An Interview with Marc Dickinson

 

September brings UNI English alumni Marc Dickinson back to the Cedar Valley. Dickinson is the author of the new short story collection, Replacement Parts (Atmosphere Press). A UNI English alumni, he teaches creative writing at Des Moines Area Community College and coordinates the Celebration of the Literary Arts reading series.

The Final Thursday Reading Series takes place on September 26 at the Hearst Center for the Arts in Cedar Falls, Iowa. There will be an open mic at 7:00 p.m. (bring your best five minutes of original creative writing). Marc Dickinson takes the stage at 7:30. The featured reading will also be simulcast on Zoom. Click HERE to register for a link.

Interview by Grant Tracey.

GRANT TRACEY: Love the new book, by the way, the grime and grit of hard scrabble, working people in small Iowa towns along Highway 20. I wonder if you might comment on what town(s) triggered your versions of “Dexton” and “Bridger” and how these settings fire up your artistic imagination?
MARC DICKINSON: The setting is definitely a character in the book, informing the lives of its inhabitants. The fictional town of Dexton is a conflation of several small places in Iowa, but it was particularly influenced by my first teaching position in town whose factory—and main employer—had been shut down. Many laid-off employees came back to college and were in my classroom, and these ex-assembly-line workers—who were replaced by exported labor, who could’ve been bitter about the raw deal—were the most inspiring students I’ve ever had the privilege to teach. They taught me so much through their stories they graciously shared with me. 

But the town was hit, economically, which inspired the fictional town of Bridger—a neighboring town with a similar status, until a new highway is built—and all the money, infrastructure, and jobs funnel from Dexton to Bridger. It’s a common kind of rural gentrification, wherein a seemingly small town gets absorbed by urban sprawl. A place that once had a single gas station becomes an affluent city that no native citizen can afford—while other small towns bear the brunt of being left behind. 

GT: I’ve known you for over twenty years. You’re a well-read, articulate man. A champion of the humanities and profoundly aware of the human condition. But, what I admire about your characters is the dignity with which you present vulnerable, somewhat lost souls. What is it that compels you to tell the stories of those who can’t fully understand or act upon the forces that shape their lives?
MD: Once again, it’s partly due to my experience teaching with working class students, a community that often gets overlooked, made to felt replaceable/expendable—or they’re turned into stereotypes. But all I saw was some of the best of humanity in them. Despite hardships, they never saw themselves as victims. Yet, whenever I read about “lost souls,” especially in blue collar culture, they’re often presented as angry, ignorant, or even extremist. 

 

So, the goal in all my writing, but especially marginalized communities such as the working class, is to simply present them as people who suffer and struggle the same as anyone. Who have the same existential questions we all share. Maybe they don’t always have access to the language that can articulate these complex issues, and as a result their trauma may express itself in unforeseen ways, but I try to always honor the rich interior life of all—at all times. 

 

GT: Heath, the county sheriff in “Jurisdiction” says, “Doing the job, I’ve learned not to judge people too fast. They may just surprise you.” This edict could stand in for all your stories which, in some ways echo Grace Paley’s open destiny of life or “enormous changes at the last minute.” Several of your endings are truly surprising and full of little miracles. I have the feeling that you are as surprised as we are when we reach these dramatic turns. I’m thinking of the stunning endings to “Smoked” and “Vanishing Points.” Perhaps you could comment on this and suggest what young writers should look for in an ending that works. 

MD: Endings are tough because it’s the one thing you can’t teach yourself beforehand—only the story itself can tell you where it ends. I know writers who know the ending before they write the first word—but they always admit that just because they know the action, or line, or image they want to end on, they have to write the story to understand what it means. I’m on the other end—I have no idea where I’m going when I start, so it takes forever to find the ending. Yes, surprise is key, but it also goes back to that old line about endings have to be “unexpected yet feel inevitable.” Which really requires you to listen to your story, allow it to teach you what it wants to say, and the only way to do this is through (tons of) revision. 

