Many thanks to Rachel Resnick for her brilliant guest blogger stint here at BookFox. Very profilic on the interviews, for which we're grateful. A few more one-off guest posts will be offered at the beginning of this upcoming week, after which I will be slinging myself back from Guatemala to the States and resume full blogging activities.
Lights up for the Love Junkie's final guest blog at BookFox. What better way to bow out than by choreographing an improvisational duet with two Cali short story masters?
Lisa Teasley's stunning debut book GLOW IN THE DARK won the 2002 Gold Pen Award for Best Short Story Collection. She also won the 2002 Pacificus Literary Foundation Best Short Story Writer award for fiction. Tod Goldberg's knockout book SIMPLIFY was a 2006 finalist for the SCBA Award for Fiction and winner of the Other Voices Short Story Collection Prize. Both are California natives -- Lisa was born and raised in Baldwin Hills and Tod in Walnut Creek and Palm Springs. Both have also written novels (see bios below the conversation), are wildly prolific, spectacularly talented, energetic and spirited both in person and on the page -- and seem to have tapped into a constant creative flow. Today we'll focus mostly on the short story.
BF: What are you doing now? Are you guys being creative again?
TG: Well, right this very instant I am writing my second BURN NOTICE novel, a short story for a new Akashic Noir anthology, making a trade in my fantasy baseball league and pondering whether or not I actually know most of the people I am Facebook friends with...and if any of them would drive me to the airport.
LT: I'm definitely working on one too many things: a historical novel on the West Indians in Panama, based on my grandmother's story; a novel on a 13 year old Mescalero Apache cowboy in New Mexico; and finishing up a screenplay I'm co-writing with the director, who is working on the documentary of the same subject. Also, since the painter Carol Es has been working on self-portraits where she's climbing black holes, I'm painting a portrait of her and her dog Buddy sitting in a white hole inside a black hole.
BF: What's the secret to your vast output and enviable artistic flow? Is it the water?
TG: The mortgage, for one. Also, though, I have more ideas than time; though I'm a fairly slow writer until I find that elusive flow where time stops and everything just feel automatic. Stories can take me anywhere from a day to a year to write, so I don't always feel so prolific.
LT: It could be because I come from a family of overachievers. But who could possibly compare in output to Joyce Carol Oates?
BF: Why do you write?
TG: It's all I ever wanted to do, apart from playing professional sports, but when your last name is Goldberg and you have a body made primarily of kugel, professional sports teams don't come looking for you all that often. But apart from that, I have stories to tell, things I want to investigate in the human condition, things I want to learn about myself. Writing is essential to me in figuring out the why of it all -- why are we here, why do we matter, why do we fall in love and why do we mourn so deeply. I'm not a religious person, but I believe in the nature of humans and find myself endlessly fascinated by our species.
LT: Like Tod, I'm endlessly fascinated by human nature, the beauty and the hideousness and all of it in between. I never imagined doing anything else (other than painting) and so ever since I could hold a pen to paper, I've done just that.
BF: Do you have special rituals while you write? Particular clothes you wear -- or don't -- candles, incense, prayers, secret neck exercises?
TG: I'm sort of a stickler for recreating experiences when I write. So, for instance, if I had a particular song or album or artist playing while I wrote something, I might for the next week play that same thing over and over again in the background. A good example of this: There's an excellent singer-songwriter named Jay Ray whose wife, Joy, was a student of mine several times (and who is a fine musician and an excellent writer in her own right) and one night I was listening to his song "Palm Springs" (which happens to be where I live, or near to where I live, and where I spent a good part of my youth) and this entire story sort of formed in my head while I was listening to it. And so I wrote a story called "Palm Springs" that was inspired deeply by the mood he put me in. But now whenever I play that song just for enjoyment, my wife screams "You played that song for a month straight! Aren't you sick of it yet!"
I also need to have certain toys around. I have a snow globe of the Hotel Del in San Diego that a friend gave me that I depend on way too much. I like having one of my two dogs asleep behind me, which reminds me I'm not actually the dreadful people I often write about. I need a window to stare out of. Annoying neighbors to watch as they do annoying things on the street. And coffee. I need to know that if I want it, it's there, even if I don't ever drink it.
LT: I need a ritual. Maybe that would give me better focus. I used to chew tobacco at the computer for years, but I quit after my dentist put the scare to me. There have been a few stories and one novel which had soundtracks, but for the last 8 years I've worked best with my backyard view of the canyon.
BF: Someone said the short story form was better suited to modern life. Is this true?
TG: In theory, sure. People want their media in iPodable bites these days, so it would reason that they'd love stories. But the truth is that I think those people who do read, want that intensive experience literature provides.
LT: Blogging and memoir seem better suited to modern life. Readers I know consume more novels than stories, and I meet more people who have read my novels than my stories, so I think literature lovers take the time for their preferred form, no matter when and how.
BF: What's your favorite short story?
TG: I have hundreds of favorites, but I'd say "Rock Springs" by Richard Ford, "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien, "Aftermath" by Mary Yukari Waters, "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried" by Amy Hempel, "Passion" by Alice Munro, "The Prophet from Jupiter" by Tony Earley and "First, Body" by Melanie Rae Thon are some the I return to more frequently than others.
LT: Even if Tod hadn't mentioned it I'd definitely have thought of Amy Hempel's "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried"-- I'm into Yukio Mishima's stories, as well, I get into Hempel's precision and Mishima's coldness, but there are so many stories, so many writers I adore for so many particulars, I go back to a master like Chekhov for his humor, but I go to all of them, all of my favorites for their empathy.
BF: Did you ever read a short story that had a big impact?
TG: The first short story that really hit me as a reader and as a person who, at the time, only wanted to be a writer, was "Rock Springs". I read that as a sophomore in college and it was like someone hit me in the face. I knew I wanted to write, but at the time I think most everything I put on paper was some kind of Stephen King homage. Ford, in that one story, taught me more than I'd ever learned in school about character, about dialog, about how setting transforms people, about how man cannot walk away from the consequences of his action. For me it was the first story that truly hit me emotionally. A similar thing had happened years before while reading Of Mice and Men, but that was about understanding the power of literature as a form. "Rock Springs" was what made me understand it as a writer.
LT: I love reading stories when waiting in the car for my daughter and partner who are lollygagging in a store-- the longer they take the better-- and I can go to the deepest of impact to the highest of epiphany when sitting in that kind of confined space forced to travel through words. I always have a collection of stories in my car or his truck, an anthology or journal like Steve Erickson's Black Clock, and it's not so much about who wrote the story, or what the story is about, so much as it is about my connecting with the moment of the writer's passion and understanding of truth in the narrative. This happens often, which is why I've been a bookworm since I was 5.
BF: What does it take to write a short story?
TG: It takes a willingness to find that scary place. To examine what you've avoided. To write something so powerful that it carries the weight in 3 or 4 or 5K words what an entire novel does in 100K words. I think the best stories do that -- the best example for me in this case would be Amy Hempel. Her stories are these tiny things, but each is pared down to it's core, it's emotional raw point, so that every word means something. That's what great short fiction does: it's spares no space while it breaks your heart.
