Susan Tepper:  Meg, though there is a great deal of edge going on in your story “Villa Monterey Apartment, Burbank,” and though I’ve probably read it a half dozen times over the past year, it always gleams technicolor in my brain when I think back on it.  Why, do you suppose?

Meg Pokrass:  That’s a really interesting question, and it happens to me too with certain stories and I wonder why…  I believe you answered it yourself. Your brain processed it in “technicolor” the perfect word you used.  Technicolor is an old-fashioned word that symbolizes special or vibrant/colorful and memorable.  This story is about first, naive impressions – a child narrator trying to discern what is real from imagined, and in the writing I called in a lot of sensory information, mostly visual. There is a mysterious relationship between writer and reader. My guess: this piece reminded you of a feeling around your own early impressions of the world.

Susan: What you created here is uniquely your own vision.  But it hit me so hard.  I think, if I am to be deeply honest, I would have to say it touched a place in me that I wished I could go to.  A technicolor world outside what has become very gray and uncertain.  We now live with terrorism in our midst.  What is the terror within this story?

Meg: By “terrorism” I’m assuming you mean anxiety as well as real-life terrorism, the violence around us. Life is full of real anxiety, and some people, additionally, have a brain hard-wired with neurobiological anxiety. For those people, the ones wired for anxiety, the world is twice as hard I believe. I may be one of those people. You may be one. We are acutely sensitive which is why perhaps writing flows from us. It’s a way of coping, at least for me.  In this story, the terror is mixed with delight and the excitement of the new. The terrorism was in the world the child narrator left, the terror of an unstable father. The new world promises much delight, but this child is now on guard for more trouble. She can’t completely enjoy this new world which makes it about longing.

Susan: That’s how I felt the terror here, too, which seems to co-exist with this other so-bright world of California swimming pools and sunshine.  I love this child-narrator who is almost grown up.  The Mom has taken these girls away from a violent family life.  This child-narrator seems to delight in her older, sophisticated “famous” sister and movie star boyfriend. You write: “Tanya is so much older than when she left home to become famous a year ago.  She walks out swishing a bright red towel behind her.  She’s going swimming.”  Yet I sense a reticence here with your child-narrator.  Does she feel she is safe now?

Meg: The child feels safer when Tanya leaves, she can breathe and feel free of the strong feelings of love and worship for Tanya, her role model- feelings that she can barely tolerate in their crush-like fervor, and she is free, briefly, of Tanya’s misplaced anger toward Sam. And possibly the feelings of resentment Tanya has for this child which are mingled with protective love. Yes. For seconds she is safer from that complex relationship.

Susan: At first your answer threw me.  I didn’t realize to the extent of what I read in the story that the sister-relationship was fraught for the child-narrator (younger sister).  But now I can see what you mean.  Do you think the child-sister (I’ve changed her mojo), do you think she has feelings for the boyfriend, Sam? He says to her: “Can you walk on my back with your little bare feet honey?”  That’s kind of loaded.

Meg: Yes, for sure! She is very interested in the “land” of Sam’s body, and his thick skin…  how a child can walk on him and not hurt him. He does not seem delicate to her, and he let’s her know it, and that is powerful information which indeed needs to be tested.  Sam is Hollywood-handsome, a TV actor, and what better way to test a male ideal than to walk on his back? And Sam, like California, may rupture. The child does not want to hurt Sam, but she must see if she does…  she’s called forth as an explorer and doesn’t chicken out here. This is telling about the child’s personality. She has been hurt very early, but not crushed. She may hurt Sam or herself or Tanya by walking on Sam, the man-planet-  and she is not fearless, but brave.

Susan: This kid is elastic. You just love her and you can’t figure out exactly why.  But somehow you know she’s going to be just fine.

Read “Villa Monterey Apartment, Burbank” by Meg Pokrass or listen to the podcast.

Monday Chat is a bi-weekly series in which Susan Tepper has a conversation with a Fictionaut writer about one of his or her stories. Susan is Assistant Editor of Istanbul Literary Review, fiction editor of Wilderness House Literary Review, co-author of new novel What May Have Been, and hosts FIZZ, a reading series at KGB Bar.

Q (Katrina Gray): I think I speak for the masses when I ask this burning question: are you a girl Frankie, or a boy Frankie? And what brought you to Fictionaut?

A (Frankie Sachs): I didn’t realize this was a burning question. I better answer before curious people start trying to flip up my tail and check for themselves. I am a girl Frankie. And Marcus Speh deserves all the blame for bringing me to Fictionaut. I suspect I may be a cog in his plans for world domination.

KG: I trust Marcus will handle the world with kinky elegance, so no worries here. So. New Sun Rising looks like a group with a purpose. I think it involves the sun, Japan, a book, Donald Trump, and kittens. Please help me connect the dots, and/or clear up any misconceptions.

FS: New Sun Rising does have a purpose! It is for the charity anthology, New Sun Rising: Stories for Japan. It’s a book we’re putting together to raise money for the Red Cross to aid Japan after their recent series of disasters. The stories and poems and art in the book are all about Japan. And there’s one with a cat. And we’ve got lots of foxes, and some dumplings! No Donald Trump, though. That’s a vicious lie.

KG: Did you have a particular affinity for all things Japanese (sushi and teriyaki chicken count) before the earthquake and tsunami prompted you to undertake this incredibly generous project? Or have you learned something about the country that you never knew before?

FS: Actually, I did not know very much about Japan. Murakami, Miyazaki, Kurosawa, and sushi pretty much sums it up. Making the book has been very educational. I’ve learned so much about haiku from Lou Freshwater, who’s been our acting haiku expert for the anthology. She’s been an amazing asset because haiku is one of those things that’s real easy to do and real hard to do well; she’s taught me how to look at it.

