Wigleaf has put together a top 50 list of (very) short fictions published online in 2007.
I haven’t read them all, but of the ones I have Martha Cooley’s "Siena, Italy, 9 August 2007" and Elizabeth Gumport’s "The Pool House" stand out. I also really liked Erin Fitzgerald’s "Four Sieges" from the "long shortlist" — in some of these stories, the voices can seem a bit samey when read back to back, but Erin’s doing something else.
Also? Robert Doisneau pictures.
Terri Windling has announced the demise of the Endicott Studio blog and the Journal of Mythic Arts — both of which are sad things. That said, I’m happy at the prospect of exciting new work from everyone involved (especially Terri and Midori) and look forward to seeing what happens next.
(My first real fiction publication was last summer in the YA issue– and I’ll always be glad it was published there, glad to be a part of small part of JoMA’s story.)
Jincy Willett is one of the few authors from which just the prospect of a new piece of work makes me insane with anticipation. (Stacey Richter and Karen Joy Fowler are two others.) This began when I discovered her short story collection, Jenny and the Jaws of Life, which was brought back into print through the generous good taste of David Sedaris; it’s one of the most perfect collections I’ve ever encountered. Her follow-up novel, Winner of the National Book Award, has, I think you’ll concur, the best title in history, and also had a memorable cast of oddball characters. Her latest, The Writing Class, is an unbelievably rich comic mystery based around a community college writing course—it instantly became one of my favorite books ever. I’m hoping that it will bring her the wider readership that she deserves, because she is that rare gift: a truly literary writer who is at the top of her craft and, also, a fun read.
GB: The first question I always ask is process porn, and that seems particularly fitting given that the writing process is such a huge part of The Writing Class. So, tell me a little bit about how you wrote this book—was it different than your first novel, or difficult to take on the unguessable plot requirements of a mystery? How long did it take you to write?
JW: What was hard about it was the huge cast of characters. I’m used to working with a handful. In this book, there were so many that I felt like one of those plate spinners on the Ed Sullivan Show—I had to keep rushing back and forth from character to character, twirling them to keep them animate.
What’s hard about a mystery isn’t the unguessable plot; that turns out to be much more mechanical than I imagined ahead of time. You keep an ample supply of red herrings on hand, you keep your eye on the prize (the Big Reveal), and so on.
What’s hard is getting a character to do truly awful things. It’s funny—as a reader, I have no problem relaxing into a mystery or thriller and pretending that engaging, seemingly reasonable people who give off not a whiff of madness or psychopathy can just turn on a dime and whale away on some poor soul with a blunt instrument. But when I was the one in charge of things I was paralyzed, sometimes for months, by what I had to make the Sniper do. I had a hard time imagining it (not to mention imagining why the class would continue to meet, in the middle of all that mayhem). Writing’s pretty easy, really; imagining is what kills you.
Which is why this book took three or four years to write, rather than the one year it was supposed to. I expected just the opposite—that because it was “genre,” it would be a piece o’ cake. Wrong. St. Martin’s, by the way, was extremely nice about this.
GB: One of the things I love best about the book is how the reader almost becomes an invisible member of the class. At the beginning, we’re firmly with Amy and absolutely agreeing with her judgments on everyone. Just like a real writing class, people get slotted into types very easily, based on their tastes and style. And then, as the novel progresses, everyone becomes more real as
we get to know them. How did you approach the characters? It’s the perfect mix of people.
JW: One thing I did not do was base any of them on real students of mine. I have to say this up front, because I’ve taught a lot of workshops and still teach once in a while, and I’d hate for anyone to think herself the inspiration for Dot, or for some guy to imagine himself a thinly disguised Syl Reyes. Still, it helped to teach all those classes; I don’t remember having any trouble coming up with class members. It happened so fast that I wasn’t aware of any sort of “approach.” The tough part was writing their fiction.
I’m glad that you found them more complex as you went along. The aim, always, is for round characters, or, in this case, a hint of roundness in the two-dimensional ones. I worried that they might be all flat. (Those flat, twirling plates!)