Also, we often talk about change or transformation when it comes to a character’s climax. And I think that is necessary—everything should head toward change since it’s what gives the story its stakes. But how this manifests itself is complicated. I tell my students to think more along the lines of turn or shift, as opposed to change—a word that’s always too big to hold onto when drafting. And sometimes what manifests is no change at all—but this can be equally unexpected, full of an urgency that can feel transformative in its own way.

GT: I’m impressed with the authentic inner lives of your stories: from the sensibilities of army veterans and reflections on their time in the Suck to an old man working an assembly line to adolescents holed up in a group home to a county sheriff working the first watch in a small town. Tell us a bit about your research process.
MD: I love research, but it’s also dangerous because not everything can go in the story—otherwise it’ll feel like a Wikipedia page. I have to have a bit of a blind spot when I do formal research—I want information but only the right information that moves me. I want to get the details right, but insignificant details clutter up a story. I always look for a detail with a story buried in it.

Often talking (or rather, listening) to people is the best form of research, because when they talk about their jobs, for instance, they always tell it in the context of a story. For instance, when I talked to my neighbor who’s a cop, he’d begin with “One time on patrol…” and then a story is presented to me, full of only significant details that inform, enhance, or maybe even become the essence/point of the story itself. It’s about finding the right detail that reveals.

GT: Your title story, “Replacement Parts,” has faint echoes of Charles Baxter’s “Gryphon.” Maybe, I’m wrong about that, but I wonder if you might talk about ways in which a writer can use scaffolding from other stories to take things in bold, new directions. Your sentences and stories are so well-crafted. Pick a favorite story in Replacement Parts and share with us revision strategies (macro and micro) you used to get the story to the point where you could let it go into the world.
MD: Revision is my entire writing life. For me, drafting is quick, skeletal, full of wrong notes and turns. clutter and cliche—I’m just trying to survive the story, trying to find the spark. And sometimes I never do, which means no amount of revision will help, either it doesn’t speak to me, is just an interesting premise and nothing more—or maybe it just isn’t my story to tell.

But if there is a spark, fanning the flames takes months, if not years, of steady revision. For instance, the title story (which had a different title until the last minute, speaking of non-stop revision), I started years ago, in my MFA (the only story to survive the program). Then I revised it for years and got it published. But if you put it next to the draft in the book, the bones are there but it’s almost an entirely different story, even after I placed it in a magazine.

I love the voice of the young narrator so much—it’s probably my favorite story in the book (which is why it was got the title), but it never felt fully realized because the two main characters, both in elementary school, never interacted beyond Q&A, or exposition, or small talk. There were so many flat moments, no energy, and as you say, I was probably copying too much Baxter for my own good.

So, I cut it in half and made the kids interact more, telling their stories through play, wherein our narrator starts to learn things, make choices, question authority. Soon, there was more urgency, more action, more at stake. Their conversations became mysterious but more meaningful as the relationship grew. As a result, the ending—which never changed—held more resonance. And our narrator, who now had more agency, does transform—even if the last image shows him doing the opposite.

An Interview with (and Book Launch by!) Iowa Poet Laureate Vince Gotera

Season 24 of the Final Thursday Reading Series starts with a roar and a blast! Iowa’s Poet Laureate, Vince Gotera, will launch his new speculative poetry collection, Dragons & Rayguns, published by Final Thursday Press. Gotera is also the author of two other FTP collections, The Coolest Month and Ghost Wars.

The Final Thursday Reading Series takes place on August 29 at the Hearst Center for the Arts in Cedar Falls, Iowa. There will be an open mic at 7:00 p.m. (bring your best five minutes of original creative writing). Vince Gotera takes the stage at 7:30. The featured reading will also be simulcast on Zoom. Click HERE to register for a link.

