Smash Lits with Rose Andersen

Sara CrowleyLeave a comment

I published Rose Andersen’s wonderful nonfiction flash – “Dating Profile” over at FLM. Do give it a read. And I interviewed her too. She has excellent taste in TV detectives and swear words.

1) What is your favourite biscuit?

A just warmed chocolate chip cookie. (I am assuming that biscuit in this case is what us silly Americans call a cookie)

2) What was the last text you sent?

“Beautiful! Love love love”

3) Who is your favourite Sesame Street character?

Oscar the Grouch. I think I liked that he was so openly, well, grouchy.

4) Bacon VS Tofu—who wins? Why?

This feels like a turtle and the hare kind of scenario and that I should say tofu but I just can’t see bacon losing out. Mainly, because I think tofu is horrid.

5) Your writing is music, what style is it?

Instrumental and terribly sad.

6) What is the oldest piece of clothing in your wardrobe?

A ratty NOFX shirt I was given when I was eleven.

7) What’s your worst habit?

Self-doubt or biting my nails.

8) You’re stuck in a lift with a writer of your choice—who?

Jonathan Carroll, so I could ask him about talking dogs and other magical things.

9) What is your favourite swear?

Fuck bucket.

10) Mermaid, dinosaur or unicorn?

Dinosaur. 100%. (I could literally eat mermaids and unicorns for breakfast.)

11) Who is your favourite TV detective?

This one is hard because I watch an unhealthy amount of crime TV. Veronica Mars is up there. But I’ve recently become obsessed with Eve Polastri on Killing Eve.

12) What word (or words) makes you cringe?

Flaccid. Bulbous. Mrs.

13) Do you actually like cottage cheese and fruit at breakfast? (It sounds like punishment food to me.)

I do, actually. I add a bit of brown sugar and I mainly put fresh berries in it, if that makes it sound more appetizing!

14) Who is/was your unlikely crush?

Casper the friendly ghost. Totally had the hots for him when I was about ten.

15) How do you know when you’ve reached the end?

When I can’t feel anything anymore.

16) What is your favourite smell?

My husband’s neck. Aren’t I disgusting?

17) What is the last thing you googled?

“How to sleep with sciatic pain.” Sexy, I know.

18) Have you ever had your fortune told? Has it come true?

I have several encounters with psychics that have been eerily on point. For a few years now, I have been looking into the suspicious circumstances around my sister’s death and a psychic told me a couple things that were eventually revealed to be true.

19) What’s the best flash you’ve read recently?

A MOVIE THE NEIGHBORS COULD WATCH BY ERICA PEPLIN, published on Jellyfish Review. I love how visual this piece is.

20) Give me a question for the next Smash Lits interview I do.

“What does love look like to you?”

Advertisements

On defunct journals and lost gems.

Sara CrowleyLeave a comment

I had a bit of an incident with this blog a couple of weeks ago; somehow I deleted the theme (I really have no idea how) and couldn’t get it back as it’s so old it’s no longer available. I switched to this one, which looks clean and simple, hopefully, and I figured it was a good time to check all those links I have to my published fiction. Over 20 of them led to spam adverts or domains for sale – SAD FACE. Of course, when a journal ceases to publish they might not maintain an archive, but it got me thinking how rubbish it is that those stories are now in this limbo of being previously published and unavailable to read. Some of my best fiction, published in good quality places, has disappeared.

I had a chat with Yosh Haggerty, publisher of FLM, and being the champion of writers that she is, she suggested we might want to consider accepting a couple of previously published pieces to help others in the same position. So, for the month of December only, we are opening a special submissions category for such work and I will select two pieces for publication with us. Send me your favourite lost wonders.

Have at it!

Smash Lits with Joy Lanzendorfer

Sara CrowleyLeave a comment

I selected Joy Lanzendorfer’s excellent Flash piece “Sleep Disturbance” for publication at FLM & Joy was good enough to take part in this interview. 

1) What is your default pub/bar drink?

A dry gin martini with a twist.

2) Do you have a poster/picture on your wall? Describe it.

Yes, I have this Onward poster by the fabulous illustrator Carson Ellis. I also have this ad for Valentine typewriters.

2) Bacon VS Tofu – who wins? Why?

Bacon.
Why? Have you tasted bacon?

3) What colour is Tuesday?

Canary yellow.

5) How do you stop procrastinating and get on with writing?

Turn off the Internet. It’s the only way.

6) Did you have an invisible friend when you were younger?

Yes, I had many invisible friends. I still do.

7) Who is your writer crush?

Currently it’s Anita Loos, who’s unfortunately dead, but still awesome.

8) What sandwiches would you make for a picnic with Curtis Sittenfeld?

Caprese with garden-grown tomatoes, thick slices of fresh mozzarella, pesto made with good olive oil, and crusty French bread.

9) What’s your favourite swear?

I like a good Fuck.

10) What was the last gift you gave to someone?

I gave my mom a Greek cookbook and a pair of moose earrings I bought in the Rocky Mountains.

11) Do you have a favourite pen?

