1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
Oh gosh--in so many ways. I think beyond anything else it felt validating and gave me a certain confidence in what I was doing, that after all of the no answers, I really was onto something that would, could, and did lead to a yes.
I think my recent work actually still emulates a lot of what I was up to in previous work thematically, in many ways, although the subjects have changed--as I've gotten older, so have my protagonists, and the kinds of "issues" they're facing have matured as I have.
2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?
Actually, I have a pretty weirdly circuitous path that led me to where I am now. When I started college two decades ago (eep!), I was convinced I would spend my life writing fiction and poetry. It became immediately clear I was not meant to do much of the latter. But I also struggled with fiction. I took a nonfiction course with a professor I really liked from taking my introductory course, and I was hooked--my senior project for my BA as well as my master's thesis were both in creative nonfiction, and it wasn't until I was doing my PhD and rolled the dice on taking my first fiction-focused course in about five years that I fell back in love with fiction, and I've largely stayed there (with dabblings into the other two) since.
3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
I am not much of a note-taker, or planner, except for the former when I get into revision. Otherwise, I usually start with some goofy premise and not much else and I spend a ton of time figuring out what that idea is about. So the start is usually pretty fast, and sometimes there's a dip as I wander about trying to figure things out.
4 - Where does a work of prose usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
If I'm working in short form (which is my favorite), I usually begin with an opening sentence that marinates for a little bit in my brain before I set it down on the page. Then I explore from there, and figure things out as I draft and try things out. Sometimes I'm working on a book conceptually--for example, I have a book of stories where each story reimagines one of the biblical plagues of Egypt, and I knew that I was trying to write one of each of those from the start. Other times, a collection simply emerges out of a larger pool of stories where I start to see thematic connections.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I love doing readings, whether they're open mic nights on my campus or planned events. And I also love attending them--hearing other writers really helps get my creative work moving.
6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
The fundamental question that I'm always looking at, from some angle (as I think almost all writers are), is What does it mean to be a human being? I'm also deeply interested in the human desire for rationality and the complete irrationality of humanness, particularly as it relates to experiencing and responding to human emotions.
7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
Oof! That's a big one. I think the work of a writer these days is to capture the cultural now--though that 'now' can be a different time (and different place) within the world of a particular story. We can't divorce ourselves entirely from the way the social, political, and historical landscape looks outside our writing nooks, and I think it's the writer's job to confront the tides of the world and make people think about them.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Sometimes both. I love getting outside eyes to see what I'm too close to see, but I also don't want to have my vision stifled by someone else's vision for what my work "should" be, if that makes sense.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
That a great ending is both inevitable and unexpected.
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (short stories to the novel to young adult fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?
Pretty easy--I like working on several things at once, and I actually like when they are very different. I find it fun to switch modes, as they play against one another in interesting ways.
11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
I almost exclusively write in the morning and then edit/revise when I can during the afternoons/evenings around my work schedule. I usually spend a short period on each piece I'm working on (never really usually generating more than a page or two per project in a given day). I've followed this for about ten years, and it's really worked for me.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
The things I read. I read a ton, and if I'm stuck, I'll often read something that will unstick me.
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Vanilla and apples--two of my favorite baking smells.
14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
TV has actually influenced me a lot. I loved Buffy the Vampire Slayer when I was young. I don't watch as much television as I used to, but the shows that drew me in years ago have stuck with me.
15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
I'll follow Jennifer Egan, Adam Johnson, Ramona Ausubel, and Margaret Atwood to the ends of the earth. I read the magic realists from Latin American religiously (in translation).
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I've had some ideas for screen--television--but haven't ever really pulled the trigger.
17 - 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 not been a writer?
There was a time where I thought I'd be an eye doctor, and that would certainly still be neat (though quite the sea change).
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I don't really know, to be honest. I've always had an interest in the creative; I wrote my first 'story' (a ripoff of a cartoon I loved as a kid) when I was in 2nd grade. I think invention just appealed to me, and I never let that appeal go.
19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
I just reread Hernan Diaz's Trust, which continues to fool and amaze me. I don't sit down to watch movies that often, but I recently rewatched Parasite and loved it as much as I did the first time.
20 - What are you currently working on?
Well, I just finished the garbage draft of a novel for NaNoWriMo, but I'm setting that aside for awhile to return to a surreal Southern campus novel about a young faculty member at a private college in Louisiana where strange things begin happening to administrators. The original draft was jammed with too much stuff, but after several months of letting it marinate I think I have a plan forward, so I'm excited to return to that project.
12 or 20 (second series) questions;
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