Interview by Jim O’Loughlin

JIM O’LOUGHLIN: This is the first time I’ve interviewed you since you were named Iowa Poet Laureate. First, congratulations! Second, if wonder if this appointment has impacted your writing or the way you think about your role as a poet?
VINCE GOTERA: Thanks! My main message as Iowa Poet Laureate is that poetry can be fun. Many folks think of poetry as something hard to figure out, something that isn’t accessible, maybe like calculus or trigonometry. I’ve even had people say to me, “poetry is a lost art” ... uh, hello, I’m standing right here in front of you, not lost! Anyway, for decades, I’ve championed light poetry. I think some poets think poetry should be serious, weighty, dark even. Obviously, there’s merit to that viewpoint, but it shouldn’t be exclusive. The great poet Lucille Clifton was one of those who felt poetry can be fun, and she said so on a number of occasions. But at the same time, she wrote very serious poetry as well on, for example, race relations, feminism, and against child abuse. So poetry, in my view, can legitimately live on a spectrum from light to heavy, and it should. My poems in Dragons & Rayguns span that entire spectrum. 

JO: There was a time when it would have been considered unusual (and maybe a little outrageous) to publish a collection of speculative poetry, but that’s what you are doing in Dragons & Rayguns. One of the things I love about this collection is the way you use demanding and sometimes intricate poetic forms to write about themes out of popular culture. Does that seem like an unusual juxtaposition to you, or do those high/low culture divides loom less large now?
VG: Well, this would depend on what literary circles one frequents. Those who think of poetry in elitist terms differentiate between “literary poetry” and “genre poetry,” assuming that genres like science fiction or detective fiction, etc., are less important, less accomplished, less difficult. I think such elitism is just bunk. As you suggest in your question, the divide between so-called high and low culture has been breaking down for quite a while, and it’s no longer unusual or outrageous for poets to write speculative poetry (science fiction, fantasy, horror), though, to be fair, there are some literary folks who still look down upon genre literature. I hope Dragons & Rayguns can help to alleviate that situation.

About “demanding and ... intricate poetic forms,” yes, I love to write those, for example, the terza rima haiku sonnet, which I invented in the late 1970s. This is a syllabic form, using strict 5-7-5 syllables, the traditional English haiku shape, without haiku essence per se. There are four of those 5-7-5 tercets finished off by a 7-7 syllable couplet (to add up to the 14 lines expected in a standard sonnet). At the same time, it’s a rhymed form, employing terza rima, the Italian rhyme scheme used by Dante in The Divine Comedy: tercets with interlocking rhyme: aba bcb cdc, etc. The terza rima of my sonnet form is similar to Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind,” aba bcb cdc ded ee. Since the lines are pretty short overall, I often use slant rhyme to make the rhyming more subtle. Actually, this is true of my use of rhyme in general, á la Emily Dickinson, Wilfred Owen, Marilyn Hacker, among other model poets.

Quite a few of my formal poems in Dragons & Rayguns are light poetry ... slapstick, even. A good example is my poem “Sestina: Dragon,” which uses dragon as the repeating end word, with some variations. In formalist circles, this approach is reminiscent of “Sestina: Bob“ by Jonah Winter (in fact, my title is intended to allude to this poem). Less well known but equally inspiring for my poem is my former student Nate Dahlhauser’s parody “My Love of the Sestina,” which uses the word sestina as its single repeating end word. In my blog, The Man with the Blue Guitar, I feature Nate’s poem, which he wrote in one of my creative writing classes. Check it out ... it’s brilliant, fun, and funny.

Speaking of my blog, you’ll find many of my formal poems there (along with free verse, of course), especially during the month of April, when I write a poem a day during National Poetry Month. Some of the poetic forms that appear in Dragons & Rayguns include abecedarians (ABC poems), hay(na)ku (123 poems), concrete poems, and many other forms, especially curtal sonnets, a short sonnet type invented by Gerard Manley Hopkins, another of my model poets.

