Christine Sneed's Blog
April 18, 2022
Interview with Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry, Author of The Orchard
From the publisher’s description of The Orchard:
Coming of age in the USSR in the 1980s, best friends Anya and Milka try to envision a free and joyful future for themselves. They spend their summers at Anya’s dacha just outside of Moscow, lazing in the apple orchard, listening to Queen songs, and fantasizing about trips abroad and the lives of American teenagers. Meanwhile, Anya’s parents talk about World War II, the Blockade, and the hardships they have endured.
By the time Anya and Milka are fifteen, the Soviet Empire is on the verge of collapse. They pair up with classmates Trifonov and Lopatin, and the four friends share secrets and desires, argue about history and politics, and discuss forbidden books. But the world is changing, and the fleeting time they have together is cut short by a sudden tragedy.
Years later, Anya returns to Russia from America, where she has chosen a different kind of life, far from her family and childhood friends. When she meets Lopatin again, he is a smug businessman who wants to buy her parents’ dacha and cut down the apple orchard. Haunted by the ghosts of her youth, Anya comes to the stark realization that memory does not fade or disappear; rather, it moves us across time, connecting our past to our future, joys to sorrows.
Inspired by Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry’s The Orchard powerfully captures the lives of four Soviet teenagers who are about to lose their country and one another, and who struggle to survive, to save their friendship, to recover all that has been lost.
1. The Orchard has a first-person narrator, Anya, who is a teenager when the novel begins. Will you comment on the challenges and pleasures of writing in the first person? Was The Orchard ever in third person (or second person)?
The Orchard grew out of my short story, “Champions of the World,” which I’d written as a graduate student at Hollins University. The story was always in the first person, which allowed me to achieve a certain degree of intimacy. Anya has a very distinct, somewhat lonely, somewhat lyrical voice, and when I was writing the novel, I followed that voice. It seemed deliciously compelling, and I couldn’t resist it. Nor could I risk changing it. So much of the novel relies on that voice, which is at once a confession and a plea, a prayer and an absolution. The challenge of writing in the first person is that at some point, you fuse with the protagonist and her story, and it becomes impossible to separate your own voice from that of the protagonist, truth from fiction. You end up unearthing your own secrets and seeking ways to justify your own sins. For a fictional character, it strips away authenticity.
2. Like Anya and Milka, you were a teenager in Russia during the 1980s and eventually moved to the U.S. Are there other aspects of The Orchard inspired by events you personally experienced?
Yes. I talk about it at large in my author’s note at the end of the book. The character of Milka is inspired by my childhood friend, who disappeared from my life when I was a teenager. I’ve never been able to find out the truth. Instead, I made up a story to commemorate our friendship. Also, The Orchard, is set at the backdrop of perestroika, the fall of the Iron Curtain, and the subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union, all of which I witnessed. Oddly, the conversations between Anya’s parents, neighbors, and friends are similar to those Russian people have today, especially since the war in Ukraine. The same fears, the same uncertainty, the same division of opinions—all of it is very much present in my home country.
3. Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard serves as a touchstone for this novel. Please comment on this - was its influence there from the beginning, i.e. when you committed the first words of The Orchard to the page?
The Orchard is indeed my humble homage to Chekhov’s play. The idea came to me one summer, when I visited Russia and watched The Cherry Orchard at Moscow Art Theater, where the play had first been staged a century ago. The similarities between Chekhov’s play and my story were disconcerting. Just like Chekhov’s characters, mine, too, seemed to have been trapped in the country’s historic past, the never-ending poverty, class struggle, and the abuse of power. And many arguments and conversations Chekhov’s characters held on-stage sounded heartbreakingly familiar, reminiscent of those my friends and I had in 1987, right after we graduated. When I left the theater that evening, I knew that I wanted to write a novel about four young people coming of age in the USSR in the 1980s, and also to explore a personal tragedy instigated by a collective nightmare, the political chaos and utter lawlessness my generation had endured and that continues to haunt Russians today.
Coming of age in the USSR in the 1980s, best friends Anya and Milka try to envision a free and joyful future for themselves. They spend their summers at Anya’s dacha just outside of Moscow, lazing in the apple orchard, listening to Queen songs, and fantasizing about trips abroad and the lives of American teenagers. Meanwhile, Anya’s parents talk about World War II, the Blockade, and the hardships they have endured.
By the time Anya and Milka are fifteen, the Soviet Empire is on the verge of collapse. They pair up with classmates Trifonov and Lopatin, and the four friends share secrets and desires, argue about history and politics, and discuss forbidden books. But the world is changing, and the fleeting time they have together is cut short by a sudden tragedy.
Years later, Anya returns to Russia from America, where she has chosen a different kind of life, far from her family and childhood friends. When she meets Lopatin again, he is a smug businessman who wants to buy her parents’ dacha and cut down the apple orchard. Haunted by the ghosts of her youth, Anya comes to the stark realization that memory does not fade or disappear; rather, it moves us across time, connecting our past to our future, joys to sorrows.
Inspired by Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry’s The Orchard powerfully captures the lives of four Soviet teenagers who are about to lose their country and one another, and who struggle to survive, to save their friendship, to recover all that has been lost.
1. The Orchard has a first-person narrator, Anya, who is a teenager when the novel begins. Will you comment on the challenges and pleasures of writing in the first person? Was The Orchard ever in third person (or second person)?
The Orchard grew out of my short story, “Champions of the World,” which I’d written as a graduate student at Hollins University. The story was always in the first person, which allowed me to achieve a certain degree of intimacy. Anya has a very distinct, somewhat lonely, somewhat lyrical voice, and when I was writing the novel, I followed that voice. It seemed deliciously compelling, and I couldn’t resist it. Nor could I risk changing it. So much of the novel relies on that voice, which is at once a confession and a plea, a prayer and an absolution. The challenge of writing in the first person is that at some point, you fuse with the protagonist and her story, and it becomes impossible to separate your own voice from that of the protagonist, truth from fiction. You end up unearthing your own secrets and seeking ways to justify your own sins. For a fictional character, it strips away authenticity.
2. Like Anya and Milka, you were a teenager in Russia during the 1980s and eventually moved to the U.S. Are there other aspects of The Orchard inspired by events you personally experienced?
Yes. I talk about it at large in my author’s note at the end of the book. The character of Milka is inspired by my childhood friend, who disappeared from my life when I was a teenager. I’ve never been able to find out the truth. Instead, I made up a story to commemorate our friendship. Also, The Orchard, is set at the backdrop of perestroika, the fall of the Iron Curtain, and the subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union, all of which I witnessed. Oddly, the conversations between Anya’s parents, neighbors, and friends are similar to those Russian people have today, especially since the war in Ukraine. The same fears, the same uncertainty, the same division of opinions—all of it is very much present in my home country.
3. Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard serves as a touchstone for this novel. Please comment on this - was its influence there from the beginning, i.e. when you committed the first words of The Orchard to the page?
The Orchard is indeed my humble homage to Chekhov’s play. The idea came to me one summer, when I visited Russia and watched The Cherry Orchard at Moscow Art Theater, where the play had first been staged a century ago. The similarities between Chekhov’s play and my story were disconcerting. Just like Chekhov’s characters, mine, too, seemed to have been trapped in the country’s historic past, the never-ending poverty, class struggle, and the abuse of power. And many arguments and conversations Chekhov’s characters held on-stage sounded heartbreakingly familiar, reminiscent of those my friends and I had in 1987, right after we graduated. When I left the theater that evening, I knew that I wanted to write a novel about four young people coming of age in the USSR in the 1980s, and also to explore a personal tragedy instigated by a collective nightmare, the political chaos and utter lawlessness my generation had endured and that continues to haunt Russians today.
May 25, 2020
Q and A with Ann Tinkham, author of Stories I Can't Show My Mother
1. Did this collection come together gradually, after you'd written a few stories that you...couldn't show your mother? Or did you think of the theme for the collection first?
It came together gradually. I had written fifty short stories over a ten-year period and decided I wanted to publish a story collection or two, even though writer friends, agents, and editors advised against it. “Story collections don’t sell. Write a novel instead,” was the common refrain. After my traditional publishing deal for Climbing Mountains in Stilettos, a humorous pop-feminist book, didn’t lead to fame and fortune, I made a conscious choice to uncouple the goals of publishing and money-making and self-publish my story collections. It freed me up to pursue my creative goals instead of trying to break the secret code of what sells in the publishing world.
As I looked for emergent themes in my stories, I noticed many I would never show my mother. And a title was born. When I eventually shared the title with my mom, she tried to dissuade me, not wanting to draw attention to herself or to the notion that she might be prudish—which she isn’t. Sex-infused writing just isn’t her thing.
2. Many of the stories in this collection are tonally playful and subversive, for example, an artist in NYC who thinks she can judge a man's sexual prowess based on his eyeglass frames; another who agrees to a self-proclaimed horse whisperer's dubious suggestion that she ride a horse naked in an attempt to get over an ex—do you consider yourself a social satirist?
I suppose I do. I think it comes from being an idealistic truth-seeker in an imperfect and bizarro world. I like to poke fun at and delve into the things people hold sacred, because it often leads to a Wizard of Oz experience—discovering a flawed mortal behind a curtain who’s projecting a false persona to attract followers. Especially in the absence of science, people tend toward magical thinking when making sense of the world and put their faith in psychics, gurus, cults, horse-whisperers, men on mounts, and men walking on water. I mean if someone can turn water into wine, let’s see it, for god’s sake!
Satire is preferable to straight-up criticism in that it delivers social commentary with a spoonful of sugar. When people are laughing, their hearts and minds are more receptive to other ways of seeing and living. I don’t know why throughout human history leaders have used coercion and force as methods for persuasion when humor is so much more effective.
3. This is your second published story collection; your first, The Era of Lanterns and Bells, came out in 2017. How would you say the two collections differ from each other?