Sort of. I like writing with black felt tip pens because they make bold marks but don’t bleed through the page. TheSchool Smart brand is great, and the pens are cheap, but I have to order them online because it’s surprisingly hard to find felt tip pens in the stores.

12) What word or words make you cringe?

Preggers. Delish. Vacay. The technological destruction of words like twitter, tweet, swipe, and googol. I’m also sick of words like privilege and triggering, which are good concepts but overused.

13) What was the last text you sent?

To my best friend: “Oregonians hike like they drive: lots of tailgating and reluctance to pass.”
I’m sorry, Oregon.

14) Crows. Discuss.

As you may be able to tell by Sleep Disturbance, I’m obsessed with crows. We have hundreds of them in our neighborhood, and all winter long, they mob in the sky and land in my neighbor’s tree. I like to sit on the porch swing and watch them.

15) What is your favourite smell?

Maybe jasmine.

16) What’s your most vivid childhood memory?

I don’t think I can quantify them that way.

17) What would you do if you were invisible for the day?

I guess find a scientist so they can research what the hell is going on with me.

18) Do you have any top tips for dealing with writing rejections?

Submit lots of work. Try not to get overly attached to any one project. The more spread out your work is, the easier it is to take rejection because you haven’t put all your hopes on one thing.

19) Who would play your character/s in the film of your story?

That would be a very strange film. I’m going to say Daniel Day-Lewis and Meryl Streep so it wins an Oscar.

That would be such a cool, arty short film. 

20) Write a question for the next Smash List interview I do.

When did you last sing to yourself? What were you singing?

A review of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine and Standard Deviation

Sara CrowleyLeave a comment

 

I read Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman and Standard Deviation by Katherine Heiny. I didn’t read them with any pre-conceived ideas – in fact, both were from NetGalley and I knew very little about them – it’s possibly only a similarity of my own thinking, but they seem like a match to me.

Eleanor Oliphant is a massive success; a debut novel that started a bidding war and won The Costa First Novel prize. Widely acclaimed and apparently a prime example of feel good “Up Lit” I feel entirely at odds with popular opinion as I loathed it.

Eleanor is a lonely thirty-something who works in an office and adheres to a strict routine she feels safe with. There is unspecified trauma in her background. She’s an oddball, a figure of ridicule at work, out of step with her colleagues and apparently all of modern society. She’s a cartoon character: LOL she’s so weird cos she gets things wrong! Don’t worry though, she’s going to undergo an ugly duckling to swan transformation via a wax, a haircut, a make-over and some new clothes. The characterisation throughout is wafer thin and the plotting seemed incredibly obvious. Eleanor develops a crush on a lead singer in a band at the same time as meeting Raymond, a man seemingly not at all put off by the things that every other person in the book is. Everything is telegraphed well ahead. The voice adopted is a one-note bright, play it for laughs (never mind the trauma) voice.

The idea of this being a mood-lifting “up” style of novel only works if we can ignore rape, murder, fire, crushing loneliness and abuse. The representation of trauma and (possibly) additional needs is woeful.

Standard Deviation, another debut novel, is about Graham, whose inner voice we are privy to, his younger wife, Audra, and their son Matthew. Matthew is an 11 year old with Aspergers and is described in a wonderfully relatable way and is genuinely funny. There’s a warmth that comes through in this novel, and an authenticity that is lacking in Eleanor Oliphant.

“The terrible twos seemed to have a magical stretching ability when it came to Matthew. They went on for years. Eruptions over milk served in anything other than the Buzz Lightyear sippy cup, over music that was too “tinkly”, over carpet that was too scratchy, over people who stood too close, over the smell of sunblock, the prospect of butter on biscuits, the sight of cheetahs in an animal documentary. The littlest thing could set Matthew off, and there seemed to be no way of calling him back from the land of the tantrum – in an instant, he would be flat on the floor, back arched, legs rigid, mouth a wide open circle of angry scream. They would do anything to prevent it. Graham could remember scotch-taping the last banana in the fruit bowl back into a banana peel so Matthew could eat it monkey-style. Graham’s hands had been shaking with desperation.”

Audra is an excellent (over-loud, over-chatty, gossipy) character who is a great foil to Graham (and his ex wife who seems the opposite of her) and is the stand-out star of the book. I enjoyed this novel far more than I expected to and really am quite puzzled why it doesn’t seem to have garnered more praise. Especially considering how feted that blooming Oliphant book is.

Smash Lits with Kelly Griffiths

Sara CrowleyLeave a comment

We published a powerful piece of creative non-fiction at the Forge last week – The Boots by Kelly Griffiths – which I urge you all to read. Kelly kindly agreed to take part in one of my daft interviews.

1. What was the last text you sent?

“Thank you, Gabe. You saved the day.” (My 13-year-old turned off the water to our leaking refrigerator while we were on a weekend away.)

2. You are wallpaper. What is your pattern?

If Jackson Pollock made wallpaper…

3. Who would play you in the film of your piece?

That’s easy. My piece is cnf. I’m the angry one.

4. Bacon VS Tofu – who wins? Why?

IMG_4947

Bacon, even though I’m not generally a fan of pig. Come up with a salty, crunchy, grease saturated tofu, and I’ll change my answer.