GB: What do you say to the conspiracy theorists who are convinced that Amy Gallup is you?
JW: Scott Fitzgerald said that he was all his characters. [I’ve tried to track down the quote and can’t. I’m pretty sure I didn’t dream it.] I don’t know about other writers, but I’m only free to explore a major character in depth if it’s in some way based on some aspect of me. There has to be at least one common denominator. The character doesn’t have to share my personal history in any way, of course. Think of your self (or your concept of your self) as a ball of dough. You just break off parts of it and fashion them into different shapes. Amy is probably more recognizably me than most of my characters, but our formative experiences are quite distinct. My past absolutely belongs to me; I would never use it in fiction. My character is up for grabs.
GB: This is one of the funniest books I’ve ever read, and one of the things it’s most hilarious on is the Internet and blogs (kibbitzers!). Do you read a lot of stuff online? Have any favorite sites? Why is there such a lack of quality list-making?
JW: If you go to my own site, www.jincywillett.com, you’ll see where these lists came from, and also links my own favorite internet sites. I try not to spend a whole lot of time reading web pages, because I work as an online tutor, and at the end of a typical day my eyes are shot.
Most blogs actually aim to communicate; Amy’s doesn’t, and neither does mine. Like Amy, I’m always stunned—and pleased—when somebody posts a response. It’s lovely when it happens, but basically the blog is, for me, a solipsistic enterprise.
GB: David Sedaris famously got your amazing collection, Jenny and the Jaws of Life, brought back into print. What book(s) would you rescue from out of printland if you could?
JW: All of Robert Benchley, collected in a single volume.
GB: Thanks for the interview, Jincy, and now y’all please go buy and read her WONDERFUL book.
The rest of the day’s SBBT stops:
Varian Johnson at Finding Wonderland (Vermont College represent!)
John Grandits at Writing & Ruminating
Meg Burden at Bookshelves of Doom
Gary D. Schmidt at Miss Erin
Javaka Steptoe at Seven Impossible Things
Mary Hooper at Interactive Reader
And yesterday’s are here (we were driving to Madison and I didn’t get a chance to post them).
SBBT Stop: Jincy Willett Read More »
David J. Schwartz — henceforth known as "Dave" — is a most excellent human being. Trust me. In addition to that, Dave’s great at karaoke. I know, what more can someone be good at? That’s all you need, right? You want to befriend this man and fix him up with Neko Case, stat. Who doesn’t? AND he’s an amazing writer. For years, he’s been publishing short stories that can’t all be described with the same words, but you’d like them. And now, his first novel, Superpowers, is on the brink of publication. It’s good–really good. About a handful of tenants in the same building who drink some strong home brew one night and wake up with, well, super powers. The sale note billed it as "Kavalier and Clay meets The Incredibles." But I’ll let him tell you about it before it’s all over the airwaves. Suffice to say: Plan on reading this one.
GB: You know the process porn drill. Tell me about the actual writing of the book — how long it took, what you learned writing it, all that good stuff.
DS: Most of the book — the first three-quarters or so — was written in early 2002. I was bartending at the time (some people prefer to call it "tending bar"), and I’d get home at 2 in the morning, grab something to eat, and write until 5 or 6. I was probably the most disciplined I’ve ever been about my writing. (It helps not to have a social life!) But when it came to writing the last part, which deals with 9/11, I wasn’t ready to face that yet. It was a little too fresh. I’d had this idea for a novel about superheroes a long time before this, and I was getting ready to start it on my birthday that year, September 22nd. Once the attacks happened, though, it seemed dishonest to write about heroism and power and not engage with what had just happened. But I was too sad and too angry to tackle it right away.
It wasn’t until a couple of years later, after I had signed with my agent, that I finished the book, polished it off, and sent it out. It’s funny, though, that I didn’t remember it had happened that way until I started getting asked questions like this. Perhaps because I always knew how the ending had to happen, I always forget about the gap. The ending was already written in my head, it was just a matter of putting down the words.