LT: I couldn't say this any better than Tod has here or Hempel does anywhere. It's all about taking the risk. If the writer has not gone to a place of extreme discomfort at the very least, then what is the journey for and why would I want to take it with him or her? I know I tend to be more attracted to extremes since I'll write from the point of view of anyone from a pedophile to a murderer, but that is by no means necessary. It's about finding the ultimate place of authorial non-judgment, no matter the story's subject matter or characters, and that can only come with catharsis, fast or slow.
BF: How do you write a collection?
TG: I have no idea. In my case with SIMPLIFY, I can see that I was working through certain topics over the course of several years (the collection spans about a decade of my writing life, from about 1996 to 2005) and that there are stories that later became the basis for things I did in my novels, too. But there wasn't a specific plan in place. But it seems like I am obsessed with ideas of identity, and about the failure of families, and about loss. And those are things I think plenty of people write about. In my new collection, which I'm putting the finishing touches on now, I recognize again some of my obsessions with place and identity and about the way we are defined by both has crept into my work. But I approach each story singularly.
LT: As Tod mentioned place and identity, GLOW IN THE DARK was arranged by setting by the hardcover publisher, Scott Davis at Cune Press. It goes from New York to L.A. to N. California to Mexico to Paris. The paperback is published by Bloomsbury, my current publisher, I should mention. But I hadn't noticed before Scott that my stories were as concerned with the terrain's psyche as the human's, so I welcomed that categorization -- if one could ever welcome categorization. I haven't yet put together a second collection, but I suppose I would need to think along these lines of theme, which I never do. All I know is that I have folders full of stories that may or may not be related.
BF: Do people buy short story collections?
TG: I don't think they are everyone's first choice. They are the first choice of writing students frequently, and of writing programs, but it's rare that you sit down next to someone on a plane and they're reading, you know, Yes, Yes Cherries by Mary Otis, but they probably should be.
LT: I agree with Tod, it's the first choice of writing students and writing programs, but again the fiction readers I know and meet have shelves, desks and nightstands stacked with novels, and I'm grateful for all of the above.
BF: How important is writing to you?
TG: Apart from my wife Wendy and my health, I'd say it's the most important thing there is to me.
LT: I am compelled to write, it is the way I communicate best, other than loving, but for that matter, writing is really a way of loving too.
BF: You guys are both pretty intense in your stories. Yet Tod, you're always laughing, joking, causing a ruckus -- and Lisa you're always smiling and glowing and glam-stylish and you're known as Zen - what's up with the dark-hearted stories?
TG: Who I am and what I write about are pretty much diametrically opposed. The simple truth is that I find it hard to write funny stories, that I am drawn to the darker, more emotional side of things in my writing. Perhaps it's also an issue of how write: I don't believe in the old "write what you know" adage. I believe in writing what I don't know, what troubles me, what makes me afraid, what I want to discover.
LT: The dark-hearted interests me most. And in order to avoid creating that kind of drama in my own life and to those closest to me, I live it out in the stories, leaving me free to smile and bubble it up. I have more fun that way!
BF: Why is there so much death in both your stories?
TG: People die and I am, for better or worse, attracted to the fallout of that. I think I’d write that sort of thing if I lived in Kansas, too. The other aspect is that I am greatly influenced by crime fiction -- I was weaned on it as a kid and find that a lot of my fiction, novels or stories, contains elements of noir, whether intentional or not. So I think I will always bridge that violent side of life.
LT: Eternal being aside, how can there be life without death?
BF: Tod, your prose in short stories has been called a vanilla milkshake spiked with grain alcohol. Does that about sum it up? Lisa, how would you describe your short story prose?
TG: Yeah, I've always liked that blurb!
LT: How do you describe yourself? I could never come up with a good personal ad.
BF: Do you teach the short story?
TG: I do, specifically because in the workshop experience it's the best way to look at several different forms in a short space, but also because it's a vibrant medium to teach students how to write, how to take chances, how to fuck up and not feel like they've lost a year of their life. A novel is a beast. A story is, too, but it's a best that you can tame or kick out the door in pretty short order if need be.
LT: I taught the short story at Cal Arts last spring semester and will be there this fall.
BF: What's the best opening line for a short story?
TG: "All of this that I’m about to tell happened when I was only fifteen years old, in 1959, the year my parents were divorced, the year when my father killed a man and went to prison for it, the year I left home and school, told a lie about my age to fool the Army, and then did not come back." Richard Ford.
LT: I can tell you the one I got in trouble with my dad for: "A sincere fuck."
BF: What's your favorite snack?
TG: Brown Sugar Pop Tarts. It's the perfect meal.
LT: Chips or chocolate.
BF: Are short stories like literary snacks?
TG: No, they are more like hot fudge sundaes -- you could probably read them every day, but they might not fill you up sufficiently.
LT: I think the best can deliver a full meal.
BF: Who is your ideal reader?
TG: People who find Parade Magazine just slightly too intellectual.
LT: Why you and Tod, of course. I'm honored and thrilled to be here with you.
BF: What tips would you give other writers?
TG: The only tip I know to give is the easiest: Read everything.
LT: To thine own self be true.
Tod Goldberg is the author of the novels Living Dead Girl, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Fake Liar Cheat &, this August, Burn Notice: The Fix, the first in a new series based on the USA series Burn Notice. His short story collection Simplify was a 2006 finalist for the Southern California Independent Bookseller's Association Prize in Literature and winner of the Other Voices Short Story Collection Prize. His short fiction and nonfiction have been widely anthologized, including recent appearances in Las Vegas Noir and Off The Page: Writers Talk About Beginnings, Endings, And Everything In Between, and has twice received Special Mention for the Pushcart Prize. A three time winner of the NPA Prize in journalism, Tod's criticism frequently appears in the Los Angeles Times Book Review, Las Vegas CityLife and E!, as well as numerous other publications. Tod Goldberg lives in La Quinta, CA , with his wife the writer Wendy Duren, and is currently a Visiting Professor of Creative Writing in he MFA Program in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts at UC-Riverside's Palm Desert campus.
Lisa Teasley is the author of acclaimed novels HEAT SIGNATURE and DIVE, and the award-winning story collection, GLOW IN THE DARK. Teasley’s awards include: Gold Pen, Pacificus Foundation, May Merrill Miller, and National Society of Arts & Letters. Lisa Teasley is writer and presenter of the BBC Television documentary "High School Prom.". Teasley’s work has been much anthologized, appearing in publications such as the Christian Science Monitor, LA Weekly, Los Angeles Times magazine, and National Public Radio. Her homepage is: www.lisateasley.com
Meanwhile, I want to thank John Fox for having me as guest blogger, and all of you for reading and supporting my stint here. If you want to keep in touch, please contact me at rachel@rachelresnick.com about book events or Writers On Fire teaching and coaching. I am currently revamping www.rachelresnick.com to feature the forthcoming book, LOVE JUNKIE: A MEMOIR. In the near future, I plan to launch a blog called Dear Love Junkie, inspired by my time here. I will also launch a joint blog this fall called Loose Girls and Love Junkies with fellow writer Kerry Cohen, author of the current smash book, LOOSE GIRL: A MEMOIR OF PROMISCUITY. This joint blog will feature a forum where we will invite authors and experts in love, sex, relationship and fantasy addiction to come and discuss the topic. We will welcome frank open talk about a subject that has long been kept under wraps. LOVE JUNKIE: A MEMOIR will be released Novemeber 11th. I hope you will all support its birth in the world. I also have a blog at Amazon.com, so if you click on the LOVE JUNKIE page you'll find it. Check www.writersonfire.com for upcoming workshops, retreats, coaching and classes. The next offering is a one-day writing workshop bootcamp in Malibu on July 27th. Thank you again for welcoming me as a guest BookFox. I hope you've enjoyed the posts, and I hope to stay in touch. Happy writing!
