writing life

"I didn't expect that there would be so few reviews, and that many of them would be so negative."

SLC on writing process

"I’ve tried a lot of different processes. I first tried an output schedule with a target of five-hundred words a day. That didn’t work very well. Then I moved to the time schedule, putting in about three hours a day writing. That didn’t work very well, either. Finally, I ditched thinking about process, too. Now I do what I’ve done with most of my stories or books, I generally sit down with my laptop in my recliner and start working on whatever story I have going that draws my interest at that time. I usually have about five stories going at once, and there’s always something about one of them that is catching my eye. I dip in and start exploring around, trusting my instincts to lead me in the right direction. That sense of discovery is one of the biggest things for me as a writer. If I don’t have things to discover for myself while writing a story, then there’s nothing there for me. Any time I’ve every plotted a story out and then sat down to write it, I’ve never had a bit of luck with it. The story was already told. Doesn’t matter if it was in outline form. The story has been told and is over."

~~ from "To Be Perfectly Honest," an Interview with Sheldon Lee Compton at Cowboy Jamboree Press

An Interview with Jean-Philippe Toussaint

"One summer long ago after reading Crime and Punishment I began to write. I don’t know if there’s a direct link, a perfect cause and effect relationship, who knows, a theorem (people who read Crime and Punishment start writing a month later), but in my case that’s how it was: one month after finishing Crime and Punishment I started writing—and I’m still writing. . ."

Interview with Eleanor Henderson

"The following is a reprint of an interview originally published in 2010 at When Falls the Coliseum. Since publication of her debut novel, Ten Thousand Saints, Eleanor Henderson has gone on to publish additional works, teach college full-time, and, I believe at least briefly, venture into the world of bookstore ownership."

~~ from "Eleanor Henderson on Frederick Exley"

Interview with Dan Fante

Find at Substack a reprint of 2009's "Interview with Dan Fante."

Interview in American, British, Canadian Studies

American, British and Canadian Studies Journal, an open-access journal out of the University of Sibiu in Romania, published an interview with me on Fight for Your Long Day. Once you get to the site, click "Download Full Text PDF."

excerpt from interview with Chris Kelso

CK: The classroom edition of Fight for your Long Day just came out. How do you feel about it being taught in schools?

AK: I think Fight for Your Long Day is a great selection for the classroom because it raises some great questions—why did we create a society where college teachers struggle? where they may not be able to see a doctor? where students and families pay increasingly unbelievable prices for education necessary for a decent life or any survival at all?—and then to contrast against the “war on terror” that government’s role is to protect all of us, how did America in 2004 come to be? Of course, it’s possible that for many, by America 2014 or 16, conditions are even worse although many some pockets of America may be prospering. A current internet meme claims that only 20% of Americans are part of financially secure households although an academic study suggested the figure was closer to 30%. And then the contrast with the rest of the world—the possibility that contemporary America is about as good as it gets when compared to the common lives of citizens of many other countries. Cyrus Duffleman is trudging through unusual times and almost against the official rhetoric of his times.

cut 180 pages

Michael James Rizza on Cartilage and Skin:

I started Cartilage and Skin in 1998.  When I went to South Carolina in 2004, I had a complete draft, which was roughly 180 pages longer than the current 324 pages.  As I worked on my PhD, I didn’t really think about my book.  Sometimes during that period, I would open to random pages and tinker with the language.  In 2006, I added a sentence about Horatio Alger; in 2009, I added a sentence about “rhizomatically-inclined sophists.” That was the last sentence I added.  In the spring and summer 2010, after I finished my dissertation, I cut out the 180 pages (which, as I mentioned, dealt with his youth) and moved some things around.

Read more at When Falls the Coliseum.