Spotlight On…

Barry Graham talks to us today about his new novella and what it’s like to die everyday.

Tell us about the first story you remember writing.

I was reading and studying lit and comp theory and writing some pretty bad poems and personal essays for ten years or so before I ever even thought about writing a story, so I think I came to short story writing with a certain level of craft and precision that some people don’t have who begin very early on with story writing. The first story I ever wrote is called All His Chips, which is one of the stories in The National Virginity Pledge. I don’t really know how it happened. I can’t describe the process or the inspiration. I sat down one day and wrote a story and let some friends read it and they thought it was pretty good so I wrote more.

How often do you struggle with your writing? Or does it come easily?

To steal from the Apostle Paul, I die daily. I am a very slow writer. I’m not one of those people who can just sit down and bang out a draft then go back and cut and add and revise. I concentrate hard on a simple word for word / sentence level which makes it difficult for me to write fast or get more done in a day than a page or so. If I finish the day and I feel that I have written a very good paragraph, I treat it as a victory.

Describe your typical writing environment.

I don’t have one really. I know it sounds ridiculous and cliché, but I write when inspiration finds me. It’s not that I’m not disciplined enough to sit down every morning at such and such a time and write so and so many words, it’s just that my life doesn’t fit into that rigid of a structure. I write when I’m feeling it.

What’s your favorite story you’ve written? Why?

Hmmmmm. My favorite story is my first story, All His Chips. I don’t necessarily think it’s the best story I’ve ever written, but it’s the first and that’s special I think.

What’s the last book that you loved?

I love everything so it’s a difficult question to answer, so I will change it slightly and say what’s the last book that I’ve read and learned a good deal from, and that would be Norman Mailer’s The Deer Park, or what’s the last book I’ve read over and over and can read a million more times and it will never get old and that’s Daniel Bailey’s The Drunk Sonnets.

Does reading online influence your writing style? How would your work change if you lost access to the Internet for a year?

I’m not sure. I certainly read shorter and shorter things on the internet and I keep writing shorter and shorter things and I suppose the correlation isn’t coincidence, but the reasons and whatnot I’d rather not get into because the discussions bore me. I think it’s enough to say that the correlation is there. I’m not sure how or even if my writing would change. I think more than the internet, the word processor influences my writing. I wish I could put it into words but I can’t, but I think it’s something everyone feels and understands even if they can’t put it in words either. I write differently when I hand-write than I do when I type. I just can’t put a finger on how or why unless I think deeply about it and I’m not invested enough in figuring it out so I doubt I ever will. But yeah, you feel me?

Tell us about your current project.

I’m just trying to put the finishing touches on my novella, Nothing or Next to Nothing, and get it ready for publication, which will be sometime close to summer 2011. It’s a 160 page investigation into the life of brother and sister, Derek and Daisy Kehoe, who were abandoned by their father following the death of their mother and left to fend for themselves.

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Barry Graham teaches at Rutgers University and he wrote the National Virginity Pledge. His novella, Nothing or Next to Nothing, is forthcoming in the summer of 2011. Look for him online at barrygfunk.blogspot.com