Dan Wickett founded the Emerging Writers Network, co-founded Dzanc Books with Steven Gillis, and edited the short story anthology Visiting Hours (Press 53).

What are some of the things Dzanc Books feels most passionate about these days?

I think our list is usually really consistent – finding the next great manuscript to bring out in book form, and then using the power of the reading and writing to help others – be it through education of children, workshops with prisoners, or cancer patients, or those for whom English is a second language, etc.

Dzanc is a wonderful champion of the short story. How did the idea for Short Story Month come about? What made it happen?

Back in 2007 I tried to celebrate National Poetry Month in April. I posted a poem from a child, I believe via the blog of Houston’s Writers in Schools group, at the EWN blog every day and discussed it briefly. As poetry is not my forte by any means, and I love short stories, when the month ended I wondered why there wasn’t a National Short Story Month and decided screw that, there should be, and so, declared it to be so.

How did Short Story Month go last year, its inaugural year?

Last year was actually very cool as more people joined in celebrating with me than ever before and it started to get noticed a bit. Larry Dark over at The Story Prize (who actually has been clamoring for this since 2003, much longer than myself) pointed it out, as did Poets & Writers, Publishers Weekly, and many blogs. Beyond those that I contacted about playing along – Matt Bell, Aaron Burch of Hobart, and Steven McDermott of Storyglossia – American Short Fiction and Ninth Letter’s blogs both participated, as did some others I was less familiar with. Dzanc Books even put out a collection of the writings done during the month for the original four sources (adding in the EWN) and send out copies to those that donate $10 or more to Dzanc via our support page.

What can we as writers and readers do to help support each other and our community of writers/publishers most effectively?

Most effectively? I’d say buy books and journals and subscriptions to journals for every one of your family and friends for their birthdays, for holidays that warrant gifts, and sometimes, just because. And keep an open conversation flowing about writing and books and journals and poems and stories and essays and, you probably get the idea.

What are your favorite literary websites?

The sites I wouldn’t be surprised to find out I visited the most in the past six months:

Matt Bell’s site (www.mdbell.com), HTMLGiant (www.htmlgiant.com), which runs from fascinatingly interesting on down to making me want to lob a brick at my computer screen, Big Other (www.bigother.com), Ed Champion’s site (www.edrants.com), and sadly, or more likely most pathetically, the Emerging Writers Network blog.

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 an editor at Smokelong Quarterly, and her stories and poems have been published widely. She blogs at http://megpokrass.com.

It’s odd how a thing long forgotten can suddenly return to your life in a cluster of separate incidents.  Recently, the literary journal Short Story devoted an issue to my work and asked to reprint the first story I published.  Now the estimable Fictionaut has independently arrived at the same notion.  I have twice in the past year returned to that first publication, a short story entitled “Moving Day,” reading it myself as if someone else had written it.

It appeared in the October, 1974, issue of Redbook.  I wrote it in the midst of my early, autodidactic days of striving to be an artist, when I was mostly writing pretty badly by the standards I was trying to set for myself.  But this is a good story.  For a brief time, I had access to the roiling heat of my unconscious before I drew back into the cool willfulness of my mind, where things were safe and mediocre.  It would take seven more years–with my novel The Alleys of Eden-before I would publish again from my artistic unconscious.

There are twelve full-length plays, 44 short stories, and five novels–all, thankfully, unpublished–from those days of struggle and failure.  To my creative writing students, I have always referred to that output as “my million words of dreck.”  I can’t remember a word from those stories and novels and plays, and I am reluctant to go back and look.  “Moving Day,” however, pleasantly surprised me.

I wrote the story about a year after returning from my tour of Army duty in Vietnam.  I was living on 13^th Street in New York City.

Previously:

• “The Palatski Man” by Stuart Dybek
• “My Date with Satan” by Stacey Richter
• “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried” by Amy Hempel
• “Credentials” by John Holman
• “Pink” by Terese Svoboda
• “The Line” by James Robison
• “We” by Mary Grimm
• “Shopgirls” by Frederick Barthelme
• “Fragment from an Untelevised Revolution” by Rick Moody
• “One-Way Ticket” by Antonya Nelson
• “The OD & Hepatitis RR or Bust” by T.C. Boyle

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.