What I learned is a tricky question. This was the third novel I’ve written (the first to sell), so it wasn’t that first-novel sort of experience, where the biggest thing you’re learning is that you can actually do it. I’m a very instinctive writer. I rarely use outlines, and most of the time I don’t know what the ending is going to be. Once I do know the ending, I rapidly lose interest, and I have trouble finishing things! This is even more true with novels, because I find it impossible to hold a story that big in my head all at once. What I usually end up doing is taking a couple of steps, writing a couple of scenes, and then figuring out where I’ve taken myself and what has to happen next. I only plan a chapter or two ahead. With Superpowers that more or less worked; the revisions and the editing were relatively painless. With the book I’m revising right now, it didn’t work quite as well, and the work I’m having to do is more of breaking and re-setting bones than it is cosmetic surgery.
Part of what I did learn was what I could get away with. There was a narrative experiment that I tried in the book, but the editors didn’t feel it was working and my first readers agreed. Luckily it pulled right out without changing much of the main story. There was a ghost in the book (I’ll let folks guess where) that was a point of contention because the editors felt it was one step too far into weirdness. The one thing that hasn’t come up, at least so far, was the humor. I was really worried about having a book that shifts in tone the way this one does, starting out light and sarcastic and then taking some really dark turns later. I ended up thinking of it like certain Hong Kong kung fu flicks, like "Fong Sai-Yuk" or "Swordsman II," where it starts out very funny and you’re just enjoying getting to see what everyone can do, and then, BAM, someone dies and all of a sudden it’s a tragedy. But at this point I’ve wandered far afield of your question, so on to the next.
GB: So your superheroes discover quickly that real life superhero-dom has some issues. But if you had to slot your superheroes into a universe full of supervillains and easy justice, would it be DC or Marvel and why?
DS: It has to be Marvel, just because that’s where I came from as far as formative materials. Not to bust on DC or anything, because they’ve published some great stuff, and the differences between the two are less pronounced than they once were. But I do think there is, even today, a bit more cynicism about the whole hero thing on the Marvel side. The fact that Batman — who on a bad day is as scary as the Joker — has the police and the populace more or less on his side, whereas the NYPD is always trying to arrest wisecracking, colorful Spider-Man, is just one example of the difference in worldview. The X-Men books took that sort of "fear-what-you-don’t-understand" idea to such extremes that they’ve almost become parodies of themselves, but it’s not an untrue observation on human nature. I’m not going to claim that Marvel’s books are more realistic than DC’s, because that would make me ridiculous. But the problems of balancing life as a human being with life as a superhero seem more present in those stories, and that’s what interests me. eter Parker has trouble holding a job or making his relationships work, and it’s all Spider-Man’s fault. And for me, I don’t care about Spider-Man unless I care about Peter Parker. I enjoy Batman stories, and sometimes (well, rarely) Superman stories, but I don’t give a crap about Bruce Wayne or Clark Kent. They don’t have problems I can relate to. Stan Lee couldn’t write dialog to save his life, but he was a genius at bringing superheroes down to earth and keeping them human.
GB: You’re clearly commenting on the superhero tradition here. Did that come from things that
bugged you about it? I ask because there’s also clearly a great deal of affection for that in the book.
DS: There are so many things that bug me about the superhero tradition, and yet I’m still a devoted fan. I have no explanation for this. To begin with, there’s the rampant sexism that still prevails in comics. Yesterday I was looking at some concept art for a minor superhero team that someone had posted online, and two of the three female characters were described as "air-headed" and "giggly but annoyingly cute." None of the male characters were described in similarly demeaning terms. Superheroine costumes are generally far more revealing and, apparently, easily torn than those worn by their male counterparts, not to mention that the women are apparently subject to different standards of gravity. The argument is always that most comics readers are adolescent males, so while it may be fan service, it sells books. And yet no one has made a serious attempt to tap a similar female readership, and as long as crap like this is going on most women aren’t going to feel welcome. There are some bright spots, Gail Simone being the biggest; her run on Birds of Prey was revolutionary not because it was stridently feminist but because it presented a team of women who were badass and competent instead of sidekicks or victims. It was everything that makes superhero fiction work, just minus the casual misogyny.