KG: We will want to buy a copy, every one of us. I just know it. Do you have the deets?

FS: I do not have them yet. Tentatively, the book will be available at the end of May. My initial goal was May 4th, but that was naive and optimistic, and I seriously underestimated how excited people would be about contributing to this book. My conservative estimate for the total word count of submissions, in under a month, is in the 500K range. That’s a lot of reading! I thought my eyes were going to melt a couple times.

I don’t know how long all the magic typesetting things (including the pictures, did I say there’s gonna be pictures?) will take after I send our final selections to the publisher (Endaxi Press), but I will definitely post the details in the group when I’ve got ’em.

Katrina Gray checks in with Fictionaut groups every Friday. She lives in Nashville with the writer John Minichillo and their lovechild. She is the editor-in-chief of Atticus Review, and she blogs about mostly non-literary things at www.katrinagray.com.

Sarah Salway is a writer, publisher, creative writing tutor and the Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the London School of Economics. She is the author of three novels, The ABCs of Love, Tell Me Everything and Getting the Picture (published by Ballantine, US) and two collections of short stories. She has climbed Kilimanjaro and spent one summer recently at a circus in Iowa but she mostly lives in Tunbridge Wells, England, where her 17th century house was once the illegal gaming rooms of Beau Nash. Visit her online at www.sarahsalway.net or www.speechbubblebooks.co.uk.

Q (Meg Pokrass): Were you mentored? Do you have thoughts relating to the mentor relationship for a writer?

The right creative writing MA programme is a bit like the perfect mentoring relationship. During mine, I worked on a one-to-one basis with my tutor, Rob Middlehurst who knew exactly what questions to ask about a piece that would push me into really understanding it myself. He helped me take my work much further than I would have done otherwise, mostly because I knew he believed I could do it. I think this was worth more than any lessons on craft techniques, although these are good too. I mentor students myself now, never more than three during any period, and we concentrate as much on process as the actual work. It’s a different job than being an editor.

Do you have tricks to move things creatively, when not feeling as inspired?

Write through it. I’m constantly amazed at how my feelings about writing a piece are not necessarily reflected in the words themselves. The hardest pieces to write often come across as having ‘tripped off the pen’. I also write dialogues in my journal between me and whatever I’m writing — to the characters, to the novel, even to the places – it sounds mad, but it works.

What are some habits you have learned over the years which are helpful as a writer?

I try to be as present on the page as I can. Years of meditation is great for this. Once I start to think about might happen to the piece I’m writing, or what has happened to previous pieces, I’m lost in writing terms for the day.

What is interesting about this era as a writer in terms of the internet and what it offers?

A real sense of fellowship with other writers around the world, and the chance to collaborate not just with other writers but with artists and musicians too. It’s like a giant playground full of all the kids I wish I’d been at school with.

I love Facebook and Twitter passionately, but I do fear that sometimes I’ve told my best stories through updates and tweets and so not saved them for my writing.

Any favorite writing exercises?

I put up a writing prompt every weekday on twitter (@sarahsalway) and I follow these myself – just write a page a day to whatever it might be. It was the genesis for my third novel, Getting the Picture, as characters started to come out of the prompts. This year, I’m really excited about a completely different book that’s emerging. There’s something about the daily routine that gives my imagination the space it needs. I work to other prompts too but those are more like a gym session, keeping me in shape.

Which writers, artists, musicians do you turn to time and again for inspiration?

I’m very inspired by art, and am lucky enough to have spent time in the Tate Modern writing poems to some of the artwork there, but probably the French artist Sophie Calle moves me the most through her sense of humour and playfulness combined with that painfully sharp and raw edge. I watch a lot of musicians performing via YouTube just to get that sense of what it’s like to be completely involved — body and mind — and to put it all out there, 100%. That’s what I want to be like when I’m physically writing — albeit just with the computer.

What is happening now?

To be honest, right now I feel a bit like Lazarus as my first two novels have just come out again in my home country of Britain (with Harper Collins), and it’s been wonderful. I’ve been very lucky to get the support of both of my writing heroes — Neil Gaiman and William Gibson — and have to keep pinching myself about that. Also with the poet, Catherine Smith, I have formed an independent publishing company, Speechbubble Books (www.speechbubblebooks.co.uk) to look particularly at short stories. We call ourselves ‘writer-led’ because we certainly don’t seem to be ‘business-led’! We’ve got great plans, but mostly to have fun with it all. It’s both a fantastic time for writers, and a terrible time, and we’re trying to at least take back some of our teeny little power as writers.

But my focus is on finishing my fourth novel, Follow Me, which is the first one I’ve written with someone else. My co-writer, Jerome Vincent and I paired up first to write up some proposals for the BBC, and kept one idea back for this novel. It’s a detective story and we’ve written alternate chapters from the two main characters involved. We’ve written two drafts already — mostly clarifying the story, and are now editing it. I think it’s brilliant, and so does he. And we’re still friends, which is something given the arguments we’ve had over the writing.

The Fictionaut Five is our ongoing series of interviews with Fictionaut authors. Every Wednesday, Meg Pokrass asks a writer five (or more) questions. Meg is the editor-at-large for BLIP Magazine, and her stories and poems have been published widely. Her first full collection of flash fiction, “Damn Sure Right” is now out from Press 53. She blogs at http://megpokrass.com.

We’re pleased to welcome Katrina Gray, who is taking over the weekly Check-In with Groups column from Nicolle Elizabeth.

