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Q and A

Jul 18, 2007; Velvet Asks:

What are your top three favorite contemporary novels? How bout of all time?

Stacey answers:

How can I worm my way out of this one? I'm tempted to cheat and just define contemporary novels as being novels by authors who are still alive. Then I could say The Tin Drum, 100 Years of Solitude, and Updike's Rabbit quartet. But those are too old to really qualify as contemporary. How about: The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, The English Patient, All the Pretty Horses? In a less traditional mood: Mary Robison's Why Did I Ever, Calvino's Baron in the Trees, and any one of those crazy, great David Markson books without a plot like This Is Not a Novel. Plus Veronica by Mary Gaitskill.

For of all time: The Wapshot Chronicle by John Cheever, anything by Raymond Chandler, and Moby Dick, though I like Bartelby the Scrivener better, but it's not really a novel. I wish I could add Jane Bowles to the list but she died too young to write a single great novel. To the Lighthouse should be rotated in at some point. List subject to revision.

I have a problem committing to specific books, especially if they have to be novels. A more interesting list might be a list of the contemporary writers whose books I would immediately run out and buy and read with relish the minute they publish something new. That would be: Denis Johnson, Mary Gaitskill, Lydia Davis, David Markson, Mary Robison, Julia Slavin, Kelly Link, Jeffrey Eugenides, Cormac McCarthy, Annie Proulx, and Julie Hecht.

Jul 18, 2007; Velvet Asks:

What is your biggest literary pet peeve?

Stacey answers:

Dude, I have a terrible aversion to stories with lone characters who walk around ruminating in the echo chamber of their own thoughts. In fact, I have a problem with long descriptive passages in general, but it's worse for me if the description comes when a character is alone in a car, musing. But like everything else, when this is done well it's great. I love the passages in John Updike's Rabbit books where Harry Angstrom is driving around Brewer, Pennsylvania, checking out the landscape and remembering how it used to be. Since those books are about memory and the passage of time it feels perfectly right, and not like an author taking an interlude to do some spiffy writing or cram in some exposition.

Another thing I hate is what I call wine country realism--you know, loving descriptions of lisianthus bouquets, linen pants, glinting wine bottles, brass door hinges, herb gardens, Haydn's "Lark" quartet, freckled children, dew-spattered lisle socks. I probably would never have encountered so many of these scenes if I hadn't embarked on a self-directed reading program where I decided to read every contemporary fiction book someone recommended to me, including casual acquaintances and my parent's friends. Lots of book club books, no distinctions among recommenders. I discovered some really wonderful authors, actually. And some stinkers.

Jul 17, 2007; Dan Asks:

What was the year of your first published story? Thanks!

Stacey answers:

Ah ha! It was 1996, I looked it up. It was the story My Date with Satan in the Greensboro Review. And I'm sure you'll be deeply fascinated to know that this was not my first published piece of creative writing, as the kids call it. I also published a poem in 1993 in the Sonora Review.

Jul 11, 2007; Yes, but it's a Wag heat... Asks:

Hey Stacey, I had an idea to possibly move some copies of your book. Do you remember that guy in Bisbee who made a book and opened the One Book Book Store down there? You could do that! Just get one of those cheap store fronts of 6th Avenue and go to it. You could have a giant replica of the book in the window and sit in the store in air conditioned comfort and sign people's copies of the books and answer questions and all that. Or would that just seem sad and desperate?

Stacey answers:

That seems sad and desperate but I like sad and desperate.

Jul 10, 2007; MaGillacuddy Asks:

Speaking of work, do you have any thoughts on the teaching/writing balance? I know Steven King said that he never wrote less than when he was teaching. Have you taught? Would you teach? Are we adjuncts suckers?

Stacey answers:

I've taught enough to know that I don't much like teaching. This is because I put a lot of energy into it and then I'm unhappy because my students don't do what I tell them to do, though I do like being called Professor Richter. Yes, you adjuncts are suckers. If you were day manager at McDonald's you'd make more $ and get free food--plus life-fodder for your art. So you should quit and go do that.

Jul 09, 2007; Palmsweat Asks:

Stacey, Do you have a day job? What is it? What was your day job right after you graduated from college? What day job do you recommend for a lost little writer, feverishly clutching her diploma, in a world filled with job opportunities in SALES but none in writing down dreamy-dreams?