I like Negative Suck. I like Jeffrey S. Callico‘s work. I figured you might also. Jurgen’s abroad, this means I’m in charge, so this write-up is two days late. I’m making the calls, people. Everybody gets a choice of an elephant or one green teabag. One.

Q (Nicolle Elizabeth for Fictionaut): What is Negative Suck? Its history? Its ethos? Its start date? Its “vision”?

A (Jeffrey S Callico): Negative Suck is a monthly ezine featuring writers and artist who don’t suck.

The term “negative suck” is something I ran across a few years ago; I’m really not sure where I saw it first, but it seems it was on some medical program either online or television. The sound of it caught my attention immediately so I scribbled it in a notepad vowing I would use it as a title for something. Back in 2007, I think, I did just that, using it as a title of an awful piece of flash fiction that will never see the light of anything. It really sucks.

So since that time I knew I should use for it something else and the idea for the zine came late last year. I decided it was time to put it to much better use than before.

The “virgin issue” of Negative Suck appeared online in December 2009 and, to my surprise, rather took off. I was lucky enough soon afterward to get it picked up by a fiction and poetry resource listing site called Duotrope’s Digest; once that happened I got submissions almost daily. Some were good, but yes, some definitely sucked.

Now for the meaning of the term “negative suck” and how it applies to the zine. It’s a medical term, as I mentioned. When an infant sucks at a bottle or the mother’s nipple, a vacuum is created eventually, thus preventing the infant from obtaining milk. So, in essence, the infant can no longer suck. Obviously I use that as a very loose metaphor for
the zine. Everyone I’ve explained this to kind of smile and go “That’s cool!” or something similar.

When I say it’s for writers and artists who don’t suck, that is of course subjective on my part. The primary tips to all who submit: 1) Read the guidelines; 2) Read the zine; 3) Read the guidelines.
The vision of Negative Suck? I just want to keep it coming out every month. The art so far has been fantastic, and the art editor, Madrea Marie, has been a great help in finding some really good artists. There have been excellent writers, too, such as Lyn Lifshin, Erin Cole, Michael Solender and Jelena Vencl Ohlrogge. Right now, my dream is to one day be able to feature someone relatively big on the literary scene — like fiction writer Rick Moody or poet Bob Hicok, for example. I’d also love to publish a print version as a “best-of” compilation once the first year is behind us.

What sort of dialogue do the members of the group carry on?

I have overheard some stuff through the walls. I really can’t tell you what’s going on, but it’s been sounding kind of freaky.

How is Negative Suck finding Fictionaut?

It’s a very active site so I am hoping group membership will increase soon. Get the word out! Maybe sell some free beer.

What suggestions might you have for us?

Will you be developing a new beer anytime soon?

Please tell us about yourself here. Tell us everything. Spill it.

I hail from Atlanta. I own a 10-year-old black Lab. I hate watermelon, cantaloupe, and most of all, beets. I have no tattoos and look weird in photographs. I don’t wear a watch anymore. My favorite novel of all is John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany but the late John Updike is my favorite author. I own all of Neil Diamond’s vinyl. Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin are my favorite bands. I saw Kiss in 1979, and Mahogany Rush opened. When I was 13 I saw Boston play live for the first ten minutes of their show; then my father forced me to go home because it was a school night (rest in peace, Brad Delp). I’m an average drummer, and weekly have the good fortune to play a snare that Neil Peart of Rush once played. If I could have a long-winded conversation with an inanimate object, it would without doubt be my personal computer. One thing I’m proud of doing every week is writing at least two pretty good poems. My collection of short fiction,
Fighting Off The Sun: Stories, Tales, and Other Matters of Opinion, is available on Amazon. My work has appeared in several print and online literary journals, including FRiGG, Johnny America, Origami Condom, Calliope Nerve, The Legendary, Opium Poetry 2.0, Target Audience Magazine, Full of Crow, SpokenWar, Pulp Metal Magazine, Weirdyear and Fashion for Collapse.

Anything else you’d like to add?

Yes, do you have any beer?

What is the best book written this decade so far and why?

I want to say all Charles Bukowski poetry collections, but I’ll stick with the 2007 book The Pleasures of the Damned. If anyone knows anything.

Nicolle Elizabeth checks in with Fictionaut Groups every Friday.

