#40 Ben Tanzer

 

Twenty Questions with Mourning Goats

INTERVIEW FORTY

Ben Tanzer

 

Talk about an awesome guy! At this point, I'm not even sure how I heard about Ben, but as soon as I finished My Father's House, I knew that I found someone with some power. The book crushed me and I'm lucky enough to still have my father. It's coincidence that this weekend is Father's Day and we have someone that wrote such a powerful and poignant book about losing one. Read the interview and go get the books, it'll give you a better understanding of your own relationship. 

 

 1. What comes to mind when you hear, "Mourning Goats?"
 World peace of course. Diane Lane,because everything makes me think of her. And the latest fair-trade coffee from Intelligentsia. Well that, and farm death. Not the death of the farm mind you,which is sad, but watching farm animals drop off one by one from some mysterious alien virus. Sans the goats of course, they are immune, which is nice, but sad for them as well, because survivor guilt blows, hence the mourning.

2. My Father's House was ridiculously hard-hitting, how much of it was from your life?
The arc of the story, from the father's diagnosis to his death follows my experience of my own father's death,but the muck hanging from that arc, not so much my life at all, moments, and threads of moments, experiences twisted and molded into something else, but mostly my wondering about what coping and confusion done in a less than healthy fashion might look like.

3. What did you want to be when you grew up? Was it always a writer?
Nothing. It's embarrassing. When I was little I briefly wanted to be the letter C. And possibly an Olympic soccer player. But I never had any real aspirations to be anything and this lasted until after college. Now, with a little less fear and confusion back then, I might have told you I wanted to be a filmmaker, but that's about it, and that never seemed real or possible so I can't even say that definitively.

4. What's your process like? Are you an every day writer?
I try to write every day. I try to slot when I will write, days, even weeks, in advance and try to stick to that plan. I try not to be precious. There doesn't have to be a perfect spot or moment, if the slot arises I hit it. Thirty minutes minimum. No word count. No goals. No self-imposed deadlines, just be sure to do it, or try.

5. You're currently doing a little online book tour, how's it going so far?
This is stop number one and I think its going spectacularly, don't you? Of course I like being around attractive people, and you Goats have that attractive thing down in spades so thank you for that.

6. What do you think of the e-book revolution? Are you an e-reader?
As a writer I think it's fine,selling books is good, indie publisher's making money is killer, and wider audiences are great. But as a reader, no, never. I want to touch the cover and stroke the spine, feel the pages scrape along on my fingertips. And I'm not giving that up, I loved to read, and I loved books as early as I loved anything besides Star Wars and Johnny Cash, and I am holding on to that.

7. You recently read at the KGB Bar in NYC, how did it go? What's it like reading at such a huge literary place?
I think it went really well. At a place like that I get especially focused and geared-up. It feels like a playoff game, or a big date, and it calls for a performance, not just a reading, which is something I am conscious of gunning for everywhere anyway,but especially there. I also want to have fun, always, and again especially there, it is a mecca of sorts, and that needs to be reveled-in.

8. I saw that your book Lucky Man was recently reissued, how does that happen?
How does that happen indeed? In this case, and maybe it’s always this way, some new publisher who digs you wants to recognize something from your past and help try to make more people dig you.And this is what happened with Lucky Man. Artistically Declined, the publisher behind You Can Make Him Like You wanted to do a new imprint that would celebrate authors who are somewhere mid-career and highlight them in some way. When they noticed Lucky Man's fifth anniversary was upon us, they asked if they could kick-off the imprint with the Lucky Man, I said, of yes, please, and here we are.

9. What's the deal with TBWCYL, Inc.?
What isn't the deal brother? No, so,TBWCYL, Inc. is my fake media empire and it is modeled on the Monorail episode of The Simpsons. It was created as a means for developing a series of platforms that would further allow me to hype my otherwise mostly obscure books as products that just might change your life, and hype authors and indie and pop culture anything that I love, which is both fun, and in turn further draws attention to my products. It is also not so fake anymore with the Zine and Podcast series, and who knows, when my denim and perfume lines finally come together, it may not be fake at all, but an actual lifestyle site.  

10. Who are you reading now that's knocking you on your ass?
There are a lot of these folks for sure, and I will leave some out, but most recently Paula Bomer, Baby has actually made me hate some other more nebulous, and possibly not real, writers for even getting in my brain and trying to compete with her. Scott McClanahan, maybe not so original anymore, but the brother has a real gift. Tom Williams,total craftsmen. Mary Miller, less recently, but, wow, yes. David Tomaloff, kicking poetry ass. Mark Brand Science Fiction love, his most recent Damnation of Memory is the goods. And Barry Graham, overlord of all things tacos and prostitutes.

