12 or 20 (second series) questions with Kim Magowan

Kim Magowan lives in San Francisco and teaches in the English Department of Mills College at Northeastern University. She is the author of the short story collection How Far I've Come (2022), published by Gold Wake Press; the novel The Light Source (2019), published by 7.13 Books; and the short story collection Undoing (2018), which won the 2017 Moon City Press Fiction Award. Her fiction has been published in Colorado Review, Craft Literary, The Gettysburg Review, Smokelong Quarterly, Wigleaf, and many other journals. Her stories have been selected for Best Small Fictions and Wigleaf's Top 50. She is the Editor-in-Chief and Fiction Editor of Pithead Chapel. www.kimmagowan.com

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

My novel and my first short story collection were accepted within a month and a half of each other, in July 2017-- the novel first, though the short story collection, Undoing, came out a year earlier, in March 2018 (Moon City Press has a very speedy turnaround time). I wouldn't say either book changed my life--I'd been writing pretty steadily for 7 years by then. But I definitely felt more legitmized as a writer-- more willing to say out loud "I'm a writer" when people asked me what I did. I turned 50 a week after 7.13 Press accepted my novel, and I remember feeling more capable of facing that birthday because (after years of slogging!) I had a book.

I've been obsessed with flash fiction (stories under 1000 words) recently, so that's the main way my recent writing has changed: it keeps getting shorter. My first story collection was about 60,000 words and had 28 stories; the book I'm finishing now is about 55,000 words and has (gulp!) 75 stories.

2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?

I love poetry, but I was never a poet--I don't have an intuitive sense of lineation. The few times I've tried to write a poem in the past few years, it's always turned into flash fiction. Non-fiction is too scary! The short answer is, I'm afraid of pissing people off. Though my new collection (the WIP) has some CNF in it, and my last book, How Far I've Come, has an essay about my parents called "Irreconcilable Differences." I included that essay because it shared genetic material with the stories, many of which were about divorce and regrets, and my parents' divorce was such a formative experience in both my real life and my writing life. The funny thing is most readers don't realize that piece is nonfiction; I guess you have to know me!

Anyway, all this is to say, I primarily write fiction from a combination of aptitude and cowardice.
 
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?

Well, it entirely depends on the length of the project: my novel took me 4 years to write. I will write a first draft of a flash fiction piece in a sitting, and spend the next few days (sometimes weeks) revising it. I don't drive, and I take a lot of long walks. While I'm walking, I think about stories (and sometimes sit on a bench somewhere and type ideas on my phone-- "Walk thoughts 7/22"--that's as close as I get to outlines or notes. I tend to write pretty polished first drafts. The hard work for me of writing is always in the revising-- removing all the flab, lifting the story that 10% that converts it from pretty good to publishable (and of course many drafts are not salvageable, so my Fiction file is full of discarded efforts).

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?

Definitely the former! I backed into my novel by accident: I thought I was writing a few linked short stories, but they increasingly fused together. I throw all my completed new stories in a "New Collection" file, but I don't even start thinking about sequence or shape or curation until that file approaches book length (that is, gets to be around 50,000 words). I am a "trees" versus "forest" writer.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

I used to dread reading, but it's become more fun. I have a better sense now of what kinds of stories are successful to read-- funny stories, short ones, ones that don't make me emotional. I'm an ambivalent reader but an enthusiastic audience member.  I love attending readings!
 
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?

I am always trying to figure people out, and I don't distinguish particularly (I know this makes me sound nutty) between real people and fictional people. My entry to fiction is always going to be character. Why does this person behave the way they do? What factors govern their bad decisions or self-sabotage? I'm interested in what the way we treat people says about us. In another life, I could have been a therapist.

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?

I'm an English professor and an editor of a literary journal as well as a writer, and I feel very strongly about this: story tellers are essential truth tellers. Barack Obama said in an interview with Marilynne Robinson that reading novels taught him how to be a citizen because they taught him empathy. Writers put their readers in the mind of someone else, including someone repellent. Last week, I was reading and had tears pouring down my face (very sad book!), and I was made aware of the very special kind of magic writers perform: to make readers feel so strongly about imaginary strangers. That's potent.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

Both, depending of course on the editor! But overall, I love editors. I appreciate the care and attention they put into my writing. I'm an editor myself. Editing is a disciplined act of love.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

A therapist once said to me that the problem with being a writer is that we're chasing a moving target. I remember years ago thinking that if I could just publish a story, I'd be satisfied. Ha! I think about that therapist's obervation a lot-- that there's always the next thing/ publication/ book/ etc. I'm running after, and that the rejection-heavy life of being a writer is structured to make us feel demoralized. I do my best to forge ahead; I try to appreciate what I've managed to create.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (short stories to the novel)? What do you see as the appeal?

Honestly, I don't know if I will ever write another novel. The revision process was grueling, since I'm very kicking-and-screaming about revision. As a reader, I love novels and short stories equally, and go to novels and stories for different reasons. As a writer, I'm more comfortable with short stories, and lately with very short stories. They appeal to my perfectionist side.

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'm a professor, so I get a lot of my writing done in the summer, when I'm not teaching. When the semester is on, mostly I write flash fiction (that's part of what initially appealed to me about flash-- it was the only writing I could reliably get done while teaching). I don't have a set writing schedule.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

I take those afore-mentioned long walks to try and shake something loose. I open one of my discarded drafts in my "Starts" file to see if there's anything there that sparks my interest.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Rosemary!

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?

I am always grabbing things that I use in my writing. I'll see something starling or distinctive, like a long-nosed dog with one brown eye and one blue eye (David Bowie eyes!), and it will end up in a story. A crazy-looking dahlia, a funny observation a friend makes about children as vampires: it all goes into the stone soup.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

I have writer friends who I share drafts with or even, in the case of Michelle Ross, collaborate with on writing projects. And I have a long, long list of writers who I read and reread and teach and talk about. I'm an English professor; I'm always reading. Some of my favorite contemporary writers, but this is a very incomplete list: Kazuo Ishiguro, Alice Munro, George Saunders, Zadie Smith, Sally Rooney, Jennifer Egan, Lydia Davis, Edward P. Jones, Jhumpa Lahiri.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

Ha, good question! Well, back to the moving goalposts: I have my big dreams. I'd love to be a reknowned enough writer that I get to be the annual guest editor for Best American Short Stories. :)

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?

My day job is that I'm a professor, and I love teaching and would never give that up. But in another life, I'd be a psychotherapist.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

Well, I do other things-- I teach, I edit. But the thing that makes me a writer, I guess, is that I have things to say, and I express them best through writing.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

I just reread Zadie Smith's On Beauty-- wow! I strongly recommend reading E.M. Forster's Howard's End first, if you haven't. My husband teaches film, and I've been watching a bunch of movies with him in preparation for a Golden Hollywood class he's teaching in the spring-- so many extraordinary ones, but I'll give a particular shout-out to brilliant, dark "All About Eve."

20 - What are you currently working on?

I've already mentioned it, but I think the new WIP is pretty much ready to send now. It's another short story collection, 75 stories, mostly flash fiction. The working title is "The Problem Is," and it has four sections (Partners/ "Friends"/ Relatives/ Oneself). It's about the messes we make and the people we blame, about the people who thwart us, and the people who lift us back up.

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