Dissecting Franco Amati
Welcome back to the Black Hare Press Dissecting Author interviews, where we dissect an author each month to find out who they are, what they write, and what keeps their creative juices flowing.
Today, we slice open speculative fiction writer, Franco Amati, to spill his writing secrets and learn more about his latest release, Job Witness Protection.
Welcome Franco!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Franco Amati is a speculative fiction writer from New York. He is a graduate of the Viable Paradise writer's workshop. You can find more of his work at francoamatiwrites.com or subscribe to his substack, Garbage Notes, at francoamati.substack.com
Connect:
Website: francoamatiwrites.
GoodReads: @Franco_Amati
X: @FrancoAmati3
Bluesky: @francoamati.bsky.social
LinkTr.ee: @francoamati
Substack: francoamati.substack.com
Ko-fi: francoamati
Medium: @franco730
YouTube: @francoamatiwrites
Tell us about yourself. When did your passion for reading and writing start?
I’m a cognitive scientist turned fiction writer. My first career was in academia, where I was a researcher in the field of psycholinguistics. My passion for reading and writing started there, when I would turn to science fiction and fantasy for inspiration and ideas that would shape my designs for research experiments. Now it’s the other way around—it’s the science of the mind and everyday life that fuels my desire to tell stories.
What drew you to your preferred writing genres?
I was initially drawn to science fiction mostly because of my history as a scientist. But a lot of my work is more broadly speculative and subtle, with the fantastical elements being more social or psychological in nature. And most of it is kind of grounded in a more realist aesthetic. I don’t know, I tend to like things that don’t necessarily feel too sci-fi or fantasy on the surface, but deep down it’s very much part of the genre. Like how someone who isn’t necessarily into speculative fiction might be fooled into thinking oh this isn’t sci-fi or fantasy, but, like, it actually is if you really think about it.
I write a lot of non-speculative poetry too, and much of that stuff would fall into the genre of dirty realism. It’s always fun when I can find interesting ways to merge dirty realism with speculative fiction.
What’s your favourite part of the writing process?
The flow state. Like that electric moment when a story comes together. When the ideas coalesce with a good plot, and you lose track of time, and before you know it, you’ve landed on a personally satisfying ending. It’s the greatest high. I’m usually chasing that feeling. When everything around you ceases to exist, and you inhabit the story fully. I guess it’s very zen, and you forget all your problems.
Do recurring themes appear in your stories?
Definitely. If I could really nail down some common themes, it would be issues related to the philosophy and societal perception of work, what it means to be employed and how we find meaning or lack thereof in the jobs that we do to survive.
Another common theme present in many of my other stories involves the connection between the mind and the body. With my background in psychology and linguistics, I am still very much obsessed with anything related to things like how the brain works, embodied cognition, the evolution of language, self-image, and the continuity of consciousness over time and space and various physical forms.
What’s brewing? What are your next big writing goals?
I’m putting together a collection of short stories and a collection of non-speculative poetry. I’m also working on some longer novel-length projects. And I’m always writing and sending out new short stories. That’s probably my favorite thing.
Do you have a furry friend writing assistant ie dog, cat, bird, Hellhound, and how do they help you achieve your writing goals?
Yes, I have a cat named Alex. He’s gray and white. And he has one green eye. He’s been with me since the beginning of my writing career. He helps me by sitting in my lap and being cute, and he keeps me grounded in reality. Because it doesn’t matter how many dragons you ride or how many evil robots you’ve vanquished or imaginary planets you’ve travelled to. If at the end of the day you have to scoop a big pile of turds out of a litter box, you still feel like a humble ordinary human being living a real life, and that’s not a bad thing.
ABOUT JOB WITNESS PROTECTION
Job Witness Protection by Franco Amati
Launch: 17th January 2026
Buy Link: books2read.com/Protection-Amati
Website: blackharepress.com/products/job-witness-protection-by-franco-amati
In a world where your job owns your soul, one runaway employee will risk everything—even his last shred of humanity—to stay free.
When Orin fled the Vocational Harmony Bureau, he thought he’d escaped the corporate machine that dictated every breath of his life. Now hidden in a quiet upstate town under the Job Witness Protection programme, he keeps his head down, clocking in at a local rec centre and pretending to be ordinary. But the ghosts of industry don’t rest—and neither do the people who profit from them.
When his only companion, a cat named Darla, goes missing, Orin’s fragile peace collapses. A retired detective with too many secrets offers to help, but their search drags them into a war between a crime dynasty and the Bureau he thought he’d outrun. In a world where employment is enslavement and surveillance never sleeps, trust is the most dangerous currency of all.
