Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing EP 378 - Multimedia Storytelling with Dominician Gennari
Mark interviews Dominician Gennari, a writer, storyteller, composer, and musician about his multimedia book and novella opus, The War for Ascension.
Prior to the interview Mark shares comments from recent episodes, a personal update, a word from this episode's sponsor, as well as a word about a previous episode sponsor.
One Hand Screaming: 20 Haunting Years - Kickstarter
NEWS: Please note that the Feb/March 2025 Writers Retreat at Sea from Cruising Writers has been cancelled.
During their conversation Mark and Dominician talk about:
- How Dominician's creative and artistic voice started with music at about the age of 13/14
- Discovering Tolkien about six or seven years later
- How, when writing, Dominician was imagining the accompanying soundtrack and the way the process became inseparable
- Learning from one of the most incredible music teachers
- Dominician's Italian heritage and how his family would gather in the kitchen and, while cooking together, would sing works like the music from Madame Butterfly and other classical sources
- How that learning is layered and added in to the other styles and genres of music that Dominician composes and plays
- The way that Richard Wagner would compose music with the elaborate use of leitmotifs (musical phrases associated with individual characters, places, ideas, or plot elements)
- Dominician picking ten of the key moments in his story to hit really hard with his own compositions
- The various members of the local musical community who participated in the recording
- About the 2nd track, "Light of the Hydroverse"
- Advice that David Farland, a mentor who worked with Dominician, offered in relation to this project
- Being told by Dave Farland that Dominician reminded him of Gene Wolfe
- Unpacking numerous languages in order to re-package them into the original language he created for this universe
- The Kenorian greeting in the language Dominician invented which says "may serenity follow you"
- Working with producers on a script adaptation of The War for Ascension but coming to irreconcilable differences that resulted in an end to that project
- How Dominician connected with Dave Farland via a course he took online from Writers of the Future
- Turning down what could have been millions of dollars on that cancelled Hollywood project
- How people can get ahold of the accompanying soundtrack
- The process that Dominician uses when writing the stories and composing the music
- What's next for Dominician
- And more . . .
After the interview Mark reflects on the idea of creating in the kitchen and the power of that type of collaboration, as well as the integrity to say no to a huge opportunity if it crosses the line of what is deemed as acceptible.
Links of Interest:
- Dominician's Website
- Mark's Kickstarter for ONE HAND SCREAMING: 20 Haunting Years
- EP 377 - Pivoting Your Publishing Dreams with Denise Massar
- Mark's Stark Reflections on Writing & Publishing Newsletter (Signup)
- Cruising Writers
- Buy Mark a Coffee
- Patreon for Stark Reflections
- An Author's Guide to Working With Bookstores and Libraries
- The Relaxed Author
- Publishing Pitfalls for Authors
- An Author's Guide to Working with Libraries & Bookstores
- Wide for the Win
- Mark's Canadian Werewolf Books
- The Canadian Mounted: A Trivia Guide to Planes, Trains and Automobiles
- Yippee Ki-Yay Motherf*cker: A Trivia Guide to Die Hard
Dominician Gennari grew up in the rough western suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, in the 80's after his migrant parents fled war-torn Europe after WW2. As a young child, he would fantasise about imaginary creatures living in his backyard and he would dream of magical worlds.
As the years unfolded, Dominician's creative spirit flourished, giving birth to his mythical world, Númaria. This world, meticulously crafted, boasts a rich history and a complex ecosystem, providing the perfect backdrop for the vast timeline of his unfolding story called The War for Ascension.
Submerging himself in the fields of forbidden archaeology, esoteric wisdom, USAPs of the US government, and ancient warfare, a great awakening occurred as the veil of secrecy was lifted from his eyes. After learning humanity's obscured past was stranger than fiction, his desire to create a truthful and artistic message through fiction arose. This acquired knowledge segued into writing his epic fantasy series The War for Ascension and the sequential standalone series The Ascension Archive.
Having spent 3 years working alongside renowned Hollywood producers, Dominician garnered invaluable knowledge of screen craft and storytelling. But due to unforeseen events, he chose an alternative path to pursue his dream of writing wholesome fantasy stories.
Guided by fantasy author and genius, David Farland, Dominician is set to expand his grand mythology, The War for Ascension into a multimedia book and novella opus, along with accompanying soundtracks of epic music.
Dominician is also the producer of the epic industrial metal band Ark of Light, and a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instructor and National Champion. He currently lives in Melbourne, Australia.
The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0