12 or 20 (second series) questions with Ben Zalkind
Ben Zalkind lives and works inCalgary, Canada. His debut novel, Honeydew, was released by RadiantPress in October 2025. A Salt Lake City native and naturalized WesternCanadian, Ben is happiest outdoors, where he can cycle, drink coffee, andadventure with his wife and fellow traveller. 1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recentwork compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
My first novel, which has long been shelved, was a monumentalaccomplishment. Before I finished it, I wasn’t sure I could plan and execute alarge and complicated project without external pressure. The novels thatfollowed haven’t necessarily been easier to write, but I no longer doubtedwhether I could complete them. It was just a matter of juggling time, liferesponsibilities, and writing cadence.
As I consider it, I’m not sure there’s a clear throughline connecting my projects.Each one expresses a different stylistic impulse and dimension of self. Honeydew,which was published by Radiant Press on October 7, 2025, is a wackydystopian satire with an ensemble cast. In contrast, Only by the Grace ofthe Wind, which I serialized on Substack in 2024, is introspective and lyrical.It draws from my own medicaltraining experiences, which I sieved through a surreal mesh.
Honeydew’s tone is probably my default, and I wroteit quickly in the wee hours of morning before clinic. I find that humour is aready prism, especially when my guiding preoccupation—in this case, the rise ofbig tech—is so baffling and infuriating. How does this one feel different?Well, Honeydew is my traditional publishing debut, so it will be thefirst of my novels to have wings, so to speak, and make its way into the world.It will be the conduit through which readers meet me. And there is certainlysomething daunting about that.
2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry ornon-fiction?
Fiction is my first love, and I’ve always been drawn to the novel as aform. But I also have an affinity for essays and long-form non-fiction, which continuallyscrub and refocus my perspective. In a past life, I worked in journalism andentertained atavistic and extravagant fantasies about being a man-of-lettersand writing for The New Yorker and Harper’s Magazine. These days,I read a lot of nonfiction as research for my novels, which I feel demand anup-to-date cache of knowledge about big tech, cultural history, and currentevents. But when I sit down to write, I chafe against anything I perceive as arestraint, and so I return to storyland, where I’ve always wanted to be. Withthe exception of Robert Caro’s doorstopper biographies, which I believe tocontain some of the finest prose ever published, fiction has furnished my mosttreasured reading experiences. It’s where I always land, if that makes sense.
3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Doesyour writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first draftsappear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out ofcopious notes?
I’m quick. Once I have an idea, it dilates and unfurls itself, and I haveto wrestle it into an outline. As I write, I continually compile notes, some ofwhich I actually use. When the story is finished, I edit and revise like afanatic. The image that comes to my mind is of a crazed painter ransacking aroom they’ve just finished. They shave some of the paint off the rear wall andrepaint the segment over and over. Then, in a fit of pique, they kick a hole inthe drywall. And after a bit of reflection, they return to the room and sheepishlyrepair the damage they’ve done. The cycle continues until the exhausted andchastened painter throws up their hands, removes the blue tape from thebaseboards and ceiling, and says, “good enough.”
4 - Where does a work of fiction usually begin for you? Are you an authorof short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you workingon a "book" from the very beginning?
Though I enjoy short stories and admire writers who have mastered thegeometry and mystery of the form, I have always found myself planning long-formprojects from the outset. I love long, arcing, unwieldy stories, and though Itend to want to make my stories really ponderous, I eventually pare them down.They begin, I suppose, with a germ—either an image, an idea, or even a phrase.And the process of writing is iterative. Even when I have a tidy, completeoutline, I still add and remove elements. A sort of Frankenstein’s monsteremerges in the margins that (I hope) only I can see. Somehow, it gets carvedinto a bounded, coherent story.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Areyou the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I like doing readings, though I’ve never publicly shared anything unfinished.I can see the benefit of doing so, however, and would certainly consider it inthe future. For anyone who might come to one of my book launches in October, Ido voices!
6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kindsof questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even thinkthe current questions are?
This is such a good question. Ultimately, I’m interested in why, as the greatcultural critic, Thomas Frank, wrote in an essay for The Baffler magazinein the early 90s, Johnny still can’t dissent. The machinery that organizes andimmures our lives (read: late-stage capitalism) seems to foreclose politicalimagination and coopt any attempts at resistance. My primary preoccupation is howthat shapes the inner lives of would-be rebels. This could just be a reflectionof a personal psychological quirk, but a current of fecklessness runs through mystories. The desire to change oneself or the world is ultimately stymied bysomething, or someone, more powerful. More often than not, my characters tendto suffer for their clear thinking. In my next novel, however, a victory ofsorts is on the horizon.
7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in largerculture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer shouldbe?
To be honest, I don’t know if a truly shared culture still exists inNorth America. At least, not in the way we might have discussed it in previousdecades. The eminent historian Daniel Rodgers describes our current era as“fractured.” We’re atomized, isolated, siloed. Depending on our sociallocations and unique configurations of identity and ideology, we all seem toinhabit different currents in the slipstream. It’s kind of scary, I think.