11. Do you have an agent? If so, do you think they're necessary?
I do not. And I do I think it's necessary to some extent. To quote yet again the writer Michael FitzGerald, agents bring heft to the table, and heft means more attention, selling foreign rights, all of that, and that is good. Or so I hear.

12. Who's your first reader?
You mean after Tim Tebow? Might be my mom or wife or younger brother, though book to book I may ask differently writerly types to read something because I think they will have something to say about a particular book. Pete Anderson for example who's a local writer I'm friends with and who I work with on the Zine. I have asked him before and he's very good. And handsome. Which is a bonus. I also have a friend named Adam Lawrence who I've known since elementary school that also works on the Zine with us and he gets every nearly final DRAFT because I consider his reading them to be a source of good luck.

13. You've worked with quite a few publishers, how have they all been? Is there a favorite?
What's next, should I tell you who my favorite member of the X-Men is, well, its Wolverine, or the Knicks maybe,Patrick Ewing of course, because I won't, normally, but overall all of the publishers been great to work with for different reasons. All have different strengths and interests. Jason Pettus and CCLaP with his e-genius, Ryan Bradley and Artistically Declined with his mad Chip Kiddian skills, Jason Behrends and Orange Alert, with his insane indie network cred. So all good, really, though ultimately my favorite is clear of course, whoever publishes me next and gets my book optioned and introduces me to Diane Lane, that's my favorite.

14. What do you do when you're not writing? Do you have another job?
My friend Jason Fisk will tell you that you're never not writing, because you're always thinking about it. I'm not sure I agree, but I do have a job, 9-5, all that, I am the Senior Director of Strategic Communications for the national office of a nonprofit. Sexy right? I parent and husband. Poorly. I run. Slowly. I watch Game of Thrones.Intensely. I read. A lot, and everything I can. I play Wii tennis and golf. Pretty well to be honest. I work on the Zine. Lovingly. And I hug people often.And fiercely.

15. What do you think about MFA's? Are they necessary, needed, a waste?
Do you mean Medical Financial Advisory Services or Mathematics Formative Assessment Systems? Both are great for writers. There is also a Master of Fine Arts I guess, and to be honest I don't know much about them, I have an MSW. ButI do know two things, one, the young writers I know and who I knew both prior to attending an MFA program and after, are all better writers, no doubt, more refined, and mature, and two, going to an MFA program, provides you with a network, people who will publish you, support your work, invite you to readings, and on an on, and this can't be minimized, building networks is doable, being handed one to nurture, awesome.

16. You started writing pretty late,how did that happen?
Senior year in high school I took a required creative writing class. I mostly blew it off, but the two pieces I was especially inspired by, got a lot of attention, and I always wondered if there was something there, but mostly ignored the feeling. The summer after college I started thinking about writing a lot, but didn't get started for another ten years. I thought about it all the time though. Jotted down lists of story ideas and even had one story basically written in my head for years about a guy leaving his wife. Right before my thirtieth birthday I started worrying about how outside of work and marriage what did I have, nothing really, and nothing that excite me, and the idea of writing became more obsessional. One night a friend called us to say she was thinking of leaving her husband. Bags packed. All of it. I got so worked-up I wrote the story I had been carrying around in my head, in one sitting, just an outpouring, and when I was done, I had a story, an actual story, and I never looked back.

17. Can you tell us about the new piece? May The Force Be With You?
I can and will. Several years ago I wrote a piece titled "I Am Richard Simmons" that ended-up with ml press. It was a flash monologue, written as a humor piece, with the humor mostly stripped away. It was my attempt to get into the head of Richard Simmons. Later I thought it would be fun to write a series of pieces in that vein, monologues about semi-obscure, once famous, pop culture figures who we perceive as tortured, but really know very little about.I sat on this for awhile, and then recently I thought about my idea for that series, and started brainstorming characters who I thought might fit this mode. Darth Vader hit me as a good choice for bringing some humor to this project,but also as a character who might be tortured in ways we haven't thought about, as a parent, as someone aging, and as someone no one cares about anymore because the world has moved on.  

18. Do you think that social media is now a needed piece of a writer's life?
I think Diane Lane is. This writer anyway. It depends what your goals are though and what you find entertaining. I find social media entertaining, but I also consider it a necessity, because there are a lot of indie writers out there, and a lot of books, and you have to rise above the clutter. I don't skill alone will can get you there, and why chance that anyway.

