This archive contains The Collagist blog that existed prior to July 1, 2010. Some links/files may not work correctly, as these entried have been imported from our prior system. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Blog entries posted after July 1, 2010 can be found at this link.

Friday
Aug282009

Podcast Episode 02: Matthew Salesses

"Mongolia, New York, Prague, Krakow" by Matthew Salesses appears in the first issue of The Collagist, published August 15, 2009. You can listen here to Salesses reading his story as part of our podcast:

Episode 02: "Mongolia, New York, Prague, Krakow" by Matthew Salesses (Enhanced Version)

Episode 02: "Mongolia, New York, Prague, Krakow" by Matthew Salesses (MP3 Version)

You may also subscribe to the podcast through iTunes by clicking here, or you may add it manually in iTunes or other software by using the direct feed address: /wordpress/?feed=podcast
Thursday
Aug272009

Interview: Michael Martone

A short fiction by Michael Martone appears in the first issue of The Collagist, but it is not listed in the table of contents. That said, if you're familiar with his work then you probably already know where to look for it, and if you don't, you'll perhaps find the clues below.

Michael Martone teaches creative writing at the University of Alabama, and his most recent book is Racing in Place: Collages, Fragments, Postcards, Ruins, from the University of Georgia Press.

Here, he speaks to The Collagist’s Lauren Walbridge about both the exhaustion of forms and the problems that come along with being a fiction writer who is not a storyteller.

1. Can you talk about the inspiration for your inventive series of contributor's notes, one of which appears in this issue of The Collagist? Where did the idea come from? How many of these have you written now?

I was working on another book, The Blue Guide to Indiana.  It was a fake travel guide about a state, Indiana, no one, not even people who live there, tour.  At the time, I was thinking a lot about context the context, the frame of fiction.  I had been teaching for years then, and it always seemed strange that context or framing did not come up in a workshop.  In what way does the writer create the fiction but also the frame in which the fiction is read?  The workshop, to me, seemed too focused on the thing on the table.  And by ignoring the frame and focusing only on the thing on the table, I thought, it rendered the work safe, predictable.  So when I wrote the pieces for the travel book, I published them first not in lit mags but in newspapers in Indiana, asking the editors to publish them as if they were actual things to do. I wanted them to “pass” to be read as fact.  Collecting all those pieces into the book, I was asked by the publisher for an author’s note, and I guess then it just struck me that here was another kind of writing unexamined in itself and also unconscious of its context.  I also had always wanted to use the strange coincidence that a fictional character, Frank Burns in M.A.S.H., was from my hometown, and that the timeline of that story made it possible that he could have been the doctor in attendance at my birth.  So, at the birth of this book and at the birth of this idea, I employed Frank Burns into the author’s note.  I believe I am closing on 100 of such notes, and since the book, as I publish other things and am always asked for a contributor’s note, I do try to write one up if the editor is game.  Of course, for me it is important that the note appear in the Contributors’ Notes section.  And what is most interesting is the negotiation with the editor over that placement and over just what is meant by a “Contributor’s Note.”

2. Fifty of these contributor's notes were collected into the book Michael Martone (published by FC2, in 2005), but that hasn't stopped you from writing new ones, or (I assume) from being asked for one every time you publish a new fiction. Do you expect to keep producing them to accompany each new work, or are you planning on ending the project?

Well, I guess I just answered this question in the answer above.  Like the travel pieces, the contributor’s notes for me seem to be exhausted as a form.  I won’t now do a travel book for Alabama or another book of contributor’s notes.  My first book of stories featured many monologues delivered by actual people, and after that book came out, readers would suggest other people to use in fiction.  I do occasionally do that kind of fiction, but for me that seems more occasional now too.  The Blue Guide and Michael Martone were finally thought of as books that do, well, exhaust the experiment I was thinking about at the time, and so I think I will think mostly about the next project.  You know, that is the problem when one is not a storyteller, when one is more interested in forms or concepts or theory than in narrative.  There is no beginning, middle, or end.  One is always afraid that the reader will say when reading the 22nd iteration, “OK, I get the joke,” when there are two dozen more iterations to go.

3. Recently, you've been working on a series of dramatic monologues called "Whinesburg, Indiana." Can you tell us more about the project? Is it a finished book, or something you're still in the midst of? Can you tell us where we can expect to see some of these monologues appear?

The project was started for and continues to be running, so far, at the new on-line magazine Booth.  The editors there asked me to do a satire on the current state of the confessional memoir, and it felt a little like what Cervantes must have felt when he began to parody the popular romances of his time only to fall in love with his exaggerated satire.  So, instead of one over the top memoir, I seem to have evolved to a whole series of them.  And once I thought of that, I thought of Winesburg, Ohio and the early use of the new insights of interior states and the short story form.  The other aspect of this project is that I imagine it as my own book but also another anthology I am editing.  I will write half the monologues. The other half will be written by other writers who I have invited to visit and perhaps settle in Whinesburg.  It is early in the project, and so far I have only thought about Booth as the place to publish these pieces.  Back to the notion of examining forms and frames, with Whinesburg, I imagine that I am thinking about the form of the serial again and various ideas of collaboration in a culture that is so focused on the individual.

4. Are there any other writing projects are you currently working on?

There are several.  I am working on a book of Indiana science fiction called, for now, Amish in Space.  I am beginning make imaginary print ads in the hope of placing them in magazines, and will do a series of postcard fiction.  I am putting together a book of interviews called You Can Say That Again that I hope will contain this interview.  And I have just finished a book called Four for a Quarter, a book of short fictions based on the number four—four chambers of the heart, four seasons, four winds, 4H Club, four-in-the-hand tie, four eyes, the Fantastic Four, etc.