My idealized writer archetype nettles, metabolizes, challenges, enthralls,dazzles, and poetically witnesses. In an interview with Bill Moyers years and years ago, the late political scientist and all-around lucid thinker Sheldon Wolin remarked that the humanities’ most important role is to help us makesense of what’s being done to us. I’d add only that I believe it’s also thetask of writers and other artists to irrigate their corners of reality withaesthetic novelty, light, and energy. After all, what is justice withoutbeauty?
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficultor essential (or both)?
Like all intimate relationships, editorial arrangements can be tumultuous,rewarding, infuriating, illuminating. Robert Caro and his longtime editor,Robert Gottlieb, were close friends and enthusiastic opponents. Their shoutingmatches were legendary. But Caro has been quick to credit much of his successto Gottlieb, who’s perspicacity and farsightedness helped to shape Caro’s epicbiographies of so-called great men and the historical periods in which theywere ensconced. Theirs was a relationship backstopped with mutual trust. I alsosuspect that Gottlieb’s understanding of Caro, what we might view as a sort ofwriterly empathy, guided his textual sculpting. It’s delicate work.
I have had both good and bad experiences with editors. If a writer findsan editor who really gets them and their project, it’s a specialfeeling.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily givento you directly)?
Be curious and make conclusions sparingly.
10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you evenhave one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
I tend to do almost all my writing in the early hours of morning, before Ihead to clinic. I set a goal, usually 500-1000 words, and I meet it come hellor high water. Sometimes, this means I write 500 tortured and flaccid words.But I always meet my quota. Coffee is involved.
11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (forlack of a better word) inspiration?
My bookshelves. When I’m stuck, I go back to the bigs.
12 - What was your last Hallowe'en costume?
I can’t remember the last time I properly celebrated Halloween, but mymost memorable costume came from a mail-order catalogue in the mid-90s. When Iwore it, it appeared that I was a small elderly man on the back of anpucker-faced elderly woman wearing a wedding dress and veil. I had a convincingbald old man mask that I wore as well. It was a smash hit with adults and myfellow teens alike.
13 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but arethere any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, scienceor visual art?
I have found tremendous inspiration in graphic novels, comics, andanimated films, especially in depicting the lineaments of human faces andexpressions.
14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, orsimply your life outside of your work?
I’m grateful for radical thinking and unfettered imagination, which havebeen recorded and preserved by intrepid, courageous publishers. These includenovelists, scholars, anti-capitalists/free-thinkers, poets, and mystics. Bookshave always been my portal into the universe outside of (and in some cases,inside of) my head. I tend to see their influence as a gestalt, a meshwork, andit’s difficult for me to tug on one thread without bringing all the others withit.
Some novelists who continue to inspire me include John Steinbeck, Robert Penn Warren, China Mieville, Willa Cather, Olaf Stapledon, Mervyn Peake,Cynthia Ozick, Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, Joseph Heller, Iain Banks, John Kennedy Toole, Ursula Le Guin, W. Somerset Maugham, P.G. Wodehouse, , Ralph Ellison, Terry Pratchett, Michael Chabon, Philip Pullman, Roald Dahl, , and Stanislaw Lem.
15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
In my writing life, I’d like to tackle a really big story, an epic whosearc spans a trilogy or perhaps a really big book with a bowed binding.
16 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be?Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you notbeen a writer?
As I get older, I can imagine so many alternative paths. My life trajectoryhas been a bit meandering, with factotum stops in some unusual corners of thework world, so I wonder what it would be like to fulfill a monomaniacalmission. I’ve fantasized about all sorts of occupations—historian, scientist, professionalathlete, astronaut, freedom fighter, bagel baker.
I come from a family of professional classical musicians, so I can alsoimagine a symphonic life.
17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
My mom says I started talking at 9 months (and never really stopped).I’ve always admired visual artists, performers, and other “creatives,” and Ican imagine alternate realities in which fate endowed me with more ability and discernmentin these areas. But my preferred mode of expression has always been language. Iseek out stories others have written and I’m compelled by some inner fire toput my own into the ether.
18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
In the past several months, I’ve been in research mode, so I’ve had thegood fortune to thumb through a number of truly excellent nonfiction books. Butthe last great novel, which I read and savoured for its prose and imagination, wasMervyn Peake’s 1946 masterpiece, Titus Groan.
As for films, I was astonished by the emotional sophistication of Anatomy of a Fall and the manic comic energy of Bottoms.
19- What are you currently working on?
It’s a sortof follow-up to Honeydew, but not quite a sequel. I don’t want to saytoo much, but we will see much more of Mo Honeydew, whose story will be onestrand of a three-part braided narrative that will expose new cracks andcrevices in Bonneville City, which is once again at the centre of a tectonictechnological shift.