19. If any of your kids said they wanted to be writers, what would you say?
I'd say go forth and prosper. Frankly, what's most important is that they move out. That and finding things they enjoy and can obsess about in mostly healthy ways. I have many of those things. Writing especially. And if writing, the act of it anyway, brings them the kind of pleasure it brings me, then, yes, go,write, now.  And move out.

20. What's next for Ben Tanzer?
Pursuing world peace. And Diane Lane. I also just might have a new novel coming out next spring, and one side may have signed a contract, and that may be all I should say for now, well that, and thanks for this Goat, you're beautiful.

 

Thank you!

Goat

 

 

#39 Jason Starr

Twenty Questions with Mourning Goats

INTERVIEW THIRTY NINE

Jason Starr

Let's just be honest, Jason is the man! He's an author out of NYC, he was just featured in Penthouse, and Bret Easton Ellis is adapting The Follower for television. His new novel, The Craving, will be released in 5 short days, so after you're done reading this, go out and order it! 

1. What comes to mind when you hear, "Mourning Goats?"

I imagine that a wolf came down from the mountains and killed all the goats. Well, except two of them, and now they are the last goats in existence, mourning the loss of the other goats.

2. You just finished up The Craving, in December, how did that go? What can you tell us about it? 

It's a sequel to The Pack, that involves most of the characters from The Pack and some new ones. I think it's probably the most entertaining book I've written and I get more into the whole "genesis" of the pack. You don't have to read the books in order but it's better if you read The Pack first. The premium mass market edition of The Pack is out in May in the U.S., and The Craving is out in June. Both books will be published in the U.K. as well by Penguin U.K.

3. What's going on with David Fincher and Panic Attack? 

It's in development with Ted Griffin (Ocean's Eleven) attached to adapt. That's all I can really say about it at the moment.

4. It looks like you have some touring coming up in Manhattan, San Diego, and Missouri, do you enjoy it? Any interesting tour stories?  

Well, I live in Manhattan, and I was in St. Louis recently for a conference and was at comic con in San Diego. I guess the highlight of St. Louis was winning an Anthony Award for The Chill. The highlight of San Diego was probably hanging out with George R.R. Martin. 

5. There's a picture of you and Susan Lucci on your Facebook page, I have to ask...why? 

It was taken at a wax museum, brother.

6. You live in the center of the publishing world, New York City, do you think that has an effect on your success? 

No, none at all. A writer does not have to be in Manhattan; I don't think that helps at all. But New York City is--and probably always will be--a major character in my writing, so in that sense it has had an effect.

7. How has it been publishing with Penguin? What's the best part about the organization?

Penguin has published The Pack and will publish The Craving. Love all the people there.

8. What kind of writing schedule do you have? Are you an every day writer?

Yes, I write every day, at least a few hours a day. I try to get a certain amount of words done every day.

9. It looks like you're a big runner, is this a time you think about your work or do you try to just disappear into the run? 

I run in Central Park. No I always think about my work in progress while running. I don't set out to think about it, but somehow when my brain relaxes I start thinking about my book and I can see the plot more clearly. I get my best ideas while running, or during any physical activity.

10. You were recently in Penthouse. You can tell us why, or just leave it at that, because, honestly, that's awesome!

The Max (one of the books I co-wrote with the amazing Ken Bruen) was featured in Penthouse. Gave me a good excuse to keep a copy lying around my apartment.

11. What's it like co-writing books with Irish novelist, Ken Bruen? 

A blast, just basically non-stop fun. We're both amazed we've actually written 3 books together, because it didn't seem like work at all. It's like we were hanging out laughing at a bar, having a few pints, and then, boom, somehow three books wound up written. That's really the only way I can describe the experience.

12. I see that your father writes for Salon, what's it like having a father in the industry? 

My father, Bernard Starr, has written many non-fiction books on psychology and yeah, now he writes for The Huffington Post, Salon etc. Growing up, I was well aware of many of his experiences with publishing, but it's a different type of writing.

13. You've been published both in the U.S. and across the world, what do you see the biggest differences are when your book is published elsewhere?

The books are received differently in different countries, which is always fascinating for me. The German and French readers in particular really seem to "get" my books, which is great.

14. What's your take on the digital publishing revolution that is currently happening? Do you think it will help or harm fiction?