On Boudreau Freret‘s “The Sometimes Serious Writer and His Ass“
by Emily Cleigh

My first Fictionaut Fave was “The Sometimes Serious Writer and His Ass” by Boudreau Freret. This also happens to be the first piece I read on Fictionaut. This also happens to be the piece that inspired me to write more actively, both due to its contents and its author.

I can relate to this piece. Although my job title is creative services writer, and I do write by assignment many times a week, reality has hit and my days are spent at a desk doing mind-numbing tasks. “Ass-numbing,” if you will. But my day job is not who I am. Even while at the desk, I can write what I want to write; what I need to write. (Heck, I’m writing this nugget at the desk right now!) Most importantly, this piece was worth the Fave because it recognizes what matters most here on earth; finding and sharing and appreciating “the kindness and generosity of others.”

On Meg Pokrass‘s “Camp K”
by Jack Swenson

“Camp K” is a story that will tickle your funny bone. It is a rollicking satire. It is an off the wall tale of a new widow’s visit to an upscale New Age camp where she can reconnect with life. I began laughing at the end of the second paragraph and didn’t stop.

That paragraph ends a brief recounting of the protagonist’s husband’s demise. The author writes: “She remembers the medics as a swarm of ants eating elderberry pie.” Would anybody but Meg Pokrass make it an elderberry pie?

In the next paragraph the narrator’s tale kicks into gear. She hates the other campers we discover, and no wonder. How would you expect a sane person to feel, stuck for a week in the midst of a crowd of posturing urbanites at a haven for the soul named Camp Kierkegaard?

It is “a place of sectarian forced fun” with a “bare ‘cabin’ look and feel.” And yet the expensive digs appear to be sharecropper shacks. Says the witty and disgusted widow, “They could be filmed in black and white with some rickety looking, skinny-model standing on the slat porch holding a broom.” Now there, my friends, is sarcasm. Two scoops!

And yet the story ends serenely enough. The prickly narrator adjust to and begins to take comfort from her mod surroundings. She holds the promise of healing “around her middle like a warm cat.” She can “sit alone or in a community with others and listen to her own, special moods – smoothing a worry stone and bottle of ketchup.”

This story will make you want to toss the brie and chardonnay and sink your teeth into a juicy burger with maybe a side of fries. Delicious.

On Mel Bosworth‘s “The Things I Did and Did”
by Ajay Nair

This story captures with an immediate accuracy a small fragment of time. But what it really does is evoke a mood and atmosphere that is random and precise and sharp. Mel writes beautifully here – his language is economical and colorful with turns of phrases that make you go ‘wow’. The story itself is simple – the rendering is snappy and smooth.

What I enjoyed most was how the protagonist swings between his story and the observations he makes of the other couple. It’s done in a matter-of-fact manner without drawing attention to itself. The youthful point-of-view voice works very well – it’s not heavy or preachy. There are no flashy revelations or dramatic plot points; just a burst of action on a bus-trip. Yet, there are two stories rolled into one and they both work. The story left me satisfied and it stayed with me like a bright worm, the good kind. And it has a superb title.

Fictionaut Faves, a series in which Fictionaut members recommend stories on the site, is edited by Marcelle Heath, a fiction writer, freelance editor, and assistant editor for Luna Park. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

Sam Rasnake‘s poetry has appeared recently or will appear in Press 1, FRiGG, OCHO, Shampoo, Oranges & Sardines, BOXCAR Poetry Review, Otoliths, BluePrintReview, The Smoking Poet, and Naugatuck River Review, as well as the anthologies Best of the Web 2009 (Dzanc Books) and Deep River Apartments (The Private Press). His latest collection, Inside a Broken Clock, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press, 2010. Rasnake edits Blue Fifth Review, an online journal of poetry and art.

Q (Meg Pokrass) What story or book do you feel closest to?

My book of choice that I feel closest to would be Geography III by Elizabeth Bishop. The book that has influenced me the most as a writer would be Oku no Hosomichi (Narrow Road to the Interior) by Matsuo Bashō – specifically, Sam Hamill’s translation.

Do you have a mentor? Do you yourself mentor?

As for mentor – I would have to name the community of writers associated with The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, a journal that began operations in Abingdon, Virginia, in the late 1980’s – and specifically the founding editors, Larry Richman, Nell Maiden, and Errol Hess. I don’t really have the words to say how special that magazine is to me – but I will say this … if not for the Sow’s Ear, you probably wouldn’t be interviewing me today. My writing might never have found its river.