Signing off as your grateful temporary BookFox, Rachel Resnick
P.S. Without question, if I were to recommend one short story to read -- and especially to someone who's never read one before -- it would be Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard To Find." That story has gotten non-readers hooked on reading, and blown open the doors of perception for many a person I've come across. Maybe we all need some screaming peacocks in our front yards.
For anyone out there who still thinks L.A. isn’t literary, here are a few recent random encounters. At a groovy Fourth of July party in Nichols Canyon, I struck up a conversation with a man who turned out to’ve spent eight years in San Quentin. Now he’s a screenwriter. Name of John Carlen. “You know Eddie Bunker?” I asked. Eddie Bunker, author of NO BEAST SO FIERCE, DOG EAT DOG, EDUCATION OF A FELON, and so forth, did 18 years in San Question. He died in 2005, and is sorely missed. He and I had the same editor, Jim Fitzgerald. I still remember meeting Eddie the first time at a dinner at his house in Hancock Park. He’d cooked Chicken Diablo. While the rest of us ate, he sat at the head of the table, smoking a cigar, and flipping through a book with graphic photos of crime scenes. When he hit the one displaying a decapitated head sitting forlornly in the middle of a rural road, he couldn’t stop laughing. I also invited him to guest lecture at a class I taught at UCLA Extension. Eddie appeared in khakis, and a salmon-colored button-down shirt so stiffly starched, it stayed up around his neck when he sat down. When he told the class stories from prison, his blue eyes rolled back in his head. I don’t think those students were ever the same. If they wanted to create edge in their writing, I think they got a taste of what the true thing is. “Eddie and I were tight,” said Carlen. “Until there was a shoot-out on my lawn…” Only in L.A. I can’t wait to see Carlen’s film “Sonny,” based on his life. When he was still a kid, he was supposedly turned out by his grandmother. If that’s not a true Texan tale of entrepreneurship.
Then the other day, I was eating quiche and drinking an elixir at Topanga’s Water Lily Café and ran into a friend who was reading about Pocohantas. I mentioned these upscale hilltop book parties I’d been attending recently, and he told me about once years ago going to a Ken Kesey book party up at Kesey’s farm. The party revelers were half hippies and half suits driving up in monster foreign cars. “He had a stage set up in the swamp. I sat on the bus. Tripping. I saw Kesey through the bus window, then more Ken Keseys reflected in each of the rest of the windows.” “Was the book for sale at the swamp?” I asked. “I don’t remember,” he said. “But I know Kesey moved a lot of books when he was alive.” I guess still it all comes down to, you’re either off the bus, or you’re on the bus.
Today, before I create the short story rondelay with Lisa Teasley and Tod Goldberg later this evening, I’m going to do a short post featuring one of the best students I’ve ever had the honor with whom to work. Scott Doyle is a beautiful short story writer. He also has a blog spotlighting the short story. He is a testament to apprentice writers everywhere with his commitment to craft, the many courses he’s taken, the endless drafts he’s written, the perseverance. And now, on September 12th, his stories will be celebrated in Sally Shore’s acclaimed New Short Fiction Series.
BF: Could you give us a quick bio?
SD: Before relocating to the West Coast to focus on writing I was in Boston, where along with my brother I started Rhythm & Muse, a small indie store selling books and CDs. The store is hanging in there and I go back and help during the holiday rush. Before that I was a pastry chef.
BF: How does having worked as a pastry chef inform your writing?
SD: Well, my brief pastry career was a response to my first career, as a community activist, where you were constantly juggling a dozen things, and nothing was tangible, purely in the moment. In a kitchen you’re often insanely busy but there’s also a pure, physical focus on what’s in front of you. At its best writing is like that, too. It’s funny, in the last year cooking has been coming up in my stories: the perfect crystals in cocoa butter, the layers in puff pastry.
BF: When did you win UCLA Extension’s prestigious Kirkwood Prize?
SD: In 2005, for a still unpublished story called “Head in Bag” that’s part of the novel-in-stories I’m writing. I just reworked it in a rewrite class Charles Wyatt teaches at UCLA where you workshop the same story three times in ten weeks. Intense. The new version is up at my blog.
BF: What is this Sally Shore deal? A live magazine — can you elaborate?
SD: The New Short Fiction Series is similar to Cedering Fox’s WordTheatre, but the names aren’t as high profile and there’s more a focus on emerging writers. Sally Shore, who runs it, bills it as a ‘live literary magazine.’ It’s actors reading short stories, and it’s fascinating because they give the words a kind of breathing room you don’t see during author readings. In the past they’ve featured writers like Aimee Bender, Gina Ochsner, and Lee Montgomery. It’s at 8pm the second Friday of every month at the Beverly Hills Public Library. Mine is on Sept 12 and they’re mostly focusing on the novel-in-stories, called “Claudia.”
BF: What are your thoughts on the short story? Is that the form that speaks to you most?
SD: I feel the short story found me rather than the other way around. I came out here with one half-written novel and an idea for a second. Then I wrote a story (one of the pieces the NSFS is doing) that was unlike anything I’d ever done. For the first time I experienced as a writer what I’d experienced as a reader encountering Aimee Bender’s “Skinless.” That’s a story that literally leaves you at the edge of a cliff, holding your breath. It’s said the short story is about capturing a moment, which is only half-true. It’s about the moment that suggests a whole life: Hemingway’s iceberg principle. Amy Hempel does that really well: there are so many things ‘off-stage’ that you don’t see, but you know they’re there.
BF: Why did you do a short story-focused blog yourself?
SD: I just wanted to promote and celebrate a form that’s really possessed me. The internet is great for obsessive niches. One of the other things I’ve done is consolidate a lot of information and resources for the beginning to intermediate writer on the whole world of literary magazines, how and where to submit, etc., which can be pretty overwhelming at first.
BF: Did you like working with me as a teacher?
SD: Rachel you bring such a particular energy to a workshop I had to come up with a new term to describe it: “the archeological dig approach.” You’ll dig around in a story until your shovel hits something substantial: a line of dialogue that sings, an image that resonates. And then you’ll hold it up like it’s a mysterious clue: what could this possibly be? what strange culture might have left this behind? I’ve tried to retain that spirit because I think especially in early drafts we think we’re writing one thing but what’s actually on the page is something different, and the words on the page, the best of them, are smarter than we are. If we pay attention to those early nuggets, and treat them like clues, the story will find its way and take us along.