Q (Katrina Gray): Erin Zulkoski. I like your name. I Googled you, and the real you came up right away. There was no, “Do you mean Erin Zulkoski the serial killer or Erin Zulkoski the writer?” Anyway, you are the administrator of a group here at Fictionaut called “The Fictionaughties.” What makes your group members so naughty?

A (Erin Zulkoski): Wait…you “googled” me? We just met, and where I come from, it’s polite to ask a girl before you go and google her. But yes, I am the one and–thankfully–only Erin Zulkoski. I am disappointed “Erin Zulkoski, space explorer” didn’t come up in the search, though. I was told my space explorer license was coming in the mail…anyway, I digress. You are correct; I am the head cheese of The Fictionaughties. What makes us so naughty? Well, aside from the rag-tag group of miscreants we are, we aren’t your “average” writers, per se. We are eclectic, diverse, sassy, and some of us have been known to throw in some toilet humor into the mix. I’m not naming names. Except one: Thomas Pluck. He’s a sucker for fart jokes.

I think that Thomas Pluck and I would get along just fine. Now: A moderately famous writer once told me, quite earnestly and with no perceivable irony, “Every writer has his own journey.” Can you tell me about yours?

My Journey, which speaking of irony, would be a killer name for a Journey cover band. What were we talking about? Ah yes, my journey. I would be remiss to mention this journey would not have been possible without fellow F’naut-ers, Lynn Beighley and Mary Capps. Here’s how it went down: it was a day much like any other, but this day had something special in the air. Lynn, Mary, and I were conversing, as we are often wont to do, and in some round-a-bout way, we all three decided to write a story based on the topic of “horny.” Each of us wrote a piece of flash fiction, and it was from that point on, we decided that we should come up with a topic and each of us would write about it, with our own flavor. I threw the idea of making this a group on Fictionaut on the table, keeping the theme that each member could suggest a topic for each of us to write about, and with much fanfare and revelry, The Fictionaughties was born. And I’m going to be completely honest here–I just thought the name “Fictionaughties” was hilarious. So, there you go.

Look, I’ve gotta be up front here. I heard a rumor. Someone said you and some other Fictionauts started this thing called HeartOnSleeve Review. True? Give us the lowdown. And name names.

My, my, my…aren’t you a precocious one? The rumor is LIES!! ALL LIES!! I never had sexual relations with that–uh…sorry. Channeling ex-presidents again. Last week it was Teddy Roosevelt, and I had this weird compulsion to hunt bears. Anyway, no, you are correct. The rumor is being confirmed as science fact right here. HeartOnSleeve Review is in the birthing stages, and hopefully will be up and running shortly. It started with the notion of wanting to write damn fine work with some damn fine ladies, who, in no particular order are: Jules Archer, Harley May, Mary Capps, Lynn Beighley, Marda Miller, and Jamie Sughroue. Our goal, aside from world domination….oops. Don’t think I was supposed to share that with you….anyway, our goal is to write whatever our hearts desire. And right now, the basic premise is to have this be a “for women only” site, meaning it’s just us ladies writing. Eventually, we will throw some testosterone into the mix, and allow some of our favorite male writers to post as well. But only if they promise to put the toilet seat down. And if I may be serious for a moment, I am so incredibly honored that these women agreed to go into this venture with me. Each of them are beautiful, intelligent, and amazing writers, so to have them be a part of this is wonderful, and I’m beyond thrilled we’re doing this together.

You can check the site out at www.heartonsleevereview.wordpress.com.

I see yours is a protected group. Let me first say, I’m *glad* you’re using protection. But if a gal wanted to penetrate the membership sheath, what might she need to do?

Yes, we do use protection in The Fictionaughties. Aside from learning the secret Fictionaughties handshake, performing extensive background searches, and a full physical declaring you fit to submit, all you really have to do to “penetrate the sheath” is ask an existing member to join. But knowing the secret handshake and offering us a bribe for admittance is a bonus.

Katrina Gray lives in Nashville with the writer John Minichillo and their lovechild. She is the editor-in-chief of Atticus Review, and she blogs about mostly non-literary things at www.katrinagray.com.

Fictionaut is a community of readers as well as writers, and sometimes we talk about writers we love. So, one of my Fictionaut friends said to me one day, You. Must. Read. Meg. Wolitzer.

So I did. And Meg’s novels knocked me out. The Wife is as perfect a novel as can be imagined. If you have yet to read Meg Wolitzer, you may start there. Or, if you prefer, go grab her new novel, The Uncoupling, a hilarious take on the Aristophanes comedy, Lysistrata, where women young & old in suburban Stellar Plains, New Jersey say NO to their menfolk. (Does any writer in America capture the deep melancholy and longing of the suburbs better than Meg Wolitzer? The Uncoupling is an extended meditation on female desire across time; it is also deeply funny.) Then read The Position (I love Holly, a young woman who puts me in mind of my sister). There is also The Ten Year Nap, about women who “step out of the work force” and the way they live now– it contains a closing sentence that brought me to tears.

Line Breaks is honored to feature Meg Wolitzer, a selfless & generous mentor to countless writers, and one of the most talented novelists working in America.

This story won Ms. Magazine’s first ever college fiction contest in 1979. I believe I was a student at Smith when I wrote it, but I soon transferred to Brown, from which I graduated. I haven’t written too many stories in the decades since, but reading the piece now for the first time in so many years, I am struck by its slightly novelistic feel. I get the sense that I might have settled in with these characters for a longer haul if I’d had the time. In a way, it does remind me tonally of my first novel Sleepwalking, which was published the year after graduation: both are a little melancholy and a little funny, and both concern themselves with parents, children, and the subject of loss. As if the story is itself a child, I feel a little protective of it reading it now, hoping it stands up.