I picked up the first issue, and read a poem by Rita Quillen, a devout believer in, instigator of, and authority on – in the best and truest sense – Appalachian literature. And it is vast. Rita and I had known each other through college, and had sparred as friends on the issue of writing as regional vs. universal … so that immediately drew me to the magazine. Sow’s Ear, which moved beyond those Appalachian circles but without losing touch, put me in direct contact with writers such as William Stafford – who has had more impact on me as a writer than anyone else – Amy Clampitt, Lee Smith, Jeff Daniel Marion, W.D. Snodgrass, David Huddle…. I began working with the magazine in different capacities, and have been chapbook editor since 1993.

The Sow’s Ear also gave rise to wonderful writers’ group, including James Owens, Ann Richman, Suzanne Rhodes, Judy Miller, Kristin Zimet, Edison Jennings, Felicia Mitchell, and others. Edison, Felicia, and I continue as a group today. All this has deepened me as a writer and has helped me find my own voice.

In terms of writing, I try to be a help to anyone, any way I can. A clear goal all writers should have is to lend support. That’s crucial. We all need it. We all can give it.

How do you stay creative? What are your tricks to get “unstuck?”

Films and music. No tricks – films and music. I can’t imagine my life without either. If I’m stuck as a writer, I watch works by Krzysztof Kieślowski, Stanley Kubrick, or Akira Kurosawa … I listen to Townes Van Zandt, Tom Waits, Lucinda Williams … then I pick up my pen.

What are your favorite websites?

Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, Metazen, MiPOesias, Fictionaut, Zoetrope, Fiction Daily

What is happening right now that you would like to share in your writing world?

In December, Finishing Line Press is publishing my chapbook of poems – Inside a Broken Clock. The poems, part of a long series in-progress – Tales of Brave Ulysses, are focused on literature. I’ve recently finished another ms in the series – A Glass That Falls – poems focused on cinema, and will be searching soon for a publisher.

How have community sites like Facebook affected the writing community for you, if they have…

Facebook has opened me to a different world of writers – and that’s been a great experience. I’ve met – in the virtual world – so many who have impacted me. I knew their works before, but had no contact with them. That alone has deepened my view of literature in a very universal sense, because the Internet connects the world. I can only hope I’ve moved others in some way.

Now, I want all my poetry read aloud by Finnegan Flawnt. He may have the best reading voice I’ve ever heard in my life. If not for Facebook or Twitter or Fictionaut, I might not be connected with him. That would be my loss.

Do you listen to music when you write?

I do, quite often. I listen and write. I listen, then write. My approach is the same with film. I watch a film, gather ideas, emotion, awareness of place, sound, people, action – and then I write. Sometimes though, I watch a film while I’m writing. Oddly enough, that process can add layers to what I’m doing. Words drift in, sights, music… For me that all connects. I don’t recommend that to other writers, but the process works well for me.

Do you seek time away from technology, time to unhook so to speak? How important is that?

The time away from technology, telephones, computers … is necessary. For one thing, I don’t write on a computer. That process has to take place in my journal. That’s sacred. My work is mostly finished when I turn on the computer. I can revise, somewhat, on a computer, and can certainly type up my notes or drafts. I can print that off and revise – but the creative has to be pen and paper.

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 an editor at Smokelong Quarterly, and her stories and poems have been published widely. She blogs at http://megpokrass.com.

Thanks to the generous work of Marcelle Heath, gender in publishing has been a topic of discussion on Luna Park for the past months—with contributions from editors and writers Roxane Gay, Sherisse Alvarez, Jarrett Haley, and half-a-dozen others. In our most recent addition, Helen Sedgwick from Fractured West adds to her co-editor’s comments about editors and gender with “You Girls, part two“:

In the same way as I listen to Beethoven’s music for the love of his music, I have always said that as an editor (and a reader) I would judge writing in terms of the writing itself, not the author. I often just skim cover emails and rarely read the author biographies I am sent. My decision on whether or not to publish a piece of work does not depend on how much or how little the author has previously published, or on their education, class, race, gender, or sexuality. Nor does it depend on the author’s personal politics. It depends on what the words on the page actually say.

