1 - How did your first book or chapbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
I’m not sure what you’d call my first book. Imistic Poems (2009), the chapbook of Nicanor Parra-inspired antipoems I printed one copy of when I was 23? O (2013) the concrete poetry “web book” released by Ugly Duckling Presse? The Nature Book (2023), my first supercut novel published by Coffee House? Everything always feels like the first time. This is in part because I keep starting from scratch in new genres. If my two books coming out this year–People’s Choice Literature: The Most Wanted & Unwanted Novels and Patchwork–feel any different, it’s because after writing one novel, I’m a bit more comfortable with the form.
2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, non-fiction or poetry?
I started my writing life as a poet, never imagining I would write fiction–a high school English teacher turned me off for over a decade. And yet, the first novel idea came, then the next. Eventually my brain could only think in chapters.
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 usually research for about a year before I start writing. For The Nature Book, I spent twelve months collecting nature descriptions from other novels. For People’s Choice Literature, I worked with a survey design expert to measure as many aspects of novels–genre, character, subject matter, etc.–in as few questions as possible. Whichever project, once that year is over, I’m so antsy to get writing, it just flows. And once I’ve completed the first draft, the basic structure of the book is set. I either don’t know how to make wholesale developmental edits or just don’t trust myself outside of the original mindspace. The Tom writing in the moment knows better than the Toms to come. Although those later Toms can often make the early Tom sound better.
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?
It always begins as a book. Then, sometimes the more I get into it, it condenses into a story or article. In the case of The Heat Diaries, when I spent a week in the hottest place on Earth (Death Valley) at the hottest time of the year (July), I thought it would become my first nonfiction novel. Then the experience was so traumatic–it all culminated in a protest with an ugly response from the tourists and park service–that after I wrote an article to reimburse my travel expenses, I never wanted to think about it again. Which probably means I should write the book after all.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
When I was more of a sound poet, I loved readings. I would write something new each time or practice for days to get it just right. Eventually I got frustrated with the limited opportunities for performance poetry in the U.S., envying stand up comedians who, if you’re in the right city, can perform multiple times a week. The great thing about all those performances is that now when I get on stage, I can basically improvise the whole thing and somehow it works.
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?
Every book asks a different set of questions. Give ‘em a read and see. :)
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?
At present, I’m most interested in what power the novel can bring to a world that has largely forgotten it–until it becomes a movie or show. At Christmas last year, I noticed my extended family connected over TV narratives but had no shared relationship to stories in book form. This seems pervasive and even cliche to bring up this far into the television and streaming eras. Still, I’m curious how a novel might break out into national or international conversations. Or, if the form is relatively obsolete or diluted in the face of digital media, then what can it uniquely offer in this living-dead state?
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Depends on the editor! But more often than not I am eager and grateful for any feedback. And am amazed at what these presses let me get away with. Once the book is accepted, I almost never hear “no.” In the case of People’s Choice Literature, I still can’t believe what Columbia University Press let me publish.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
“Whatever you're meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.” - Doris Lessing.
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (fiction to essays to opera)? What do you see as the appeal?
This is maybe too easy for me. Every seven years or so, I seem to exhaust my interest in a genre and move onto a new one. First it was music, then poetry, then fiction. My therapist is urging me this time around–I’m now at my fiction seven year itch!--to consider integrating it all.
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 used to have a writing space outside the home and keep a routine, writing for 6+ hours at a time, 4 days a week–how The Nature Book was written. Then I had a child and got a full time job and now write whenever humanly possible!
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I try to make it as “bad” or “dumb” as can be. Intentionally trying to write bad is the most freeing and relaxing—not lazy, but loosening up—thing a writer can do. With the bad in my tool kit, I’ve never had writer's block.
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Wood and resin. The guitar I played in my parent's house throughout high school. Tbh this scent is cringe to me. Guitar is the instrument I know best but adolescent suburbia kind of killed it for me.
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?
Every novel I’ve written so far has been inspired by visual art. Kota Ezawa’s animation of nature shots from feature films, “City of Nature” (2010), led to The Nature Book. Komar and Melamid’s poll-driven People’s Choice paintings and Dave Soldier’s People’s Choice Music created the survey-based framework for People’s Choice Literature. And while it didn’t initially give me the idea for the book, David Hockney’s painting “Nichols Canyon” helped inspire the form of my second supercut novel Patchwork, giving me a model of how a work of radically different patterns can be connected by a single thread. In the case of “Nichols Canyon,” it’s a winding road uniting different textures of landscape; in Patchwork it’s the hero’s journey threading together patterns in how authors write.
15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
This changes for every book or every few years. At present, I’m obsessed with “weird fiction.”
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Maybe make a film? More likely a graphic novel.
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?
I have two careers! By day I’m a book designer for an independent mental health publisher, mostly illustrating workbooks for teens.
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I constantly ask myself this question.
19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
They’re one and the same! Twin Peaks: The Return by David Lynch and Mark Frost was billed as a TV show, but I argue it’s the greatest multimedia novel or film-book of our time. Not only do its 18 episodes constitute what is essentially an 18 hour film, if you want to understand what’s actually going on, you also have to read the accompanying novels by Mark Frost: The Secret History of Twin Peaks and The Final Dossier. When I first watched The Return, I wasn’t a fan. I thought it was too obscure, too all over the place. But the more I got into it, the more I realized that the whole thing is a jigsaw puzzle that benefits from multiple watchings—that the confusion has a beautiful structure. For instance, it took two watchings to notice it, but the 18 episodes are symmetrical, with images, numbers, and actions echoing each other on either side of the center, which is episode 8. I often think of Seasons 1 and 2–until the murder mystery is solved—as the Madame Bovary of television and Season 3 as the Moby-Dick.
20 - What are you currently working on?
Top secret, but I’ll say it has something to do with Twin Peaks: The Return, Arthur Machen’s The Great God Pan, and a hill in Wales.
12 or 20 (second series) questions;
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