JO: You were the editor of a speculative poetry magazine, Star*Line, for a number of years. Did that editorial experience influence this collection, or does your writing and editorial work happen in separate parts of your head?
VG: I became editor of Star*Line in 2017, about a year after I ended my run as editor of the North American Review. I wanted to offer my experience of 16 years running the NAR to the field of speculative poetry and to the SFPA (the international Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association, which sponsors Star*Line). This editorship did affect my speculative writing because of community; it was inspiring to be among so many speculative poets who care so much about the genre. (Two SFPA presidents, past and present, wrote the blurbs for Dragons & Rayguns.) To answer your question more directly, I’m not sure the editorial work affected my writing so much ... maybe the other way? My editing was affected by being a practicing speculative writer, and I was honored for a few short years to influence the ongoing development of the genre.

JO: You often write about figures from Filipino mythology, and some of that work appears in Dragons & Rayguns. What has drawn you to that subject? Were these tales that you knew growing up or have you researched them as an adult?
VG: I’ve been writing poems about Philippine life, culture, history, etc., for at least 40 years, if not longer. I wrote my first aswang poem (the aswang is a mythical Philippine monster) around 1986, when I was pursuing an MFA in Poetry Writing at Indiana University. I didn’t hear about the aswang from my parents but I’m sure I must have heard about them from my cousins. Certainly, aswang tales are very common in Philippine culture. I began to do research on the aswang when I was in grad school. I found that the mythology and folklore focused on the aswang only as monsters and I wondered about their inner lives as people, monsters though they may be. In 2016, I started writing about two aswang lovers, who pass themselves off as ordinary humans during the day but do their monster thing at night. This project turned into a novel in poems about the family life of these two people and their son. A couple of aswang poems that did not fit into the novel appear in Dragons & Rayguns. Incidentally, the aswang novel in poems is complete and I’m seeking a publisher for that book right now. There are also a couple poems in the book about Bakunawa, the Philippine sea dragon. Philippine myth tells us that there were once seven moons in the sky and Bakunawa ate six of them until people figured out how to prevent him from eating the last one, the single moon we still have, which coincidentally is a full moon—supermoon and blue moon—as I write this. Good thing Bakunawa didn’t eat this one!

JO: Is there any other question I should have asked you but didn’t? I was going to ask you about how it feels to be retired, but then I realized that that is probably only really going to kick in when classes start up again.
VG: I suppose a question might be “What other elements influenced Dragons & Rayguns?” Besides science fiction, pop culture is an important element: Doctor Who (or more particularly the Doctor Who universe), Frankenstein, Marvin the Martian, even Jimi Hendrix. Another element would be science itself, apart from science fiction. For example, I have a poem about xenobots, the first artificial creature or organism, created in a Petri dish, so to speak. There’s also a poem about ‘Oumuamua, the first known interstellar object detected passing through the solar system, which some experts initially suggested could be an alien spaceship. About retirement, the first of June was when I retired so it’s still pretty new, and as I write this my former colleagues at the University of Northern Iowa are probably working on their course syllabi at this moment [Ed. note: yes, at this very moment] since the first day of class is in less than a week. I’m happy not to be doing that, though I’m sure I’ll miss teaching quite a lot. I’ve been having stressful teaching dreams for a couple weeks now, like being unable to find my classroom on the first day or being in class and not knowing what the subject of the class is. I’m realizing this must have happened every August for many years, though I didn’t really notice a pattern before because I just took it all in stride. I just want to tell the dream machine in my head, “Stop! We’re not doing teaching any more!”

Thanks for this interview, Jim. And thanks for being a champion of my poetry for so long. This is the third collection of mine you’ve published and I’m very grateful.

Fall 2024 FTRS Slate

 

The Final Thursday Reading is back for its 24th season. 

Attend in person at the Hearst Center or sign up to Zoom in.

Thursday, August 29

Vince Gotera

Iowa’s Poet Laureate will return to FTRS to launch his new collection of speculative poetry, Dragons & Rayguns (Final Thursday Press).