Read Meg Wolitzer’s “Diversion” on Fictionaut.

Line Breaks is a regular feature in which accomplished authors introduce and share their first published stories with the Fictionaut community. Line Breaks is edited by Gary Percesepe.

David Abrams‘ short stories have appeared in Esquire, Narrative, Connecticut Review, The Greensboro Review, The Missouri Review, The North Dakota Review and other literary quarterlies.  He regularly contributes book reviews to The Barnes & Noble Review, The Los Angeles Review of Books, San Francisco Chronicle and January Magazine.  He retired from active-duty after serving in the U.S. Army for 20 years, a career which took him to Alaska, the Pentagon, and Iraq.  His blog, The Quivering Pen, can be found at: www.davidabramsbooks.blogspot.com

Q (Meg Pokrass): Have you had mentors? Do you mentor? Talk about the mentor relationship if you will, its importance for a writer…

When I think of mentors, the first thing that springs to mind is Obi-Wan Kenobi working with Luke Skywalker to help him realize his full potential as a Jedi warrior.  Remember that scene on board the Millennium Falcon where Obi-Wan blindfolds Luke with a helmet then instructs him to hit the little flying droid with the light saber, saying, “Your eyes can deceive you; don’t trust them — stretch out with your feelings”?  That’s the kind of mentor I’d like to have: the gentle, sage advisor who urges me to look within to see beyond.

Unfortunately, I’ve never really had a mentor like that.  At the risk of sounding like a personal pity party, I’ve been out here on my own most of my writing career, flailing away with the light saber, if you will.  Oh sure, there were my professors in grad school and believe me I love each one of them dearly and value their advice and encouragement even to this day.  But I wouldn’t call them my lifelong mentors.  They were good for me during that short season of college, but now that I’m flying solo, I’m pretty much left to my own devices out here in this vacuum.  And, frankly, I suck at self-mentoring.

There’s a new book, Mentor by Tom Grimes, in which he writes about his relationship with his mentor Frank Conroy.  I haven’t read it, but from what I’ve heard, it’s a cautionary tale about getting ahead of yourself in the publishing business.  I don’t know if Conroy steered him wrong, or if Grimes made bad choices despite good advice, but I know it doesn’t turn out completely happily-ever-after for either of them.  This is not a slam against mentoring, just an observation that, like any relationship, it’s a combination of chemistry and circumstance.  Just because someone’s looking over your shoulder, helping to guide your pencil, doesn’t mean it’s the best thing to do.

This is starting to sound like I’m pissing in my own Corn Flakes here and I’m sorry to not be more positive about the concept of mentorship.  I’m very happy — and more than a little jealous — for those writers who have formed close relationships with other writers.  I’m just saying, that’s never been much of a reality for me personally.

Would my writing benefit from having a mentor?  Without a doubt.  There have been plenty of dead-end streets I’ve gone down where I wish a mentor had been standing to hold up a Detour sign.  So, yeah, if there’s a Ben Kenobi out there who wants the job of taking me under his or her wing, I’d be cool with that.  Please, before I hurt somebody with this light saber.

What do you do when you feel stuck or uninspired… suggestions for unblocking creativity?

There’s a whole complicated prelude to the answer for this question, involving procrastination, distraction, and a general fear of the blank page (which my wife, the armchair psychologist, says is really tied to a fear of success)… but I won’t go into any of that.  Let’s just say I believe the best way to unblock creativity is to hit one key on my keyboard, and then another, and then another.  I have to write myself out of that “stuck place.”  Maybe three times out of ten what I write will be complete and utter shit and I’ll end up putting it out of my misery with the Delete button.  But those other seven times?  I probably have something worth saving — at the very least, I might find a path out of the shadows in which I’m trapped.

Short of that, nothing beats going to the bookshelf, grabbing my battered copy of Flannery O’Connor’s collected short stories, cracking it open at random, and reading five or six sentences.  Five or six sentences of O’Connor is all it takes to scratch those wires together and get a spark.

What writers do you turn to time and time again for inspiration?

Like I said, Flannery is my go-to writer for renewing my faith in the English language.  Nobody but nobody writes better at the pure sentence level, word by electric word.  Other writers I’d have on that Inspiration short list would certainly include Raymond Carver, Tim Gautreaux, Lewis Nordan (my go-to guy for humor), Ron Carlson, and Richard Ford (especially Rock Springs and Wildlife).  And of course the masters: Hemingway, Chekhov, Flaubert.  If we want to talk about mentors, these are my true guides in life.

How did your blog “The Quivering Pen” come about – it is a terrific blog, how long have you had it?

It started last May as a way to test-drive portions of my novel-in-progress (Fobbit, a dark comedy about the Iraq War) with an audience.  I was hoping to build anticipation for the book and lay the early groundwork for later marketing.  This is all very premature since the novel doesn’t even have a publisher yet, but I figured that when the time comes, I’ll at least have a small audience who might be interested in buying the book.

That was the blog’s genesis… and that guiding principle lasted for about a week.  Then I found that I liked having a microphone to talk about reading, writing, and publishing in general.  So, it quickly evolved into a place where I can be, as I mention on the blog, a “book evangelist.”  There are so many under-read and under-appreciated writers out there today that I figured I could be just one more voice crying in the wilderness, “Here, Read This!”

“My First Time” – Please talk about this new feature at The Quivering Pen.

