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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 first book was really just making writing feel possible. I wasn't sure I'd ever have a book, and I think landing that first book just made writing feel suddenly real.
This book is my third, which means the initial excitement isn't quite as large. I've settled into a career as a writer, which means books if I'm lucky, so I'm enjoying it, but it's definitely a different experience.
2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?
I have always written fiction and non-fiction. Like most writers I started out wanting to write fiction. However, I started my MFA as a really inexperienced writer, and I happened to land in a non-fiction course and wound up loving it. I think I wanted to write fiction because the novel has long been the dominant form, which means my experience as an avid reader had me thinking it was the only real form.
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?
My writing tends to come quickly when I'm interested in a project. I really prefer to finish a whole draft in as few sittings as possible. I find that without momentum I tend to lose the thread of a project. My writing is already partially fragmentary, so I need to do it quickly to keep it together!
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?
In this case, Ethan Hawke & Me was a known project. I figured I was working toward a book, and I had the lovely scaffolding of the Before Trilogy movies by Richard Linklater. The book is subdivided into three distinct time periods in my life that roughly coincide with the thematic concerns of the movies. That gave me a nice pathway into the book.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I enjoy doing readings, but I consider them as only somewhat related to the art. Reading is a bit of a performance with its attendant requirements of audience engagement. Ie, I love and write pretty lyrically. I tend to find something funny or that breaks up the hypnotic feeling of being read to when I'm doing it for an audience.
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?
My writing is always considered with questions of meaning, self, spiritual, and cultural. I tend to write towards questions that I try to unravel in my work. How should a person be? I think Sheila Heti already took that title, but it's the question underneath my work. What to do with the time we have been given here?
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 think the role of a writer in the culture is pretty diminished, particularly in the United States. People don't think writers are cultural critics in the way they used to. I do think story telling is an important part of conception on a cultural level, and I think losing a role of prominence probably isn't the best thing for writers. However, it's always been a rarefied air for those writers at the top. Almost everyone else should be doing it for the love of the game.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I found working with my editor to be really positive. Mike Ingram at Barrelhouse was great. He pushed me where I needed it but was also okay with my stylistic tics. As I said, I write lyrically. I would really struggle with an editor who wanted that lyricism pared down to make it more palatable.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Read a lot. I feel like we are in an era where I see more and more writers cropping up, but folks should be matching that with a lot of reading.
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (short stories to essays)? What do you see as the appeal?
I write what I'm interested in. That's the only reason I have continued to write for the last fifteen years. That means I'm bad at the marketing side because everyone thinks they can sell a novel. But I just can't get myself to write something I'm not interested in. The appeal of working in multiple genres is really keeping myself interested in the work.
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 don't have a writing schedule. I tend to work best when inspiration strikes, which can come in burst of a month or so when I will get a lot done. Then I might go months and write only one or two short things. I wish I could control it more.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I read! Or if I'm in the middle of something I'll take a nature walk and not listen to anything. I find the mind needs time to wander. The subconscious brain is always working, and we just need to let it have some silence at times.
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
The smell of hot tar or honeysuckle.
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?
In the case of this book the Before Trilogy was really the inspiration. Of course, my book is written with writers like Patricia Hample or Lia Purpura as influences at a line level, but it was really these movies that helped create an outline for life.
15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Too many to count! As I said, Patricia Hampl and Lia Purpura come to mind for this project, but I'm inspired constantly by so many different writers, past and present. I love to be fed by the great lake of writing.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Live an entirely different kind of life :).
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 considered being a therapist. Sometimes I tell my kids that I got an A+ in my college acting course and wish I'd pursued that instead. Bookshop owner. I have a lot I'd have liked to do.
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I just wanted to see if I could do it after having the incredible experience of feeling so moved by the masters. A mixture of wonder, honor, and I suppose a bit of hubris. Also, I was so bad at math. Horrendously so.
19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
The last great book I read was It Lasts Forever and then it's over by Anne De Marcken. It's this incredible meditation on grief and loss folded into a zombie novel. I'm not even a zombie guy. This book just blew me away. It has these haunting and lyric lines combined with thinking through the grief of a relationship and life that has been lost. I'm always drawn by line level stuff and this book manages to wed the gorgeous lines to the form of a strange and compelling story. Masterful.
The last great film was probably All Of Us Strangers. I am apparently just a sucker for grief. We all have those things we love.
20 - What are you currently working on?
I'm writing some short stories that keep getting stranger and stranger. I think I'm just always interested in something new in fiction. In the essay form, I have a more consistent voice, but I don't have anything to reflect on right now, so it's weird short stories!
12 or 20 (second series) questions;