Thursday, September 26

Marc Dickinson

Dickinson, a UNI English alumni, is the author of the new short story collection, Replacement Parts (Atmosphere Press)

Thursday, October 31

A Night of Monsters

**this special event starts at 7:00. No open mic tonight.

For this special Halloween event, UNI’s Brooke Wonders, alongside students in her horror literature course, will be reading new stories of terror and dread.

Thursday, November 21

The Cities of the Plains
**one week early due to Thanksgiving
 The Cities of the Plains: An Anthology of Iowa Artists and Poets features 57 artists and poets and highlights the immense talent of the state. Editor Paul Brooke will be joined by regional contributors to the collection.

GIVEN DAYS Coming This Summer!

Given Days by Amy Woschek Schmidt

NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER!

Final Thursday Press is excited to announce our next project (and to reveal the book cover!). Given Days is an insightful collection of seasonally-based poems by Amy Woschek Schmidt. With a voice intimately attuned to the rhythms of rural life, Schmidt finds transcendence in the details of everyday experience. Whether celebrating the first blooms of spring, the fertility of summer, the turning of autumn, or the stillness of winter, Schmidt reminds us to be patient and to pay attention to the small miracles unfolding all around us. 

Given Days, with an original cover illustration by Gary Kelley, is now available for pre-order directly from Final Thursday Press. It will be released later this summer.

An Interview with Micki Berthelot Morency

April’s FTRS featured reader is Micki Berthelot Morency, author of the novel, The Island Sisters (BHC Press). Morency was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and currently lives in Florida, and she draws inspiration from her experience in her debut novel, which follows the varied life paths for four friends. Stacy Hawkins Adams says Morency’s writing “leaves you rooting for her characters as if they're your kin. Her vivid prose paints an unforgettable portrait of Haitian culture and customs, while imparting wisdom and gripping your heart.” 

The Final Thursday Reading Series takes place on April 25 at the Hearst Center for the Arts in Cedar Falls, Iowa. There will be an open mic at 7:00 p.m. (bring your best five minutes of original creative writing). Micki Berthelot Morency takes the stage at 7:30. The featured reading will also be simulcast on Zoom. Click HERE to register for a link. 

Interview conducted by Olivia Brunsting. 

OLIVIA BRUNSTING: While reading The Island Sisters I was touched by the friendship between the four main characters. Even though they bickered sometimes, they were always there to support each other. Did you always know you wanted four main characters?

MICKI BERTHELOT MORENCY: Yes. I did. Because the four characters are based on real women I knew as clients, friends, family members and people in my community. In fact, I had to be careful to disguise them physically and in other ways to avoid recognition from the real women. Writing a four POV book was challenging, but that’s the way I wanted to tell the story. So far, the praises from other writers are how distinguishable the women are from each other. 

OB: Why did you pick Haiti, Guam and St Thomas as settings in the book?
MBM: I was born in Haiti, so it’s my culture, and I wanted to portray the roles of women in that particular period in the country’s history in the book. I had the privilege of living on the islands of Guam and St. Thomas for some months, and I loved the people and the topography of both islands. I wanted to share some of it with the reader. 

OB: What inspired you to write The Island Sisters? What kind of feelings or thoughts did you want the readers to be left with?
MBM: I was inspired by the strength of the women who raised me: my centenarian grandmother, my mother, my aunties and all the Haitian women I grew up watching as they struggled to overcome a culture that condemned them when they came out of the womb a female. I wrote the book to give voice to all the women who told me, “No one cares.” I wanted to show them that some of us see and hear them, that we do care. I want the takeaway for readers to be that life is messy, that we do the best we can with what we have, and that our culture influences everything we do, so we all need an open mind to understand “others.” 