I’m a long-time fan of the “Book Notes” series at David Gutowski’s Largehearted Boy blog and I started thinking about how I could do something similar at The Quivering Pen.  I wanted it to be a feature that was interesting and useful for readers.  So I came up with the idea of asking writers to submit stories about their first-time experiences in writing and publishing.  I put out the call for established, successful authors to send me anecdotes about, for instance, “My First Editor,” “My First Agent,” “My First Public Reading,” “My First Failure,” and “My First Publication.”  The response was tremendous and very gratifying.  I’ve been fortunate to have authors — including Caroline Leavitt, Luanne Rice, Sheri Holman, and Alan Heathcock — take time out from their writing schedules and book tours to tell a few stories for my blog.

Circling back to your original question about mentoring, I guess in a small way I hope that “My First Time” provides that kind of inspirational guidance to young writers out there.  Something where they can say, “Hey, if this is what happened to these bestselling writers at the start of their careers, then I guess there’s still hope for me after all.”

Are you open to submissions for the “My First Time” series?

Sure.  I’m always looking for contributions from established authors who have published at least one book and who have a story to share about their “virgin experiences” in writing and publishing.  For more information on the guest blogs, they can query me at thequiveringpen@gmail.com.  Unfortunately, I’m unable to pay for contributions at this time — their only recompense is the glory of appearing on the internet for one brief, shining moment.  And, of course, my eternal thanks.

And what is next for you? What are you working on now in your writing world?

I’m finishing the latest round of revisions on the Iraq War novel, Fobbit (Elevator Pitch: “It’s as if The Hurt Locker and The Office got married and had a kid they called Catch-22“).  Then there are several short stories I need to pull off the back burner and finish — mainly ones about the Iraq War.  They probably won’t be the last things I write about that experience, but they’re the ones who are crying the loudest to be written right now.

The Fictionaut Five is our ongoing series of interviews with Fictionaut authors. Every Wednesday, Meg Pokrass asks a writer five (or more) questions. Meg is the editor-at-large for BLIP Magazine, and her stories and poems have been published widely. Her first full collection of flash fiction, “Damn Sure Right” is now out from Press 53. She blogs at http://megpokrass.com.

Susan Tepper:  “And here is the stair… the stair which gave up / the rest of the house sometime ago.”

Sam, I excerpt here the beginning of your poem “From This Side of the House.” The first poem in the Monday Chat series.  All your work has such tremendous inner life.  I often feel you cross over into a different dimension to put out what you do, yet somehow you manage to ground it.

Sam Rasnake:  I like your term “inner life,” Susan.  I have to say, though, I’ve never viewed my writing in terms of a “different dimension,” though a number of people have commented in a similar way.  They may not have used that exact term, but I’ve had some of my writing described as trance-like and other worldly.  I would say that your comment of “different dimension” is accurate.  I’m just not aware of it or concerned with it as I write.  It’s just there.  It’s not something I work toward, but work from.  It’s my writing voice.  That’s how I begin – in voice.  I’ve always been drawn to writers who approach their art from this other place – writers such as Jelaluddin Rumi, Hart Crane, William Blake, Jane Hirshfield.  I really connect with them.

I can see how “From This Side of the House“ reflects this different dimension or other place.  The poem begins in the middle of something – something that’s not clear, not specified in the poem, and the reader doesn’t really learn the how and why as the piece closes.  The ending carries no real resolution.  That might be disappointing to some.  My writing, my poetry in particular, isn’t about information.  It’s more about atmosphere and feeling – and voice.  Maybe it’s the voice that grounds the work.

Susan: In this poem the stair, for me, is in part a living thing.  Perhaps an appendage.  One that finally becomes too weak, too exhausted to hold on.  The way the body gives up after time.  But it is also a stair, in the true sense of separating from the house by rot and time.  Would you say that separation is a theme here?

Sam: Separation in various forms – relative to things, time, relationships, family – is at work in the piece.  Yes.  I’m thinking of certain words or phrases: forgotten, withered, stump, five colors of paint, the dead, the colic, the missed doctor – that show this.   Also, the window is left behind.

Susan: The window is left behind.  That could be a poem unto itself.  I love how the window is used here, as a vehicle for watching through and being watched.  This poem is intensely filmic.  I can conjure up at least a half dozen plots for a movie.  The house feels mystically charged, and I feel as though I have been in this house.  Do you feel that you know this house in a physical sense of having been in it, for real or in dreams?

Sam: That could easily be a poem.  Windows frequent my writing – and its use here might allow or enhance the filmic aspect of the piece.  The writing is quite visual in its focus – very image-driven.

The model for the house is real – in a state of near complete dilapidation.   My mother lived in this house for a short time when she was very young.  The actual landscape and house – in my mind – are quite haunting.  I carry this place with me.  The poem isn’t about that house, but it’s represented in the writing.

Susan: Ah, I sensed it very close to you.  I live in an old house and wouldn’t have it any other way.  I like the idea of who lived here before me, their histories, their happiness and sorrows.  I feel them in the ethos of my house.

You bring all these things to the poem: “the yard for each other or the moon / lovers with young bodies waiting / to discover or to be discovered /  lovers with old bodies / waiting, who nursed the colic / who listened to the radio / ”

There is an enormous amount of life here in this not particularly long poem.  What I admire so much about your work, Sam, is your ability to present a huge picture of what exists in the true physical sense, and is folded into the metaphysical, without going on for page after page.  Would you call yourself a metaphysical poet?

Sam: Writing – poetry, as well as fiction – that moves toward paradox or juxtaposition has my eye and ear.  In terms of rhythms – a metaphysical poet.  Absolutely.  I do strive for the language – the sound – to create the world of the poem.  That may be more important than anything else in the writing.  I’m much more concerned with sound than with meaning.

