book was your favorite to write?

It’s about an older laid-off copy editor who’s on the beach reading. The main character runs into him, and the older man talks about how he’s thinking of walking into the ocean and never coming back. It’s a dark scene, but it’s meant to show how devastating these layoffs can be.

If you could choose one thing for readers to remember after reading your book, what would it be?

That layoffs can be one of the more emotionally trying events a person can go through. It’s right up there with divorce and loss of family. It sucks. For newspaper reporters, it’s particularly trying because you really have few options after such work. And those jobs are gone, vanished.