I don't know if anyone can answer that question right now, but I do think it's going to change fiction. I think e-books will favor a particular type of fiction (literary novels may have a tougher time finding audiences with less hand selling from booksellers), and it may have an effect on the form of the novel itself. That's what some people don't get, and why I think e-books are different the e delivery of film and music. I think a lot of literary writers might gravitate toward TV, film and perhaps other mediums that haven't been invented yet...But I am very bullish on storytelling. Humans will always want great stories--but the form and delivery is going to change.

15. Why does genre fiction get such a bad rep in literary circles?

I think the whole concept of literary circles is just so silly and self-important and ivory tower. In actuality there is no genre fiction or literary fiction---there is just good fiction and bad fiction.

16. Do you think your masters degree in playwriting has helped you in your fiction writing?

No, not the degree, but writing plays early on definitely helped. I learned, via my own experiences, how to build tension in a scene and move a story forward with dialogue--all hugely important in thrillers and crime fiction.

17. How excited are you about Bret Easton Ellis adapting The Follower, for television?

Very excited. I can't say anything more right now, but there should be a lot more news about this in the very near future.

18. You write novels, graphic novels, short stories, non-fiction, and comics; which is your favorite? Why?

I enjoy fiction much more than non-fiction. So novels and comics, for sure. Comics is a great break from writing fiction, and I love the collaboration. There is nothing like getting immersed in a novel, though.

19. You're coming up on 15 years since publishing Cold Caller in 1997, what's one of the biggest things you've learned since breaking into the industry?

Yikes, 15 years. I think I've learned that to last in this business you have to keep doing different things. It's really hard (though not impossible)these days to have one major character and build a career based on that character.

20. What's next for Jason Starr?

I am working on a new thriller that is not related to The Pack novels. That's all I'm really working on at the moment. I'm also probably going to be working on a new screenwriting project, so watch out for news about that!

Thank you!

Goat

#38 Matt Ruff

20 Questions with Mourning Goats

INTERVIEW THIRTY EIGHT

Matt Ruff

Matt is a New York City born author with five novels currently out. His newest, The Mirage, was published in February and has sparked quite a discussion. He gave us a fantastic interview and I can't thank him enough for taking time to talk to the Goat! Enjoy his answers and go pick up one of his books!

1. What comes to mind when you hear, "Mourning Goats?"

Breakfast.

2. I've heard of knowing that you wanted to be a writer early in life, but five years old is pretty young! What made you interested so early?

Just the way I’m wired, I guess. It’s something I always wanted to do.

3. On your site, bymattruff.com, you have a section of "Unpublished works and ephemera. I've never seen this on another site, why do you think it's important to show your fans this unpublished material? 

I don’t know if I’d call it important, I just think it’s cool to have a little archive showing some of the stuff I did while I was teaching myself how to tell stories.

4. You have a book tour of about 20 stops for your new book, Mirage, do you enjoy touring? Favorite part?

I do enjoy it. Writing is such a solitary activity, so it’s nice to go out—briefly—and see how people respond to what I’ve been working on for the past few years.

5. Mirage has some pretty touchy material in it, do you think you could have published this book five years ago?

Well, I first pitched The Mirage to HarperCollins almost 5 years ago, and they were as supportive of the idea then as they are now, so yeah, if the novel had been finished back then, I think they would have published it. I suppose the public reception of the book, at a time when the Iraq War was still going on, might have been a bit more heated.

6. Your next book Lovecraft Country, sounds epic, can you tell our readers a little bit about it?

It’s a historical horror novel set in the Jim Crow era. The protagonist is an African-American travel writer (and pulp-fiction geek) who drives around the country reviewing hotels and restaurants that accept black customers. Along the way, he has various adventures, some involving supernatural threats, others featuring more mundane dangers. 

7. I love the way you look at things from completely different angles than the rest of the world. Has this always been the way you write? 

Yeah, that’s one of my signature themes. I like finding unusual perspectives or connections that other people don’t notice, and I like looking at the world through different sets of eyes.

8. I feel like a lot of writers head to or are from the North West, what is the big pull? 

My wife and I wanted to be in a part of the country with four seasons but mild winters. And Seattle’s just a great place to live—it’s got some growing pains, but it manages to combine a lot of what you’d want from a large metropolis with the charm of a much smaller city.

9. How is music important to your writing process? I heard during Bad Monkeys you had a soundtrack?

On my website I have “soundtracks” for all my novels—lists of the songs and artists I was most obsessed with at the time I was working on each book. I do often listen to music while I’m writing, but the lists are less about process than about marking a particular cultural moment, the same way everyone associates events in their lives with songs that were popular at the time.

10. You've said in a few interviews that you may even be more popular in Germany. What's it like meeting fans that read your translated work? Do you think it reads the same way as you wrote it in English?