OB: You mention on your website that your own immigration experience has provided you with a lot of material to write about. How did that influence The Island Sisters? Did your work in transitional housing for abused women also influence the book?
MBM: Like the characters in The Island Sisters, I knew that higher education was going to allow me to be self-sufficient, thus having control over my life. It was hard to assimilate. I’ve encountered many obstacles, but I persevered because I didn’t allow myself the option to quit. Most immigrants like me leave their home countries with concrete goals, so they work hard to make them happen. After college I worked in the banking industry, but I found my calling in the social service sector. I’m an advocate for women and children. My work at the shelter was the most rewarding for me because I could see how I’d impacted lives with measurable results. I wrote the book for those women as well. 

OB: Without giving too much away, self-love is an important part of the book. What advice would you give to people who are struggling with self-love?
MBM: That self-love is not selfish. Once I learned to love myself, I experienced an abundance of love that I was able to share freely with others. People love their children, their romantic partner, their siblings…women seem to be wired to love everyone, and they leave themselves for las,t and by then the well is empty. Fatigue, stress, unmet needs, and expectations turn to self-loathing, and they buy into the belief that they don’t deserve love. My advice is start with yourself. Love all of you, and you will have plenty left for everyone else.

An Interview with J. D. Schraffenberger

March’s FTRS featured reader is J. D. Schraffenberger, the author of the recent poetry chapbook, American Sad (Main Street Rag), which Dan O’Brien describes as “deeply moving, unnerving, provocative, darkly comic, and thoroughly recognizable.” His other poetry collections include The Waxen Poor and Saint Joe’s Passion. Schraffenberger is an editor of the North American Review and a professor of English at the University of Northern Iowa. Along with reading from American Sad, Schraffenberger will play songs on piano inspired by the poems, accompanied by Michael LeFebvre on vocals and Paul Conditt on saxophone. 

The Final Thursday Reading Series takes place on March 28 at the Hearst Center for the Arts in Cedar Falls, Iowa. There will be an open mic at 7:00 p.m. (bring your best five minutes of original creative writing). J. D. Schraffenberger takes the stage at 7:30. The featured reading will also be simulcast on Zoom. Click HERE to register for a link. 

Interview conducted by Tomiisin Ilesanmi. 

Tomiisin Ilesanmi: Many times, it is advised to detach the Artist from the Art to get an uninfluenced opinion. However, learning a little about the Artist can give a whole new translation to his Art. Tell us about your story. How did you first get interested in poetry?

J. D. Scraffenberger: I really like how you frame the question, Tomiisin. You’re right that we’re often cautioned against biographical interpretations of an artist’s work—for good reason. We might tend to conflate certain experiences or ideas with a writer’s own, which is not fair to the artist or to the work of art. Some works, however, can be illuminated by an author’s biography. For instance, the North American Review Press recently published a posthumous book of poems by Jason Bradford called Stellaphasia. Because many of the poems concern living with a disability, knowing that Jason was born with muscular dystrophy helps the reader to understand his remarkable poems. 

In my case, I think I was drawn to writing poetry early on because it allowed me to be playful. I grew up in a working class home. We lived paycheck to paycheck. Playing sports was more important than reading books. And yet, it was also a home in which humor, irony, wordplay, and linguistic cleverness of all kinds was valued. When we learn to write in other modes and genres (namely expository prose), it’s usually for the sake of clearly communicating some pre-existing message. Maybe we want to explain something, argue a point, convince someone you’re right. The virtues in these modes are (usually) clarity, focus, and organization. But poetry sidesteps these imperatives. You can write a poem for the sheer pleasure of the feeling of words in your mouth. Knowing this origin story of my own journey as an artist might not illuminate my work, but perhaps the reader will understand at the very least that my poems look askance at the virtues of expository prose—and sometimes they do much worse than that. 

TI: Poets are very particular about every word, line structure, or punctuation that goes into their work. As an editor yourself, how do you juggle the editorial and poet hat when writing? How has being an editor influenced your writing?