Another pet peeve of mine is the "billionaire fights crime" thing. Seriously, how impressed are we supposed to be that people with unlimited resources are able to do good? Maybe if, say, Tony Stark was to put his money into job training and education for juvenile offenders he’d actually have less crime to fight in his shiny suit. It goes back to me not being able to relate. Maybe the money is part of the power fantasy, and that’s why people want to be Bruce Wayne despite the murdered parents and the all-consuming obsession with punishing the criminally insane. WHO ARE YOU REALLY PUNISHING, BRUCE?!?
I was definitely reacting against these things in the book. It was a conscious choice to make Mary Beth not just the strong one but also the smart one, but it was also a conscious choice not to be saying "Hey, look what I did there? Isn’t that awesome?" throughout the book. And I didn’t want to hand the characters a secret lair and a bunch of high-tech gear, like it was part of some kind of superhero package. They’re just ordinary kids with ordinary resources, given extraordinary abilities.
GB: Kelly Link says this is a book for "anyone who’s ever wondered what superpower would be most fun or whether Batman or Superman would win in a fight." What superpower would be most fun and who’d win in a fight between Batman and Superman?
DS: The superpower that would be the most fun? Jamie Madrox’s power. He’s the Multiple Man; every time someone hits him (or he falls, or punches a wall) he produces an exact duplicate, which he can later absorb. In the hands of a writer like Peter David, this means being able to send out doubles to learn skills, go undercover, etc. So years later his twin walks into his office, he absorbs him, and he’s a kung fu master or what have you. Plus, you know, the potential to mess with people’s heads are limitless. (Of course, in keeping with the "make it suck" rule, Madrox’s duplicates also cause him no end of trouble, like getting him tangled up with gangsters and working with the government to arrest him. But none of that would happen to me, I’m sure!)
As to who would win in a Batman V. Superman fight, I believe we have documentary evidence of that already. (Stand back for geekiness.) In Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller took both characters to their logical extremes; Batman the ruthless obsessive, Superman the naive government stooge. Batman, of course, kicks the crap out of the Man of Steel because he prepares, and that’s probably why Bats would always win. It would never occur to Superman to prepare until after he’d has his ass handed to him, because, well, he’s Superman. No one can stand against him toe-to-toe, so he rushes in fully expecting to prevail because he’s stronger and faster and smarter and invulnerable . . . er. But Bats is sneaky and he always has a plan, so I’d bet on him 9 times out of 10.
GB: What’s next for you? What’s in the hopper?
DS: Next — or actually right now — is a chapbook put out by the Ratbastards of my novella "The Sun Inside." It’s a mix of classic pulp aesthetic and modern concerns, a story about a wounded Iraq war veteran who finds his way to a hidden world. I’m very excited about it; it’s a story that I workshopped at Sycamore Hill last year, and thanks to the critiques I got there and from my writing group, I ended up with something I’m really proud of. Plus, the cover is amazing!
I’m also working on the revision I mentioned, of a novel that’s sort of War and Peace-meets-Swordspoint, with the turmoil of the French Revolution thrown into the mix. It’s (obviously) a big shift from Superpowers, but it’s a lot of fun — assassinations, cross-dressing, rebellion, oh my! I’ve got a couple of other novels in the can which I hope will see publication at some point. I’ve also got stories coming out in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Crawlspace: Selections from the 2007 Farrago’s Wainscot Exhibition, and Spicy Slipstream Stories. In the meantime, I’m blogging and posting occasional installments of the "Secret City" serial at my Flickr account.
GB: Anything you’ve been enjoying recently – books/movies/TV – that you’d recommend?
