Jeremy Kagan is an internationally recognized director/writer/producer
of feature films and television and a tenured professor. Some of his feature
credits include the box-office hits HEROES, the political thriller THE
BIG FIX, THE CHOSEN (2 time Grand Prize winner),and THE
JOURNEY OF NATTY GANN (Gold Prize Moscow Film
Festival). Among his many television shows are KATHERINE: the
Making of an American Revolutionary and HBO’s CONSPIRACY: THE
TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 8 (ACE
Award for Best Dramatic Special). His film ROSWELL,THE
UFO CONSPIRACY garnered a Golden Globe nomination and he directed the
pilot for the hit series DR. QUINN: MEDICINE WOMAN. Other
television films include, for Showtime COLOR OF JUSTICE about
racism and BOBBIE’S GIRL about a lesbian couple and CROWN HEIGHTS about
the 1991 riots, which won the Humanitas Award for “affirming the dignity of
every person.” Kagan has won an EMMY for Dramatic Series Directing and
directed “West Wing” and Spielberg’s ”Taken.” He has made films for
The Doe Fund which is the most successful program in America
helping the homeless and for The Bioneers which organizes leaders in ecology
and social justice, and TreePeople. Professor Kagan teaches graduate courses at
USC in directing and has created the Change Making Media Lab, which has made
projects on cancer prevention, obesity and ADHD. Kagan has served as the
Artistic Director of Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute and is on the National
Board of the Directors Guild and Chairperson of its Special Projects. His
books DIRECTORS CLOSE UP, Vol. 1 & 2, are published by Scarecrow Press.
A Graduate Fellow of the American Film Institute, he has an M.F.A. from
NYU and a B.A. from Harvard University. He
has taught master seminars on filmmaking in Hong
Kong, Hamburg, Hanoi, France, Lebanon, Israel, Ireland and India.
Thank you for this interview! I’d like to know more about you as a person
first. What do you do when you’re not
writing?
Sleep. Play music. The
clarinet. Have sex. Make movies. Teach how to make movies. Paint and draw. Eat. Watch movies. Suck up
culture. Talk. Laugh. Think. Sometimes
too much.
When did you start writing?
I started when I was a
kid and wasn’t very good. I had this fantasy to write a novel when I was around
10. I wrote two pages and that was that. When I was in high school I got into
journalism and became the editor of the high school newspaper. What was true
for my writing even when I was young and for this particular piece of work as
well, was that I like to add illustrations.
This ebook has 150 of my paintings.
As a published author, what would you say was the most
pivotal point of your writing life?
When a film producer
that I had worked with as a director asked me to write a screenplay, I was
surprised. This was the first time I
realized that others thought I could write well. So I wrote the screenplay and
directed the movie, which got a lot of attention at the time. The film was a television movie called
Katherine starring Sissy Spacek. about a young girl becoming a revolutionary. I had to rewrite it repeatedly and that was a
good lesson.
If you could go anywhere in the world to start writing your
next book, where would that be and why?
There is this fantasy
that if I were to go to some isolated mountain cabin in the snow and that I
would be able to be totally dedicated to whatever writing project I might take
on. But the truth is I like to work in my office surrounded by the stuff that I
have made and collected over the years. I still would like to go to parts of India and the Amazon and go up north to see the
Aurora Borealis, and I’m sure I would gather stories to tell, but I’m not
certain that I would actually write them down.
Will see.
If you had 4 hours of extra time today, what would you do?
I would respond to
those waiting emails, continue writing the book on direction that I am doing
now, and catch up on some sleep.
Where would you like to set a story that you haven’t done
yet?
In inner space. I
think about the millions of activities going on inside each of our bodies every
second, and wonder if we could actually engage with all of those beings that
make us up, from the bacteria to the soul.
Back to your present book, My Death; A Personal Guidebook, how did you publish it?
I went through a
journey to get to publishing. At first I
thought this would be a hard cover book.
After my third re-write I sent it off to some agents and publishers. I was looking for the kind that was into
books about para-normal, metaphysical and philosophical subjects. I went through the waiting game and received
some complimentary rejections. Enough to
tell me in my own mind that the book wasn’t ready. I re-wrote some more. I even tried it as a novel rather than
non-fiction and then I put it aside. But
I knew I wanted and needed to get its message out. So a couple of years ago, I investigated
self-publishing. And I read up on
e-publishing as well and this seemed intriguing but I didn’t know which service
to use. Should I do this entirely on my
own? Then I began illustrating the book
and one of my students turned me on to Balboa Press of Hays House which
specializes in publishing this kind of material. I contacted them on line and on the phone and
went through their vetting process and then paid them to help prepare the book
so it could be distributed in a variety of ways including Amazon. They were very assiduous in the process and
receptive to all the changes I asked for.
Once it was done came the next phase that I am in now which is how to get
the word out about the ebook. I created
a website www.theneardeathandlifeofJeremyKagan.com
and spent some money getting people to activate a Facebook site and Twittering
and am into getting professional publicity to make more inroads to having the
book seen and read. I purposely priced
it as inexpensively as possible to make it available to as many as possible.
In writing your book, did you travel anywhere for research?
Well in this case I
traveled to hell and back, as well as to the stars.
Why was writing My
Death: A Personal Guidebook so important to you?
Honestly this was the
most profound experience that I’ve had in my life. It was a gift. It allowed me
to have a deeper perspective about who I am and about death. I realized
viscerally that consciousness never ends, and that we are part of an infinite
interconnected awareness. It also was a
fantastic journey that eased my fear of death.
I felt that this was something I could and should share with others.
Where do you get your best ideas and why do you think that
is?
Ideas come from being
open. Not fording them. Open to my own
imagination, open to the suggestions of others, open to new experiences, open
to the unknown. Specifically I noticed that when facing a problem I literally
sleep on it and often times a new approach will come through the dream time.
Any final words?
As I learned from my
NDE, lighten up. And facts may inform,
but stories transform.
About the Book:
This is a powerful memoir of a near-death experience. After
a Native American sweat lodge, the author loses control of his body and then
his life. He begins a passage that leads to a personal hell. He discovers a way
to escape and emerges into an amazing exploration of the soul’s journey. In
this intense adventure, there are insights into stages of consciousness and
encounters of blissful perfection. This spiritual, inspirational book is meant
to be an aid to removing the universal fear of the final journey we are all
taking.
Discuss this book in our PUYB
Virtual Book Club at Goodreads by clicking HERE.
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