Along those lines, for those who are interested, I run a business called Writers On Fire that provides luxury writing retreats and private writing coaching. I also occasionally conduct workshops. There’s a one-day workshop in Malibu coming up on July 27th. If you would like an invitation, or want to inquire about other offerings, feel free to contact me at rachel@rachelresnick.com. The focus for this workshop is banging out a book – whether novel or memoir. Part of the secret is taking the initial leap.
I hope you enjoyed the post. I’m curious about your experiences with teachers. Have you taken courses in writing? Do you find them helpful? Hurtful? Unnecessary? What about writing groups? Are these more effective in person, online? And why do you love reading and writing short stories?
And here are the links:
Scott's short story blog
Sally Shore's series
Writers On Fire
RR
Once again, I shuck my Rachel Resnick identity and morph into BookFox. As promised, I finagled an e-mail exchange with super-talented Seth Greenland. I met Seth the first time at a Los Angeles Times Book Festival panel about the Hollywood novel I moderated in 2005. When I read THE BONES to prepare for the panel, I became an instant, rabid fan. Seth is a brilliant satirist, a stunning writer, and engagingly self-effacing. Here he is, still fabulous, hung-over or no.
BF: Your book, SHINING CITY, was released into the world yesterday. Mazel tov! How did your first reading go at Book Soup?
SG: Book Soup was fine. More than three people, so it was an improvement over the one I did there for THE BONES. Tough to get people to readings...which is why I've decided to work with Nina Hartley. I'm a little hung-over this morning - red wine and I are having a problem lately - so let’s get this party started before I go back to bed.
(In a caffeinated burst, I send Seth a slew of interview questions, which makes his head ache.)
SG: Man, one glass of red wine and I'm William Burroughs after a three-day bender. When did that shift occur? Am I no longer hard core? And it was fucking Pinot Noir, not even Cabernet. So depressing.
BF: Do you and Nina go way back?
SG: I will be meeting Nina Harley for the first time on July 28th at the In The Flesh reading we're doing together at Freddy and Eddy's, the well-known purveyor of high end dildos (and other sex things) on Venice Boulevard. Contrary to popular reports, we do not go way back. I haven't even seen any of her movies although I hear they are exemplars of the genre.
BF: Does your wife like SHINING CITY?
SG: My wife loves my book although I think she's probably kind of sick of it after having read four drafts. I think she's looking forward to the next one now.
BF: Where’d you come up with the concept?
SG: I got the idea for this book from two sources - a newspaper article and my daughter. The article, which appeared in the LA Times about four years ago, was about a South Bay couple with two young kids who were busted for running a call girl ring out of their house. It made me think about the extremes to which the middle class could go in order to deal with the Bush economy. The other spark occurred when my daughter returned home from a bar mitzvah at which the bar mitzvah boy made his entrance to the party on the arms of two "motivational dancers" to the tune of "P.I.M.P." by the well-known Talmudist 50 Cent. It made me realize exactly how mainstream the idea of the pimp had become.
BF: Did you really strip down to your skivvies in a video?
SG: It is true that I appeared in my underwear in a video to promote the book, but I was sipping tea so it was dignified. This video can be seen on YouTube by going to the site and typing in "Seth Greenland" or, if that is too much work, by going to www.sethgreenland.com and clicking the video link. I'm pleased to have done the video since my publisher has not done a lot to promote the book as yet and anything that gets the word out is good. Also, it's a great ice-breaker at parties.
BF: Do all writers have to be book pimps?
SG: Unless your name is Philip Roth I believe the answer is yes. The landscape has changed so much in the last few years. Fewer newspapers are reviewing books at all, the Internet is the Wild West, and we have to do what is necessary to be heard above the clamor. I think if its fun - like doing a video - then why not? I'm still trying to figure out what works. There's a very popular book video right now that shows some author ( I can't remember his name) yakking about his book (I can't remember it's title) on the phone. The video has tens of thousands of hits on YouTube but the fact that I can't remember the author or the title can't be good. So who knows what works? The point is, you have to be creative in how you get your book out there these days.
BF: Does it help that your father worked at an ad agency?
SG: The fact that my father was in the advertising business gives me an advantage insofar as I don't think selling is a dirty word. I don't think I have any innate talent for it, however. I just recognize it as something that's necessary so I get in there without a lot of ambivalence. I won't say I don't have any ambivalence, but I don't think it's beneath me. I wouldn't dare be that precious. The shift from writer to seller can be a little jarring, though, and I am not getting a lot of writing done at the moment (although I seem to find the time to do this).
BF: Are you thrilled THE BONES and SHINING CITY sold to Hollywood?
SG: That both my books were sold to the movies is certainly a happy thing, but it will be better if someone actually makes movies out of them.
BF: Are you a Kindle man?
SG: I am not a Kindle man although I love the idea for other people. I have friends who swear by it. When I even think of Kindles, I feel my vision dimming. I like the tactile nature of paper.
BF: Do you write or read short stories?
SG: I have no talent for writing short stories, so its kind of funny that this is a short story blog. I love the Cheever stories, and Fitzgerald's and Hemingway's, too. And J.D. Salinger's. I'm pretty old school when it comes to this form. I like William Trevor, too. But short story ideas don't come to me. My ideas seem to be novels. I did take a short fiction class with the poet William Meredith, an excellent teacher. He was not particularly encouraging and given the quality of my output in his class, I can hardly blame him. I wrote some short stories that I would be afraid to reread. I suspect they are impossibly bad. I don't read many short stories these days, although I liked Tod Goldberg's recent collection. This past winter I read an E.L.. Doctorow short story in the New Yorker called "Wakefield" that was an adaptation of a Nathaniel Hawthorne short story of the same title which I read after reading the Doctorow story. I preferred Doctorow's version.
BF: Do you have any tips for writers?
SG: The only tip I can give writers about writing and selling comes down to this: find your voice. That is the only thing you have that no one else can offer. By the way, this is not easy, and may take years. If there is anything else you think you might like doing, by all means do that.
BF: Both your books were laugh-out-loud hysterical. Where do you get your sense of humor?
SG: Both my parents were funny. My father, who is 88, still is. I was drawn to comedy as a kid, loved the comedians on television, loved Mark Twain from the time I was nine years old. I was always trying to make my mother laugh. It was just something that was always there.
BF: Do you consider yourself highbrow?
SG: In a world where Nabokov exists, how would I be highbrow? I'm more of a high-low writer. I combine elements of both. I often find myself writing about absurd juxtapositions, so I find contrasts. The consistently highbrow is a bore.
BF: If you could describe your market, what would it be?
SG: I'm not really sure who my market is. A writer up in San Francisco said I was a master of comic dick lit, which I think he meant as a compliment - dick lit being the opposite of chick lit, I guess. I think my audience is broader than that. Maybe it consists of people who like good storytelling but like their narratives to veer a little off the beaten track.
BF: Are we being nostalgic by wishing we could just write books and not worry about selling?