Job Witness Protection is a razor-edged dystopian thriller about autonomy, loyalty, and the small acts of rebellion that keep us human—no matter who’s watching.
What sparked the idea for this book?
Life experience mostly. Much of this story is based on real events. The emotional fallout and paranoia of leaving a really stressful work environment. It can be difficult starting a new life from scratch. You’re constantly looking over your shoulder, wondering if old ghosts might have followed you. Anyway, I had finally moved on and found a chill job with nice people. But I met this coworker who had experienced similar work-related traumas in his past. He was a former NYC detective. He was semi-retired and now working as a lifeguard. He somehow figured out that I also had escaped from some awful place. And we’d joke about how peaceful this new job was compared to where we used to be. And he would say to me, it’s like being in the witness protection program but for work-related trauma. So that’s where ‘Job Witness Protection’ came from.
What challenges did you encounter in finishing it?
This story took a long time to write, actually. I started it while I was still working at the place that inspired it. And then my life sort of upended itself, and I had to move again. And I wasn’t able to work on it for some time. But then I finally finished several months later. I kept on revising it in the face of countless rejections. Then, after it was in better shape and I had gotten some positive feedback on it from various editors, I decided to use it as my writing sample for my application to the Viable Paradise writer’s workshop. And fortunately, they accepted me. I got the chance to get even more professional feedback on it. The story vastly improved after that. And thankfully it finally found a home.
Why did you choose the Hudson River Valley as the setting of this book?
The story takes place in a sort of fictionalized New York/Hudson River Valley and invokes places like Manhattan, Long Island, Albany, North Jersey, etc. These are the settings I know best, places I’ve worked and lived and where I grew up. Historically, most of these locations were heavily industrialized and then faced periods of decline. But then over time experienced a resurgence due to the rise of the tech industry. So I think that’s what often makes this landscape ideal for these kinds of post-industrial dystopias. It’s this odd clash of high technology being birthed out of collapsed, rusted-out waste. And I think there are usually interesting stories to be told there—the rise and fall of industry and what it means to work and commute in these sometimes unpleasant locations.
How did you come up with the stars/MCs of this book?
Like I said, these are mostly based on real people. A lot of my work uses speculative fiction to process and communicate things that are important to me on a personal level. Maybe it reflects a bit poorly on my own imagination, but if I’m being honest, the majority of my protagonists are just alternate-world versions of myself. The various characters are real, genuine people, but with like the serial numbers filed off. I hope saying this doesn’t add fuel for anyone hoping to sue me someday in the future. But truthfully, I think most writers do this. We draw inspiration from the things we know best.
Which of your characters do you relate to the most? Why?
The main characters, usually. In this story, it would be Orin. My protagonists contain various shades and facets of me. Though I’ll reluctantly admit that a lot of authors who critiqued this story said they hated the main character, which I don’t think they realized can be kind of a hard thing for an author to digest when that protagonist is a thinly veiled version of yourself.
Is there a particular message that you hope readers will take from the book?
Work isn’t life. It’s a very artificial environment, and you never know what traumas and negative experiences the people standing next to you might have had to deal with. Things like who is signing your paychecks, or where you decide to rent an apartment or what types of personalities are in the day-to-day trenches with you—though these things feel like visceral parts of your reality for up to eight hours a day—they aren’t you, like as a person. This is just what you do to survive. Especially if you do other things like art or writing—it’s perfectly valid to get most of your life’s meaning from things that have nothing to do with your salary.
What’s your favourite scene?
Probably the opening scene with Orin and Murph talking on the job. That first conversation does a lot of work, I think, to draw people in. It lays down a lot of the foundation and the intrigue for what eventually unfolds and for what parts of the world the reader begins to uncover. It sets the tone in terms of feelings of angst and paranoia. And though this story has kind of a wild climax and some action-heavy scenes, it’s much more typical of my writing for the dialogue, the conversations, and internal monologues to do the heavy lifting.
THE STITCH UP
What’s your writing Kryptonite?
The day job.
What one thing would/did you give up to be a writer?
A linear career.
How many half-finished and unpublished books do you have right now?
Three.
What’s the weirdest thing you’ve researched?
Axolotls.
What book from your childhood do you remember the best?
The Giving Tree.
Thanks for chatting with us, Franco. This interview is all stitched up.
Learn more about Franco Amati via the links provided, and remember to add Job Witness Protection to your TBR list.
Happy reading!
Want more? Catch up on all the Dissecting Author Interviews on the Black Hare Press website: blackharepress.com/blogs/