An Interview with Dean Bakopoulos

Warren Wilson faculty member Dean Bakopoulos was recently interviewed on the SmartMoney blog “Pay Dirt.”:

[Your character] Zeke spends a lot of time in Starbucks. What’s the appeal to him?

For Zeke, it’s a manufactured community. He pretends he’s avant-garde and a lone wolf, but he finds so much comfort in predictability and mediocrity. Starbucks always has exactly what I want, too. I feel so cheap and easy. I live in a town where there’s no Starbucks at all. I now have a favorite independent coffee shop. But I was driving through rural Tennessee a while ago and I felt so alone in the world. Then I saw Starbucks and felt reassured. There’s something about the music Starbucks plays and the color choices that say, ‘It’s going to be okay.’  …[Read the full interview here]…

Dean is the author of Please Don’t Come Back from the Moon (2006, Mariner Books), and My American Unhappiness (2011, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).