SG: Dickens was trying to move units. What's different now? The means change but the transaction remains the same. There is a hard wired need for narrative within human beings. How will that be met? Do the trappings change? Of course. But to bemoan these changes is like standing at the beach and yelling at the tide. It can't hear you. William F. Buckley once described a conservative as someone who stands astride history and yells "Stop!" Are you suggesting that we should be conservatives? I hope not.
BF: Why do you write books?
SG: Because they matter to me. And they still matter to enough other people to make it worthwhile. That sounds so earnest, but there it is.
BIO: Seth Greenland is a novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. His second novel, Shining City, was published by Bloomsbury in July, 2008. Movie rights have been purchased by Warner Brothers. The Bones, his debut novel, was published by Bloomsbury in 2005. His first play, Jungle Rot, was the recipient of the Kennedy Center/American Express Fund for New American Plays Award and the American Theatre Critics Association Award. It was published by Dramatists Play Service and anthologized in Best American Plays, 1996-1996. His other produced plays include Jerusalem, a finalist for the Critics Award, Red Memories and Girls In Movies. He has also written extensively for film and television. Mr. Greenland was one of the original bloggers on the Huffington Post and continues to contribute to the site. His work has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Written By and the literary journal Black Clock. He has taught at the UCLA Writers Program, and guest lectured at NYU, USC, and UC-Riverside. He can currently be seen in his underwear on YouTube by going to www.youtube.com/sethgreenland. Currently, he is writing a memoir about the worst year of his life. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.
Here is Seth's website:
www.sethgreenland.com
And don't miss this rave review of SHINING CITY by Jonathan Yardley at The Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/03/AR2008070302753.html
Coincidentally, Seth mentioned enjoying Tod Goldberg's short story collection SIMPLIFY -- and what do you know -- he's a featured guest tomorrow on my last day playing BookFox! Stay tuned for a rondelay, or a literary menage, also featuring Lisa Teasley, author of the standout collection GLOW IN THE DARK, among other powerful books, and Tod. Me, I'll feed them questions, and cyber-brie, and try to draw them out of their creative lairs. I hope you're enjoying all the posts. I've also just added some more author responses to yesterday's post about time management, including: Renee Bergland, Malina Saval, Tod Goldberg (again! he's ubiquitous!), Bruce Bauman, and Edie Meidav. I will also try and post a few smaller items to make the most of this blogging stint. Thanks for those who're reading! RR
Back to getting foxy with books. I'm digging this guest blogging business!
So I've had the pleasure of attending a couple of swanky book parties the previous two evenings. Last night was one for Seth Greenland, whose new critically acclaimed and hysterically funny book SHINING CITY launches today. Seth will be our BookFox guest for an informal conversation about short stories and then some tomorrow. Upon entering the house, I ran into the lovely Katie O'Laughlin, owner of Village Books. She was selling Seth's book. I'd seen her earlier this summer at another private house party for Honor Moore's stunning memoir THE BISHOP'S DAUGHTER. I thought you would all be interested to know she finds that people are more apt to buy the book at a private book party at someone's house than at a reading. I thought that was fascinating, and a helluva tip if you're trying to move books. I also had a chance to meet Josh Emmons, who was out here briefly for a reading at BookSoup for his new book PRESCRIPTION FOR A SUPERIOR EXISTENCE. Josh was charming, and I wasn't suprised when he said he grew up in Humboldt. Since I live in Topanga, I know about the psychological and physical pipeline that runs between these two places, in part fueled by a love of marijuana and anti-authoritarianism. Josh Miller (author of THE MAO GAME) and Reza Aslan (author of NO GOD BUT GOD: THE ORIGINS, EVOLUTION AND FUTURE OF ISLAM), threw him a party at a fabulous house. Turns out the house belonged to Amy Heckerling (director of "Fast Times at Ridgemont High"). Talk about a cool vibe. However, no books were for sale there.
So that's the recent book party round-up.
For my posting today, I wanted to share about time management in terms of writing. I imagine this will be just as helpful to those crafting short stories as books. Last year around this time, I was panicked that I couldn't crank out the first draft of LOVE JUNKIE in time for the publisher. In a lucid moment, I composed an e-mail cry for help.
This is what I said on July 20, 2007:
"Dear magnificent fellow writers and fabulous friends,
As most of you know, I'm under this crazy deadline to bang out a memoir with difficult and psychologically taxing material in a matter of a few months. Something that's come up for me is time management. Every day is precious. Yet I still wrestle with the old demons of procrastination, vagueness around time, trouble balancing life nourishment with hard work.
Then it struck me: why not ask my friends? Writers I admire. Friends I hold dear. How do they handle it?
If you have time or inclination, I wonder if you could write back a short bit about how you concretely organize time in one day of writing. Or one week. Or month. Especially when you're on a hairy deadline. Or how you plan over the course of weeks. How much time do you actually spend writing each day? Do you write every day? How do you break down the different aspects of writing? (Research, daydreaming, planning, actual full-on scene writing, etc.) How do you achieve balance? Or do you disappear from usual social and family life, lose hair, teeth (as Flannery O'Connor warned)? I'm curious, too, if you have rituals, ways to keep you on track, focused.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts."
The response I got was overwhelming. I'm going to give you a few edited samples so you can see the range of methods, and get a taste of how different writers can be.
Rene Steinke is a novelist and poet. She is the author of THE FIRES: A NOVEL and most recently HOLY SKIRTS, a novel based on the life of the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. HOLY SKIRTS was a finalist for the 2005 National Book Award. Here is a bit of her response:
"I'm having the same issue (though my deadlines are self-imposed) and time is complicated by being a mom to a two-year-old, but here are some things that worked with my last book, when I had a publisher deadline that was really scary. I did find that I was surprised by how much I could get done when I really had to.
1) I'd assign myself tasks for every day at the beginning of the week.
2) Usually the tasks were write 5 pages, rewrite 5 pages, and take notes on what was to come. (Or more pages for each if necessary -- but this is sort of my natural length.) Reread and take notes on things that need fixing, type, edit, research, etc. at end of day.
3) I did my best not to go out, not to drink much, and to make sure I exercised every day."
And here's Dylan Landis, whose collection of linked stories, NORMAL PEOPLE DON'T LIVE LIKE THIS, is due summer 2009 from Persea Press. An excerpt from her recently finished novel, FLOORWORK, won special mention in the 2008 Pushcart Prizes:
"I tie the forced daily writing to coffee, which is not very healthy, but forces the issue.
Once or twice a day, I go to Starbucks (because their coffee is hotter than anyone else's, not because I support their corporate ethos) with my notebook of historical clippings and a smaller blank lined notebook in which I do my handwritten cruddy fragmented first drafts, and I use the horrible loud Starbucks music to force myself to turn inward and deeply focus and shut out the world and hand-write.
For some reason I can't do this in my own home -- maybe because it's silent and there's nothing to shut out. The hand-writing can be any scene, anywhere, any point in the book, though I try (not always successfully) not to stray far from where I was last because I like to get one scene finished at a time. I'm allowed to read, but at this point only from the historical notebook, and only for immediate reference and inspiration -- I can't spend the whole coffee session that way, avoiding writing. Not allowed! Gotta move the pen for half an hour, the duration of a tall half-caff. I then go home and type -- either based on what I just wrote or based on stuff I wrote days or weeks earlier. (I don't force a connection.) Ultimately the goal is to get a revised version of the notebook into the computer.