Since I don’t read German I can’t judge the quality of the translations, which is probably just as well—I worry enough about the original versions. But it’s always interesting to meet fans from other countries. Germans in general seem to “get” me—they share my sense of humor, they like the way I play with ideas—which I guess makes sense, since my ancestry is German.

11. After college, you said that you had to either get a job or get established as a writer, was there ever another option for you?

No, I never had a fallback plan, which seems crazy to me now. But when you’re young, it’s easy to assume that things will just work out somehow, and I was lucky that in my case it happened to be true.

12. You have a lesbian vampire book somewhere, in a drawer, will it ever see the light of day? 

Not in its current, quarter-century-old unedited manuscript form, no. It’s vaguely possible I might try resurrecting it as a screenplay someday, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on that.

13. Your wife, Lisa, is a researcher and rare-book expert, does she ever have input on your books? 

Lisa’s the first person to read my manuscripts, though I generally don’t show them even to her until they’re done, or almost done. During editing and copyediting, I definitely do ask her opinion about stuff. And of course she’s very handy at tracking down information for me.

14. What's it like having a book optioned for a TV series?

It’s exciting, but the reason it’s called an “option” is that it’s only the first step in a long process that may or may not result in an actual TV show. So it’s kind of like buying a Powerball ticket where you know the first three numbers are a match, but the rest of the drawing stretches out over months or even years.

15. Another Mourning Goats interviewee, Christopher Moore, wrote the blurb, "Read it, memorize then destroy it. There are eyes everywhere." What involvement do you have in getting blurbs? Did you know Chris beforehand? 

Blurbs are another lottery-like activity. You make up a wish list of authors you think might like your book—and whose opinion might sway readers—and then the publishing house tries to get manuscripts to them. In most cases, you never hear back, because of course the people on your list tend to be deluged with blurb requests, but once in a while you get lucky. That happened for me with Neal Stephenson, who agreed to blurb Sewer, Gas & Electric, and it happened with Chris Moore and Bad Monkeys. I didn’t know Chris beforehand, and in fact he wasn’t even on my list, but someone at HarperCollins—my editor, probably—thought he’d be into it and sent him a copy. Fortunately for me.

16. What have you noticed the biggest differences between publishers has been, for you? 

The biggest difference is probably size. Grove Atlantic, which did my first two novels, is this scrappy independent publishing house. HarperCollins is part of a media empire, so it’s got more money and more muscle—plus there’s the whole blood oath to Rupert Murdoch business, which I can’t really talk about.

17. Which of your books is your favorite? Why? 

I’d say it’s a tossup between The Mirage and Set This House in Order. You’re always biased towards your most recent novel because that’s the one you’ve been focused on for the past few years, but I think those two books represent my best work so far.

18. How much are you involved in the publicity of your books?

Very involved. It’s probably the closest thing to a second job I’ll ever have, especially now, with a new book just out. I’ve got a great publicist at HarperCollins, Heather Drucker, who does the heavy lifting in terms of logistics and pitching to reviewers and interviewers. My job is to help her figure out which types of publicity events make sense, and then to go out and actually do the events and make sure her efforts pay off.

19. It usually takes you a few years to write a novel, what is your writing schedule like? Do you write every day? 

When I am writing, I try to write every day, yeah. I’m most productive in the morning, so I’ll usually get up around 4 or 5, write until breakfast, and then take a second shot afterwards. By noon, I’m pretty much done for the day.

20. What's next for Matt Ruff?

Deciding whether Lovecraft Country is really my next novel. I’m definitely going to write it, but it’s going to be a big book, so I’m wondering whether I shouldn’t try to come up with a more modest, Bad Monkeys-sized project to work on first, while I’m doing the research for Lovecraft Country. We’ll see.

Thank you!

Goat

#37 Nick Flynn

20 Questions with Mourning Goats

INTERVIEW THIRTY SEVEN

Nick Flynn

When I was asking people who I should interview for the site, Monica Drake recommended Nick Flynn. After doing some research, I saw that he was friends with a lot of other Mourning Goats interviewees and his book, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City was being made into a movie. Here are his answers the the twenty questions.

1. What comes to mind when you hear, "Mourning Goats?"

I confuse it with the band, Mountain Goats.

2. What did you say when you heard about the big names that were going to be in Being Flynn, the movie adaptation of your book, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City?

It was a long road to the film being made, so I was able to feel many things along the way. De Niro was the first actor attached to the film, and what I said when the idea was floated was, “perfect.”

