By The Way...

Wednesday, July 12, 2006
4:04:00 PM EDT
Hearing Nothing at the moment
On our Wednesday author interviews, I've interviewed mostly novelists, so I thought it would be fun to change things up a bit and bring you a short story writer. The one I got: Alan DeNiro, whose debut collection of short stories, Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead, is garnering some serious acclaim, both for the book ("Refreshing, imaginative, funny-scary stuff" -- Booklist), and for DeNiro himself ("A writer to watch" -- Publisher's Weekly). Stick around until the end of the interview to find out how you can sample this book for free. Now, let's get to the questions.

1. Quick! Tell us a little about yourself and Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead.

I write fiction and poetry of the speculative and fantastic variety, live outside St. Paul, Minnesota, work as a proofreader at an ad agency, and have a great wife, Kristin Livdahl--we share a house with 3 cats and a Katrina refugee puppy. Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead is my first story collection--16 stories that mostly deal with ordinary (or odd) people in extraordinary, and at times absurd, situations. It's out from the fine folks at Small Beer Press.

2. This is a book of short stories. How do you decide which stories of yours to put in and which to leave out? Is it by which stories go well with the others? By word count? Simply by what stories you have available? Explain the process.

It's a little bit of a mix of different processes. The book kind of grew and took shape organically over the last couple of years, as I wrote new stories and became more "eh" about older stories (the oldest story in the collection is from 1998, so there are a few oldies for me in there). It's always been kind of a mutable document. If I was compiling the story collection RIGHT NOW, it would probably be a little different.

In choosing the stories in terms of similarities and differences, I wanted to strike a balance between having all of the stories have the same tone, theme, etc., and having them so wildly different that it never adds up to more than the sum of its parts. That's the hope, at least. I originally started writing poetry, and putting together a poetry collection can, well, be kind of a grueling process, since you're more likely to have poems all over the map.

3. The stories in this book have a number of fantastical elements. As you write, do you have to keep an eye on these elements? Can they overwhelm a story if you're not keeping them in line? Or is the idea that there some sort of "balance" between fantastical and mundane story elements a false proposition?

I think it's a false proposition because we live in such bizarre times. Everywhere you turn there's fantasy, or some kind of illusion. That is to say, our mundane existence might seem very fantastical to someone even 10 years ago. I think that's ALWAYS been the case, but perhaps it's kept accelerating. And this has as much to do with the fantasy as the science fiction that I write. People in the normal stream of life are interested in fantasy--even if they'd never admit it--so what happens when strange stuff begins happening to them?

In terms of keeping an eye out on the fantastic elements, I don't think there's any conscious effort on my part. It depends on the story. Sometimes the story calls for something really gonzo and over the top, and sometimes it's maybe just one or two fantastic elements. It's very, very rarely NONE though. I've started stories in which I've perfectly intended to write something "realistic" and then, well, all heck breaks loose.

4. Share a piece of writing advice that you have been given.

I don't know if this is writing advice as much as a useful writing metaphor, but Jonathan Lethem at my Clarion workshop talked to us about the "bannisters" of a story. That is to say, if you have narrow steps that your reader is going down, what kinds of handholds are you giving the reader as well? The trick with this is: there are an infinite types of banisters as well--they themselves can be very solid or slender. And some people, going down the steps, don't like to use bannisters at all. But they're there for the using, and allow there to be a kind of give and take with the reader as well, especially when the story itself takes risks.

5. Proposition: Writing short stories is easier than writing novels, because they're, well, shorter. Do you agree? Disagree? Think it depends?

It definitely is for me--they definitely access different parts of the brain. Novels have always been logisticallyhard for me. But then again, I have quite a few short stories that just...don't...work. I think retraining my brain to get into "novel mode" from "short story mode" was MUCH harder than transferring from "poetry mode" to "short story mode."

6. It sometimes seems that markets for short fiction are evaporating -- fewer mainstream magazines, for example, appear to accept fiction of any sort. In your experience, is today a precarious time for short fiction? Or are there signs of life, and if so, where can your average reader find them?

There's tons of places. Tons. Great short fiction is everywhere, especially with that...what do you call it? The Internet? Right, that thing. But also in all of these quirky, interesting zines and literary magazines that have sprung up all over the place. There are magazines like A Public Space and Land-Grant College Review and Black Clock and...well, tons more. It's actually a really exciting time for short fiction--it's just a different model than it was even 10 years ago.

The bigger question is: what kinds of short stories do we need in this present day and age? In what ways can they intersect with the greater culture at large? That's doesn't have a definitive answer yet, but the questions are certainly compelling.

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Now, here's that sample thing I was talking to you about: DeNiro's offering a "fun size" sampler of Skinny Dipping -- with about a third of the book in it -- and making it available in pdf form. Click here to download. Also check out DeNiro's own blog: Goblin Mercantile Exchange.


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This entry has 2 comments: (Add your own)

• #2 Comment from johnmscalziEntry Author 
  7/12/06 8:36 PM | Permalink

  I prefer e-mail; it allows the writer to answer at length and to say what he or she really wants to say.
• #1 Comment from monponsett 
  7/12/06 8:09 PM | Permalink

  I almost don't have to ask this, but do you send the writer email questions, or do you do it over the phone?