Earlier this week over at HTMLGIANT, Blake Butler, Kate Zambreno, Amy King and Roxane Gay began their own conversation on the same subject, “But What About Nipples? A Nice Conversation (Pt. 1).” The conversation was initiated in response to a recent posting on the website about an all-male issue of We Are Champions. Here’s an interesting bit from one of Butler’s main points in the discussion:

Is the only way to have diversity through flesh and organs? What about diversity in the word? When Lily Hoang and I were talking about this, she mentioned that maybe she was being naïve, but she didn’t see it as an issue for women getting published now. Like, everyone in this conversation is well published, and has been around. Even if Gene had set out to publish an all male issue, which I know he didn’t, would that be so bad? If that is what he wanted? I see humans as human. Anyone can say a word. And yet, I love all female issues also, the all female issue of New York Tyrant one of their best publications. Is framing necessary? Is fetishizing sacred? I don’t know, I just don’t see the battle here. Are people not reading females? That would seem insane, to me, to be a claim. Aren’t there bigger issues at stake than who’s in line and whose turn it is?

And in yet another discussion on gender in publishing, Guernica and PEN America hosted a panel discussion on the subject with Lorraine Adams, Esther Allen, Alex Epstein, Norman Rush, moderated by Claire Messud, “The Diversity Test.” Here’s the video of the 90-minute talk:

Finally, three words: lit mag rankings. The rankings (or what is left of them) and the discussion in order below.

Lincoln Michel (from Gigantic).

If you came here looking for my literary magazine ranking I’m afraid it is gone.

Ravi Mangla.

There was an interesting comment in response to Lincoln Michel’s ranking list concerning a predominant writer-centric attitude toward literary journals, rather than a reader-centric one.

Seth Fried.

A lot of people on the Information Superhighway are talking about this list of lit mag rankings put together by Lincoln Michel at The Faster Times. Naturally, I’ve decided to put together my own list.

Keith Botsford (from News from the Republic of Letters).

The author’s criteria for selection seem to me sound, at least in part, the question being ‘If you were a writer, to whom should you try to flog your merchandise?’

And Lincoln Michel, redux.

My post on literary magazines got far more traffic than I had envisioned. I thought maybe a few hundred people would glance through it, but instead several thousand did.

Every Tuesday, Travis Kurowski presents Luna Digest, a selection of news from the world of literary magazines. Travis is the editor of Luna Park, a magazine founded on the idea that journals are as deserving of critical attention as other artistic works.

Once a year PEN has a bunch of events for a few days around New York. Usually, it’s some panels, some readings, some debates, and some parties. This year I opted out of the usual party circuit because I don’t have time for fun, cheering up, and/or “looking on the bright side.” Regardless a friend made me sit with him at the “Short Stories: Past, Present, and Future” panel anyway, and I thought it might be helpful to talk about it at Fictionaut, given that what we generally share are short stories. Spotted in the audience, Fictionaut’s own (and National Book Critic Circle President) Jane Ciabattari. On a more somber note, at the end of the table of panelists was an empty chair. Panel moderator and New Yorker Fiction Editor Deborah Treisman noted that it was in honor of the 900 writers PEN approximates were harmed, imprisoned, killed, etc for being a writer last year. It was a gut-wrenching thought and yet inspiring in a way: We sat in the audience in solidarity with those who could not.

The panel starred Preston L. Allen, Alex Epstein, Aleksandar Hemon, Yiyun Li and Martin Solares. Heavy, y’all, heavy. Ms. Treisman opened the panel with a discussion of the tradition of the short story. (Obviously I was eager to jump right into questioning everyone about Flash. That never happened btw.)

Aleksander Hemon, author of the Lazarus Project, for one thing, said that he began in Yugloslavia reading translations of Cheever and Carver. (You know how I feel about Carver and Cheever. Gold star, Hemon, gold star.) The conversation was mostly surrounding why the short story currently gets less respect in the canon than the novel. “It is thought the novel is the big guns,” Hemon noted, “The short story practice for the novel.” Everybody in the room shifted in their chairs sadly

“If you translate short story into Chinese is literally means ‘short little takes,” said Yiyun Li. Again, a bummout. Both Hemon and Li were on the panel to defend the short story, not negate it, but as the woman who raised me used to say, “Can’t fix anything until you pinpoint the problem,” and so, there we were, panel and audience full of short fiction writers and readers, admitting we are considered “the short take.”