It's all linked to coffee. My body mistakenly craves coffee when my blood sugar falls or when I'm hungry. So at least once a day, sometimes twice, this writing opportunity presents itself. I don't allow myself to go to Starbucks and NOT work on my book."
And finally, Francesca Lia Block, author of many books, including the award-winning DANGEROUS ANGELS. Her most recent publications are BLOOD ROSES and QUAKELAND:
"Do you have an outline? Are there parts that are easier to tackle out of order than others? Are you someone who needs pressure to motivate? (Can you change this or accept it and know that as the deadline approaches you will pick up speed?) Do you have a daily routine?
This is my intuitive take on a day for you:
Wake up -- morning ritual must include food and exercise Work for two hours until lunch Take break, more food maybe exercise again or instead work in the afternoon (I get my best work done at this time, weirdly). If you can't work at this time, see a friend, do something fun. If you do work then take the evening off with a meeting or dinner with a friend. If you work better at night (I don't) then no reading or TV until you've worked for 1-2 hours.
This routine is for M-F but the weekends can look a little different. Maybe work all morning and play all afternoon or vice versa on weekends. Try to eat well, exercise, don't drink much, plan your days carefully around your work schedule as if you had a "real" job. Don't spend too much time on line. Call the Jungian Center and get an inexpensive therapist.
I would jump in wherever you can and stream of consciousness try to bang out -- quantity over quality! It doesn't matter how good it is just that you do it! Editing can come later. Now your goal is just to get out the words.
Pick a relationship or subject and just write 5-10 pages on it. Cringe, cry, scream, bang the keys but don't get up from the fucking computer until you have at least one complete page. You can get help at every step along the way. Be strong."
Malina Saval: "I have an 11 month-old, a husband who hasn't worked in 20 months, I'm writing for Us Weekly and Variety and I'm on deadline for a book due to Basic Books. I feel like I am drowning! I think the best advice I have ever gotten was actually from my lazy ass husband who when I went to him one day and said, "I'll never get this done," he responded and said, "It's not about getting it done, it's about doing it." The implication was that just write a word, then another word, try try to get to the end of a sentence. Then keep going. Not focusing on the final product and just going word-by-word so helped me in terms of not getting overwhelmed by the giant task of completing a book. It really helped lessen the anxiety. Of course, a glass of wine here and there helps as well!"
Malina has a book coming out next April called THE SECRET LIVES OF BOYS. Non-fiction. It's for presale up on Amazon....
Edie Meidav: "Cafes. Write in cafes. No distraction. Evening: revise. Quotas of 1000 words a day. Begin each day revising and moving forward."
Edie is the author of CRAWL SPACE and THE FAR FIELD: A NOVEL OF CEYLON.
Renee Bergland: "I've been on deadline this year, and I have a million ideas about it.
SO: what has worked?
First, what messes me up:
I think my big problems come when I get obsessed about completing the whole thing. I can get so worried about the impossibility of the whole that it is very hard to concentrate on the parts. Two observations about this: I try to stop obsessing and break it into little, doable bits. ALSO, I often realize, when I manage to start on the little parts, that my panicked obsessing was actually---THINKING--and an important part of processing. So, as always, forgiving myself when I'm caught in an obsession spiral, believing that it is part of productivity (even if it feels more like anxiety) is part of the deal.
Next: what helps me.
GRAPH PAPER.
I make charts. Toward the beginning of my book I used four colors: one for hours of reading, one for pages of journal, one for pages of actual draft, and another for time in the chair. The side axis was numbers, one through ten, the bottom axis was days. This was quite helpful to me, because it offered me concrete proof that time spent sitting in the chair on Monday often led to pages of draft by Friday. There were definite echoes-- the reading bump on day one would be a journalling bump on day two or three and a draft bump a couple days later.
But the friends in my writing group think the charts are totally unhelpful for them--actually, that isn't quite true-- almost everyone in the group likes doing them for a few weeks. Most think it would be stupid to do them all the time.
I guess I sort of agree with that, because once I am in the swing, I simplify the graph a lot, and just graph words written per day. This is incredibly satisfying to me. Anthony Trollope said it was the only way he ever got anything done-- that his small notebook recording his words per day was the secret behind his 50 three-volume novels. He was nuts-- I think he wrote 2500 words every morning, before work, waking at four A.M. or something.
But he had a servant to bring him coffee.
I don't have a coffee-bearing servant, but even so, the other thing Trollope had right was the morning thing. When the crunch is on, I decide on a daily wordcount minimum, and do not allow myself out of the bedroom until I hit it. (I get up, make coffee, and head back to lock myself up. no shower, no workout, no chores at all until I hit 1200 words. Then chores, and then anything else I do on the book is icing on the cake)
Final thing that's really important to me--I start early and I stop early-- It's really important to me to sleep alot-- like ten or twelve hours a night when I am trying to get writing done. Every night. And since writing on deadline makes me anxious, that means I have to work out in the afternoon so that I can sleep. So even when It's going incredibly well, I tear myself away in time to go for a run. In winter in New England, that means I need to stop for good around 3:30 or 4 pm. These days (glorious July) I can stretch it until 7..."
Renee is professor of English and Gender Cultural Studies at Simmons College. Her most recent book, MARIA MITCHELL AND THE SEXING OF SCIENCE: AN ASTRONOMER AMONG THE AMERICAN ROMANTICS was published in April 2008.
Bruce Bauman: "Except when I'm at a colony, I can't do more than six hours a day no matter what. Trying to do 2-3 hours in the A.M. at home. Then 2-3 hours at my office at the airport in the afternoon. Maybe look at what I've done later than night. Keep off e-mail and the phone. I dunno. It's just hard, hard, hard. Is it better to have a deadline than to be writing with no one waiting for it?"
Bruce is the author of AND THE WORD WAS.
Tod Goldberg: "For me, it boils down to not taking every job I'm offered and being realistic about my time and also understanding that my best work comes when I'm relaxed and not writing to meet the deadline. So, this is what I've learned:
Get up and go to bed at the same time. I know this sounds simple, but it puts me on a pretty good clock if I know I'm expected to sleep and wake at certain times.
Delineate time for writing fiction and writing nonfiction. I know, it sounds stupid, but if I know, okay, I write nonfiction stuff -- journalism, reviews, even reading student work and commenting, only during daylight hours and fiction only when during daylight when I have nothing else I have to do and otherwise can write fiction from 5pm-2am, then I'm good.
Don’t give yourself easy ways to procrastinate. There's a reason I live in the desert and not LA. But when I'm working I frequently pull out my wireless card so I can't go online and fuck around, downloading music, blogging, whatever.
Take days off. I'm a big believer in days off. You'll want to work after having taken days off.
Don't drink coffee every day. I know, impossible, but I've found if I don't drink coffee every day, when I do drink it, it actually has the desired narcotic effect.
Don't take every job offered to you. I know, I know, money is important, but I swear to god, interviewing some fucking golfer for a magazine takes me ten times longer than anything else on the planet and even though someone is going to give me money for it, I have to sometimes think, okay, is it worth the stress?