My first collection was described by Publishers Weekly as melancholy yet uplifting, also rich and contemplative, which I think is spot on. Stories I Can’t Show My Mother is funnier, lighter, and sexier, but equally quirky. This book is at times seductive, such as when a female protagonist stages a quickie at her art opening. It treats sex as a means to an end, such as when a woman convinces a sperm donor to do a direct deposit. The vocabulary of eroticism becomes commonplace for a woman writing “romantica” in her day job and for an escort to high-powered politicos. When a woman turns to acupuncture to cure her apathy, and she suspects the treatment she's receiving is love voodoo, she comes on to her practitioner in a reverse #MeToo moment.
4. You've lived in Boulder, CO for many years, and I'm guessing some of the New Age-related humor and references that pop in your stories are drawn from experiences you've had in that town. Can you comment on this?
If I do, I might get kicked out of Boulder. I’m already on the short list because I hate yoga. But I’ll do it anyway.
New Agers are the first to criticize traditional religion for its magical thinking and groupthink tendencies. What they fail to acknowledge is that their worldview falls prey to the same influences. New Ageism in Boulder is inextricably linked with privilege and is thus shaped by people believing they manifest and attract abundance through meditation, yoga, and clean living, when the truth is: they’ve often inherited or married into money. This town is teeming with yoga gods and goddesses with swanky homes and Teslas—enlightenment through trust funds.
5. Who would you say are your primary artistic and literary influences?
When it comes to writing, funny and profound is my favorite combination. If I can’t have both, I must have one or the other. It’s even better if some hardship is thrown into the mix. If life’s going to be difficult—which it often is—you might as well laugh your way through it. Crying also works but laughing is way more fun.
Thus, Cannery Row is one of my all-time faves. I love anything by Steinbeck. Also, the humor in hardship as seen in The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. Man versus nature themes in Into The Wild and Into Thin Air by John Krakauer. The gorgeous writing and engaging storytelling in The Signature of all Things by Elizabeth Gilbert. Other standout books include The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen for the hard truth about families; Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, and American Pastoral by Philip Roth.
I’m not a big TV/movie person, but I loved the classic movies, My Dinner with Andre—conversation as conversion experience, and Harold and Maude—death doesn’t have to be so serious and maybe we can take it into our own hands when we’re ready. Another favorite is Little Miss Sunshine with its low-concept story, quirky characters, and unpredictable ending. I found The King’s Speech to be an incredibly moving account of the transformative effect of a therapeutic relationship. And because I share the king’s fear of public speaking, it hits close to home.
My favorite TV series was Northern Exposure—beautiful writing, rich diversity of characters and because I’d like to live in that idyllic Alaskan community.
6. Of course, I can't resist asking, has your mother read any of these stories?
If she has, she hasn’t admitted it. I’m thinking about installing a Mom-cam to catch her in the act!
7. What are you working on now?
I’m slammed with ghostwriting and editing projects, so I have very little time for my own creative writing. My life is a cautionary tale for aspiring writers without a funding source. I’d recommend doing a stint as a drug lord, becoming a vodka bro with Russian oligarchs, or blackmailing someone famous and threatening to pen a tell-all.
I’m preparing to release my third collection, Afraid of the Rain. This collection is closer in tone and style to my first, The Era of Lanterns and Bells. In these stories, the characters are driven to peril by their passions. Some are exalted, yet others succumb to their obsessions. For example, in "The Moon in Her Veins," a woman trades in her high-tech existence for a life as a heroin addict with no interest in rehab or redemption; an impulsive choice forever changes her and directly conflicts with her junkie lifestyle.
It came together gradually. I had written fifty short stories over a ten-year period and decided I wanted to publish a story collection or two, even though writer friends, agents, and editors advised against it. “Story collections don’t sell. Write a novel instead,” was the common refrain. After my traditional publishing deal for Climbing Mountains in Stilettos, a humorous pop-feminist book, didn’t lead to fame and fortune, I made a conscious choice to uncouple the goals of publishing and money-making and self-publish my story collections. It freed me up to pursue my creative goals instead of trying to break the secret code of what sells in the publishing world.
As I looked for emergent themes in my stories, I noticed many I would never show my mother. And a title was born. When I eventually shared the title with my mom, she tried to dissuade me, not wanting to draw attention to herself or to the notion that she might be prudish—which she isn’t. Sex-infused writing just isn’t her thing.
2. Many of the stories in this collection are tonally playful and subversive, for example, an artist in NYC who thinks she can judge a man's sexual prowess based on his eyeglass frames; another who agrees to a self-proclaimed horse whisperer's dubious suggestion that she ride a horse naked in an attempt to get over an ex—do you consider yourself a social satirist?
I suppose I do. I think it comes from being an idealistic truth-seeker in an imperfect and bizarro world. I like to poke fun at and delve into the things people hold sacred, because it often leads to a Wizard of Oz experience—discovering a flawed mortal behind a curtain who’s projecting a false persona to attract followers. Especially in the absence of science, people tend toward magical thinking when making sense of the world and put their faith in psychics, gurus, cults, horse-whisperers, men on mounts, and men walking on water. I mean if someone can turn water into wine, let’s see it, for god’s sake!
Satire is preferable to straight-up criticism in that it delivers social commentary with a spoonful of sugar. When people are laughing, their hearts and minds are more receptive to other ways of seeing and living. I don’t know why throughout human history leaders have used coercion and force as methods for persuasion when humor is so much more effective.
3. This is your second published story collection; your first, The Era of Lanterns and Bells, came out in 2017. How would you say the two collections differ from each other?
My first collection was described by Publishers Weekly as melancholy yet uplifting, also rich and contemplative, which I think is spot on. Stories I Can’t Show My Mother is funnier, lighter, and sexier, but equally quirky. This book is at times seductive, such as when a female protagonist stages a quickie at her art opening. It treats sex as a means to an end, such as when a woman convinces a sperm donor to do a direct deposit. The vocabulary of eroticism becomes commonplace for a woman writing “romantica” in her day job and for an escort to high-powered politicos. When a woman turns to acupuncture to cure her apathy, and she suspects the treatment she's receiving is love voodoo, she comes on to her practitioner in a reverse #MeToo moment.
4. You've lived in Boulder, CO for many years, and I'm guessing some of the New Age-related humor and references that pop in your stories are drawn from experiences you've had in that town. Can you comment on this?
If I do, I might get kicked out of Boulder. I’m already on the short list because I hate yoga. But I’ll do it anyway.
New Agers are the first to criticize traditional religion for its magical thinking and groupthink tendencies. What they fail to acknowledge is that their worldview falls prey to the same influences. New Ageism in Boulder is inextricably linked with privilege and is thus shaped by people believing they manifest and attract abundance through meditation, yoga, and clean living, when the truth is: they’ve often inherited or married into money. This town is teeming with yoga gods and goddesses with swanky homes and Teslas—enlightenment through trust funds.
5. Who would you say are your primary artistic and literary influences?
When it comes to writing, funny and profound is my favorite combination. If I can’t have both, I must have one or the other. It’s even better if some hardship is thrown into the mix. If life’s going to be difficult—which it often is—you might as well laugh your way through it. Crying also works but laughing is way more fun.
Thus, Cannery Row is one of my all-time faves. I love anything by Steinbeck. Also, the humor in hardship as seen in The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. Man versus nature themes in Into The Wild and Into Thin Air by John Krakauer. The gorgeous writing and engaging storytelling in The Signature of all Things by Elizabeth Gilbert. Other standout books include The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen for the hard truth about families; Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, and American Pastoral by Philip Roth.
I’m not a big TV/movie person, but I loved the classic movies, My Dinner with Andre—conversation as conversion experience, and Harold and Maude—death doesn’t have to be so serious and maybe we can take it into our own hands when we’re ready. Another favorite is Little Miss Sunshine with its low-concept story, quirky characters, and unpredictable ending. I found The King’s Speech to be an incredibly moving account of the transformative effect of a therapeutic relationship. And because I share the king’s fear of public speaking, it hits close to home.
My favorite TV series was Northern Exposure—beautiful writing, rich diversity of characters and because I’d like to live in that idyllic Alaskan community.
6. Of course, I can't resist asking, has your mother read any of these stories?
If she has, she hasn’t admitted it. I’m thinking about installing a Mom-cam to catch her in the act!
7. What are you working on now?
I’m slammed with ghostwriting and editing projects, so I have very little time for my own creative writing. My life is a cautionary tale for aspiring writers without a funding source. I’d recommend doing a stint as a drug lord, becoming a vodka bro with Russian oligarchs, or blackmailing someone famous and threatening to pen a tell-all.
I’m preparing to release my third collection, Afraid of the Rain. This collection is closer in tone and style to my first, The Era of Lanterns and Bells. In these stories, the characters are driven to peril by their passions. Some are exalted, yet others succumb to their obsessions. For example, in "The Moon in Her Veins," a woman trades in her high-tech existence for a life as a heroin addict with no interest in rehab or redemption; an impulsive choice forever changes her and directly conflicts with her junkie lifestyle.
January 13, 2020
Q and A with Victoria Patterson - THE SECRET HABIT OF SORROW
1. You’re very good at writing about characters in the grip of self-destructive behaviors, substance abuse and eating disorders, in particular. What is it about characters on the verge that inspires you as a fiction writer.
People who struggle with self-destructive behaviours can be heartbreaking, complex, deep, maddening, and lovely. I’m drawn to that combination (whether I want to be or not) both in life and in fiction.
2. A number of your stories, both from the male and female POVs, are written in first-person. Do you find yourself hearing a character’s voice before anything else when you begin a story? Or do you start with a subject or an idea for a scene?
The voice (character) has to be strong for me to plunge into a first person POV. It develops as I sit with the work over time, so that the point of view and the character are alive for me.
3. I love the dark comedy in “DC” which features two women, both from marriages that have ended, or nearly ended, living in a southern Californian apartment complex, one that Serena, the main character Elaine’s neighbor, calls a “divorce Shangi-La.” I can’t resist asking how this story started - is either Elaine or Serena based on a real person? Serena especially is hilarious and memorable.
Elaine and Serena’s apartments are divided by a locked gate. They keep the gate door parted with a brick, so that they can move easily between their apartments without having to use a key.
I had a friend who moved into an apartment complex. My young sons and I would come over to swim. She’d leave a brick in the front gate so that we could enter the apartment complex without her having to open the gate for us.
That whole story developed because of that brick. I couldn’t stop thinking about it–and then, long after my friend moved, I’d see the image of that brick wedging the gate open.