“Hemingway, Faulker, Cheever, Joyce Carol Oates (whom I Nicolle refer to as “The JCO”),” began Preston Allen, “these are some of my greats,” and the conversation took off like a bottle rocket launched from a West End roof deck in July.

“In Mexico there is a tradition of reading short stories. I think that’s because of the Politicians. Politicians are the greatest tellers of short stories,” joked Solares (who also noted that he is a resident of Mexico City, and is known for his short story collections which I pardon my French here but freaking love, El Planeta Cloralex and Los Minutos Negros (The Black Minutes), which is a collection of shorts based on the premise that every human has five “dark minutes” in total in their lifetime.

“The novel allows for more time and more space,” Hemon noted. -Which is how I feel about it. Let’s compare standing in an elevator to standing in a gymnasium, for example. Try spinning around. See what I’m getting at?

“I wrote a novel first. I wrote a novel first so I could learn how to write a short story,” said Li.

The most, for me the most interesting part of the panel said was by Hemon: “The novel signifies a shift away from language and a move toward the psychology of the character.” This killed me. I agreed with it but hated that I agreed with it. I loathed it. My stomach turned, as your stomach is turning from how poorly this installation is written, I’m sure.

Allen paraphrased John Gardner. “The novel is the easiest to write, then the short story, then the poem. In a short story, you can’t get away from a wrong word, a wrong sentence. In the novel you can have entire chapters people skip over.” I was agonizing in my seat. As writers of any form should agonize over every word, every comma, every everything. He pulled it out of the water, thankfully: “The dream is the poet who masters the short form and then writes a novel.” The dream is that we transcend labels, I scoffed like an awful woman, sorry Preston L. Allen.

Alex Epstein, who was wearing a t-shirt with a four leaf clover under his sport coat, which I found particularly poetic and interesting, noted, “It’s about the process.”

“The novel and the short story are different answers that you give,” said Solares.

Something which I found incredibly cool and helpful and thought I’d pass on to Fictionaut was what Yiyun Li said, paraphrasing an old mentor: “Every short story should have at least three short stories in it. Every short story should have at least five short stories in it.”

“To heed the call of the novel,” Solares said, “you have to be willing to sacrifice everything. To heed the call of the short story, you have to be willing to sacrifice everything on the spot.”

Nicolle Elizabeth will check in with Fictionaut Groups again next Friday.

On Andrew Kenneally’s “No Leg to Stand On”
by Eamon Byrne

This is a very amusing piece. It’s a piece which starts at a certain point, let us say P, and moves towards some other point by a series of other points, let us say P1, P2 … but never arrives at a finality.

Let us compare it with what you’d normally find between the covers of a novel at an airport newsstand.

A man leaves his apartment – in, say, a detective novel – and on his way through the plot passes through points P1, P2 … and finally arrives at a finality. And there are no shortages of finalities. He gets killed, or catches the killer, or seduces the femme fatale. But why should this be so? Why should he not encounter a greater number of intermediary points than the paltry P1, P2. that the writer has given him? Or more to the real point (which is implied by this piece), why should he ever get to P2 in the first place, since P1 is undoubtedly composed of a further series of intermediary destinations, P1a, P1b.., all of which contain their own series of sub-points, and which together would delay him interminably from reaching that finality? (Ah but, you might retort, there’s always the 1000 page novel; and its sequel).

Of course, assuming you’d want to do it (since it’s a comic mode we’re in), what would keep this Kharms-like insubstantial tapestry of fractals from falling into a heap? Well, what would keep a man who has no leg to stand on from falling down? The answer to that question, posed so amusingly by our author, is at the nub of our problem.

But I cannot begin to delve into it further without noting that, for starters, we are dealing with 3 ephemera here: he, you and the author; that the third of those implies the I; and that the I and the you together implies the we. It seems, in fact, that the he has been squeezed out by the we. We are the true ‘characters’ left ratiocinating over this poor schmuck ‘he’. And as it so happens, the ratiocination, being of the flash fiction sort, is kept short. But it could be longer, much longer, for I have no doubt the brevity is just a writer’s option exercised, that the writer is well aware of P1a1, P1a2 … (not to mention their heirs and siblings).

I am left assuming that to keep from appearing obsessive about it the author desisted from going into the matter further.