Send nude pictures to me. Seriously. That shit helps."
Tod is the author of the short story collection SIMPLIFY, and BURN NOTICE: THE FIX, LIVING DEAD GIRL and FAKE, LIAR, CHEAT.
So there you have it. From serious to silly, from sacred to profane, from coffee servants to graph paper. It seems finding a way to manage time as a writer is as varied as voice. I'd love to know your answers to the questions I posed for my friends. What gets you through the writing day? Also, I have more tips to share as writers send me their current bios and permission. You guys just have to let me know if you want me to post more on this topic. And now -- on to a writing deadline I have this afternoon!
Signing off from Topanga Canyon, Rachel Resnick
John Fox, a most excellent writer I have had the pleasure of teaching over at USC, has kindly invited me to guest blog. Thanks, John! Kudos to him for launching a blog that focuses on the short story form. I have been teaching writing since 1995, and I have always believed that mastering this short form enables a writer to shine more in all other forms. If a writer can compose a powerful short story, they are more apt to be able to pull off a free-standing, satisfying chapter in a novel. I think short stories – reading them, writing them, dreaming them – train a writer to pay close attention to language, to story arc, and to editing. After all, in a short story, every word counts. I even nudge people to go shorter and mess with the short-short, which is the closest prose gets to poetry. And of course, poetry I feel is the most evolved of all the forms. To me, it is the pure distillation of language, emotion, spirit – and full of mystery. I have no idea how to write poetry – I’m not evolved enough yet – but I bow down to it, as I do to the short story form and its masters.
John was tickled when I confessed that I was a virgin blogger, though I have just launched my first attempt at blogging on Amazon connect. I did that because I have a new book coming out with Bloomsbury this fall. It’s called LOVE JUNKIE: A MEMOIR. The release date is 11/11/08. Auspicious! The quick catalog description is: “One woman’s dangerous addiction to love and sex threaten to ruin her life in this powerfully written memoir.” I am cautiously optimistic. The book is getting wonderful blurbs thus far, so that is exciting.
Here’s one: “Reading LOVE JUNKIE is like watching a sleepwalker taking a stroll on a freeway. All you can do is pray. Gorgeously written, piercingly honest.” -- Janet Fitch, author of WHITE OLEANDER and PAINT IT BLACK
And another: “Provocative. Striking. Resnick’s fearless examination of the desperate thirst to find love is guaranteed to break your heart…yet inspires hope that through committed self-understanding, maybe each of us can change toxic patterns.” -- Samantha Dunn, author of FAITH IN CARLOS GOMEZ and NOT BY ACCIDENT
I wouldn’t have written this book if it weren’t for my good friend, the exquisite, accomplished, fiery and talented Samantha Dunn. Sam used to live up the road from me in Topanga in a charming trailer she called the Cowgirl Palace. Now she has moved up north near Sacramento to Cool, California, where she lives with her lovely husband and a menagerie of animals. Only it’s not so cool there right now, what with the raging wildfires. I decided to kick off my guest blog stint with Sam, and to focus on the short story anthology she edited called WOMEN ON THE EDGE.
BF: How's the weather up there?
SD: Hellish. As in, Dante’s INFERNO hellish. Not only is it 104 in the shade but the wildfires all around here means the sky is a thick gray sludge. How’s L.A.? Wait, don’t tell me. I’ll get homesick.
BF: I've been invited to guest blog on the venerable Book Fox, which spotlights the short story. What’s your feeling about the form?
SD: The short story for me is the fiction twin of the essay. It’s probably my favorite form. I find myself reading and rereading short stories more than novels, frankly. Versatile, complex, challenging for both writer and reader. When it’s done brilliantly there is no more satisfaction—literarily speaking, of course.
BF: Aren't you saucy. What's the first short story that blew you away?
SD: Wow, that’s hard because I’ve had a few “ah ha” moments with short stories. I remember even in junior high being completely creeped out and bothered by Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery.” In high school I found poetry and novels, but in college found Hemingway. Make all the fun you want of Hemingway -- I know he’s a white guy out of style -- but he’s a freaking genius. "Hills Like White Elephants" and "The Killers" and "Snows of Kilimanjaro" are still taught for reasons that have nothing to do with anything other than his brilliance. Says me. Anyway, then Flannery O’Connor was my love, then for a little time in the ‘80s I wanted to be as remote as Ann Beattie, and I still have a major crush on all things by Lee K. Abbott. Oh yeah, and I have to mention an early mentor of mine, the black widow otherwise known as Kate Braverman. You know Rach that I have lots of problems with many things about her, but she wrote a brilliant short story that I still keep at my fingertips, "Tall Tales from the Mekong Delta."
BF: Do you come from a family of storytellers?
SD: Let’s just say one of my mom’s favorite sayings is, “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.” Stories were the medium we used in my family for communication. My grandmother in her later years never left the house, but she had a new story every day. Just the way she could describe the mailman putting a letter in the box had tension. I learned quickly that if I wanted to enter the conversation I better have a good story, or at least a joke. It’s an Irish thing. I really think it’s cultural.
BF: You have written two bestselling —-
SD: Really? Tell my agent that, please.
BF: -- critically acclaimed memoirs, as well as an award-winning novel, FAILING PARIS.
SD: OK I’ll take the critically acclaimed part.
BF: I know you've also ghostwritten a couple of others. Then after writing all those long-form books, you edited a short story anthology, WOMEN ON THE EDGE, which came out in 2005. How did that come about?
SD: Kind of a long story. I had a few short stories but other things had kept me away from doing much with them. Meanwhile the Toby Press, the wonderful little indie press that published my first novel, contacted me to see if I had enough short stories for a collection because they were looking to do a few short story collections. I said no, but then I thought about this story I had read in a workshop once. I could never get it out of my head, and the writer, Karen Horn, had never published much. I knew that story would probably always stay in her desk drawer. I figured there were other wonderful stories that hadn’t seen the light of day or that had been published but could use a wider audience, so I went back to Toby and said, “What about an anthology?” And they said yes, sight unseen! See why I love the guys over there? What other press does that?
BF: How did you solicit writers?
SD: Begging, mostly. No, seriously, only a little begging. I knew right away I would need help —- the catch was we had very little money and a tight deadline —- so I asked my brilliant pal Julianne Ortale-Cohen to co-edit with me. She had just come out of UC Irvine’s acclaimed MFA program and knew some great writers I didn’t. Then we worked the viral angle—sending emails to friends and friends of friends. We didn’t have time or the resources to do a general call for submissions. It was like putting together a great party —- the associations just worked.
BF: How did you order the stories you received?
SD: Julianne and I talked about that. First we were going to do it alphabetically, but then agreed that didn’t feel right. Instead we went by mood, as in the mood of the stories. She made a list and I made a list, and the two were very similar, so we split the difference and that was that.
BF: How did you pay writers?
SD: Um, poorly? Really it was only an honorarium, hence the begging part. We did it more as a project and a labor of love. I so wanted to get some of these stories out in the world -— Julianne did too -- and I’m happy we did. Oh, and in case some are wondering - —yes I do have a story in the collection, and no that wasn’t my idea. Toby Press required it.