5. Have you ever been attacked by an animal?

A poodle. I still have the scar. But in fairness, I provoked it.

6. What is the oldest piece of clothing in your wardrobe?

Everything. I’m a thrift store hunter, so it’s impossible to tell.

7. Have you ever seen a ghost?

No, but I think one steals our socks.

8. If you could make people read one book what would it be?

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

9. What is your favourite thing to write with?

My laptop.

10. Do you have a recurring dream?

Only the one in which I am on the New York Times Best Seller list.

11. What did you do last Saturday night?

My husband and I walked our dog, then watched a movie with our day-saving son (see #1).

12. What sandwiches would you make for a picnic with Zadie Smith?

Garlic-goat cheese, roasted red peppers, and balsamic dressing on Italian bread.

13. What word makes you cringe?

The f-word.

14. What’s your favourite swear?

The f-word.

15. What is your favourite biscuit?

Do you mean cookie? Because my favorite cookie is chocolate.

16. What is your favourite TV programme?

I don’t watch TV, but I love movies. The Impossible (2012)

17. Your writing is music, what style is it?

On my best day: symphonic metal.

18. What colour is loneliness?

White.

19. Who is your writer crush?

Stephen King.

20. What question should I have asked you?

You should have asked what I’m doing this Friday. It’s far more interesting. And macabre. Between my acceptance at The Forge and my receipt of this fabulous and quirky list of questions (which I loved!), I received word I have a growing brain tumor. By the time this is published I will have had my skull cut open. I pray for a good outcome and look forward to reading this on the other side.

I am so glad to be able to write here that Kelly is recovering well.

Smash Lits with Melissa Goodrich

Sara CrowleyLeave a comment

 

We published a wonderful flash at The Forge ~ Sapphires by Melissa Goodrich ~ please do read it. And she was a joy to interview for Smash Lits.

 

 

1) What is your favourite cheese?

I love the sharps. The sharper, the better.

2) You are wallpaper. What is your pattern?

Lots of diamond shapes. Deep purples and blues.

3) Who is/was your unlikely crush?

Aladdin.

4) Have you ever read someone else’s diary?

I want to say yes. I probably just wish I have.

5) Bacon VS Tofu – who wins? Why?

IMG_4947

Bacon every time. The snapping sounds (in the pan, in the mouth).

6) What colour is Thursday?

That promising raincloud color—high and pale.

7) Have you ever had a nickname?

Mel. Mel G. Love. Bee.

8) How much money did you spend yesterday?

*logging in to USBank* $10.32.

9) Do you believe humans can spontaneously combust?

Kind of. I definitely think cars can. I’m worried any little thing (putting diesel in by accident, low tire pressure) will “make my car explode.”

10) What sandwiches would you make for a picnic with Paul Auster?

The tallest turkey-ham-sprouts-celery-avocado-MiracleWhip(fightme)-cheddar-lettuce beauties you can imagine. I would also pack cookies.

11) Do you have a recurring dream?

I dream almost every night. In my dreams, I run for my life a lot. I dream of alligators rising from a lake of fog. I’ve dreamed up every teaching nightmare you can imagine. Just last night I dreamed of moving and unpacking in a new house and not being able to find ANYTHING I was looking for. Once my partner told me he had a dream about Disneyland—waiting in line for rides—and I was immensely envious of that simplicity. When I dream, my heart is in my throat: always.

12) What’s your favourite swear?

Goddamnit.

13) What is your default pub drink?

Whiskey sour. Or a cider.

14) Sapphires, diamonds or rubies?

SAPPHIRES ALWAYS.

15) Can you write a haiku about your flash?

Sapphires

What if all I am

is sharpening points, dark blue

like a not-body.

16) Do you have a favourite quote?

For advice: “You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know.” (Hemingway) For love: “I would like to be the air/ that inhabits you for a moment/only. I would like to be that unnoticed/& that necessary.” (Atwood)

17) How much money did you spend yesterday? What on?

$10.32. A cheeseburger and a chocolate shake (because I love those things). (Especially chocolate shakes.)

18) Do you have any writing rituals?

I always start with first sentences. I mean, I like my first sentences to have a spring-forward mechanism—I basically open the door with a first sentence and then let that dog run wild through the woods. The next sentences chase it. I also like to read aloud what I’ve written—sometimes as I’m writing, always when I’m reading it over. Hearing it helps.

19) Who is your favourite Neighbours character?

I’ve never seen it…but if you had asked me who my favorite “Good Place” character is, the answer is Chidi. And Janet. ❤

20) What question should I have asked you?

What natural disasters have you been in? (Mine: fire, flood, monsoon, tornado.) What natural disasters have you always wanted to be in? (Mine: Lava flood?) Also: favorite/least favorite figurative language? Also: if you were a type of figurative language, what would you be? Also: weird pet peeves? Also: four words you think are gorgeous.

21) I seem to have asked you the how much money did you spend yesterday question twice though, which means you still have one to go, so “favorite/least favorite figurative language?” Also—your haiku ROCKS!

Thank you! Favorite: hyperbolic simile, Least favorite: idioms.

I’ll be adding your question suggestions to my list. Thanks 🙂