JDS: I’m glad you asked this question because I spend most of my days reading other people’s writing, often with an eye toward what needs to be changed or fixed. If you fetishize that approach to text, it can infect your very ability to enjoy reading! Being an editor, however, has done one very important (and positive) thing for me: it has reminded me that writing is a process, and revision is a vital part of that process. You’re right that as an artist particular words and punctuations are often meticulous, painstaking decisions, but I do always keep in mind that things could be otherwise. Maybe that’s the main lesson to take away from being an editor. If I were the kind of person to have a bumper sticker, it would read: Things could be otherwise. 

TI: You have referred to yourself as a print poet rather than a presentation poet. What do you consider to be the difference between both types of poets? 

JDS: I am so much more comfortable as a poet of the page rather than a poet on the stage. I have tremendous respect for slam and performance poets whose work comes alive in the moment and in their bodies. I am enough of a taciturn midwesterner that this kind of performance does not come very easily to me. I do believe poetry lives in the body (on the lips, on the tongue, in our bellies and lungs), but I tend to carry poetry around with me (my own and others) in less obvious ways. I know it’s a truism that “poetry is meant to be read aloud.” I challenge that notion, however, if “meant to be” means that I cannot be enriched and transformed by a poem in the privacy of my own head. 

TI: “American Sad.” What inspired the title of this collection?

JDS: The poems in this collection admittedly tend toward darkness and sadness. In an early poem in the book called “Time” I wrote the lines, “You can endure almost anything for a few minutes / But there’s a peculiar American sadness that lasts forever.” I am not someone who suffers depression or experiences chronic bouts of sadness in my everyday life. Most people would likely tell you that I’m actually a pretty cheerful person, even in the face of difficult circumstances. But we all experience sadness, usually as something to “get through.” I also believe that there is a sadness that hums in the background as a constant ambience in our lives. We may try to compartmentalize it, to repress it, to distract ourselves from it. Perhaps it is related to mortality, to a recognition and consciousness of the pain and suffering of others, of the various kinds of futility and hopelessness we feel on a planet that often feels doomed. I call this collection “American Sad” as a nod toward the various ideas surrounding the myth of the American dream and the grand promises that most of us eventually realize are lies. We remain tired, poor, huddled masses. 

TI: How do you hope people will benefit from reading this book?

JDS: My only hope for readers of this book is that they open themselves up to the strange, the dark, the dreamlike and nightmarish, not for the sake of wallowing in sadness but for the sake of recognizing its terrible, pathetic beauties and finding something there that is true. As a writer and a thinker, I believe that art is not meant to be simply pretty, merely decorative or pleasing. Art has the capacity to create a rift in our everyday world to reveal—momentarily, through a glass darkly—a sliver of the Real. If American Sad is able even to approach that kind of truth, well, that would make me very happy indeed.

An Interview with Christopher D. Schmitz

February’s FTRS featured reader is Christopher D. Schmitz, the author of several Science Fiction and Fantasy series, including 50 Shades of Worf, Wolves of the Tesseract, and Curse of the Fey Duelist, which includes his most recent work, The Crow and the Troll (TreeShaker), a dark fantasy about “a contract killer, a gorgeous victim, and a mystic garden hidden beyond the Winter Court.” He is also the author of The Indie Writer’s Bible Workbook. 

The Final Thursday Reading Series takes place on February 29 at the Hearst Center for the Arts in Cedar Falls, Iowa. There will be an open mic at 7:00 p.m. (bring your best five minutes of original creative writing). Christopher D. Schmitz takes the stage at 7:30. The featured reading will also be simulcast on Zoom. Click HERE to register for a link. 

Interview conducted by Jim O’Loughlin. 

JIM O’LOUGHLIN: Though you write in a range of genres, a lot of your books have been Science Fiction. Can you talk about what drew you (and continues to draw you) to Sci-Fi?

CHRISTOPHER D. SCHMITZ: I’ve always loved Science Fiction. I was watching a YouTube channel just this morning run by a guy roughly my age. He claimed the 90s were not some golden age of anything except for Science Fiction television. He’s definitely wrong, except for Sci-Fi being great TV programming in that decade. Not only was I watching it, but I was also reading it. I read lots of Golden Age and Silver Age stuff and more modern books. And not just Sci-Fi but also Fantasy, which are often lumped together in the same larger genre category. I picked up a library discard when I was in the third grade and I was hooked. Around that same time, I discovered some post-apocalyptic fantasy stuff that also really spoke to me and I started reading a lot of space opera as well. 