Steve Himmer has stories in the latest issues of Hobart and Los Angeles Review, and novel excerpts have recently appeared at Everyday Genius, Emprise Review, and PANK. He edits the webjournal Necessary Fiction and has a website, Tawny Grammar.

What novels do you feel close to? What spins your wheels as a reader?

I moved into a smaller house recently, and had to downsize my library by deciding which books I might really read again. The ones I kept tend toward the slim and tightly-focused, like Julia Leigh’s The Hunter, Frederick Buechner’s Godric, Brian Kiteley’s Still Life With Insects or Peter Angus Campbell’s Invisible Islands — those are the kinds of short, perfect novels I want to write, and the ones I return to again and again. Authors like Magnus Mills, Jean Echenoz, Marie Darrieussecq, Per Petterson, Jim Krusoe, Lars Gustafsson. But there are also more expansive novelists who consistently blow me away, like Peter Carey and Michel Houellebecq and Georges Perec. And George Mackay Brown is my most sentimental favorite, and though he’s uneven — how could he not be, with such an output? — his fictional world is the one I most like to daydream about. Oh, and I can’t leave out Flann O’Brien’s The Poor Mouth.

So what spins my wheels? I guess I think of stories — and fiction — primarily as a way of asking questions and trying to make sense of the world, and of exploring the individual’s place in webs of culture. So I’m not as language-oriented as many folks seem to be online. I’m at least as concerned with what a story asks me to think about as I am with how it’s written, and fiction with a sense of curiosity that extends beyond the characters’ own relationships or immediate, personal desires appeals to me most. Apart from a couple of classes in grad school, I’ve never really studied literature and my reading has been idiosyncratic and uneven, driven by obsessive fascinations — with particular countries, or time periods, or landscapes, or animals — rather than any knowledge of what I should be reading or of what books are important. And I’ve just realized I forgot to mention Tom McCarthy’s novel Remainder, which hit me harder than anything else I’ve read in years.

You published, on your terrific online lit. zine, Necessary Fiction, a serialized novel – New Hope for Small Men by Grant Bailie. Have you done this before? How did you come up with the idea to do so? Will you be doing more of this with other authors?

New Hope For Small Men is a great example of the kind of quiet, tightly-focused novel I love — and it’s about boring office work, too, a favorite fictional subject of mine. It’s a terrific read, and I hope to see it republished in print. I’ve been reading serials online for years, and have experimented with it as a blogger a few times though I never managed to stick with it. I would like to serialize another novel in the future at Necessary Fiction, though nothing is in the works just now. Serials are tricky, because it’s hard to measure audience return rates and to find the right balance of spreading a story out versus keeping chapters coming quickly enough to maintain momentum. I also deeply enjoyed the editing process with a longer work that wasn’t my own, and that’s something I’d welcome a chance to do more of. Whether as a freelance editor or for publication, who knows (but if any publisher is reading this and wants to give me an imprint, I’m all ears).

I understand you are writing a novel! I knew you wrote short fiction, and this is very exciting. Can you tell us what the novel is about?

I actually finished it a while ago, and a few excerpts have been published. It’s called The Bee-Loud Glade and concerns a marketer of artificial plants who gets laid off then finds a new job living as a decorative hermit in a billionaire’s garden. If that idea sounds so ridiculous it can only be true, it is — I learned about decorative hermits on a TV show called The Worst Jobs In History, and it stuck with me until eventually I managed to wring a novel out of it. It’s an intentionally quiet story — seems to be a theme here, doesn’t it? — and probably a “novel of ideas” to some extent (which I don’t consider so negative a description as it often seems to imply) about the nature of nature and the nature of work and other exciting things. It takes place almost entirely outdoors, which happens in many of my stories though I seldom plan to prevent my poor characters from going inside. Plus there’s a lion, and who doesn’t love a novel with a lion? My favorite of which is Russell Hoban’s The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz.

What do you like best about having an online lit zine in a weekly format?

The fact that it’s weekly is fairly incidental, because that’s simply the rate I can handle and it works with our flow of submissions. What seems more important is being able to focus on a single story at a time. Instead of developing an issue containing multiple stories, with some cohesive, coherent order and assembly, each individual story is presented entirely in it’s own right. There’s definitely an aesthetic emerging over time, though it’s only vaguely apparent to me what it is — and that’s a big part of the excitement: pinning down my own taste as a reader and editor only to have it upended by some surprising, incredible new submission the next day. I’m thrilled and humbled by the positive response we’ve gotten so far, and by the quality of work I’m being trusted with. I’ve enjoyed editing more than I imagined I would, and have been introduced to the work of some incredible writers. I can’t say it helps me get more of my own writing done, but that’s a whole other story.

