The Reign of the Anti-Santas – a Christmas misadventure for grownups received a 4+ star review, making it an IndieReader Approved title.
Following find an interview with authors Colin Dodds.
What is the name of the book and when was it published?
The Reign of the Anti-Santas – a Christmas misadventure for grownups, 2023
What’s the book’s first line?
“I don’t know who Santa is to you. But I have an idea of what you’d prefer to hear. So if you’re a child, then stay a child a little longer. Leave this story alone.”
What’s the book about? Give us the “pitch.”
Rudolph’s in a Cadillac, Santa’s in hiding and Christmas itself is being bought and sold with the fate of the world at stake. The Reign of the Anti-Santas tells how Christmas fell into the hands of Santa’s spoiled kids, low-level gangsters, faded TV-movie heartthrobs, tech bros and lifestyle gurus, and what happens when one elf and an old Santa on the lam step up – against all odds – to save the day.
A raunchy thrill ride through seventy Christmas Eves, The Reign of the Anti-Santas is Goodfellas meets ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas – just in time to wash the candy-cane taste out of your mouth, get Mariah Carey out of your ears, and change how you see December 25th forever!
What inspired you to write the book?
It started the night when my wife and I had taken our two kids to see the elaborate Christmas lights over in the Dyker Heights, Brooklyn. The walk from our house, up and down the streets and back is about four miles, so we brought a big stroller. I was in my 10th year of hating Christmas. Where I worked, Rockefeller Center was between me and the subway, so I had to walk through the holiday tourist hubbub every weekday. The stroller with both kids was about 120 pounds. That night, it wasn’t even Christmas yet, but it felt like it had been Christmas for a few months already. Even nipping at a thermos with a festive beverage, I was tired and a bit peeved. We were walking home from the lights. To keep the kids calm in the stroller as we crested candy-colored the hill of illuminated houses, I talked. The subject was Christmas. I was running my mouth about Rudolph, and what really happened that foggy Christmas Eve – the deal that the vindictive and well-aggrieved reindeer struck. I just kept yapping. And half of the book had clicked into place by the time we reached the overpass of the Verrazano Bridge on-ramp. Over the next week or two, more pieces fell into place. I had to ask myself a few times if I was really serious about doing this. But there was pain in Christmas. And that’s where you go, as an artist. The book certainly wasn’t anything I had wanted to do. But it had incredible momentum. New pieces of it just kept coming, and all the pieces fell into place.
What’s the main reason someone should really read this book?
Christmas and the end of the year is an incredibly powerful, mysterious time of year. It’s also a time of crisis and depression. It’s a statistical falsehood that suicides spike at the holidays, but it’s one that people are drawn to. The holidays are an invitation to revisit childhood, one that seems to ring more hollow every year. It’s a reckoning with the fact that the entire world is holy, that its commercialization and manipulation necessarily pains us, and that pain sets us at odds with our practical selves. I guess The Reign of the Anti-Santas is about that reckoning, played out over seventy years, from the perspective of an elf.
What’s the most distinctive thing about the main character? Who-real or fictional-would you say the character reminds you of?
It’s his voice. Henry Hill, Robert Evans
When did you first decide to become an author?
I saw it as an option when I was seven. When sports started to look less appealing, around the age of 15, I went all in.
Is this the first book you’ve written?
No. It’s the tenth novel. I’ve also written other kinds of books.
What do you do for work when you’re not writing?
I write, edit and produce videos for a financial institution.
How much time do you generally spend on your writing?
With two young kids and a full time job, it’s a lot of stolen moments. I never have the same answer twice from week to week.
What’s the best and the hardest part of being an indie?
It starts with the creative control. I shudder to think what an agent and an editor would have done to this book. There are no committees, no personalities to navigate, no uncertainty. I can work directly with a designer to get the cover I want. When I’m selling the book, I can do different versions, set prices, offer discounts, and do all kinds of promotional things.
There’s also the speed. This book was an incredible single flowing inspiration to write, rewrite, rewrite again and edit. I’d hate to sit on it for a year or more to get it out to readers.
That said, the downsides are real. There’s no reputational air cover from a publisher. You’re on your own, which can be scary. And it’s tough to get into bookstores. And the whole financial outlay falls on me (and my family). And there’s limited immediate exposure to high-end opportunities in film and TV.
For better or worse, the commercial success and failure of the book is all on me.
Would you go traditional if a publisher came calling? If so, why?
Maybe. I am a creative person with two small children in a major metropolitan area. There is never enough money. But it would have to be a good deal.
Is there something in particular that motivates you (fame? fortune?)
This seems like one of the worst times in history to be famous. More money would be nice, just in terms of having more time to work on the things that interest me. I certainly wouldn’t mind wearing khakis less often, and I have some sleep I’d like to catch up on.
But reaching readers is what excites me. Opening up new ideas and ways of looking at the world with my readers excites me. The work excites me. It contributes more to the richness of my life than money or recognition could. Ultimately, it’s about the books, aphorisms, scripts, films and essays. I’d like if that could pay enough to free me up to do more of it. But there’s enough heat in the work itself that I can also scrape, scrap and muddle through.