JO: You’ve also carved out a writing career in which you are heavily involved in publishing and promoting your books. Can you talk about how you think of your work as a writer/publisher?

CDS: I have really thrown in on the independent side of the industry. I’ve been published traditionally as well as independently and really prefer the latter. Some of my author friends are big names in the SFF writing world (like guys with major movies and TV deals), and they are doing both based on their needs. I really like being in control and being able to shift when the market says shift. I travel to a lot of events every year and get on the ground level with my readers, meeting new people almost every week at comic book conventions as well as meeting return readers who have come to buy something else for me. (Although I am not entirely opposed to traditional publishing house deals, and I am in talks with one major Science Fiction publisher right now about one of my unpublished series.) Being an independent means you are also taking on the roles a publisher should (although what those expectations are has largely shifted in the last two decades.) That means I’m always promoting something, and I’m always looking for new ways to get in front of people. It started out of necessity, but I discovered I enjoy certain aspects of it. 

JO: One of the things you do is produce an author newsletter. What has that experience been like, and when is it something you would recommend for other writers?

CDS: I provide author coaching, teach at panels and workshops, and I’m currently developing some new author courses drawn out of my forthcoming expanded Indie Author’s Bible… but this is a piece of information I will always give away for free. Having a newsletter is one of the most fundamental things you can do. Not only do people follow you because they want to stay in touch with your particular brand or stories, but they want to be connected to you as an author. Giving access to ourselves as authors is something that the big traditional publishers cannot do. It’s what sets us apart qualitatively from the major publishers. Not only does that provide an element of access and quality, but it is effective and mostly irrevocable. What if your favorite social media site shuts down or deplatforms/shadowbans you or loses favor with your audience. All of those things have happened within the last couple of years. But even when things aren’t so drastic, your newsletter is still better. Email has higher open rates and if you want to switch from one email provider to another, you can take your list with you. You can also use it for other marketing things like creating custom advertising algorithms. Also, it costs you nothing to send an email. Do you want your Facebook followers to see your latest update? That’s going to cost you if you want more than a small percent to know you just did something neat. I have resources I recommend and highly endorse the book Newsletter Ninja. It’s written for authors, but I recommend it for anybody wanting to learn how to effectively use newsletters for your industry. 

JO: Are there any other tips you have for emerging writers?

CDS: I’ve gotten ahead of the curve on a few things including using Kickstarter and crowdfunding to launch books. Part of it is that it’s helped me find my people who love my kinds of books, and another part of it is that in researching how to harness that side of the business well I have joined several online groups to both learn and share, and it’s helped me find more and more like-minded people. It’s important as an author to surround yourself with voices you’ve allowed to be critical of your own work and methods and also to build a peer group. I really enjoyed watching interviews between Stephen King and George RR Martin. Those two used to travel around to shows to autograph books and meet people just like I do along with several other friends I have met on the author circuit. They value each other as peers even if the stuff is pretty radically different in many ways. That’s how a lot of author friendships are. I have friends who write radically different genres, but at the end of the day a lot of the challenges are the same and it’s important to have outside voices to challenge and grow you as a writer and also as a business owner …because that’s what being an author is in today’s day and age: it’s a melding of business and creativity. 

JO: You and your wife also run a business, Waterloo’s Weis Mansion Bed & Breakfast. How do you manage the balance between finding time to write and having another job that demands your time?

CDS: With great difficulty. I try to manage my schedule well. Luckily Kelly does most of the operational side on the bed-and-breakfast. I often split time between writing and marketing endeavors and break up my day with painting or property repairs and that sort of thing. I live and die by my calendar alerts.