The Atlantic Wire has an interview with Michael Crossan, who last week came to the world’s attention as the creator of a Twitter account purporting to be that of reclusive novelist Cormac McCarthy, who doesn’t even own a computer. The account was helped along by Margaret Atwood, who spread word of the feed to “‘T-pals’ William Gibson, Amy Tan and Neil Gaiman.” The account gained more than  6,000 followers before McCarthy’s publisher, Vintage Books, proclaimed it a fake. Even “Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey gave @cormaccmccarthy a warm welcome,” though it was quickly withdrawn.

Crossen says he has taken a sabbatical from a photography job to write full time:

I am 42 years old. A family man who lives on the west coast of Scotland. I have taken a sabbatical from my photography job to write full time. I have been writing stories since boyhood. I have written enough stories to fill a dozen books. And perhaps a dozen stories that could fill one good book. I am a diligent writer. Eight-hour daily shifts are routine for me. Often I spend 12 back-sore hours at the computer. No Lettera 32 Olivetti for me. Hours pass fast and unnoticed when I write. I recently finished writing a novel. It took me three years to write it. Ironically it is a post apocalyptic story. A literary novel. But it has little in common with Cormac’s masterpiece The Road. My book is a polar opposite vision of Cormac’s tome. With few people in the world nature thrives.