4. You write so skillfully about children and adolescents throughout the varied and various stories in The Secret Habit of Sorrow. “Johnny Hitman” is an especially arresting story about desire and violence as experienced by two girls in their early teens, but it’s also a frame tale told from the POV of one of the girls as an adult. Did this structure evolve through various drafts?
Yes! Many, many drafts. Sometimes I have to put a story down for a couple of years, let it marinate. I come back, fiddle, only to put it down again.
5. And related to the above, I’m wondering what inspired “Johnny Hitman” too - slasher movies like the girls watch in the story? An attractively dangerous older brother?
“Johnny Hitman” was inspired by a girlhood friendship of mine–-though I took many liberties.
6. You’ve published both novels and short story collections. Do you approach the writing of a novel differently when you do a short story, i.e. do you write an outline for a novel but simply start writing a short story and see where it takes you?
I’ve never outlined. Before attempting words on the page, I take lots of notes–-both for stories and novels. The biggest difference is that for novels, the notetaking is more extensive.
7. Who are some of your main influences - writers, filmmakers, and/or artists? The collection’s title comes from a line from Henry James--is he one of your desert island authors?
I’m a promiscuous reader. I just read everything I could by and about Paula Fox, which followed Sylvia Townsend Warner, which followed Tom Drury and Rachel Cusk. My mainstays are William Trevor, Edith Wharton, and Richard Yates.
8. What are you working on now?
God help me: I’m writing a sequel novel to my first story collection, Drift .
People who struggle with self-destructive behaviours can be heartbreaking, complex, deep, maddening, and lovely. I’m drawn to that combination (whether I want to be or not) both in life and in fiction.
2. A number of your stories, both from the male and female POVs, are written in first-person. Do you find yourself hearing a character’s voice before anything else when you begin a story? Or do you start with a subject or an idea for a scene?
The voice (character) has to be strong for me to plunge into a first person POV. It develops as I sit with the work over time, so that the point of view and the character are alive for me.
3. I love the dark comedy in “DC” which features two women, both from marriages that have ended, or nearly ended, living in a southern Californian apartment complex, one that Serena, the main character Elaine’s neighbor, calls a “divorce Shangi-La.” I can’t resist asking how this story started - is either Elaine or Serena based on a real person? Serena especially is hilarious and memorable.
Elaine and Serena’s apartments are divided by a locked gate. They keep the gate door parted with a brick, so that they can move easily between their apartments without having to use a key.
I had a friend who moved into an apartment complex. My young sons and I would come over to swim. She’d leave a brick in the front gate so that we could enter the apartment complex without her having to open the gate for us.
That whole story developed because of that brick. I couldn’t stop thinking about it–and then, long after my friend moved, I’d see the image of that brick wedging the gate open.
4. You write so skillfully about children and adolescents throughout the varied and various stories in The Secret Habit of Sorrow. “Johnny Hitman” is an especially arresting story about desire and violence as experienced by two girls in their early teens, but it’s also a frame tale told from the POV of one of the girls as an adult. Did this structure evolve through various drafts?
Yes! Many, many drafts. Sometimes I have to put a story down for a couple of years, let it marinate. I come back, fiddle, only to put it down again.
5. And related to the above, I’m wondering what inspired “Johnny Hitman” too - slasher movies like the girls watch in the story? An attractively dangerous older brother?
“Johnny Hitman” was inspired by a girlhood friendship of mine–-though I took many liberties.
6. You’ve published both novels and short story collections. Do you approach the writing of a novel differently when you do a short story, i.e. do you write an outline for a novel but simply start writing a short story and see where it takes you?
I’ve never outlined. Before attempting words on the page, I take lots of notes–-both for stories and novels. The biggest difference is that for novels, the notetaking is more extensive.
7. Who are some of your main influences - writers, filmmakers, and/or artists? The collection’s title comes from a line from Henry James--is he one of your desert island authors?
I’m a promiscuous reader. I just read everything I could by and about Paula Fox, which followed Sylvia Townsend Warner, which followed Tom Drury and Rachel Cusk. My mainstays are William Trevor, Edith Wharton, and Richard Yates.
8. What are you working on now?
God help me: I’m writing a sequel novel to my first story collection, Drift .
December 13, 2019
Q and A with Hadley Moore about her debut story collection, NOT DEAD YET
1. Tell us a little about the stories in Not Dead Yet:
They are shot through with (my) existential dread! But many of them are also funny (that’s also me). I wrote and revised and published them in journals over a period of about ten years, during which time I also finished my MFA, wrote a novel and revised it several times, and started a third project. Until I’d drafted the last story—which became the title story—I didn’t really have an eye toward collecting them; rather than working on one large project, it felt like I had done nine smaller discreet ones. But then I noticed I had not only enough volume to make up a whole book, but also material that actually hung together, stories that could comment on one another and belonged in juxtaposition. In one sense, this should not be surprising—of course they go together; I wrote them all—but it was definitely not apparent until late in the process.
That’s the long answer. The short answer is that the stories are all about the uncertainties of loss and some of the more ignoble aspects of coping, with a good dose of gallows humor thrown in.
2. You definitely aren't writing the same story over and over - how do you find your characters and topics? Do they spring from news headlines (I remember reading years ago that T.C. Boyle won an O. Henry Prize for a story inspired by a headline about a teenage couple that abandoned their newborn), friends and neighbors, people you've worked with?
A poet once asked me whether I had tons of story ideas running through my head at all times. Um, no. I wish. But there’s a sort of resonance I’ve come to recognize when a promising story seed starts germinating. Sometimes these seeds truly do come seemingly out of nowhere, and sometimes I can trace them to some instigating thought or occurrence. For instance, the story “Baby True Tot” sprang from seeing a magazine ad for one of those porcelain baby dolls intended for adult collectors (so creepy). And the first line of “Ordinary Circumstances”: “My kid likes going to the doctor” came from hearing an acquaintance say her kids actually did like going to the doctor.
The stories really are different from one another in many ways; I’ve heard this before about my work, and I think it’s probably a good thing, but, as I said, one of the consequences is that it took me a while to understand I was writing an entire book, not just nine unrelated stories.
3. You must have done considerable research for your story "The Entomologist." What inspired you to write this story about a scientist who has spent her life studying termites? (I'm guessing insects don't make you squeamish like they do many of us.)
I love insects. I really do. I can’t explain it. I am fascinated by the strange intricacies of their small, exoskeletal bodies, and I love to look at magnified photos, like the ones you find in National Geographic. I also love arachnids and crustaceans.
I heard a story on NPR years ago about a widowed entomologist who dealt with his grief by getting lost in his study of termites, basically spending the rest of his life staring into their holes in the ground. My story veers significantly from this premise, but that was its seed.
I spent a lot of time reading about termites, first needing to determine what type would be found where my story is set—Portland, Oregon—and also how they behave, the processes of their destructive eating, what they look like (smooth bodies rather than segmented ones), what it’s like when they swarm, how people discover their homes are infested. It was all very interesting and I think it’s important to try to get such details right, but research like that is sometimes hard to tear myself from in order just to write the story.
4. Most of the stories in Not Dead Yet and Other Stories are written in third-person. Some writers--Jonathan Franzen comes readily to mind--only use first-person when it's absolutely unavoidable. Is this your feeling too?
I took some stats as I was ordering the collection—story length, verb tense, point of view—and they were revealing about my preferences and tendencies. It’s true that two thirds of the stories are written in third person, and I would say I’m more inclined that way—my novel manuscript is also third—but my current project so far is mostly first person, which seems most fitting to this new material.
So, I don’t have a stance; I’ve just noticed some of my patterns. There’s perhaps a more old-timey storytelling feel to third person and a more intimate one to first, but I think these are really only the broadest of strokes in describing their effects.
I do prefer to read aloud from third-person stories at events. There’s a weird tendency sometimes toward conflation between author and narrator that I don’t want to encourage, and it feels easier to avoid that in third person.
5. Your stories offer an unflinching view of people suffering--whether from grief or guilt or mental illness ("Mother and Child"! holy moly...). This is one way of saying yours aren't happy-go-lucky stories, but there are flashes of humor and sweetness throughout the collection. Who are your primary influences?
“Mother and Child” is the story I am most eager to remind readers is truly fiction, as it is about, well, child abuse—and perhaps Munchausen syndrome by proxy.
I never know what to say about influence. I have my favorite writers, and books I return to again and again, but is it too corny to say I’ve been influenced by every book I’ve ever read—as well as every movie I’ve seen or museum I’ve visited? I believe it’s true. There’s a sort of compost of the mind I think happens (I’m stealing from Natalie Goldberg here): you think and read and turn things over, and who knows what might come out of that. For example, I lived in Salt Lake City from 2000–2003, and I’m only now writing stories set in Utah.
I will say I am committed to honesty in fiction—to write unflinchingly is a good way to put it—and I am drawn most to such honesty in my reading life too. Often this means characters suffer. But suffering can be portrayed with compassion; I’m not interested in violence or grief for its own sake, or in the purely prurient or titillating.
6. You've written at least one novel that I know of--maybe more since we last corresponded about this. I'm wondering if your process differs when you're writing a novel, e.g. do you write an outline for a novel but not for a short story?
It doesn’t differ a lot. I wish in all instances that the process were more orderly. I am very much what we used to call “left-brained,” and so there is constant tension between my profound desire for order in all things and the messy, iterative creative process. It is really a struggle, and over time I have trained myself to be more accepting of this tension.
My basic process is really the same across projects: notice the seed of an idea and work it over in my mind for a little bit until I feel or have teased out that resonance I seek. Then I usually write a few initial notes by hand until I think I have enough of an idea of where this might be going to begin drafting, at which point I turn to my computer. I never draft by hand. When I get stuck I go back to my paper notebook and write a lot of notes about what should happen next. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
When a project is done I toss the notebook in the recycling. Otherwise I would have a mountain of them, and I have no interest in re-reading notes like “Stuck again. What should happen with this section? Who is the catalyst character here?” I feel no special tenderness toward my notebooks; they’re just tools.
