Showing 8 posts tagged interview
Over at Fictionaut’s Monday Chat, Susan Tepper was lovely enough to ask me some questions about my writing, my novella Memorial Day, and my novel-in-progress.
Thanks so much, for reading and your support.
Susan Tepper: What made you choose Montauk on Long Island as the beach setting for your story “from Memorial Day”? You could have picked from many places, why Montauk?
Danny Goodman: The Hughes family, who live on Long Island, feel as much a part of Montauk as the reverse. They vacation there, every year, and have done so for well over a decade. I couldn’t imagine them anywhere else on Memorial Day weekend.
Though this novella and the Hughes family are works of fiction, I feel as if I’ve been trying to write about Montauk for most of my adult life. I spent many summers over the years in the small resort town. So much of my childhood, my adolescence, seems scattered along those Atlantic shores. They call Montauk “The End,” for its position at the eastern tip of Long Island; if nothing else, the Hughes family has taken on that sobriquet, too.
Over in the Interviews section, I’ve posted a new interview: Five Questions with Danny Goodman, from Found Press regarding my novella “Somehow There Was More Here.” Check it out!
BJI: Your story feels very much like a ‘New York City’ story – that is, it wouldn’t feel quite the same if it was set anywhere else. Why do you suppose that is? Was this something you consciously tried to evoke?
DG: Ben and this cast of characters embody a lot of New York City for me. It’s fucked up and beautiful and destructive and resurrecting, this city, and I believe Ben feeds off this energy.
“I’ve always loved both writing and editing… I think the two are a wonderful, hateful marriage.”
JER:As a writer, what kind of subjects, stories, or even moments intrigue you the most?
DG:Infidelity, in whatever form that comes, fascinates me. Trust is such a delicate item, and I really enjoy exploring characters who struggle with it on both ends, the betrayer and the betrayed. The breakdown of the everyday is most gripping for me. Carver once said, “It’s possible, in a poem or a short story, to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language, and to endow those things—a chair, a window curtain, a fork, a stone, a woman’s earring—with immense, even startling power.” As subjects go, there’s nothing more interesting to me than the “commonplace,” as Carver puts it. When characters are faced with the deafening reality of waking up, putting one foot in front of the other, and moving forward.
Two fun things I hope you both dig and share. Remember, you rock:
√ My nonfiction essay, “Angles of Response to Your Angles, or Brief Reflections on Tennis, Sharks, and the Loss of David Foster Wallace,” published in the new issue of Specter Literary Magazine
√ Art Faccia editor J.E. Reich asked me some questions, and it was a damn good time: “Rocking Waffles with Danny Goodman,” published in Art Faccia
J.E. Reich, of the lovely literary journal Art Faccia, was kind enough to interview me regarding my editorial (fwriction : review) and written work. Why, you ask, would someone waste time talking to me? I give you my honest answer: financial incentive. (Kidding. Or, am I? No, I am.)
What, exactly, does it mean to “rock waffles”? If you ask editor and writer Danny Goodman, it is what good fiction should aspire to. According to the submission guidelines for Goodman’s literary brainchild fwriction : review, the fiction he looks to publish should “melt faces and rock waffles”; the phrase, therefore, seems to speak for itself.
But fwriction : review and its sister blog fwriction are not the only Goodman productions that rock waffles; Danny Goodman himself is an enterprise and entity unto himself. He is also a published writer, and is most notable for his “Ben Stories.” Goodman is currently working on a novel about the relationship between the aforementioned Ben and a character named Roddy, who is featured in his complete novella.
Art Faccia’s J.E. Reich interviewed Goodman. Here is what went down.
The lovely Pure Slush asked me some swell questions when they published my short story, “Girl With Crescent Smile.” Look for the story in the third set of showcased linked stories, The Charlie Stories.
PS:What is your favourite colour? Why?
DG:Green. Luck of the Irish? Gatsby’s dream? Sexiest M&M? Also, go.
PS:Do you wear this colour? How often and when?
DG:I have many green shirts, yes. My favorite: old NY Jets T-shirt. A pair of underwear, too. They’re comfy.
PS:What does the colour suggest to you?
DG:“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us.”
PS:What does it not suggest to you?
DG:Envy, or the effects of gamma radiation.
PS:How long has it been your favourite colour?
DG:Green Eggs and Ham
PS:When does it work best?
DG:“In brightest day, and blackest night…”
PS:When does it not work for you?
DG:Peucetia viridans
PS:How does the colour relate to you, or you relate to it?
DG:We’ve had relations.
PS:Are you this colour or is this colour you?
DG:Viridis means “green,” as well as “lively,” or “youthful”: we are one another.
The delightful Bryan Jay Ibeas, editor of Found Press, asked me about the background for my short novella, "Somehow There Was More Here." Answers range from a discussion of New York City, to Stars, Nada Surf, and Joss Whedon. That's right, it has it all.
BJI:Is there any particular inspiration for Somehow There Was More Here?
DG:These characters appear in several other stories in my collection, and through those pieces, hopefully, this pseudo-family goes through changes, both positive and negative. With this story, I wanted to bring all of them together one last time and let each of them make sense of things. (They’re all coming back in the novel, though, so the adventure continues…)
BJI:Your story feels very much like a ‘New York City’ story – that is, it wouldn’t feel quite the same if it was set anywhere else. Why do you suppose that is? Was this something you consciously tried to evoke?
DG:Ben and this cast of characters embody a lot of New York City for me. It’s fucked up and beautiful and destructive and resurrecting, this city, and I believe Ben feeds off this energy.
BJI:There’s one sequence in the story that was inspired by a pretty darn good song. Do you listen to music a lot when you write? If so, what’s on your playlist?
DG:The song had a lot to do with inspiring this story, with Ben’s fear of moving forward. Music, yes, is always present in my writing; within the short story collection, there are pieces inspired, heavily or otherwise, by songs from Nada Surf, Stars, The Verve Pipe, Death Cab for Cutie, The Beatles, Kelcy Mae, and Simon and Garfunkel, amongst many others. (Television, too, plays a large role, most notably the delightful works of Chris Carter and Joss Whedon.)
Unrelieved Responsibility & Permanent Distraction: The Writing of Danny Goodman
“My circumstances
of unrelieved responsibility and permanent distraction necessitated the
short story form." ~ Raymond Carver
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