Stacey answers:

I don't have a day job but my family has a business that I'm involved in that basically subsidizes my writing career. Right after I graduated from college I had a series of mind numbing clerical jobs too boring to list. How's about you try to get a job as a newspaper reporter? You don't always need a journalism degree for that and I know of a couple of people who did that right out of college. You might even get to write obituaries for people who aren't dead yet. That's sort of like writing dreamy-dreams.

Jul 03, 2007; merrik Asks:

Cricket is still alive?! And I thought I was old. Has anyone tried eating the walnut? That might help. And I'm sorry, truth hurts. My husband does think you're pretty. Will you post on your website news about any upcoming stories appearing in lit journals? I subscribe to a disgusting number of them.

Stacey answers:

I'll post a picture of the walnut and you can imagine eating it, Merrik. Yes, I can probably figure out how to post upcoming stories. There will be one in the October issue of Tin House if you want to mark your calendar.

Jul 03, 2007; monkey Asks:

Should we go see Maroon 5? That skinny guy has some appeal though he reminds of that guy I can't stand, Jason whatever. But if you want to go, I promise to jump up and down and scream like a girl.

Stacey answers:

If he'll stand there with his legs apart and no expression on his face, I'm totally there. But I'm afraid he'll move around and then I won't be able to love him anymore. But I would go just to hear you scream like a girl. And while we're on the subject, it's fun to go to Google images and google "Adam Levine" and "penis."

Jul 02, 2007; Merrik Asks:

How ironic is this... many, many moons ago, when you worked at the TW, I, too, earned chump change writing reviews for the Tucson Weekly (I wrote a paltry few book reviews). I often erupt into great, hawking chortles over the fact that fresh out of J-school, I presumed to know a rat's ass about literary criticism, but the TW after-parties were fun and I loved the people and the environment. Anyhooo, that's not what's ironic. More on that later. Many years later, after seeing a review of "My Date With Satan" in the NY Times (when I was working as a science editor for a university--yeah, I know, and with a J-degree!--anyway, when I read the review, I screamed to my husband, who always thought you were pretty, I screamed, "Hey, Pickle, look at this! Do you remember Stacy Richter? From the Tucson Weekly? She has a short-story collection out! And listen to this title!" As a lover of Atwood, Angela Carter, etc., etc., I thought, I'm going to LOVE this. And I did, I did, I did. I knew from reading your movie reviews that you had admirable wit. So I read the stories, chortled and snuffled with utter delight, then continued writing nonfiction. THen, after kids, I took some fiction writing classes, and Voila! We're at the ironic part. During a Gotham Writer's workshop, when one of our advanced fiction instructors asked for examples of really choice opening lines, I used "There are cavemen in the hedges again." That opening line, when I first read it months before, just floored me. Just hooked me in. So I used it as an example. One other student said Hey, I LOVE Stacy Richter! Then, and finally, finally, FINALLY, this is the ironic part: three weeks later, as a reading assignment for our lecture on crafting the most PERFECT sentence, this same story was our reading assignment! And not because I mentioned it weeks before. No, it was already scheduled. So there! I just about jumped up and down on my virtual desktop, imploring the others in my class to pick up your two short-story collections. Anyway, other than playing six degrees of separation, I wanted to ask you, how is lovely Tucson these days? And is Club Congress still there? And Jim...and Mari... Cheers to you and your well-wrought sentences.

Stacey answers:

Come now, Merrik. Everyone's going to be able to tell that I got plastered and wrote that question myself during the "love" phase of my I-love-myself/I-hate-myself mania. The part about the husband saying I'm pretty is a dead give away. Nice try, my friend.

As for your questions: lovely Tucson is expecting a high temp of 110 tomorrow so it's kind of hardcore. Club Congress is still there, and Al Perry still works the desk. Mari moved to California, and last I heard she was working for Dog World magazine. Jim is good! He has Mari's dog, Cricket, who's gone deaf and has sprouted an intriguing, benign growth in her ear that looks like a black walnut.

Jun 28, 2007; Wag Asks:

What do you think about the pataphor?

Stacey answers:

I did not know about the pataphor, Wag, I did not know. I just looked it up on Wikipedia, where I read that a pataphor is a metaphor that desires to become literal. I still don't understand it totally and I reckon I won't understand it totally until I smoke some chronic and think about it. Got any?

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