7. What are you working on now?
My novel manuscript sits ever in a file; I like to think it’s not dead, it’s just resting. I did another big revision of it about a year and a half ago, then set it aside again.
My current project is shaping up to be thematically linked stories about the assassinations of the 1960s. So far, “about” the assassinations means there’s a point-of-view character with some particular fascination with them and with that period of American history, and this fascination interacts with other aspects of their lives. Besides that thematic link the stories (just three finished so far, and two partial) are quite different from each other. I can’t see the full shape of it now, but I’m interested in this project and its subject matter, and so I’m happy to keep following my thread.
They are shot through with (my) existential dread! But many of them are also funny (that’s also me). I wrote and revised and published them in journals over a period of about ten years, during which time I also finished my MFA, wrote a novel and revised it several times, and started a third project. Until I’d drafted the last story—which became the title story—I didn’t really have an eye toward collecting them; rather than working on one large project, it felt like I had done nine smaller discreet ones. But then I noticed I had not only enough volume to make up a whole book, but also material that actually hung together, stories that could comment on one another and belonged in juxtaposition. In one sense, this should not be surprising—of course they go together; I wrote them all—but it was definitely not apparent until late in the process.
That’s the long answer. The short answer is that the stories are all about the uncertainties of loss and some of the more ignoble aspects of coping, with a good dose of gallows humor thrown in.
2. You definitely aren't writing the same story over and over - how do you find your characters and topics? Do they spring from news headlines (I remember reading years ago that T.C. Boyle won an O. Henry Prize for a story inspired by a headline about a teenage couple that abandoned their newborn), friends and neighbors, people you've worked with?
A poet once asked me whether I had tons of story ideas running through my head at all times. Um, no. I wish. But there’s a sort of resonance I’ve come to recognize when a promising story seed starts germinating. Sometimes these seeds truly do come seemingly out of nowhere, and sometimes I can trace them to some instigating thought or occurrence. For instance, the story “Baby True Tot” sprang from seeing a magazine ad for one of those porcelain baby dolls intended for adult collectors (so creepy). And the first line of “Ordinary Circumstances”: “My kid likes going to the doctor” came from hearing an acquaintance say her kids actually did like going to the doctor.
The stories really are different from one another in many ways; I’ve heard this before about my work, and I think it’s probably a good thing, but, as I said, one of the consequences is that it took me a while to understand I was writing an entire book, not just nine unrelated stories.
3. You must have done considerable research for your story "The Entomologist." What inspired you to write this story about a scientist who has spent her life studying termites? (I'm guessing insects don't make you squeamish like they do many of us.)
I love insects. I really do. I can’t explain it. I am fascinated by the strange intricacies of their small, exoskeletal bodies, and I love to look at magnified photos, like the ones you find in National Geographic. I also love arachnids and crustaceans.
I heard a story on NPR years ago about a widowed entomologist who dealt with his grief by getting lost in his study of termites, basically spending the rest of his life staring into their holes in the ground. My story veers significantly from this premise, but that was its seed.
I spent a lot of time reading about termites, first needing to determine what type would be found where my story is set—Portland, Oregon—and also how they behave, the processes of their destructive eating, what they look like (smooth bodies rather than segmented ones), what it’s like when they swarm, how people discover their homes are infested. It was all very interesting and I think it’s important to try to get such details right, but research like that is sometimes hard to tear myself from in order just to write the story.
4. Most of the stories in Not Dead Yet and Other Stories are written in third-person. Some writers--Jonathan Franzen comes readily to mind--only use first-person when it's absolutely unavoidable. Is this your feeling too?
I took some stats as I was ordering the collection—story length, verb tense, point of view—and they were revealing about my preferences and tendencies. It’s true that two thirds of the stories are written in third person, and I would say I’m more inclined that way—my novel manuscript is also third—but my current project so far is mostly first person, which seems most fitting to this new material.
So, I don’t have a stance; I’ve just noticed some of my patterns. There’s perhaps a more old-timey storytelling feel to third person and a more intimate one to first, but I think these are really only the broadest of strokes in describing their effects.
I do prefer to read aloud from third-person stories at events. There’s a weird tendency sometimes toward conflation between author and narrator that I don’t want to encourage, and it feels easier to avoid that in third person.
5. Your stories offer an unflinching view of people suffering--whether from grief or guilt or mental illness ("Mother and Child"! holy moly...). This is one way of saying yours aren't happy-go-lucky stories, but there are flashes of humor and sweetness throughout the collection. Who are your primary influences?
“Mother and Child” is the story I am most eager to remind readers is truly fiction, as it is about, well, child abuse—and perhaps Munchausen syndrome by proxy.
I never know what to say about influence. I have my favorite writers, and books I return to again and again, but is it too corny to say I’ve been influenced by every book I’ve ever read—as well as every movie I’ve seen or museum I’ve visited? I believe it’s true. There’s a sort of compost of the mind I think happens (I’m stealing from Natalie Goldberg here): you think and read and turn things over, and who knows what might come out of that. For example, I lived in Salt Lake City from 2000–2003, and I’m only now writing stories set in Utah.
I will say I am committed to honesty in fiction—to write unflinchingly is a good way to put it—and I am drawn most to such honesty in my reading life too. Often this means characters suffer. But suffering can be portrayed with compassion; I’m not interested in violence or grief for its own sake, or in the purely prurient or titillating.
6. You've written at least one novel that I know of--maybe more since we last corresponded about this. I'm wondering if your process differs when you're writing a novel, e.g. do you write an outline for a novel but not for a short story?
It doesn’t differ a lot. I wish in all instances that the process were more orderly. I am very much what we used to call “left-brained,” and so there is constant tension between my profound desire for order in all things and the messy, iterative creative process. It is really a struggle, and over time I have trained myself to be more accepting of this tension.
My basic process is really the same across projects: notice the seed of an idea and work it over in my mind for a little bit until I feel or have teased out that resonance I seek. Then I usually write a few initial notes by hand until I think I have enough of an idea of where this might be going to begin drafting, at which point I turn to my computer. I never draft by hand. When I get stuck I go back to my paper notebook and write a lot of notes about what should happen next. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
When a project is done I toss the notebook in the recycling. Otherwise I would have a mountain of them, and I have no interest in re-reading notes like “Stuck again. What should happen with this section? Who is the catalyst character here?” I feel no special tenderness toward my notebooks; they’re just tools.
7. What are you working on now?
My novel manuscript sits ever in a file; I like to think it’s not dead, it’s just resting. I did another big revision of it about a year and a half ago, then set it aside again.
My current project is shaping up to be thematically linked stories about the assassinations of the 1960s. So far, “about” the assassinations means there’s a point-of-view character with some particular fascination with them and with that period of American history, and this fascination interacts with other aspects of their lives. Besides that thematic link the stories (just three finished so far, and two partial) are quite different from each other. I can’t see the full shape of it now, but I’m interested in this project and its subject matter, and so I’m happy to keep following my thread.
October 20, 2019
Q and A with R.L. Maizes about her collection We Love Anderson Cooper
1. Tell us a little about your book.
To quote the book jacket: "In We Love Anderson Cooper, characters are treated as outsiders because of their sexual orientation, racial or religious identity, or simply because they look different. A young man courts the publicity that comes from outing himself at his bar mitzvah. When a painter is shunned because of his appearance, he learns to ink tattoos that come to life. A paranoid Jewish actuary suspects his cat of cheating on him―with his Protestant girlfriend.
"In this debut collection, humor complements pathos. Readers will recognize themselves in these stories and in these protagonists, whose backgrounds are vastly different from their own―we’ve all been outsiders at some point."
2. No one could rightfully accuse you of writing the same story twice. The diversity of your characters and situations is impressive--how do you begin a story? Is it with a character, an image, or subject matter, or all of the above?
All of the above. A news report I hear might stay with me and inspire a story. That was the case with the title story, “We Love Anderson Cooper.” A high school valedictorian in a town near where I live was planning to come out in his graduation speech, but his school censored him. He ended up giving the speech to the organization Out Boulder, and a video of the speech went viral. That gave me the idea to have a boy come out in his Bar Mitzvah speech. The story “Couch” came from an actual couch I inherited from my mother that she used in her therapy practice. I pictured all of her clients crying on the couch, and then I imagined a couch that actually made people cry. That story was also inspired by the many therapists I’ve had over the years, the good ones and the bad ones, but especially the bad ones.
3. “Tattoo” features an artist who is able to do more than ink people's skin--he has what I'd call magical powers of transformation--where did he come from?
The main character in “Tattoo” was inspired by a newspaper article about a tattoo artist who inked nipples on cancer survivors who had breast reconstruction surgery. So many women sought his services, he had no time for any other tattooing. He developed a conflict between wanting to help the women and hating the way it limited his art and imagination. I found that conflict fascinating and couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I decided to write about it. The story I wrote took a magical turn and went off in a different direction than the original article.
4. I love that there are many cat and dog characters in your stories--have animals always been of keen interest to you as a writer?
The first story I ever wrote—when I was six or seven—was titled “Unga and the Frog.” So I guess the answer to your question is yes. My forthcoming novel, Other People’s Pets, is about an animal empath who was raised to be a burglar. Animals are a big part of my life. My husband and I have adopted a cat and a dog. I’m vegan. I find animals to be a tremendous comfort in an often distressing world. My pets ground me. They teach me about love, loyalty, and being present. Animals of all kinds capture my imagination and end up in my work.
5. How long did it take you to write We Love Anderson Cooper and how did you find your agent?
It took ten years to write the individual stories in We Love Anderson Cooper and a few more years to revise the entire collection. I worked with two developmental editors who taught me a lot about writing in general and about short stories in particular. I found my agent, Victoria Sanders, by sending a cold query to her inbox. I had no prior connection to her and no referral. As far as I know, she had never represented a short story collection before. She’s a wonderful agent.
6. Who/what are some of your biggest literary and artistic influences?
That’s a hard question because I’m always falling in love with new writers and new books and trying to learn from them. For example, in The Great Believers, Rebecca Makkai pulls off a surprise that’s brilliant. I won’t say more to avoid a spoiler. But when I want to surprise the reader, I think about whether I can use her approach. A collection that influenced me is Philip Roth’s Goodbye, Columbus. It contains a story, “The Conversion of the Jews,” that’s hilarious and profound. I reread that story as I was working on We Love Anderson Cooper, Nathan Englander’s “The Gilgul of Park Avenue” is another story I admire, its humor and the way it isn’t satisfied with just making the reader laugh. I grew up attending Wendy Wasserstein plays, and I aspire to write stories that move as skillfully between comedy and pathos.