3. Do you think that being a poet first makes you choose your words more carefully as a memoirist?

Do you mean more carefully than other memoirists or more carefully than myself? I assume all writers chose their words carefully, or else they might not be writers—they might be something else.

4. Do you still teach in Houston? What did you teach?

Poetry, creative non-fiction, collaboration…

5. You're going to be touring a good bit in 2012, do you enjoy it?

I enjoy being on airplanes, it’s just hard sometimes to get to the airport.

6. How did you get away with having Bullshit in one of your titles? Did your publishers push for another name?

Norton was 100% behind the title from the beginning, I have no idea why— maybe because it is a good title?

7. You were a Guggenheim Fellow in 2001, what did this mean to your career?

Career? It sounds like you think poets have careers.

8. Mourning Goats first interviewee, Stephen Elliott, said that Another Bullshit Night in Suck City was "a near-perfect work of literature" how do you take a compliment like that?

I made Stephen my best friend.

9. You've done poetry, a play, and memoirs, have you thought about writing any fiction?

The play is in the realm of fiction, I’d say.

10. What made you land in Brooklyn? It seems as though you've been all over the world.

You have to be based somewhere, and Brooklyn is a good base. I tried to west coast—seattle, Portland, san Francisco—but it was the wrong ocean.

11. You were on set for Being Flynn, did you get to offer any input into the film, or did you step back from it?

I saw my role on set to get the physics of life in a shelter right, and to attempt to avoid portraying the homeless in a stereotypical way—I’m actually coming to hate the word “homeless’” which has become utterly contaminated by stereotypes, perhaps irrevocably.

12. Did seeing such success with Another Bullshit Night in Suck City change anything? Time to write? How you write? Etc.?

When the book came out I had much less time to write, for a year or so. But I knew that wouldn't last.

13. What do you think an MFA does for someone's writing career? Or what do you think it should do?

Career? The day I start talking to young poets about their careers is the day I will stop teaching.

14. I heard that a piece you wrote for the New Yorker was highly edited, does it still feel like your piece or is it theirs at that point?

It becomes a collaboration of sorts.

15. What can you tell us about being in Africa for Darwin's Nightmare? Was it what you expected?

Africa is a big place, we were in one town on the shore of lake victoria, and from that tiny experience I had I’d say one learns very little of Africa from reading newspapers.

16. Has becoming a father changed the way you see things? Your writing?

Becoming a father has changed everything.

17. Was publishing through Graywolf much different than publishing through Norton? How?

Not really.

18. Do you think that social media is changing how books are sold and marketed? Have you noticed things changing since you started?

I should probably pay more attention to that.

19. What are you most proud of in your writing career at this point?

Again with the career? I'm not a fucken lawyer. I'm sorry, I just can't quite line up what I think of as writing with the word "career". No one I know chose to be a poet, it was more a process of elimination.

20. What's coming up next for Nick Flynn?

I’m working on a book about making suck city into a film, called The Reenactments, coming out in January from Norton.

Thank you!

Goat

And finally, don't forget to "like" Mourning Goats on Facebook and pick up Chewing the Page: The Mourning Goats Interviews on Amazon! 

#36 Brian Evenson

20 Questions with Mourning Goats

INTERVIEW THIRTY SIX

Brian Evenson

Brian was recommended to me from a friend and I am super happy that I had the chance to talk to him. He's written for the Alien franchise, his novel Last Days won the award for best horror novel of 2009 from the American Library Association, and his girlfriend works at Alatraz! He's an amazing guy and gave us a great interview. Go read the interview and then pick up his new book, Immobility, which came out a few days ago (4/10/12)!

1. What comes to mind when you hear, "Mourning Goats?"

I'm walking down a dirt road and passing a fenced sward in which three goats are gnawing the bark off the fence posts. When they notice me, they straighten up. "Good morning, Brian," the goats say to me. I tip my hat and return the greeting: "Morning, goats."

2. Your work is pretty dark, does that kind of material come easy for you, or is it just as hard to write as it is to read?

It can be tough to write, but I think that dark, difficult situations often reveal things both about language and about human nature that are harder to see in less troubling settings. When writing something I do sometimes get caught up enough in the language that I eventually forget how dark the content is, until I'm reminded by reading it aloud or because someone points it out to me (by asking me, for instance, "What the hell's wrong with you?"). But I do think that part of that forgetting is due to the way we use language to sort through and surmount difficulty, that language is a key tool for trying to navigate, survive, and shape the world.

3. On your Facebook page the first two things that intrigued me were "Ex-Mormon" and "Anarcho-nihilist, what do those two words mean for you?

