I’ve always been drawn to writers who approach their art from this other place – writers such as Jelaluddin Rumi, Hart Crane, William Blake, Jane Hirshfield. I really connect with them.

Recently:
   Fictionaut Five: Robin Antalek
   Fictionaut Five: Michael Czyzniejewski

I’m not the type to have the concept of story before writing something down. If I try to do that, it usually comes out forced and rather unimaginative.

Recently:
   Fictionaut Five: T.J. Forrester
   Fictionaut Five: Mona Simpson

The story only exists because of a prompt, which I saw as a chance to be absolutely honest about both desire and writing. Every word is true, I try to never make stuff up, we only call it “fiction” because the language fails us.

Recently:
   Checking In With TrainWrite
   Fictionaut Five: Beverly Akerman

This story is about the meeting, the coming together. It’s not about him or her, really, but about this particular moment. A cheap hotel room would not be his style, nor hers. This is all about spontaneity, not one agenda winning over another. In the end, the very idea of spontaneity wins.

Recently:
   Checking in with Kaffe in Katmandu
   Fictionaut Five: Susan Henderson

I wrote the first version of this story over a year ago, and put it through most of the substantive changes and revisions at that time. A bit later I had enough distance to see some of the issues that were not working and pared it down, simplified the emotional space.

Recently:
   Fictionaut Five: Jonathan Evison
   Valentine’s Day Massacres

I love the rhythm of words, alone and in combination. Which is fine for short pieces, I guess, but deadly for novels (or so I’m told!)

Recently:
   Introducing Fictionaut Selects
   Checking In With Dark Chaos
   Line Breaks: “The Right Thing” by Robert Boswell
   Fictionaut Five: Tom Franklin

My brother was much as the brother described in “Sand,” a kind of savant, with an incredible artistic gift. He was also homeless for much of his life, a fact he hid from the family for many years.

Recently:
   Checking In With Midwestern Gothic
   Fictionaut Five: Roz Chast
   Luna Digest, 1/18

My plot choices mostly hinged on my wanting this to be a story of hope. I wanted there to be a certain innocence to these characters in often-horrendous situations. [Read more]

Recently:
   Checking In With Good Men Project
   Fictionaut Five: Murray Dunlap

I do believe that fiction ought to be moral. Perhaps there’s no a priori reason why we carry this gift of writing but if we don’t throw our weight behind life, decency and humanity, we’re nothing but word clowns. [Read more]

Recently:
Checking In With Myself
   Fictionaut Five: Daniel Handler

I’ve read a lot of writers who talk about discovering the story as they go. It always seemed like something that would happen to other people, but not to me — like being crowned Prom Queen, or getting a reality TV show. So when it happened with this story, this ending that yes, exactly as you put it, flung itself at me, I thought Finally, now I am a real writer and big things are going to start happening. [Read more]

Recently:
   Fictionaut Five: Charles Baxter
   Checking in with CZP / Rannu Fund For Writers of Speculative Fiction
   Fictionaut Five: Ethel Rohan
   Fictionaut in The Writer Magazine