7. What's next?
I just turned in the edits for my novel, Other People’s Pets, which will be out in 2020. I’m not sure what I’ll write next. Publishing a collection and a novel within a two-year period, I’ve neglected my nonwriting life. I want to regain some balance. Volunteer for a political campaign. Take up a musical instrument again. And begin a new writing project, too.
R.L. Maizes is the author the short story collection, We Love Anderson Cooper, and the novel Other People's Pets, forthcoming June 2020 (Celadon Books/Macmillan). Maizes's short stories have aired on NPR and have appeared in the literary magazines Electric Literature, Witness, and Bellevue Literary Review, among others. Her essays have aired on NPR and have been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and elsewhere.
Maizes was born in Queens, NY, and currently lives in Boulder County, CO. She is an alumna of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Tin House Summer Writer’s Workshop.
To quote the book jacket: "In We Love Anderson Cooper, characters are treated as outsiders because of their sexual orientation, racial or religious identity, or simply because they look different. A young man courts the publicity that comes from outing himself at his bar mitzvah. When a painter is shunned because of his appearance, he learns to ink tattoos that come to life. A paranoid Jewish actuary suspects his cat of cheating on him―with his Protestant girlfriend.
"In this debut collection, humor complements pathos. Readers will recognize themselves in these stories and in these protagonists, whose backgrounds are vastly different from their own―we’ve all been outsiders at some point."
2. No one could rightfully accuse you of writing the same story twice. The diversity of your characters and situations is impressive--how do you begin a story? Is it with a character, an image, or subject matter, or all of the above?
All of the above. A news report I hear might stay with me and inspire a story. That was the case with the title story, “We Love Anderson Cooper.” A high school valedictorian in a town near where I live was planning to come out in his graduation speech, but his school censored him. He ended up giving the speech to the organization Out Boulder, and a video of the speech went viral. That gave me the idea to have a boy come out in his Bar Mitzvah speech. The story “Couch” came from an actual couch I inherited from my mother that she used in her therapy practice. I pictured all of her clients crying on the couch, and then I imagined a couch that actually made people cry. That story was also inspired by the many therapists I’ve had over the years, the good ones and the bad ones, but especially the bad ones.
3. “Tattoo” features an artist who is able to do more than ink people's skin--he has what I'd call magical powers of transformation--where did he come from?
The main character in “Tattoo” was inspired by a newspaper article about a tattoo artist who inked nipples on cancer survivors who had breast reconstruction surgery. So many women sought his services, he had no time for any other tattooing. He developed a conflict between wanting to help the women and hating the way it limited his art and imagination. I found that conflict fascinating and couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I decided to write about it. The story I wrote took a magical turn and went off in a different direction than the original article.
4. I love that there are many cat and dog characters in your stories--have animals always been of keen interest to you as a writer?
The first story I ever wrote—when I was six or seven—was titled “Unga and the Frog.” So I guess the answer to your question is yes. My forthcoming novel, Other People’s Pets, is about an animal empath who was raised to be a burglar. Animals are a big part of my life. My husband and I have adopted a cat and a dog. I’m vegan. I find animals to be a tremendous comfort in an often distressing world. My pets ground me. They teach me about love, loyalty, and being present. Animals of all kinds capture my imagination and end up in my work.
5. How long did it take you to write We Love Anderson Cooper and how did you find your agent?
It took ten years to write the individual stories in We Love Anderson Cooper and a few more years to revise the entire collection. I worked with two developmental editors who taught me a lot about writing in general and about short stories in particular. I found my agent, Victoria Sanders, by sending a cold query to her inbox. I had no prior connection to her and no referral. As far as I know, she had never represented a short story collection before. She’s a wonderful agent.
6. Who/what are some of your biggest literary and artistic influences?
That’s a hard question because I’m always falling in love with new writers and new books and trying to learn from them. For example, in The Great Believers, Rebecca Makkai pulls off a surprise that’s brilliant. I won’t say more to avoid a spoiler. But when I want to surprise the reader, I think about whether I can use her approach. A collection that influenced me is Philip Roth’s Goodbye, Columbus. It contains a story, “The Conversion of the Jews,” that’s hilarious and profound. I reread that story as I was working on We Love Anderson Cooper, Nathan Englander’s “The Gilgul of Park Avenue” is another story I admire, its humor and the way it isn’t satisfied with just making the reader laugh. I grew up attending Wendy Wasserstein plays, and I aspire to write stories that move as skillfully between comedy and pathos.
7. What's next?
I just turned in the edits for my novel, Other People’s Pets, which will be out in 2020. I’m not sure what I’ll write next. Publishing a collection and a novel within a two-year period, I’ve neglected my nonwriting life. I want to regain some balance. Volunteer for a political campaign. Take up a musical instrument again. And begin a new writing project, too.
R.L. Maizes is the author the short story collection, We Love Anderson Cooper, and the novel Other People's Pets, forthcoming June 2020 (Celadon Books/Macmillan). Maizes's short stories have aired on NPR and have appeared in the literary magazines Electric Literature, Witness, and Bellevue Literary Review, among others. Her essays have aired on NPR and have been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and elsewhere.
Maizes was born in Queens, NY, and currently lives in Boulder County, CO. She is an alumna of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Tin House Summer Writer’s Workshop.
October 11, 2019
Q&A with Don Tassone about his short story collection SAMPLER
I asked Don Tassone to do the following self-interview for his new collection, in the vein of those published by journals such as The Nervous Breakdown.
1. Tell us a little about your new book.
Sampler is a collection of 50 wide-ranging short stories. Some are serious, oth-ers light. Most are gentle, but a few are disquieting. There is fantasy, spirituality and politics here. Many of these stories are slices of life. Most are short. All are an invita-tion to think more deeply.
2. Did you write this book with anyone particular in mind?
Busy people. We’re all so busy these days, so many of the stories in this collection are short. But I wasn’t just going for brevity. If I had, I could have simply strung together a series of 50 or 500 text messages. And you know, somebody probably would have bought that book! But if I’d done that, I would have deepened no one. I would have moved nobody. So I decided to write a book of metaphors, stories which are short but also serve to illuminate larger points. I hope people find these stories interesting. I hope they invite people to pause for a moment and think more deeply.
3. I’ve noticed this story collection has no theme. Can you talk about this a bit?
I realize that’s unusual! These stories are eclectic. But stories come from our experi-ences, and our experiences are diverse. So why limit a collection of stories to just one theme?
4. As both a short story writer and novelist, would you say you prefer one form over the other?
I’ve always been drawn to crisp writing. So “writing short” feels natural to me. That said, I love the challenge of long-form writing too. Besides, novels can be crisp. For me, writing both short-form and long-form, and going back and forth between the two, like a train switching tracks, feels right. It gives me a sense of balance. So that’s my path.
5. What’s your favorite story in this collection and why?
“Flashpoint.” This is my first published story. It’s the only non-fiction piece in this col-lection. It’s based on an extraordinary experience I shared with my best friend in Alaska some years ago. It was a defining moment in my life. It’s the last story in the book, and there’s a photograph from that trip. I hope readers enjoy it.
6. This is your fourth book published in two years. You’ve really made the pivot from the corporate world to writing. How has that been?
Exciting — and challenging. Writing had always been a passion, but I’m afraid 31 years of business writing had just about killed my creativity. So when I retired from P&G, I had to learn to write again. But I believe we should always pursue our interests and pas-sions. In hindsight, I realize I should have invested the time to write creatively over the years, but I got busy. I feel so fortunate to have the opportunity to write creatively now. Writing is an important and joyful part of an active retirement.
7. What are you working on now?
I’ve just begun work on my second novel. I love writing short stories, but I’m eager to get back into a long-form writing project. It’s that sense of balance, I suppose.
Don Tassone is the author of a novel, Drive, and three short story col-lections: Sampler, Small Bites and Get Back. His fourth story collection, New Twists, will be published in October 2020. He lives in Loveland, Ohio and teaches at Xavier University in Cincinnati.
1. Tell us a little about your new book.
Sampler is a collection of 50 wide-ranging short stories. Some are serious, oth-ers light. Most are gentle, but a few are disquieting. There is fantasy, spirituality and politics here. Many of these stories are slices of life. Most are short. All are an invita-tion to think more deeply.
2. Did you write this book with anyone particular in mind?
Busy people. We’re all so busy these days, so many of the stories in this collection are short. But I wasn’t just going for brevity. If I had, I could have simply strung together a series of 50 or 500 text messages. And you know, somebody probably would have bought that book! But if I’d done that, I would have deepened no one. I would have moved nobody. So I decided to write a book of metaphors, stories which are short but also serve to illuminate larger points. I hope people find these stories interesting. I hope they invite people to pause for a moment and think more deeply.
3. I’ve noticed this story collection has no theme. Can you talk about this a bit?
I realize that’s unusual! These stories are eclectic. But stories come from our experi-ences, and our experiences are diverse. So why limit a collection of stories to just one theme?
4. As both a short story writer and novelist, would you say you prefer one form over the other?
I’ve always been drawn to crisp writing. So “writing short” feels natural to me. That said, I love the challenge of long-form writing too. Besides, novels can be crisp. For me, writing both short-form and long-form, and going back and forth between the two, like a train switching tracks, feels right. It gives me a sense of balance. So that’s my path.
5. What’s your favorite story in this collection and why?
“Flashpoint.” This is my first published story. It’s the only non-fiction piece in this col-lection. It’s based on an extraordinary experience I shared with my best friend in Alaska some years ago. It was a defining moment in my life. It’s the last story in the book, and there’s a photograph from that trip. I hope readers enjoy it.
6. This is your fourth book published in two years. You’ve really made the pivot from the corporate world to writing. How has that been?