DS: I just discovered (quite late) the "Last Exile" series of anime, which has a great steampunk/WWII flying aces sort of vibe, so I’m having fun working my way through that. Reading-wise, I’ve been plowing through stuff like Andrew Hussey’s Paris: the Secret History and Herbert Asbury’s book about New Orleans, The French Quarter, and some books about my home town of St. Paul. There’s a lot of scattered lore about the gangster era and the robber barons and what have you, but no one’s really put it together into one book, and that’s really been bugging me for some reason. I can’t decide whether I want to try my hand at some pop-history doorstopper or just use this history as background for a novel set here, but it’s been interesting to "see" the city in terms of how it existed 50 years ago, or even 170 years ago when it was just a half-blind guy named Pig’s Eye selling whiskey out of a cave. Mm, whiskey. You can put that I’ve been enjoying whiskey lately, too.
GB: An excellent ending note for any interview.
Today’s other SBBT stops are:
Adam Rex at Fuse Number 8
David Almond at 7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast
R.L. Lafevers at Finding Wonderland
Elizabeth Scott at Bookshelves of Doom
Laurie Halse Anderson at Writing & Ruminating
Susan Beth Pfeffer at Interactive Reader
SBBT Stop: David J. Schwartz Read More »
It seems like there’s something in the air with all the outrageously negative reviews floating around lately–some fair, some not. The latest example is Liesl Schillinger, who displays a completely tone-deaf misreading of Karen’s Wit’s End in this week’s New York Times Book Review. (My take over to the right and down in the Read Read sidebar.)
iO9’s review is still the best one I’ve seen. Here’s a snippet:
While there are no aliens here, or artificial intelligences who come to life, Wit’s End manages to skirt the edges of science fiction themes beautifully, hinting at the ways our lives have become the stuff of science fiction without us noticing. It takes a book like this to remind us that the high-tech fracturing of our identities is also, weirdly, something that can make us whole.
The Pedants of Spring Read More »
…we just live in it.
I wrote this week’s cover story for Publishers Weekly, about the impact of Wikipedia (and other online sources) on the reference book market. I hope it’s as fun to read as it was to write.
It’s a Wiki-World and Read More »
The New York Times Book Review has a slew of children’s book reviews this week, by all sorts of excellent reviewers (Sarah Ellis! Leonard Marcus!). I am beyond happy to see Pat Murphy’s The Wild Girls get some much-deserved love.
Packet due on Monday, and so off I am to sit outside with my Neo and write some fiction. At least I have a shiny ARC of Octavian Nothing II to be my reward. w00t as they say!
I’m beginning to feel like a Renaissance Learning pimp (they’re the parent company of the AlphaSmart Neo), but they’ve sponsored an interesting, in-depth look at kids’ reading habits, and I’m going to link to it anyway. The Washington Post has a summary article on the findings:
Children have welcomed the Harry Potter books in recent years like free ice cream in the cafeteria, but the largest survey ever of youthful reading in the United States will reveal today that none of J.K. Rowling’s phenomenally popular books has been able to dislodge the works of longtime favorites Dr. Seuss, E.B. White, Judy Blume, S.E. Hinton and Harper Lee as the most read.
Books by the five well-known U.S. authors, plus lesser-known Laura Numeroff, Katherine Paterson and Gary Paulsen, drew the most readers at every grade level in a study of 78.5 million books read by more than 3 million children who logged on to the Renaissance Learning Web site to take quizzes on books they read last year. Many works from Rowling’s Potter series turned up in the top 20, but other authors also ranked high and are likely to get more attention as a result.
I don’t know that I find this terribly surprising, and I’m curious what people think about. It seems to me that the big flaw is it’s based on accelerated reader quiz data–which tells you what kids are reading for credit, off I’m assuming lists of acceptable books, but not what they choose themselves outside school. (If I’m wrong about how that works, someone please let me know.)
Bonus: reflections on reading are included in the full report from Daniel Handler, S.E. Hinton, and Christopher Paul Curtis.
Addition: Just skimming through the findings, especially in the top 10 percent numbers, there are more and more genre titles the older the kids get.
Also, this cracks me up — Arthur Levine senior editor Cheryl Klein rewrites "Baby Got Back" in a more literary style:
My homeboys tried to warn me
But that book you got makes me so horny
Ooh, Tolkien – elves!
You say you wanna get in my shelves?
Via.