ManiBear is ManiWolf’s best male friend. They are like brothers, in many respects on the same wavelength. You won’t find any challenging questions here, rather supportive ones, haha.

ManiWolf: It’s always a pleasure seeing you MainBear. You look good in your big felt hat and furry outfit. How is life treating you?

ManiBear: I just roamed about the cold Rocky Mountains and am looking forward to enjoying some California sunshine now. You appear so youthful, ManiWolf, it doesn’t show that you are overworked and underpaid.

ManiWolf: Well, no matter how much I work, I always move around by the ocean, swimming, jogging, bicycling, hiking. That, and writing my stories, keeps me young.

ManiBear: I can’t believe you are finally publishing your stories. I know you always wanted to do that and got bogged down by earning a living….and enjoying life. Well, I know you also were on the road most of your life, exploring the world..

ManiWolf: Yes, you know there is a right time for everything. Now, as I am a bit older, it’s time to go for my ultimate passion.

ManiBear: I have read your stories ManiWolf and am all excited about them. A testament to an adventurous life!

ManiWolf: I didn’t really choose an adventurous life, it chose me.

ManiBear: Your stories show a lot of neglect and abuse. How come you survived?

ManiWolf: I believe human nature is just unbelievably resilient. We all have our struggles and in a way we all made it through life and death scenarios, starting at conception. The only thing I can say is that I have a strong survival instinct, a lust for life, really! But to look at it, we are all survivors.

ManiBear: Maniwolf, what do you think is special about your stories?

ManiWolf: What may be special is that they reflect unrelenting efforts to put words on instincts, feelings and experiences that may be hard to articulate in words, sometimes seemingly impossible.

ManiBear: Do you think your childhood was unusually cruel?

ManiWolf: I believe so, but at the same time I must say that many childhoods are cruel. People need to survive and function in life, so the tendency is to repress that cruelty. To get over it! Be skeptical when somebody claims to have had a happy childhood. Those people often had the worst childhoods!

ManiBear: Why do you think your stories are ultimately encouraging?

ManiWolf: Through my personal experiences I have found out and therefore believe that facing the darker sides of our lives can give us hope. Hope to leave bad experiences behind and thus be able to cherish life. It’s like cleaning a dirty home to enjoy its beauty, instead of using strawberry scented air freshener to cover its stink. This is the principle of Primal Theory, which I subscribe to.

ManiBear: Do you mind telling me more about Primal Therapy and Theory?!

ManiWolf: In a nutshell, Primal Therapy is more than a psychotherapy. It includes an all-comprehensive theory about our human nature, how we are shaped by the earliest days of our lives and how we act out childhood traumas in the present. And how, by reliving those traumas, we stop doing stupid stuff here and now. Done persistently, it becomes a lifestyle.

ManiBear: This sounds fascinating. Shouldn’t everybody do Primal Therapy?

ManiWolf: I agree, but it’s not easy. It’s like pulling teeth without anesthesia. I only went through that process, because I was suicidal, ruined by alcohol and drugs. Literally at the end of my rope. I can’t really go into it here. But I am working on another website primalworld.org, which gives a rare insider’s view. I may finish and publish it in my lifetime, ojalá!

ManiBear: Would you like to talk about any writers that have influenced you?

ManiWolf: Yes, of course. One is Kafka. Many people find his stories depressing. I find them encouraging, exactly because he puts words on our silent alienation, suffering. Then there is Jack London, crude survival scenarios. Or Walt Whitman. I like his naive, exuberant joy, kind of a counterweight to Kafka. Allen Ginsberg, I saw him in Santa Monica, a multitalent, so lively, radically creative, psychedelic. And Pablo Neruda. He lost his mom two months after his birth.  The endless yearning for female love shows in “Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada” (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair). And in many of his other poems. I can relate to that, because I was abandoned at the age of 15 months. I am excited about Isabel Allende. A friend of mine says she is too emotional, haha, here come the cold intellectuals! I am touched by the simplicity, warmth, poetic feel in her stories. And of course, Garcia Marquez. I never got completely through his “Cien años de soledad” (“A Hundred Years of Solitude”), who did?, but I must say that I am totally enthusiastic about his bold imagination, and I feel stimulated by his wild magic. And Knut Hamsun (“Hunger”), even though his political views were disgusting. And not to forget Maxim Gorki and Anton Chekhov. In my young years there were a few German (Hesse, Tucholsky, Kästner, Borchert) and Spanish (Lorca, Jimenez) writers/poets who guided me. Altogether too many to name. I only have read a smattering selection of the great works of world literature, but my reading has had an immense impact on my life and my writing.

ManiBear: I wish you good luck ManiWolf. Hope you find an endless number of enthusiastic readers!

ManiWolf: Recognition is fine. But I am already happy writing and possibly finding a devoted audience. L’art pour l’art!

ManiBear interviewed ManiWolf in December 2025

© ManiWolf