1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
The Sapsuckers is my first book published. But the first book, my first draft of the first novel, hitting END was something called Sasha & Adore and I remember feeling like I was a real writer after writing that last page. That changed my life existentially I would say. I would write another novel called Skinny Suzie after that and The Sapsuckers is really my third.
2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?
It's all fiction to me. Poetry is part of it, "non-fiction" is a fiction. What the term "fiction" does is give you freedom to express anything as opposed to striving to express facts. How is what I do not poetry? If anything I rely on the term "fiction" for my freedom. Scrutinize me on anything besides fact.
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?
Comes from the voice and sometimes the voice is talking and sometimes it's withholding. I work with very loose outlines of broad strokes, but scenes need to be free to let things happen and to discover. The event The Sapsuckers is based on I had no idea about. I was discovering it as I wrote and the same with The Sweetheart (the book I am currently working on). I will say that the first draft looks nothing like the final though. Whole elements gone, voices change, chapters cut, etc. etc. I revise quite a bit and also cut ruthlessly.
4 - Where does a work of prose or screenplay 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?
I think in books. When I'm asked for something short it's usually from a larger work.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I am getting better at them the more I do them. When I'm writing I'm speaking aloud and it can be sort of freakish. I wish I could do that publicly. Maybe one day I could!
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?
None. No answers. If anything, more questions. Sometimes an "answer" will occur. I think those are moments of epiphany and very rare. I may start with a theoretical question. For The Sweetheart it's probably, "Is love a system?" but it will end up somewhere completely different with only more questions. For The Sapsuckers it might've been, "What makes a story a story? Is it because it's bizarre it's interesting?" and then turn into something completely different and emotional.
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?
The writer is like Blade, the day walker. They should be able to hold their attention in a world trying to sap it from them. Maybe. Ultimately, I believe reading and writing is intensely private, and that's what makes it so beautiful and different than the other mediums. It should be lonesome, personal, completely living inside of the mind of the one experiencing it. We love our writers because they come into our brains the way no one else can.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Essential. Though my editor (Eric Darton) for The Sapsuckers really posed questions and looked for clarity issues. He got me and let me be me, but asked the questions a reader would ask. He also read every single draft of this thing and knew the story so well.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
"Writers read."- my dad, Paul Farhi (not the journalist).
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (novels to film)? What do you see as the appeal?
Very different. For screenplays you are usually working with a partner or other people. So that alone makes it vastly different. Also, no one is going to read your fancy descriptions in a screenplay. So why bother? Write the scene, the story, the dialogue, and hope some of it sticks. Or don't care if it sticks at all, be open to that. A screenplay is a springboard, it's not the final product. A novel is the film itself.
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?
5-6 AM every weekday, I write.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Knock on wood, hasn't happened in forever. Sometimes I will open up a book to a dog-eared page and look at a paragraph or the syntax of a sentence, rewrite it completely and start from there.
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Pines.
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 don't really agree with that. I mean, books are part of life and life breeds books. Why interpret an interpretation? When you look out the window of a car on a road trip, and you watch all the people drive by you and notice them, is that not a rhythm of faces? Is that not sentence after sentence of random stories? Do I need the Band of Outsiders opening sequence in the cafe to get that?
15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
DH Lawrence is very important to me. The writers I am meeting and speaking with and helping prop up The Sapsuckers because they think others should read it are very important to my work. I never knew writers, any writers, until I started school. Now I meet so many and it really means a ton to me. I'm in awe of most of them.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I would like to publish some poetry one day. I think that could be cool.
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?
Well I do have an occupation! I have to pay the bills some way, I have two kids. I've always been a writer since I could write. No idea, I may have been a folk singer.
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I have a lot of voices in my head, always have. Imaginary friends. They make me write.
19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Other Flowers by James Schuyler, Scumbag Summer by Jillian Luft, Crush by Richard Siken, Dark Rides by Derek McCormack, Surface Tension by Elaine Equi
Film: Everything Everywhere All at Once
20 - What are you currently working on?
The Sweetheart! I can't stop talking about it.
12 or 20 (second series) questions;