I appreciate your comment about my writing – content and style.  Thanks.  There are layers at work.  When writing, I’m not always certain of the success of those layers and their connections, but I will say that I’ve learned – or I’m learning – to trust the voice of the writing.  I rarely know where it’s headed, but I do like the arriving.

Susan: Yes, as you say:  “the language – the sound – to create the world of the poem.”   You do this flawlessly.

Read “From This Side of the House“ by Sam Rasnake

Monday Chat is a bi-weekly series in which Susan Tepper has a conversation with a Fictionaut writer about one of his or her stories. Susan is Assistant Editor of Istanbul Literary Review, fiction editor of Wilderness House Literary Review, co-author of new novel What May Have Been, and hosts FIZZ, a reading series at KGB Bar.

Robin Antalek is the author of The Summer We Fell Apart (HarperCollins 2010), chosen as a Target Breakout Book and soon to be published in Turkey by Artemis Yayinlari. A frequent contributor to The Nervous Breakdown, her short fiction has appeared in 52 Stories, Five Chapters, Sun Dog, The Southeast Review and Literary Mama among others. You can visit her site @ www.robinantalek.com or if brave enough, publicly admit to liking her on Facebook.

Q (Meg Pokrass): Have you had mentors? Do you mentor? Talk about the mentor relationship if you will, its importance for a writer…

I can’t say that I can name any one person in particular. Where would I begin? The teacher who realized I could read at four? The librarian that led me outside the kids’ room for the very first time and into the main library? Sister Jean in sixth grade for getting sick and agreeing to allow me to write and direct a very non PC Christmas pageant much to the chagrin of the diocese? For getting kicked out of Catholic school when they discovered my mother marched in Washington for Roe Vs. Wade from my article for the newspaper? The very first boy who shredded my heart by choosing my best friend after he had already chosen me and left the words “I’m Sorry” scrawled across a torn piece of newspaper taped to my locker? For the writer who picked my story out of a pile of submissions and accepted me into his workshop when I was a very fragile and tired young mother of a one year old baby. All of these people and so many more, for better or worse, had a hand in “mentoring”… I guess whether they knew it or not.

As far as my own mentoring, I have tried, since the most fortunate windfall of publication of The Summer We Fell Apart, to use my minimal influence for good use. There are enough negative forces at work for the writer, most of them self-inflicted – that the very least I can do is be a voice of encouragement. It’s been a very humbling and exhilarating part of the post publication madness.

What do you do when you feel stuck or uninspired… suggestions for unblocking creativity?

I find looking at the work of certain artists to be very freeing. I often return to the photographic worlds of Tina Barney, Diane Arbus and Sally Mann. Also the paintings of Lucien Freud, John Currin and Alice Neel. There are stories hidden in those works. Beautiful amazing glimpses into a life I otherwise would not be a part of…. and often, I relax and let go of the problems in my fictional world. I am a very visual person – it is the way I write – almost as if the story and the characters are on a movie loop in my brain and I am just the conduit.

Best advice you ever got? Words of wisdom… What helped you as a young writer?

Let go, stop editing yourself. If you feel like a door is closing, open it and let your characters and your readers go there with you. If it feels scary, keep at it. That’s where the real writing begins.

Talk about writing a novel vs. the short story form.

I fell in love with the short stories of Ann Beattie and Ellen Gilchrist. I wanted to be a writer because of them. A short story writer specifically. However, writing a successful short story means you need to know when to get in and when to get out. Brevity is the friend of the short story writer. In school, if the perimeter of the assignment for a short story was 7 – 25 pages, you better be damn sure that I was at the very end of that 25 pages – perhaps even with the margins adjusted. Consequently my professors told me I was a novelist masquerading as a short story writer. That knowledge scared and thrilled me. I never imagined I could fill up 300 plus pages. I know now that I can. Still, it’s not as if you can throw everything in and it all works. Through a lot of trial and error I learned pacing and plotting is everything – no matter the length. I still struggle with wanting to give the reader all the information I know in the first draft. Learning to love editing, cutting out swaths of narrative is now one of my most favorite parts of writing. I am brutal, and so NOT in love with my own words.

Regarding story plot: How firm do your original plans for a plot remain… Do they develop during the writing? Describe?

Ah, well, that would be assuming that I am an outliner and know where my characters are going. I don’t. I start with an image, a feeling, an idea, a bit of dialogue and a very, very vague notion of what I want to happen. It is a bit like falling in love. You just sort of know that something big and important (to no one but you) is about to happen and you can feel it everywhere – that bit that quivers on the page makes me keep writing. That is the magic of writing. I worry about the rest later.

The Summer We Fell Apart…. Can you talk about how this novel came to you? How it evolved…

I very clearly saw the special relationship between two siblings, brother and sister and I wanted to tell that story. They protected each other and sheltered each other in a large family fraught with uncertainty. They raised each other when their older siblings and parents proved incapable. I heard their voices. And yet, when I was done, I found that each of the siblings wanted a say, and in the end, their mother deserved a voice as well. I played with the structure for a long time until it all made sense and in the end those original two siblings: George and Amy, shared the pages with Kate and Finn and their mother. It was two very long years in the writing, but when I was done, it was so very, very, hard to leave their world. Still, I am amazed at how that fictional family has touched people and compelled them to share their personal family stories with me. I am amazed, simply amazed, that fiction has that power.

What kind of community (writing groups, etc) has been most helpful and nurturing to you personally?