Exciting — and challenging. Writing had always been a passion, but I’m afraid 31 years of business writing had just about killed my creativity. So when I retired from P&G, I had to learn to write again. But I believe we should always pursue our interests and pas-sions. In hindsight, I realize I should have invested the time to write creatively over the years, but I got busy. I feel so fortunate to have the opportunity to write creatively now. Writing is an important and joyful part of an active retirement.
7. What are you working on now?
I’ve just begun work on my second novel. I love writing short stories, but I’m eager to get back into a long-form writing project. It’s that sense of balance, I suppose.
Don Tassone is the author of a novel, Drive, and three short story col-lections: Sampler, Small Bites and Get Back. His fourth story collection, New Twists, will be published in October 2020. He lives in Loveland, Ohio and teaches at Xavier University in Cincinnati.
June 19, 2019
Q and A with Elizabeth Crane about her story collection TURF
1. Many of the stories in Turf are what I'd call satire with a heart - there's a sympathetic sensibility behind the critique of our culture that is seen in stories such as "Star Babies," "Notes for an Important American Story," and "The Genius Meetings." Do you often begin with an idea and go from there or do you think of a character first?
Both! With “Star Babies” I had been thinking that one day Hollywood would eventually just be famous kids of famous kids of famous kids and that went from there. Those three in particular began with ideas, but just as often I’ll be thinking of what it might be like to be a particular person, or in a particular circumstance.
2. The Texas Longhorns were referred to in several stories (this really cracked me up, btw). Why the Longhorns? Is it the orange?
I lived in Austin for three years! It seemed to me like Longhorns and orange things were everywhere, including the grocery store and I think it seeped into my stories.
3. A few of the stories in Turf I couldn't help but read as autobiographical, at least in part - would you say your stories are often (or sometimes?) based on real events and people?
I do sometimes start there and then veer off as necessary to create the most interesting story I can with whatever bit of real life I’ve brought to it. I am of course, a genius, which is where the idea for genius meetings came from, but then I spun it and switched genders so the men could have a say. ;)
4. I love the commingling of flash fiction with longer short stories in Turf. Do you start a flash piece knowing it will be flash? Or would you say you begin not knowing what form a story will take?
I usually know if it’s going to be super short. But I wrote a novel thinking it was a short story, so to some extent I never know. Sometimes the story idea and the form emerge at the same time.
5. You've published novels as well as story collections - do you have a preference for one over the other, as both reader and writer?
I really do love to read short stories, there’s something about the form that always inspires and surprises me, and it’s probably my favorite thing to write as well. But I also love to read a great novel.
6. I'm always curious about influence - what/who would you say your biggest influences are?
I’ve talked often about how way back when, I’d never read anything like David Foster Wallace, so he’s one of the most obvious connections just because I really didn’t know that I could be doing my own thing before that. But also Lydia Davis, Deborah Eisenberg. I think at this point it’s more about inspiration than influence, since I’m a more confident fiction writer than I was when I first began writing stories. So more recently I’m excited by writers like Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, whose collection Friday Black is a knockout, Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties.
7. What are you working on now?
Welllll…. something nonfictiony but I’ll leave it at that!
Elizabeth Crane is the author of two novels and four collections of short stories, most recently the novel The History of Great Things and the story collection Turf. She is a recipient of the Chicago Public Library 21st Century Award. Her work has been featured on NPR’s Selected Shorts and adapted for the stage by Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater. Her debut novel, We Only Know So Much has been adapted for film, which premiered in 2018 at the Nantucket Film Festival and won Best Feature at the Big Apple Film Festival. She teaches in the low residency masters program at UC Riverside Palm Desert.
Both! With “Star Babies” I had been thinking that one day Hollywood would eventually just be famous kids of famous kids of famous kids and that went from there. Those three in particular began with ideas, but just as often I’ll be thinking of what it might be like to be a particular person, or in a particular circumstance.
2. The Texas Longhorns were referred to in several stories (this really cracked me up, btw). Why the Longhorns? Is it the orange?
I lived in Austin for three years! It seemed to me like Longhorns and orange things were everywhere, including the grocery store and I think it seeped into my stories.
3. A few of the stories in Turf I couldn't help but read as autobiographical, at least in part - would you say your stories are often (or sometimes?) based on real events and people?
I do sometimes start there and then veer off as necessary to create the most interesting story I can with whatever bit of real life I’ve brought to it. I am of course, a genius, which is where the idea for genius meetings came from, but then I spun it and switched genders so the men could have a say. ;)
4. I love the commingling of flash fiction with longer short stories in Turf. Do you start a flash piece knowing it will be flash? Or would you say you begin not knowing what form a story will take?
I usually know if it’s going to be super short. But I wrote a novel thinking it was a short story, so to some extent I never know. Sometimes the story idea and the form emerge at the same time.
5. You've published novels as well as story collections - do you have a preference for one over the other, as both reader and writer?
I really do love to read short stories, there’s something about the form that always inspires and surprises me, and it’s probably my favorite thing to write as well. But I also love to read a great novel.
6. I'm always curious about influence - what/who would you say your biggest influences are?
I’ve talked often about how way back when, I’d never read anything like David Foster Wallace, so he’s one of the most obvious connections just because I really didn’t know that I could be doing my own thing before that. But also Lydia Davis, Deborah Eisenberg. I think at this point it’s more about inspiration than influence, since I’m a more confident fiction writer than I was when I first began writing stories. So more recently I’m excited by writers like Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, whose collection Friday Black is a knockout, Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties.
7. What are you working on now?
Welllll…. something nonfictiony but I’ll leave it at that!
Elizabeth Crane is the author of two novels and four collections of short stories, most recently the novel The History of Great Things and the story collection Turf. She is a recipient of the Chicago Public Library 21st Century Award. Her work has been featured on NPR’s Selected Shorts and adapted for the stage by Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater. Her debut novel, We Only Know So Much has been adapted for film, which premiered in 2018 at the Nantucket Film Festival and won Best Feature at the Big Apple Film Festival. She teaches in the low residency masters program at UC Riverside Palm Desert.
May 18, 2019
Q and A with Karen Bender about her story collection The New Order
1. Tell us a little about your new book
In The New Order, I wanted to see how fiction could respond to current realities in the country, and see the psychological or emotional toll of these issues. Specifically, I found I was looking at the ways that the constant threat of gun violence, the increased level of bigotry, and the pervasiveness of sexual harassment and violence affect us on an emotional level day after day. So many people I know describe a feeling of exhaustion, which I also feel, and I wanted to explore some of the sources of this exhaustion.
2. Like your first collection Refund, which is thematically linked by its characters’ anxieties about money, the stories in The New Order focus on the political turmoil our country is presently experiencing, i.e. the widening divide between liberal and conservative America. Did you start writing these stories with this theme specifically in mind?
I actually started this collection with the idea of exploring the unspoken between people--the first stories were “Three Interviews,” “The Pilot's Instructions,” and “The Lie.” Then the 2016 campaign kicked off, and that inspired other stories—“The Elevator” was inspired by the Access Hollywood tapes, “Where to Hide in a Synagogue” was inspired by the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville. I tend to write stories by following my interests at the moment and I didn't see a theme until I sent it to my editor, Dan Smetanka, who did, and the collection was organized with this in mind.
3. You’ve published two novels and two story collections—I’m always interested in hearing other writers’ thoughts about this: do you prefer one form to the other?
I love and feel calmer with the flexibility of stories--that you can explore different strategies of story telling, different forms of content, characters, within a shorter span of space. Stories are like puddles I can splash around in, and maybe that perception of a story helps me write them. I tell students I think that writing a novel is one of the hardest psychological tasks in the world. While novels require the same sense of play, the patience a novel takes is enormous. A story and novel inhabits your mind in a different way. That said, I love both forms and part of the fun of being a writer is seeing how the content finds the form--some ideas are best suited toward a flash fiction piece, some a longer story, some a novel.
4. “The Good Mothers in the Parking Lot” which diplomatically but devastatingly addresses the 2016 presidential election—I love this story so much—how did you maintain such a calm POV here? Did you redraft it several times?
I wrote this story right after the election, and right after a very similar situation as described in the story--when a group of parents, some of whom were Democrats, some Republican, had to drop their children off for a school trip. The whole experience was immensely hard and the way I coped with it was to write about it in a very distant point of view. I could not get my mind around the situation--that people I knew to be good had decided to vote this horrid, immoral person into office, and perhaps just reporting on this helped the sorrow and anger right underneath that feeling of shock. I did rewrite it a few times, but the tone remained the same throughout.
5. “The Department of Happiness and Reimbursement” is a story that continues to haunt me, perhaps more than any of the others in the way it addresses #MeToo, workers’ rights and misogyny. How did this story begin?
This was my first dystopian story, and evolved when I heard about the settlements that prominent men like Bill O'Reilly made with women who had accused them of sexual harassment--and how these women were then not allowed to talk about their experiences. I found this situation surreal--it seemed wrong to pay women for their silence. So I started thinking about how this use of silence could be controlled by the government, and how it could be related to misogyny, workers' rights, an uncertain economic environment. It was the last story I wrote in the collection, and it was energizing to invent/develop this terrifying and familiar world; I hope that the story functions as a warning.
6. What are you working on now if you don't mind sharing a few words about it?
Writing some new stories (A short short, "The Shame Exchange," was recently published in The Yale Review online), and a novel beginning--trying to decide where to go!
Karen E. Bender is the author of Refund, a finalist for the National Book Award for fiction, short-listed for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, and long-listed for the Story Prize. The New Order was also longlisted for the Story Prize. She is also the author of the novels Like Normal People and A Town of Empty Rooms. Her fiction has appeared in magazines including The New Yorker, Granta, Ploughshares, Zoetrope, Guernica, The Harvard Review, The Yale Review and others, has been reprinted in The Best American Short Stories and won two Pushcart prizes. She is the Visiting Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at Hollins University.
In The New Order, I wanted to see how fiction could respond to current realities in the country, and see the psychological or emotional toll of these issues. Specifically, I found I was looking at the ways that the constant threat of gun violence, the increased level of bigotry, and the pervasiveness of sexual harassment and violence affect us on an emotional level day after day. So many people I know describe a feeling of exhaustion, which I also feel, and I wanted to explore some of the sources of this exhaustion.