5. What great books have you read recently? Also, are there any upcoming releases you're excited about?

I just re-read Siddhartha and liked it very much.  And today read We Take Me Apart by Molly Gaudry.  There is Deb Unferth’s new book.  Kate Bernheimer’s forthcoming stories. Joyelle McSweeney’s books.  M.T. Anderson. Paul Maliszewski’s Prayers.  Steve Fellner’s All Screwed Up.  C. Bard Cole’s work. Erin Pringle. Cheryl Dumesnil’s new book of poems, In Praise of Falling.  And I am looking forward to having everyone read the new book I edited called Not Normal, Illinois, Peculiar Fictions from the Flyover, thirty-three strange fictions written by or about the Midwest.
Tuesday
Aug252009

Podcast Episode 01: Oliver de la Paz

Five new poems by Oliver de la Paz appear in the first issue of The Collagist, published August 15, 2009. In this first episode of The Collagist podcast, you can listen to a recent recording of de la Paz reading these poems:

The Collagist Podcast Episode 01: Five Poems by Oliver de la Paz

You may subscribe to the podcast through iTunes by clicking here, or you may add it manually in iTunes or other software by using the direct feed address: /wordpress/?feed=podcast

Also, please note that podcasting is something completely new to me, and I'm still learning the ropes. Any feedback on this episode would be great appreciated, and can be sent to editor@thecollagist.com. Thanks!
Monday
Aug242009

Interview: Kim Chinquee

Three of Kim Chinquee's flash fictions--including “We Decided Not to Give them Faces,” part of her forthcoming book Pretty--appear in the first issue of The Collagist, published August 15, 2009. She is the author of Oh Baby (Ravenna Press), the forthcoming Pretty (White Pine Press), and is co-editor of the forthcoming anthology Online Writing: Best of the First Ten Years (Snowvigate Press). She lives in Buffalo, New York.

Here, she speaks to The Collagist’s Lauren Walbridge about the process of writing flash fiction versus that of writing poetry or longer stories, among other topics. She also gives us a glimpse of the many book-length projects she's working on and provides an inspired summer reading list.

1. Can you talk about the inspiration for "I Was There for the Team"?  What was on your mind while you were writing this story?

I don’t recall the initial inspiration, though it was probably sparked by prompt words that may have jarred my memory of the indoor track meet; I always found the event so much different than the outdoor: the echo, the air, the smaller track that requires many more laps. The whole thing felt, to me, like dizziness.

2. The details and voice in this story, particularly in the last few lines, make it feel like a very nebulous moment.  Is this a situation where you’re looking for the reader to make connections, or is it more of an expression of the narrator struggling to understand what’s going on around her?

I don’t think it’s a matter of the narrator struggling to understand, nor for the reader to make connections, but rather I’m trying to be as accurate as possible in rendering that haze. My hope is that the reader can somehow connect with the narrator on a deeper sensory level, one that isn’t so overt. Perhaps this story could be longer; it probably needs to be about 15 pages.

3. You’ve written both flash fiction and prose poems, as well as longer stories.  Does the process differ when you’re writing flash fiction, as opposed to other forms?

Yes, mostly. Often the flash fictions and prose poems stem from prompt words or exercises. My longer pieces sometimes stem from the shorter works that I feel need to be filled out. Or sometimes the longer work involves some detail that’s been nagging at me, though that’s been happening less often.

4. Your book Pretty is set to be released by White Pine Press sometime in the near future.  What can we expect from it?

Many very short pieces: prose poems, flash fictions much like my first book, Oh Baby, though these pieces feel to me more filled out in ways. My story “We Decided Not to Give them Faces,” which appears in this issue of The Collagist, is included in the book. The book is due out in April.

5. What other writing projects are you currently working on?

I’m revising my short story collection, Shot Girls and Other Stories, and editing my third collection of flash fiction. Though I spend most of my energy these days writing my next novel, Battle Dress, which I hope to have completed by the end of the summer.

6. What great books have you read recently? Also, are there any upcoming releases you're excited about?

Oh, so many. It’s been a great summer of reading: Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, Frederick Barthelme’s Waveland, Christine Schutt’s All Souls, Mary Robison’s One DOA, One on the Way, Jean Thompson’s Do Not Deny Me, Clancy Martin’s How to Sell.

I anxiously await Dan Chaon’s Await Your Reply, Richard Powers’ Generosity: An Enhancement, Lydia Davis’ The Collected Stories, and of course Laura van der Berg’s What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us.
Thursday
Aug202009

The Collagist Featured at Apostrophe Cast



The good people at Apostrophe Cast have been kind enough to put together an all-Collagist episode, which airs beginning today. The episode includes readings by Kevin Wilson, Charles Jensen, and Kim Chinquee, with all three reading their works from Issue 1 in their entirety.

Here's the introduction to the episode:
We have all heard rumors that literature is dying, but every so often one reads a new journal that renews one's faith in the future. The Collagist is just such a journal, and the contributors Charles Jensen, reading five poems from Nanopedia, Kevin Wilson, reading from the Big Book of Forgotten Lunatics, and Kim Chinquee reading three pieces of flash fiction, have written such good work that one must believe the rumors of literature's demise are premature.

Please give the episode a listen, and then be sure to subscribe to Apostrophe Cast through iTunes or any other podcast program. It's a great publication, and we're very proud to be a part of it.