Ex-Mormon means I'm an excommunicated Mormon, with my name stricken from the records of the Mormon Church. "Anarcho-nihilist" means I was probably tired and a little bit grumpy the day I filled out my Facebook profile.

4. You spoke in one interview that you can speak French, Spanish, and English. Do you think that knowing more languages helps your understanding and use of the language you write in?

I used to be good enough with Spanish that I reviewed a few books and did some translating, but I've let it slide over the last few years. My French I've kept up, and I read and translate it pretty regularly. Yes, I think it's been incredibly useful in terms of how I think about English, but also how I think about writing. French allows me a range of possibilities that might not come readily in English, and it also gives me a place I can stand so as to look at English differently, as if it were a foreign language. My knowledge of French defamiliarizes English for me and makes it seem fresh.

5. Most of your books are on Kindle, what do you think about literature going electronic?

I'm not opposed. I don't think I'm likely ever to switch over completely since I do like the smell and feel of books, but I do have an iPad. I find I read books on it a lot when I travel but not that often at other times (unless I find something that I want to read in that format for a fraction of the price of a print book).

6. What do you think the biggest difference is when you publish hardcover, paperback, and mass market paperback, since you've done them all?

I think there's probably a different audience that gravitates toward different formats. The nice thing about hardcover is that a paperback can follow, so often there's a built-in second life. But also hardbacks look nice, have a sense of heft and solidity to them, and often garner reviews in venues that ignore paperbacks. Trade paperbacks have a nice feel to them: I think I prefer to reading them to heavier hardbacks, particularly if a book is large. And often, at least for some kinds of books, the trade paperback is followed later by a mass market paperback. Mass market paperbacks are great for disposable reads--you can take them to the beach and get sand in them without worrying about them. Ideally, it'd be nice for a book to appear in all three.

7. Your book, Baby Leg, appeared at the beginning of Mourir Aupres de Toi, a Spike Jonze film, how does something like that happen?

I haven't the faintest idea. Giancarlo DiTrapano, the mind behind New York Tyrant and the publisher of Baby Leg, noticed that moment early in the Spike Jonze film, but I really don't know how it happened. Either it was just blind luck or Jonze or one of his crew moved the book into the shot. If I knew how it happened, I'd try to make it happen again.

8. On multiple sites people refer to you as a prolific writer, what drives you to always be writing? What pushes you?

I think someone started saying that and then all sorts of people picked it up. I do write a lot but I'm not absurdly prolific, I don't think. Lots of people publish more books, and much longer books, than I do. But I do like to write and I find a real satisfaction in constructing realities with language--there's nothing quite like it.

9. What was it like getting the fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts so early in your career? Did it change everything?

It came at a very important time for me, just after I'd run into all sorts of problems at Brigham Young University over my first book, Altmann's Tongue, and after they'd told me that I could stay at BYU only if I promised never to write another book like it. I was raising a young family. I was dirt poor, trying to support four on a salary of $28,000 a year and was driving a car with the floor rusted out and 300,000 miles on it. I used the money to buy a new (well, only slightly used) car and pay some bills. But it was more than just the money. I needed the encouragement that the NEA offered to be able to take the risk of giving up my job and moving elsewhere, starting fresh and continuing to explore my writing. I don't think that I'd have ended up where I am now if I hadn't gotten the NEA. I've always been extremely grateful for it.

10. Your new book, Immobility, came out a few days ago, what was your favorite part about writing this one?

The book is set in a devastated version of Utah, sometime in the future, along the path from Provo to the Salt Lake Valley. The funnest part of it was looking at the route on Google maps and basically destroying things along the way, spending time thinking about what they might look like after having been through some sort of apocalyptic event and being left to sit for years. There were also two characters, named Qatik and Qanik, who are versions of one another and who I loved writing.

11. Did I read that your girlfriend is a volunteer at Alcatraz? How awesome is that? Does she have any stories? Any of your own?

Yes, my girlfriend Kristen Tracy is a volunteer gardener on Alcatraz and is helping to restore the gardens there. She's fabulous. She's got lots of terrific Alcatraz stories, but since she's a writer herself (both a poet and a teen novelist) I'll let her tell them herself. Where I've benefitted is that she has access to places that normally you can't go on Alcatraz, so I've been able to do things like explore the basement and former moat, see the laundry and the prison hospital, go down the tunnel, etc. (there are a couple of pictures of those spaces on my Facebook page).