2. Like your first collection Refund, which is thematically linked by its characters’ anxieties about money, the stories in The New Order focus on the political turmoil our country is presently experiencing, i.e. the widening divide between liberal and conservative America. Did you start writing these stories with this theme specifically in mind?
I actually started this collection with the idea of exploring the unspoken between people--the first stories were “Three Interviews,” “The Pilot's Instructions,” and “The Lie.” Then the 2016 campaign kicked off, and that inspired other stories—“The Elevator” was inspired by the Access Hollywood tapes, “Where to Hide in a Synagogue” was inspired by the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville. I tend to write stories by following my interests at the moment and I didn't see a theme until I sent it to my editor, Dan Smetanka, who did, and the collection was organized with this in mind.
3. You’ve published two novels and two story collections—I’m always interested in hearing other writers’ thoughts about this: do you prefer one form to the other?
I love and feel calmer with the flexibility of stories--that you can explore different strategies of story telling, different forms of content, characters, within a shorter span of space. Stories are like puddles I can splash around in, and maybe that perception of a story helps me write them. I tell students I think that writing a novel is one of the hardest psychological tasks in the world. While novels require the same sense of play, the patience a novel takes is enormous. A story and novel inhabits your mind in a different way. That said, I love both forms and part of the fun of being a writer is seeing how the content finds the form--some ideas are best suited toward a flash fiction piece, some a longer story, some a novel.
4. “The Good Mothers in the Parking Lot” which diplomatically but devastatingly addresses the 2016 presidential election—I love this story so much—how did you maintain such a calm POV here? Did you redraft it several times?
I wrote this story right after the election, and right after a very similar situation as described in the story--when a group of parents, some of whom were Democrats, some Republican, had to drop their children off for a school trip. The whole experience was immensely hard and the way I coped with it was to write about it in a very distant point of view. I could not get my mind around the situation--that people I knew to be good had decided to vote this horrid, immoral person into office, and perhaps just reporting on this helped the sorrow and anger right underneath that feeling of shock. I did rewrite it a few times, but the tone remained the same throughout.
5. “The Department of Happiness and Reimbursement” is a story that continues to haunt me, perhaps more than any of the others in the way it addresses #MeToo, workers’ rights and misogyny. How did this story begin?
This was my first dystopian story, and evolved when I heard about the settlements that prominent men like Bill O'Reilly made with women who had accused them of sexual harassment--and how these women were then not allowed to talk about their experiences. I found this situation surreal--it seemed wrong to pay women for their silence. So I started thinking about how this use of silence could be controlled by the government, and how it could be related to misogyny, workers' rights, an uncertain economic environment. It was the last story I wrote in the collection, and it was energizing to invent/develop this terrifying and familiar world; I hope that the story functions as a warning.
6. What are you working on now if you don't mind sharing a few words about it?
Writing some new stories (A short short, "The Shame Exchange," was recently published in The Yale Review online), and a novel beginning--trying to decide where to go!
Karen E. Bender is the author of Refund, a finalist for the National Book Award for fiction, short-listed for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, and long-listed for the Story Prize. The New Order was also longlisted for the Story Prize. She is also the author of the novels Like Normal People and A Town of Empty Rooms. Her fiction has appeared in magazines including The New Yorker, Granta, Ploughshares, Zoetrope, Guernica, The Harvard Review, The Yale Review and others, has been reprinted in The Best American Short Stories and won two Pushcart prizes. She is the Visiting Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at Hollins University.
May 10, 2019
Q and A with May-lee Chai about her new story collection Useful Phrases for Immigrants
1. Tell us a little about your new book
Chai: My new collection is about Chinese in China and in America in Diaspora, looking at the ways work and family come together and the pressures of both. I put together this collection in 2016 as a response to the anti-immigrant rhetoric that was being normalized in the media during the Presidential primary. When one candidate says an entire group of immigrants from one country are "rapists" and that another country (that is, China) is "raping" the U.S. because of trade competition and the media keeps repeating this, I knew the repercussions were going to be ugly and ongoing. I wanted to put together this collection to humanize immigrants and migrants, in this case from China, as a reminder to the media that it's dangerous and wrong to repeat hate speech. We must push back.
2. Some of the stories in Useful Phrases for Immigrants take place in China, others in the U.S. Do you know where a story will be set as soon as you start?
Chai: Usually I'm inspired by a character in a certain setting. So when I start a story, I do tend to know where I want it to take place.
3. You write with humor and pathos about family, tradition, being a child on the cusp of adolescence (tangentially, I loved the references to Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden mysteries and to the '70s TV comedy Soap), being a woman. How did this collection come together? Did you write all the stories in a relatively short period of time?
Chai: Thank you! I wrote the stories over many years, and was planning to work on them slowly, savoring the opportunities to explore craft. But then the 2016 Presidential primary with all the ugly anti-immigrant rhetoric lit a fire in my belly. I started revising the stories I had on hand, looking to put together a collection to respond to this ugly rhetoric.
4. During a recent short story panel at the L.A. Times Festival of Books, you mentioned that your father is of Chinese heritage, your mother is Caucasian, and that your family often moved while you were growing up. Do you think your peripatetic upbringing is what first spurred you to become a writer? I.e. the differences and similarities you observed among the people and places where you lived?
Chai: I think the violence that we experienced when we lived on a farm in South Dakota contributed to my wanting to be a writer. In the 1980s there was a lot of anti-Japanese rhetoric in the media. I remember columnists claimed Japan was engaging in unfair trade practices and was committing "an economic Pearl Harbor" because of the success of Japanese automakers. In those days, white men drove by our house and would shoot at our lawn to threaten us. Five of our dogs were killed over the years and left for my brother and me to find when we got home from school. We were bullied in school constantly.
I originally started my career as a journalist because I wanted to be part of the media and report more responsibly. I wanted to report on Asian American people and communities because I knew first hand what irresponsible reporting had done. Someone had to represent us! Eventually I became frustrated with always writing short spot news pieces and felt journalism was not allowing me to get into the reasons behind people's actions. I decided to go into creative writing as a way to explore these issues more deeply.
5. There's a fair amount of topical and stylistic diversity in this collection. "The Body," for example, is told in sections, with each one featuring a different character's POV - does each story begin for you with character? E.g. with a voice in your head and the story takes off from there?
Yes, I begin with a character. I'm interested in a dilemma, a choice facing the character, and I want to see what choices this character will make and where the choices will lead.
6. You've written novels and short stories. I'm always curious how other writers feel about this: do you prefer one form over the other?
Chai: I don't have a preference. Both forms are useful. What I like particularly about short stories is that they allow me to experiment. I can try a lot of different things. Because novels take longer to write and to publish, there's a bigger time commitment and I can't be as flexible.
7. What are you working on now if you don't mind sharing a few words about it?
Chai: I've been working on a series of essays exploring the gendered experience of race. I'm also looking at the long-term generational effects of trauma. My mother experienced violence and abuse as a child. Her mother experienced domestic violence. I'm looking at the ways this abuse reverberated over three generations in our family.
Chai: My new collection is about Chinese in China and in America in Diaspora, looking at the ways work and family come together and the pressures of both. I put together this collection in 2016 as a response to the anti-immigrant rhetoric that was being normalized in the media during the Presidential primary. When one candidate says an entire group of immigrants from one country are "rapists" and that another country (that is, China) is "raping" the U.S. because of trade competition and the media keeps repeating this, I knew the repercussions were going to be ugly and ongoing. I wanted to put together this collection to humanize immigrants and migrants, in this case from China, as a reminder to the media that it's dangerous and wrong to repeat hate speech. We must push back.
2. Some of the stories in Useful Phrases for Immigrants take place in China, others in the U.S. Do you know where a story will be set as soon as you start?
Chai: Usually I'm inspired by a character in a certain setting. So when I start a story, I do tend to know where I want it to take place.
3. You write with humor and pathos about family, tradition, being a child on the cusp of adolescence (tangentially, I loved the references to Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden mysteries and to the '70s TV comedy Soap), being a woman. How did this collection come together? Did you write all the stories in a relatively short period of time?
Chai: Thank you! I wrote the stories over many years, and was planning to work on them slowly, savoring the opportunities to explore craft. But then the 2016 Presidential primary with all the ugly anti-immigrant rhetoric lit a fire in my belly. I started revising the stories I had on hand, looking to put together a collection to respond to this ugly rhetoric.
4. During a recent short story panel at the L.A. Times Festival of Books, you mentioned that your father is of Chinese heritage, your mother is Caucasian, and that your family often moved while you were growing up. Do you think your peripatetic upbringing is what first spurred you to become a writer? I.e. the differences and similarities you observed among the people and places where you lived?
Chai: I think the violence that we experienced when we lived on a farm in South Dakota contributed to my wanting to be a writer. In the 1980s there was a lot of anti-Japanese rhetoric in the media. I remember columnists claimed Japan was engaging in unfair trade practices and was committing "an economic Pearl Harbor" because of the success of Japanese automakers. In those days, white men drove by our house and would shoot at our lawn to threaten us. Five of our dogs were killed over the years and left for my brother and me to find when we got home from school. We were bullied in school constantly.
I originally started my career as a journalist because I wanted to be part of the media and report more responsibly. I wanted to report on Asian American people and communities because I knew first hand what irresponsible reporting had done. Someone had to represent us! Eventually I became frustrated with always writing short spot news pieces and felt journalism was not allowing me to get into the reasons behind people's actions. I decided to go into creative writing as a way to explore these issues more deeply.
5. There's a fair amount of topical and stylistic diversity in this collection. "The Body," for example, is told in sections, with each one featuring a different character's POV - does each story begin for you with character? E.g. with a voice in your head and the story takes off from there?
Yes, I begin with a character. I'm interested in a dilemma, a choice facing the character, and I want to see what choices this character will make and where the choices will lead.
6. You've written novels and short stories. I'm always curious how other writers feel about this: do you prefer one form over the other?
Chai: I don't have a preference. Both forms are useful. What I like particularly about short stories is that they allow me to experiment. I can try a lot of different things. Because novels take longer to write and to publish, there's a bigger time commitment and I can't be as flexible.
