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This fictional piece reminded me of your article “Nurse Wolf,” published in The New Yorker in 1998. What precipitated your decision to revisit this story fourteen years later? What, in the story, is similar to the article and what is different? How does writing about this experience so many years later change the way you view the subject matter?
Continue readingIllness and war are your subjects for “Some Ongoing Etc.” and your previous Subtropics publication “Parachutes,” respectively, yet your stories are full of humor. Can you talk a little about how important humor is to your writing?
Continue readingThis story was originally one of several fables, all of which are from a young boy’s perspective and involve a particular object as a trigger for larger reflection or meditation. How do you feel about “The Balloon” as a stand-alone piece? Did you see this as a possibility?
Continue readingYour story in Subtropics 13, “In the Olympic Village,” takes a look at the more fallible, vulnerable side of Olympic athletes. What sports, teams, or athletes drew you to this subject? If there were an Olympics where anything in existence could be considered a sport (speed-reading, pea-eating, etc.), what would your “sport” be?
Continue readingRegarding “A Guide to Famous Stabbings,” did you know how the story would end when you began?
As usual, no. One has the impression short stories are sufficiently short that writers know their endings before starting out—that in fact they must know—but in reality this isn’t always the case. An idea for an ending often comes along in the process of composition—that, or an idea other than the one you had in mind comes along and proves superior. Ah, the mysteries of writing…
I’m interested in the way writers come about themes, especially for a book length collection of poems. I noticed that many of your poems in National Anthem seem to have political undertones (or at least are very suggestive of war), as well as “Recent History” in Subtropics 10. I was wondering how you came to write about this theme? And did you have a certain way of approaching it?
Continue readingMost people I know from Portland are actually from somewhere else. Are you from somewhere else? If so, what brought you to the rainy city? If you’re a native, what keeps you there?
Continue readingYour poem Fledgling, featured in Subtropics Issue 19, features various warnings and consequences in the form of commands or statements, as shown in the lines, “Do not leave unlocked the front gate. / You will grow cuts.” What inspired the poem and how did you choose this structure to convey it?
Continue readingYou mentioned that many of your stories take place in Miami. What about that city inspires your fiction?
Continue readingThis story achieves an admirable balance between Chinasa’s everyday life and larger global problems—particularly some that are occurring in Nigeria. What are the challenges of writing about broader political/historical conflicts while keeping the focus on a character’s more specific and personal struggle? Do you think a fiction writer has a responsibility to connect these spheres in ways other writing cannot?
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