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.