7. What are you working on now if you don't mind sharing a few words about it?
Chai: I've been working on a series of essays exploring the gendered experience of race. I'm also looking at the long-term generational effects of trauma. My mother experienced violence and abuse as a child. Her mother experienced domestic violence. I'm looking at the ways this abuse reverberated over three generations in our family.
January 25, 2019
Q and A with Allan MacDonell
Another California-based writer I admire (who did a Q and A with me for this blog last fall), Michael Marcus, author of #1 Son and Other Stories), told me about Allan MacDonell's work recently. Michael's recommendation prompted me to pick up MacDonell's first book (he has 3 out now), Prisoner of X: 20 years in the Hole at Hustler Magazine. I couldn't put it down. Allan kindly agreed to do this Q and A with me.
1. Tell us a little about your book.
Prisoner of X: 20 Years in the Hole at Hustler Magazine chronicles how I clawed my way from entry-level proofreader to editorial overlord of Larry Flynt’s X-rated empire.
Sex and bad behaviors of all sorts are plastered all over the book.
Creeps and hoodlums and sycophants and some talented writers, photographers and artists act out and conspire and scheme behind the scenes. Celebrity cameos are sprinkled in. Often those celebrities are caught with their pants down and genitals in action.
For history buffs, Prisoner of X climaxes by revealing how Hustler tricked Speaker-elect Bob Livingston into resigning from the House of Representatives on the very same day that the House of Representatives voted to impeach Bill Clinton.
Still, don’t let me give you the idea that this story is a redemption cycle; it’s more a sinking swirl of irredeemable.
2. Did you have the book's structure in mind before you started or did it evolve?
In 2002, Larry Flynt fired me after I performed at a roast of him, performed at his command. A former editor told me, “Write the book! Just vomit it out! Start puking now, and puke until you’re done!”
I told Adam Parfrey, the publisher of Feral House Books, that I was thinking about puking out a book. During the years editing Hustler titles, I’d bought articles and stories written by Adam. He said, “Puke out the book. Feral House will put it out.”
Next, I was at a party, and a big-deal journalist, said: “Start the book with the roast, with the routine that Flynt fired you for. After the roast, go back to the beginning and work forward to the present time. End at the roast where you started.”
I liked that idea.
I’d taken a few workshops under the dictatorship of the great novelist John Rechy (City of Night). Rechy always stressed structure as a key to framing a cohesive longer work. Thinking about John’s direction, I broke the book into chapters corresponding to recurring features of Hustler magazine, from the cover to the table of contents and on into “Asshole of the Month,” “Hot Letters,” “Beaver Hunt,” all the way through special projects and “Coming Next.”
So it’s nothing I did on my own.
3. Prisoner of X has many hilarious moments. One of my favorites: "Mark Arnold...was in the odd position of needing a haircut and hair plugs at the same time," but also many instances of introspection and what I'd call melancholy - in that we see you coming to terms with addiction, divorce, and to put it mildly, an antagonistic work environment - what was the experience of writing Prisoner of X like? (am guessing you had to have a few extra hours of therapy while you were writing it).
Therapy was out of my price range, but I didn’t really need it. Since I was a kid, I’d wanted to write a book and have it published. As I wrote, I was working toward a goal that mattered to me. Writing, even about the low points, was almost fun. There was a purpose to it. I was putting my spin on public and private events. I was pulling back the curtain. Adam Parfrey at Feral House had given me a deadline. I had urgency. Anticipations were high. “This book is about to change my life! This book will land me the big jobs!”
4. What were some of the more memorable reactions to this book's publication?
Hustler magazine wrote me up as “Asshole of the Month.” The first word in the column contained two typos: The word was It’s. That’s about what I would have expected. The surprise came a few months later when Hustler’s “Feedback” section published a letter refuting the “Asshole of the Month” allegations against the book. Somebody half smart must have read it and realized that my story is not an attack on Hustler or on Larry.
5. You had a complicated relationship with the polarizing porn icon Larry Flynt, as anyone who reads the book will be able to tell from the start. Now that you've been away from Hustler for more than 15 years, what do you think about your time there (and your relationship with him)?
I was lucky to have the encouragement to take things too far that Larry Flynt provided, along with a fat paycheck. A lot of the individual liberties that are being chipped away today are only here to be eroded from all sides of the political spectrum because Larry Flynt sacrificed his money and his physical health and went to prison to keep fundamental constitutional freedoms alive. He and I have had zero contact since the September day in 2002 when he directed a human resources professional to fire me. I still kind of love the guy.
6. If this book were a film, it would doubtless receive an NC-17 rating. Writing about sex isn't easy for a lot of writers, but you know how to do it with aplomb - and of course were paid to by Hustler. All that aside, why do you think it's such a difficult topic for many to write about?
Sex scenes can get out of hand if the writer’s process is, “Hey, look! Let me show you how great I am at sex! The throbbing titillation of this slavering exposition will prove to you that I am the most fantastic fuck you have never met!”
7. What are you working on now?
I have a book of thematically linked short stories completed called Scary Parts. I’m working on finding an agent who will sell it.
Allan MacDonell’s Prisoner of X: 20 Years in the Hole at Hustler Magazine (Feral House, 2006) exploited his years running Larry Flynt’s pulp factory; Punk Elegies (Rare Bird, 2016) centered on characters and consequences met as a 20-year-old writing for 1970s punk zine Slash; and Now That I Am Gone (Rare Bird, 2018) is a memoir of people in his life as they carry on without him. Before all that, MacDonell studied creative writing at San Francisco State University.
1. Tell us a little about your book.
Prisoner of X: 20 Years in the Hole at Hustler Magazine chronicles how I clawed my way from entry-level proofreader to editorial overlord of Larry Flynt’s X-rated empire.
Sex and bad behaviors of all sorts are plastered all over the book.
Creeps and hoodlums and sycophants and some talented writers, photographers and artists act out and conspire and scheme behind the scenes. Celebrity cameos are sprinkled in. Often those celebrities are caught with their pants down and genitals in action.
For history buffs, Prisoner of X climaxes by revealing how Hustler tricked Speaker-elect Bob Livingston into resigning from the House of Representatives on the very same day that the House of Representatives voted to impeach Bill Clinton.
Still, don’t let me give you the idea that this story is a redemption cycle; it’s more a sinking swirl of irredeemable.
2. Did you have the book's structure in mind before you started or did it evolve?
In 2002, Larry Flynt fired me after I performed at a roast of him, performed at his command. A former editor told me, “Write the book! Just vomit it out! Start puking now, and puke until you’re done!”
I told Adam Parfrey, the publisher of Feral House Books, that I was thinking about puking out a book. During the years editing Hustler titles, I’d bought articles and stories written by Adam. He said, “Puke out the book. Feral House will put it out.”
Next, I was at a party, and a big-deal journalist, said: “Start the book with the roast, with the routine that Flynt fired you for. After the roast, go back to the beginning and work forward to the present time. End at the roast where you started.”
I liked that idea.
I’d taken a few workshops under the dictatorship of the great novelist John Rechy (City of Night). Rechy always stressed structure as a key to framing a cohesive longer work. Thinking about John’s direction, I broke the book into chapters corresponding to recurring features of Hustler magazine, from the cover to the table of contents and on into “Asshole of the Month,” “Hot Letters,” “Beaver Hunt,” all the way through special projects and “Coming Next.”
So it’s nothing I did on my own.
3. Prisoner of X has many hilarious moments. One of my favorites: "Mark Arnold...was in the odd position of needing a haircut and hair plugs at the same time," but also many instances of introspection and what I'd call melancholy - in that we see you coming to terms with addiction, divorce, and to put it mildly, an antagonistic work environment - what was the experience of writing Prisoner of X like? (am guessing you had to have a few extra hours of therapy while you were writing it).
Therapy was out of my price range, but I didn’t really need it. Since I was a kid, I’d wanted to write a book and have it published. As I wrote, I was working toward a goal that mattered to me. Writing, even about the low points, was almost fun. There was a purpose to it. I was putting my spin on public and private events. I was pulling back the curtain. Adam Parfrey at Feral House had given me a deadline. I had urgency. Anticipations were high. “This book is about to change my life! This book will land me the big jobs!”
4. What were some of the more memorable reactions to this book's publication?
Hustler magazine wrote me up as “Asshole of the Month.” The first word in the column contained two typos: The word was It’s. That’s about what I would have expected. The surprise came a few months later when Hustler’s “Feedback” section published a letter refuting the “Asshole of the Month” allegations against the book. Somebody half smart must have read it and realized that my story is not an attack on Hustler or on Larry.
5. You had a complicated relationship with the polarizing porn icon Larry Flynt, as anyone who reads the book will be able to tell from the start. Now that you've been away from Hustler for more than 15 years, what do you think about your time there (and your relationship with him)?
I was lucky to have the encouragement to take things too far that Larry Flynt provided, along with a fat paycheck. A lot of the individual liberties that are being chipped away today are only here to be eroded from all sides of the political spectrum because Larry Flynt sacrificed his money and his physical health and went to prison to keep fundamental constitutional freedoms alive. He and I have had zero contact since the September day in 2002 when he directed a human resources professional to fire me. I still kind of love the guy.
6. If this book were a film, it would doubtless receive an NC-17 rating. Writing about sex isn't easy for a lot of writers, but you know how to do it with aplomb - and of course were paid to by Hustler. All that aside, why do you think it's such a difficult topic for many to write about?
Sex scenes can get out of hand if the writer’s process is, “Hey, look! Let me show you how great I am at sex! The throbbing titillation of this slavering exposition will prove to you that I am the most fantastic fuck you have never met!”
7. What are you working on now?
I have a book of thematically linked short stories completed called Scary Parts. I’m working on finding an agent who will sell it.
Allan MacDonell’s Prisoner of X: 20 Years in the Hole at Hustler Magazine (Feral House, 2006) exploited his years running Larry Flynt’s pulp factory; Punk Elegies (Rare Bird, 2016) centered on characters and consequences met as a 20-year-old writing for 1970s punk zine Slash; and Now That I Am Gone (Rare Bird, 2018) is a memoir of people in his life as they carry on without him. Before all that, MacDonell studied creative writing at San Francisco State University.