Even though I had been writing for years and achieved some success with a few published short stories and contest wins, that kind of thing, I am was still a newbie writer with ZERO connections in the publishing world when TSWFA was accepted by HarperCollins for publication. I was instantly humbled (there is that word again, humbled, but it is so true), by the community that stepped forward to embrace my fictional world and me. Writers I admire, writers who I never imagined, reached out and offered blurbs, advice, introductions. The community over at The Nervous Breakdown has been like my own personal cheering section offering boundless support and making me feel less alone as I navigated the post publication world. Consequently any writer who approaches me now (and can I say just how much of a thrill that is) I try to help by writing blurbs and advice and always a guest post on my blog. Helping each other certainly ensures success for all of us, doesn’t it? Why all the negativity? We writers alone can keep the word alive on the page. In the end, that’s what matters.

Tips for creating memorable, richly drawn, sympathetic characters?

I think characters evolve organically with the story – even if it is the barest smoke screen of an idea. The essence of the character is in there somewhere and the author sometimes has to trust that the character will show itself and not rush to burden the writing with too much information. It’s hard to do – that trust with the page – and your muse – but I think in the end the character is much more authentic.

Are there favorite writing practices/exercises that you can share?

I don’t have any tricks. I have trained myself to sit at my desk first thing in the morning and hammer it out. I try to limit the Internet or distractions until afternoon. But I am human and therefore prone to breaking my own rules about the Internet. Often. But I always, always, always sit down at my desk and open a document first thing. I read over the pages from the day before and work my way slowly back into the story. By noon I usually need to walk the dogs and that way I get to talk my plot points out loud as we wander. I have been known to cry when I have a breakthrough and yes, undoubtedly, my neighbors think I’m odd. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The Fictionaut Five is our ongoing series of interviews with Fictionaut authors. Every Wednesday, Meg Pokrass asks a writer five (or more) questions. Meg is the editor-at-large for BLIP Magazine, and her stories and poems have been published widely. Her first full collection of flash fiction, “Damn Sure Right” is now out from Press 53. She blogs at http://megpokrass.com.

Michael Czyzniejewski is the author of the story collection Elephants in Our Bedroom (Dzanc Books, 2009) and the short short chapbook Chicago Stories (Another Chicago Press), forthcoming in Fall 2011. He teaches at Bowling Green State University and serves as Editor-in-Chief of Mid-American Review. In 2010, he was awarded a Fellowship in Literature from the National Endowment of the Arts.

Q (Meg Pokrass): How do you feel about mentors, who were your mentor/mentors if you had them, do you mentor?

I’ve had a couple of great mentors that formed me as a writer, but maybe not in terms of my own writing or aesthetic, but more as a writing professional. As an undergrad, I studied with Jean Thompson and Illinois, and she was very inspirational in terms of how I carried myself as a writer, how I went about achieving my goals. She’s takes teaching and writing very seriously, and instilled in us from the beginning that we were going to be serious or we should leave. I remember one guy, the first day, saying he didn’t really want to write, but was taking an extra writing class on his way to law school, and Jean basically told him to either go or put his head down and not bother anyone the rest of the term. That was refreshing to hear, as I was really serious about learning how to write, and was frequently disappointed whenever I’d heard anyone talk about dashing something off the morning it was due, or not wanting to pursue the craft as much as they wanted an easy A. Jean has remained in that role for me since then, becoming a good friend. Whenever I want a no-nonsense, practical opinion on something, she is always good to not blow smoke up my ass or sugarcoat anything. Our writing isn’t very similar, but I hope that I pull some of the dry humor from her work, which I think is fabulous.

Someone else who taught me a lot about writing and publishing and teaching and especially editing is George Looney, who was at Bowling Green when I came in as a student, who was the Editor of Mid-American Review when I came here. George, like Jean, taught me how to be a writer, how to go about achieving what I wanted to. His work ethic was unparalleled, in his writing, teaching, and editing, and it was good to have that model as an MFA student, where I had the time and opportunity to develop such a work ethic. He also set the moral standard I follow for editing, teaching me a lot about publishing ethics. And he’s a fantastic poet.

Tricks to get unstuck creatively – what do you do when you feel flat and uninspired. Mental exlax stuff…

I spend a lot of time surfing the Internet. Reading and surfing inspires ideas, but at the same time, it can be distracting, too much creative energy wasted. Somethings the absolute best thing to get me writing is guilt over wasting writing time, over not getting started right away. There are exercises I can do, but for the most part, I clear my mind by thinking about other things–the surfing–then eventually know what I want to do and how much time I have left to do it in.

Favorite exercises or prompts?

The first creative writing exercise I’ve ever done–Day 1 of the first creative writing workshop I took in college–is probably the one I still use, in some form or another: pick a bunch of interesting words–some nouns, some verbs, a few adjectives–and try to form them into a paragraph. There’s variations–like having another person pick the words, or picking the words from a source (maybe even a well written paragraph from a story, or from a page, like on Wikipedia, on the topic I want to write on), but just forming those words into something can lead me somewhere, get me interested in a character, in a setting, and especially in a topic.

Do you know what you are going to write about when you sit down to write… or does the story find you in the process of writing?

I spend a lot of time thinking of ideas, of first lines. I write mostly about concepts or situations characters find themselves in, and most of the legwork is done by me concocting that exact situation, then eventually, a first line. I’m a big fan of throwing that situation out there in the first sentence, just giving the exact premise and conflict in the first line: “Jim and Wendi found a message from the future in the baked potato they shared at the rehearsal dinner.” “Grapefruits were suddenly discovered to be vegetables, and thus, had to be renamed.” That sort of thing. Once I get the concept down, once I think of it, I can pretty much roll from there. But to answer the question, sort of a little of both. I start with that line/conceit and then let the story unfold.