BF: How did you reject writers?
SD: Because we knew who we were asking, we didn’t have the need for the mass rejection process most face, thank god. We did have the choice between stories sometimes, but that wasn’t nearly as difficult as rejecting someone. I think if you are a writer and move into editing you’re always more empathetic to how it feels to be rejected, having been through it so many times yourself!
BF: How is getting work published in a fiction anthology different from being published in a literary magazine, or did you not go that route?
SD: Maybe a wider audience reads it. At least one would hope.
BF: Have you been published in other short story anthologies?
SD: Can I say not yet? I’m lucky to have my nonfiction anthologized in a lot of different places, but I just haven’t concentrated on the short story. I’d like to, eventually. You know, for all the money and fame. No, really, I so love the form I would like to apprentice myself to it more. I just wish there were more venues for publishing it, like back in the magazine heyday. Maybe after the next book.
BF: What are you writing now?
SD: It’s called TRAILER TRASH: AN AMERICAN STORY. It’s looking at this much maligned and mythologized class — where it comes from, what it means in our culture — through the lense of my family story. It’s something I have wanted to write for six years and haven’t known how. I don’t know that I know how yet, but what the hell. Speaking of short story, the form it’s taking is in fragments, or short vignettes. Stories, really.
BF: What has that got to do with short stories?
SD: More than it has to do with essay, most of the time. Or at least that’s how it’s evolving. Every point, every fragment, has an emotional arc, a tiny bit of resolution, or perhaps ends on a bigger question, much like the short story.
BF: What do you look for in a short story?
SD: I call it the goosebump factor. Somewhere along the line I should get a little shiver of excitement -— even if it is just over an amazing turn of phrase.
BF: What makes it effective?
SD: Magic. Really, I’m not being facetious. You can read some stories twenty times and not be able to say exactly why the end result is so devastating, so amazing, so unforgettable. That’s the beauty of it. Like, c’mon, explain to me at exactly what point Joyce’s "The Dead" becomes genius? Or why Sandra Cisnero’s "Woman Hollering Creek" stays in my head for two days after I read it — every frigging time?
BF: There are criminal profilers, who figure out the psychological make-up required for various crimes. What kind of writer writes poetry versus short stories versus memoirs versus novels?
SD: This is a great question. I don’t know how to answer it without falling into big fat clichés like “poets are more arty” or whatever. Really I think different forms choose us at different times. Some writers stay within one genre but I think most of us stretch the repertoire over our careers. I have to say, one form I never appreciated until I tried to do it was screenwriting. Truth: I always thought they were kind of the red-headed step children of literature (and being a redhead and a stepchild myself I know exactly what that means, but that’s another story…). Then I tried it and realized what an arrogant pig I had been all these years. My hat goes off to the pros of that genre, I tell you…
BF: How would you profile a short story writer?
SD: Hmm. Fingerprint, mostly. Then I’d pull their driving record, talk to witnesses…
Samantha Dunn is the author of FAILING PARIS (Toby Press), a finalist for the PEN West Fiction Award in 2000, and the memoir, NOT BY ACCIDENT: RECONSTRUCTING A CARELESS LIFE (Henry Holt& Co.), a BookSense 76 pick. Her most recent memoir, FAITH IN CARLOS GOMEZ: A MEMOIR OF SALSA, SEX, AND SALVATION, is published by Henry Holt & Co. Her work is anthologized in a number of places, including: ANOTHER CITY (City Lights); THE TIME OF MY LIFE (Dolphin Press); DAMAGE CONTROL (St. Martins); and the short story anthology, WOMEN ON THE EDGE: WRITING FROM LOS ANGELES (Toby Press), which Dunn co-edited with writer Julianne Ortale.
Dunn's essays have appeared in numerous national publications including the Los Angeles Times, O (Oprah) Magazine, Ms., and Shape. In 2000 Dunn received the Maggie Award for Best Personal Essay in a Consumer Publication. A widely published journalist, Dunn's bylines are regularly featured in InStyle, Glamour, SELF, Men's Health and a variety of other consumer magazines. She has also written for the stage, as a co-creator of the show "American Ese."
Dunn is currently at work on her next book, Trailer Trash: An American Story. She lives in northern California with her husband, three dogs, two horses and two baby goats.
Website: www.samanthadunn.biz and www.myspace.com/samanthadunncamp
FYI, Sam and I are joint-teaching a class at UCLA Extension Writers’ Program this fall, Sept. 20-21. Here’s the description:
Digging for Memoir Gold: A Life Story Weekend Boot Camp Writing about your life is called journaling. Crafting a meaningful story from your life experiences for readers is another form entirely and is a challenge for even seasoned writers to master. Memoir has to deliver vivid characters, evocative settings, and pitch-perfect dialogue just like fiction, but does so within the constraints of fact. The first day of this course explores the particulars of memoir as an art form from its roots as a religious practice, while helping you to uncover key issues in your work, create a compelling storyline out of life experience, and cast yourself as a narrator that appeals to readers. The second day focuses on in-class writing exercises and group critique, all aimed at improving each writer's skill.
And I forgot to put in my bio. Whoops! Also, full disclosure, I have a story in WOMEN ON THE EDGE. Sam was a fantastic editor! She cut the hell out of it, and improved it vastly. The story is called "Meat-Eaters of Marrakesh" and appeared first in its longest form in the lit mag Chelsea, then in shorter form on the online lit mag The Barcelona Review where it was also translated into Spanish, and finally, in WOMEN ON THE EDGE. Actually, you'll see when you compare our bios, we have a few overlapping anthos. Why? Because we both like to share opportunities with fellow writers we admire. That's one reason forging a community of writers, who're roughly at the same stage in their careers, is so important on this challenging writing path.
Bio: Rachel Resnick is the author of the Los Angeles Times bestseller GO WEST YOUNG F*CKED-UP CHICK. She has published articles, essays, and celebrity profile cover stories nationally in The Los Angeles Times, Women's Health, and BlackBook. She is a contributing editor at Tin House magazine. Her essays and stories have appeared in THE TIME OF MY LIFE, DAMAGE CONTROL, THE DICTIONARY OF FAILED RELATIONSHIPS, THE BEST AMERICAN EROTICA 2004, WOMEN ON THE EDGE, L.A. SHORTS, and ABSOLUTE DISASTER. She is also the founder and CEO of Writers On Fire, provider of private writing coaching and luxury writing retreats both here and abroad.
What did you think of this mini-interview? Did you agree? Disagree? All comments welcome. Since I’m guest blogging, I’d also love to know what you want to know more about. I am planning to cover a couple of book parties, share some e-mails my colleagues wrote about time management when writing on deadline, and whatever else seems right. I'm in the process of shifting gears from book writer to book seller, a necessary step for authors these days. So I can talk a bit about that, too. Or I can focus on short stories more. Speaking of, What was the first short story that rocked your world? What about the most recent one? What about the most obscure? And what psychological profile do you think the short story writer has?
Rachel Resnick www.rachelresnick.com www.writersonfire.com
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