12. You won the O. Henry Award for "Two Brothers," what was that like? How did it happen?

Ben Marcus very kindly accepted that story for a little magazine called The Dominion Review and I think we were both a little surprised that it was something the O. Henry people found and liked. I think I ended up getting a call from Larry Dark saying that they wanted to published it for the O. Henry anthology and that was how I found out I'd won. That's probably my best known story since it was reprinted in the Anchor Book of New American Short Stories, something I'm also very grateful to Ben for, and it remains a favorite story of mine. That was the first of three O. Henry Awards I've had, the other two for "Mudder Tongue" and "Windeye."

13. Do you think you would have eventually turned to writing if your mother never had any short stories published?

I think probably I would have. It just would have taken much longer. But maybe I'd have become a paleontologist, which is what I wanted to be when I was six.

14. You were in the Velvet Anthology, Warmed and Bound, with a lot of Mourning Goat interviewee's, how did you get involved?

Caleb Ross solicited me and kept at me until he got something. He was very encouraging, very helpful, and very persistent. I knew the work of a lot of the writers involved and felt like it was good company, and was very glad to see the anthology introduced by Steve Erickson, a writer I greatly admire. It was a fun, worthwhile project.

15. The Last Days, limited editions are gorgeous, how did this come about?

It was something that Victoria Blake, the publisher at Underland, wanted to do and that I was very happy she did. Yes, I think it came out really well. She's got a good eye and a good attention for detail.

16. You've said that you have a different view on your own work published under different names (B.K.Evenson, Bjorn Verenson, etc.), what did you mean by that?

I think a kind of personality goes with each of those names, and with the name Brian Evenson as well. They're all related, of course--B. K. Evenson and Brian Evenson more closely to one another than to Bjorn Verenson--but for me there's a little bit different feel to each name. B. K. Evenson is more deeply and unrepentantly invested in video games than Brian Evenson, though they both learn from one another and Brian Evenson is coming around. B. K. Evenson can co-write a novel with Rob Zombie; Brian Evenson can only dream of doing that. Bjorn Verenson, on the other hand, is a little bit more obviously nuts and that can show sometimes (for instance his letter in Birkensnake #1).

17. You teach at Brown University, what are your favorite things to discuss in your classes? Do you have a favorite story or author that you really enjoy focusing on?

I often like to read books that I haven't read before in my classes, but there are a few people that I constantly return to. One is Muriel Spark. I think she's a terrific writer, and not nearly as well known in this country as she should be. I'm teaching The Driver's Seat this semester. Samuel Beckett is another person I return to, particularly Molloy, and Thomas Bernhard. Peter Straub's "Bunny is Good Bread" I love to teach because I think it turns what people think they know about genre on its head--his recent "The Ballad of Ballard and Sondrine" does great things with reality and perception as well. Kafka I teach often too, especially "A Country Doctor", and Henry James, whose short stories I think are incomparable. There are lots of others.

18. Since your work crosses a lot of borders, do you see a lot of different types of readers at your readings?

Yes, I do. I like thinking of the fiction as somewhere that different sorts of people can meet, and like that a lot when it happens physically as well.

19. You're a relatively new user to Facebook, how do you think social media is changing writing and communication? Do you think it's helping or harming?

I guess that my answer would be the same as above. I like the way it allows for interactions that I might not have otherwise. It's a very surface-y interaction, but with curious moments that dive below that, and I like in particular the way sometimes I can find out something really interesting about someone I thought I knew that I might not have learned from face-to-face interaction. There are weird aspects of that, of course--the strangeness for instance of having someone post your grade school class photo to your page where it can be seen by colleagues, friends, and just about everybody. An ex-girlfriend of mine often worried about that mixture of worlds, but I've come to think of it as not controllable and actually kind of interesting and dynamic: what kind of person do I perform when I'm posting something that can be seen by my daughters, some of my colleagues, writers I admire, my former students, old friends from high school, all at once? It's like: How do I act at a party when both my church friends and the friends that I do drugs with show up? The answer is, I guess, you make a choice about who you are and you kind of have to stick by it. Either that, or you limit your page and who can see what, which seems to me a much less interesting solution.

20. What's next for Brian Evenson?

B. K. Evenson's got the project he's writing with Rob Zombie coming out sometime late in 2012. For Brian Evenson, I'm not sure: am spending time reading and thinking and trying to decide where I'm going next. Last year was a tough year: went through a very difficult lung collapse, broke up with my then-girlfriend, death in the family, and so on. This year has been great--wonderful new girlfriend, healthy lungs--but I still feel like I'm regrouping, trying to get my bearings on where my writing's going to go next.

Thank you!

Goat