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Her short story collection, SAD GROWNUPS (Stillhouse Press) was published October 2024.
1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
I'm publishing my first book, SAD GROWNUPS, a short story collection, in October of this year. I am going to be 55, so it's kind of late to "debut," but I've been writing and publishing for a lot of years, sometimes more off than on, though, especially around the time I had kids. This book mainly contains stories written in the last five years, though a few are a little older than that. I've tried in various ways to publish a book for the last ten years (small press contests, working with an agent who tried to sell a novel I wrote alongside a collection that was pretty different from this one, etc.), so getting a book feels like the culmination of a lot of years of work. I'm sure when the book actually comes out in October, I will feel a blend of excitement and anxiety. Though I've been writing for a long time, I always feel like a fraud when it comes to talking about my writing or reading it to other people, so I think -- though I'm incredibly grateful for this book -- it's going to be a weird few months of putting myself out there in ways I'm unaccustomed to. And second part of your question: I think this is different from work I published ten years ago in that it's slightly more experimental or plays with form and structure more than I might have ten years ago.
2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?
As a college student a lot of years ago, poetry was my first obsession. Then I remember taking a fiction class and being introduced to a few writers I loved and then proceeding to read all the Best American Short Stories and O. Henry collections my college library had. Then I read Joy Williams, Toni Morrison, Amy Hempel, Denis Johnson, Raymond Carver, Lorrie Moore, Sandra Cisneros, Louise Erdrich, all these fiction writers whose work just altered me. I still love poetry so much and the poetic compression of a good short story.
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?
Most of my stories that actually work come quickly, in a day or a few days for a full first draft. I usually know if I'm laboring over a draft of a story for weeks (not fine-tuning but just the initial writing and setting pieces in place) that it's never going to really come to fruition. But for stories that come out fairly intact in a few days, I do revise a lot - at the line level and moving parts and pieces around and trying to change phrasing and eliminate overused words and make an ending stronger and change tense or perspective. This is all with regard to short stories. Novels are entirely different. I wrote two novels in three years, and I don't recommend that. It's such a different process, and I think it requires a lot more planning, thinking, mapping, and revision (at least for me).
4 - Where does 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?
Oh I've done both. I tried to do a novel from short pieces - a couple of stories that became part of a larger work. And I've also tried to write a whole book from the very beginning. Neither fully worked, ha, but I will probably try to go back to them and revise in the next year or so. I don't think I've abandoned those books completely. But for a short story collection, SAD GROWNUPS came together from pieces, but I was pulling from about 60 flash and short stories to decide what this book should be. Initially, it was a blend of flash and short fiction, and then I decided the flash didn't fit, made the book feel too elliptical and stop/start. So I made it just short stories and culled a lot of them that felt stylistically or thematically dissimilar until I had a book of pieces that I think works together.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
Absolutely not. I'm relatively introverted. It's why I quit teaching many years ago. That said, as I've gotten older, I think I've gotten more comfortable with readings. There's an element of acting that I can kind of lean into. I just did a podcast and actually really enjoyed it. I'm also doing a reading with a bunch of other debut authors via Books Are Magic (but at Wild East Brewing Company) in Brooklyn in October that I'm pretty excited about. So maybe my answer is not "absolutely not" but more: I'm giving them a chance. Trying.
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 don't know if this is really theoretical, but for the last few years, I've really been trying to push myself around what a story can do and be. For the last few years, that's meant consistently trying to add another element to a story, sometimes meta, sometimes another POV. I am really interested in writing that experiments without letting the experiment subsume character and emotion. It's such a hard balance.
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?
We're all completely beholden to each other, and we should all try to take care of and protect each other. Writers, or anyone with any platform, should speak truth to power. It's hard to do sometimes because doing so means compromising livelihood for many people. Lately, I've seen people losing opportunities because they've chosen to speak up about Palestine, which I think shows how much our institutions have leaned more toward being about money or a kind of monoculture than being about creativity and people.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Essential and not that difficult. I usually love getting edits and tend to take most of them. Every now and then, I'll think, "What are you talking about/that's not what I meant at all?" defensively at first, but then after a few days realize the editor is right.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
I constantly think of this quote, which I believe is Wordsworth: "Getting and spending, we lay waste our hours/ little we see in nature that is ours." It's kind of fundamental so not really a lightning bolt, but it's centered me throughout my life and reminded me not to get bogged down in material objects and material success when concerns about those things creep in too much.
10 - 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 do not have a writing routine, though when I was trying to write a novel, I did write every day. I have a full-time job and work as a volunteer editor for a lit mag on top of that. So finding time to write is always a struggle. I have the time on some days but feel exhausted or uninspired. Many people I know are in the same boat. If I write 5-6 stories a year, I feel pretty good about it! But I feel like maybe I'm coming into a more productive time in terms of creative output, where I think I might have a more regular writing practice, and that feels exciting. But I think no one should force themselves into a writing routine that makes them feel bad or doesn't help their practice.
11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Poetry, music, walking, people watching.
12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Well, my current home: unfortunately a kind of fall leaves/old house smell that I don't love! But if I were being idealistic, maybe lilacs. Their smell seems kind of transportative - it's very childhood for me.
13 - 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?
Definitely being in nature, observing places and people and structures. I also love photography and paintings, any museum, nature preserves, wild places in general, and music.
14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
I love books, obviously, but literary magazines have been hugely important to me in the last few years. I've edited for Split Lip Magazine and have met some of my closest friends there. I also just think some of the most interesting and innovative writing is happening at litmags. They are able to exist outside of some of the capitalist concerns that tend to affect big publishing. If I'm feeling like I want motivation or want to really admire writing, I tend to go to literary magazines, both online and print.
15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Writer answer: write a novel I'm proud of and feel good about
Non-writer answer: drive across the country back and forth (I've done so many long road trips, but I've not gone from coast to coast as one solid venture - and I'd like to do that). A bit of an environmental nightmare, but with the right car, maybe less so. I'd also like to walk across a state by cobbling together nature trails (I do not want to be one of those people walking on highways because that sounds miserable, and I don't really want the competitive thru-hiking like the PCT).
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 not been a writer?
Vagabond! Not sure this counts as an occupation.
17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
At the beginning of college, a long time ago, I got some positive feedback about my writing from a teacher I loved. I was, at the time, a journalism major and wanted to be some kind of international journalist. I probably would have kept in that direction had I not struggled with a statistics class, dropped it, realized statistics was required for the journalism major, switched to English, and then continued on to grad school. I've quit writing a few times for long stretches, but I always go back to it. When it's going well, it's the best thing.
18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
I just finished Blue Light Hours and loved it. My neighbor produced the movie Fancy Dance, and I loved that, and I also recently watched The Rolling Thunder Revue for the first time, and I really enjoyed that, the way it was so immersive and you felt like you were completely in the 1970s for a brief period.
19 - What are you currently working on?
I'm working on a sort of novel-in-stories about a family in the aftermath of their middle child's mental health struggles and his unexpected death. There's a Walden-esque reality show, a mother and adult daughter who have a relationship with the same person, and other familial unraveling and coming together. I don't know if it will work, but that's what I'm doing right now.
12 or 20 (second series) questions;
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