What else is happening right now in your world?

Reading submissions for Necessary Fiction, because they’ve definitely increased lately. I’m hoping to start another novel this summer, and I have a couple of ideas but both of them are still in the “gathering” phase — doing casual research, wandering around thinking about them, and waiting for a character’s voice to emerge from my false starts and sketches so I can get down to telling the story for real. I’m also in the midst of a series of flash fictions about tall tale figures, and hope to write and publish a few more of those. Plus, I think there are eggs in the osprey nest at the end of the street and I spend more time than I should watching for hatchlings.

Oh, and I need to add to my first answer a loud shout out to Clark Gifford’s Body by Kenneth Fearing, a tragically overlooked novel if ever there was one. Also, all those books I culled from my collection are still boxed up in the basement, so if anyone wants to come by and pick through them…

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 an editor at Smokelong Quarterly, and her stories and poems have been published widely. She blogs at http://megpokrass.com.

i. Making a Better Soup Can

As though in response to last week’s Digest post, this past week Gigantic co-editor Lincoln Michel added to Genoways, Nicorvo, and co.’s informal and ongoing discussion about literary magazines and literary fiction in his own piece at Faster Times. Michel writes on the subject:

When we started Gigantic we put a lot of effort into our design, literary aesthetic and concept and I think people took notice much more than they would have if we looked and read like every other magazine. Or look at how a simple yet unique concept made One Story instantly known in the lit world.

If a literary magazine is going to cost as much as a novel, it should feel as permanent. You should want to keep it on your shelf next to your other favorite books. How many magazines achieve that? There are a few that do (NOON, McSweeney’s, Tin House, A Public Space or Genoways’s own VQR are all good examples) but far too many magazines feel completely disposable. One issue isn’t distinguished from the next and one magazine isn’t distinguishable from another.

Sounds accurate to me, in that there are many magazines that are redundant and won’t be remembered. (Anyone have a copy of The Kingdom of Slender Swords around?) And Gigantic is publishing some interesting stuff. What I’m starting to wonder is: Why is this discussion sticking solely to fiction and nonfiction? What about poetry, graphic work, and so on? Or is poetry’s absence from the conversation an argument itself?

ii. For You People Behind the Curtain

If you haven’t yet heard about Submishmash, read this interview with Submishmash’s Michael Fitzgerald conducted by Adam Robinson of Publishing Genius. Adam uses Submishmash. So do we. Seems like many of these things (such as the One Story submission manager), only this one is, well—free. Here’s Fitzgerald on their mission:

Submishmash wants to save the entire industry time, money, and energy. If you think about it: if 100s of publishers use these tools, they will collectively save hundreds of thousands of hours and dollars. This will result in happier editors, writers, and readers. It will result in a better literature, thus richer lives. People can be as snarky as they want about this, but our ambition is to make a big difference, to help literature through cheap, simple, and smart tools.

(Where do I sign up, right?)

GOOD magazine reports on “A Magazine That’s Actually Growing.”

This article from Publishing Perspectives makes me contemplate how much literary magazine publishing should be involved with the empowering of the disenfranchised—or, as Joseph Conrad said, giving a voice to the voiceless.

How many literary magazines ever, in the past or the future—I mean ever — get digs like the new ones being built for staff of Poetry?

The 22,000-square-foot building being constructed at the intersection of Dearborn and Superior streets was designed by the Chicago firm John Ronan Architects. Visitors will enter the building by walking through a garden that is conceived of as an urban sanctuary, a space that, in the words of the architect, “mediates between the street and the building, blurring the hard distinctions between public and private.”

Finally, Jay Baron Nicorvo (the same one mentioned above) is leaving CLMP for other adventures. His constant help and insight will be missed by many in the small press world. (He helped me more than once at a variety of magazines.) So: Anyone up for taking on the role of Membership Director?

Every Tuesday, Travis Kurowski presents Luna Digest, a selection of news from the world of literary magazines. Travis is the editor of Luna Park, a magazine founded on the idea that journals are as deserving of critical attention as other artistic works.