Good habits to develop daily for creatives…

Read no matter what. Even if the great American novel or short story doesn’t come out of you, you can always take something in. Reading also inspires me to keep going, makes me want to produce, gives me ideas, shows me how. So even if there’s isn’t the time or accessibility to writing, reading should be easier.

The Fictionaut Five is our ongoing series of interviews with Fictionaut authors. Every Wednesday, Meg Pokrass asks a writer five (or more) questions. Meg is the editor-at-large for BLIP Magazine, and her stories and poems have been published widely. Her first full collection of flash fiction, “Damn Sure Right” is now out from Press 53. She blogs at http://megpokrass.com.

Susan Tepper:  Shadows like naked nymphs on warm, golden-green grass (I paraphrase here), your first line of “Transparency,” Susan Gibb.  Well, the poetry of the line yanked me in by the neck.

I’m nosey about first lines, because of their importance.  And your first line in “Transparency“ is a gorgeous one.  Many editors and agents claim to read just a first line and then decide whether to continue reading.  Did this story actually begin with that line, or did you bring it in at some point later after revision?

Susan Gibb: Oh thank you, Susan! This is one of the greatest gifts yet an irksome one that I cherish as a writer. Almost all my stories start off right there, with a phrase or sentence that is the opening line and without a clue where it’s going, the story takes off from there. Usually I go stare at the backyard and catch something that sounds good as it flies by. I’m not the type to have the concept of story before writing something down. If I try to do that, it usually comes out forced and rather unimaginative. On the negative side, if I don’t have an opening line, I’m stalled at the red light. With the theme prompts of the 52/250 project, something will pop into my mind that’s drawn on the theme and it just goes on until the story is done. Even in essay writing back in school, I could wait days for that starter sentence and not have anything at all written, but once that beginning came through, the rest was just a matter of continuing. I’ve been known to write an essay, composition, or story, in a complete form, then go back and make up an outline for it if it was a required part of the exercise. The other negative to this method? I’ve had “At first there were only the three of us…” circling in my brain for a month.

Susan Tepper: That is exactly how I write.  I love the spontaneous writing, I can’t do it any other way, either.

In your strong lyrical opening line, out of your unconscious mind you set up the whole plot for this story.  You give the words: naked, dark, warm, float, shifting.  Pretty sexy word choice, I’d say.  And this story is about sex and its further complications.

Susan Gibb: One of the most fascinating things about people is how they interact, particularly in close relationships. There’s a point where you think they’d have bared their souls to each other, been completely themselves, and yet somewhere, for some reason, they’ve pulled back. It’s this pulling back, this transitional point where this couple seems to be. Yes, one has overstepped the boundaries and yet, a completely new pattern has developed for them. The whole environment has changed. There are little subtleties in their movements and their vivid awareness of each other that are like little rebellions because they’re not ready or willing to lose the whole war. The war, in this case, being the goal of keeping their marriage together.

Susan Tepper: The transitional point in a relationship.  Such a great place to write from.  I notice that you don’t name them, which is interesting, yet you name the third party.  Joe.

Susan Gibb: Yes, I seem to have a problem with naming characters. I believe you pointed that out to me in a story accepted for the Istanbul Literary Review! Particularly when there are three people in the story, you’ve got to break with flow and name one of the “hes” or the “shes” or it gets confusing. I think that for me, the non-naming makes it more intimate, more about people you may know. If I name them, or if I read a story with names, I can relate, but I’m limiting the possibilities. Does that make any sense? It’s like the author says that this is about Mary and John, so it couldn’t be about Sophie and Klaus. Though it’s not a conscious avoidance on my part when I write. It just comes through this way. As far as Joe, well he did a bad thing and I’m not the least bit careful about calling him out by name.

Susan Tepper: I hear you on keeping it to the “he and she”.  I do that myself, often, and like it for certain stories.  It kind of feels more loose, too, like the author can push the envelope more.  That anonymous “he and she.”   And it works well in this story.  But here’s what throws me.  You call out Joe by name, saying he did a bad thing.  But doesn’t it take two-to-tango?

Susan Gibb: Oh, yes, it sure as hell does. And this was sort of tongue-in-cheek, I suppose; my mind was in the husband’s character where women aren’t to blame because for goodness’ sake, they don’t know any better. That’s a very complicated part of human ego. His, not wanting to give her the one-ups-manship of having strayed outside their marriage while he toiled within it. The male macho thing comes into play as well, where he probably wants to punch somebody and so he’s okay if he thinks of the other guy as the target of his anger.  I think that for me, while the story came out of watching shadows play on the backyard grass, the movement of the world around these two people is more telling of the stagnation of their marriage than anything else. He’s made only that subtle shift, in the angle of his chair, to indicate any change. For her part, she’s almost daring him to argue, by facing her chair boldly out into the yard. Metaphorically, facing their relationship problems head on.

Susan Tepper: I gotta say, Susan Gibb, you’d make one hell of a lawyer.  You just lobbed that one back at me so good I’m still reeling!  Seriously, this is great!  Yes, they are in this amazing construct of their marriage, this little womb-tomb-thingy they’ve made to protect the fortress.  I love it!

He is the dark, she is the light.  And they both want it that way.  Stunningly complicated.  And probably more commonly accepted than I ever realized.  You have opened my eyes here.

Read “Transparency” by Susan Gibb

Monday Chat is a bi-weekly series in which Susan Tepper has a conversation with a Fictionaut writer about one of his or her stories. Susan is Assistant Editor of Istanbul Literary Review, fiction editor of Wilderness House Literary Review, co-author of new novel What May Have Been, and hosts FIZZ, a reading series at KGB Bar.