Forum / Flash Frontier Interview

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    Marcus Speh
    May 18, 10:09am

    Flash Frontier, "New Zealand’s flash fiction challenge and competition site", edited by our very own restlessly editing and writing Michelle Elvy, is one of the more exciting new venues I've come across lately.

    The May issue contains flash all the way from Twizel to Tauraroa as well an interview with me mostly about writing in German vs. writing in English, writing habits and, of course, that long running Fictionaut topic, flash fiction...enjoy and spread the goodness.

    http://flash-frontier.com/2012/05/18/interview-with-marcus-speh/

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    Gloria Mindock
    May 18, 01:38pm

    That was one hell of an amazing interview Marcus and Michelle. Such interesting questions about translation. I really enjoyed this and got so much out of your answers Marcus. Thanks so much to both of you!!!!

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    Matthew A. Hamilton
    May 18, 03:59pm

    Enjoyed the interview, Marcus.

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    Sam Rasnake
    May 18, 04:14pm

    That's a great interview, Marcus. Enjoyed.

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    James Lloyd Davis
    May 18, 09:22pm

    To say that Marcus Speh is multi-dimensional is a lot like saying the sky is blue...

    Amazing interview.

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    Marcus Speh
    May 20, 08:56am

    Thanks everyone. It was an interesting opportunity including a time travel back to our time in New Zealand ten years ago.

    Since 2010 I've given 13 interviews; sometimes I think it would be interesting to collect them all in publication. I might be the unpublished German writer with the greatest number of interviews in English: Jürgen Fauth probably held that position with his many interviews when Fictionaut was hot and new, but he's now published his novel KINO so I'm gladly filling the vacancy.

    This reverse engineering of a writing career may be the hallmark of the flash fiction and online writer generation: the net offers an opportunity to embed one's work in public memory early on. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. In my case, I didn't really feel I had a choice. I think I'm going to reflect upon this in a new blog post...

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    Robert Vaughan
    May 20, 12:42pm

    Marcus, I always enjoy your interviews, and this was one of my FAVORITES! I seem to learn new things about you each interview which I had no clue about. Your idea about gathering all of your interviews (13, I'm impressed!) into one manuscript is intriguing, although I would rather read a chap or full length of your stories first.

    This idea you propose is one I've speculated for a few years now. The "give it away, give it away, give it away now" method of publishing versus the "gather and wait" approach. I'd love to read more about your ideas on the subject, as I've debated this with so many writer friends.

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    Marcus Speh
    May 20, 08:32pm

    Thank you, Robert. I'm going to add one interview that deals more with flash production in the context of my whole life to my short fiction collection that'll be published by MadHat Press later this year.

    I suppose I'm lucky to live in these times because I don't have a "gather and wait" character at all. Though I'm learning to acquire the taste for gather and wait as I proceed with writing more longer and longer stories. I think this is where the difficulty lies for me personally—some good wines need to ripen; as for the economy, the writing's on the wall.

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    Ann Bogle
    May 20, 08:45pm

    Marcus, a couple of questions for you. If you were to publish your interviews as a collection (a book), would there be a need to edit for repetition? Is some repetition simply affirming and comforting to the reader? Would it be wrong to alter interviews that had taken place in a specific context in order to republish them? I suppose you already self-moderated, not retreading much, as you gave the interviews. Speaking for myself, I feel against substantially altering anything that has already appeared.

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    Marcus Speh
    May 22, 09:12am

    Ann, thank you for these questions which are excellent. I think there's space for repetition in interviews just as in fiction: everyone has a limited number of themes...and as in stories, life is full of repetition; finding them is part of the joy of reading/listening, I think—"simply affirming and comforting to the reader" as you say! Of course, they need to be served well (just like in fiction). Luckily, my interviews are all very, very different: partly because of the difference of circumstance and/or reason for interviewing—one advantage of not publishing books but merely being a social media maker; also perhaps because (at least to my mind) I've changed and grown so much in the past 3 years?

    Altogether, I agree with your view on not altering something that has already found or be given its published form...when talking memoir or non-fiction we're quickly entering the realm of the Ministry of Truth otherwise...

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