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Interview with
John Fulton
Conducted by
Dan Wickett
on
7/10/2002
The following is an interview with John Fulton. He has published a well received collection of short stories, RETRIBUTION (2001-032, 4 stars) last summer and will see his first novel, MORE THAN ENOUGH (2002-046, 4 stars), to be published in August by Picador. John lives in Ann Arbor, and teaches literature and creative writing at the University of Michigan. Dan Hello John. Thank you for breaking away from your busy summer to answer a few questions. John Thanks for your interest, Dan. I think what you’re doing with your reviews and interviews is important work and I’m thrilled to be a part of it. Dan When did you realize that you wanted to be a writer? John I must have been about six or seven. I was having a hard time learning to read (and, in fact, would not be able to read a book with ease until my second year of high school) and only had access to books through my mother, who read them to me. After we got through the CALL OF THE WILD I was hooked. I couldn’t imagine a more amazing way to make a living than writing books. My theory about writers is that most of them have a troubled relationship to language. I had no access to the written word and wouldn’t for years. The longer I couldn’t read, the more I wanted to write. When I finally was able to read, I did almost nothing else for three years. And after I was done, I started to write. It would be years, of course, before I started to publish. Dan Do you have a set routine that you perform as a writer? How does it change when you are not teaching? John I try to write at least three hours five days a week when I am teaching. I used to count hours, and if they didn’t add up to fifteen at the end of the week, I’d be upset with myself. Like many writers, I teach. And if I teach well, it’s draining and often leaves me with a great deal less than fifteen hours. But if writing is going well, I get up early in the morning, when it’s still dark, lock myself away and get the work done. If it’s not going well, it’s hard to stay at the desk for more than an hour or so. When I’m not teaching, I make myself put in at least 20 hours a week. Again, if it’s going well, I put in more time. I think writing is largely about being at the desk when the right idea or voice or character comes. And the more time you spend at the desk, the more you improve your odds of being there when something good happens. Dan RETRIBUTION received many very nice reviews. In fact, PW was about the only one that didn’t rave about it that I tracked down, and they still referred to you as talented numerous times. Do you read your reviews? If so, how do you let them affect you, both at the moment, and later on in your future writings? John My second book will be out in less than a month, so I’m new at this. Unfortunately, I do read reviews. I hear about writers who don’t and I wish I could be one of those writers. That said, I can’t imagine not being desperately curious about what others (especially reviewers) think of my work. I’ve had a few mixed reviews and those tend to slow me down for a couple days and make me reflective. A good one can make my week. But I don’t think there’s much to be learned from reviews, good or bad. They usually don’t say enough and aren’t aimed at teaching authors to be better writers. I have a group of incredibly smart and gifted readers who let me know whether a piece is working or not. If I have one thing to say about reviewers and critics, I’d say I appreciate them. They care enough about books to spend precious time reading them and recommending them or not. They create interest in contemporary literature, which needs all the attention it can get. Dan You also received some very nice blurbs, in both who wrote them, and what they wrote. How did you go about getting them, and (putting you on the spot) which has been your favorite so far in your young career? John I’m afraid I’m not going to answer the last part of your question. Blurbs are a necessary evil for new writers. We need them because no one knows who we are and a kind word from a trusted name does some good. However, I can’t think of a more miserable task than asking busy, overworked and underpaid writers to read a book and say a few kind words about it. The writers who have done this for me have been more than gracious and charitable with their time and praise. And if I’m ever in a position to pass the favor on, I’ll do it. Dan One of the things I noticed when I read RETRIBUTION was your focus on isolation. You seemed to attack it from many different angles – neglected children, divorced adults, widows, etc. Was this intentional on your part, or did I end up looking to hard to notice a link in your opinion? John Isolation is definitely a concern in my work. I tend to write about the outsider, the odd one out, the loser, the victim. There’s no better reason for language, for speaking and writing and telling stories than isolation. It’s that character without friends or allies that has a story to tell. And he tells it usually to win friends and allies, to gain understanding and to create a community. At his most desperate, my narrator in MORE THAN ENOUGH, even though he’s an atheist, tries praying because he needs to be heard by someone or something, he needs to belong and be understood. Dan As one who both writes and teaches, what do you feel the state of the short story is? John It’s great! It’s fantastic! In most countries: France, Germany, Italy, they don’t really have a place for short stories. In the States, they have hundreds, thousands even. Sure, it’s hard to sell short story collections and people don’t love to read them, but people do read them. And certainly readers of the NEW YORKER read them. Then we have the small magazines; and while there are very few readers of these, they exist and they keep writers coming back to the form. Right now, I’m writing novels, but I will return to the story eventually because it’s a wonderful form and because there are so many magazines and journals out there that may publish the work. Dan How important are sales numbers to you? Do you actually try to keep track of them? John So far, I haven’t followed it closely. I’d love to have a lot of readers and I’d love to make some money writing. So sales are important to me. That said, clearly sales aren’t finally a huge reflection of the quality of writing. Dan When you sat down to write MORE THAN ENOUGH, was it your intention to write a novel, or did it blossom into one? John When I started MORE THAN ENOUGH it was a 32 page story called DISLOCATION. I’d just finished it when my agent called and told me I had a publisher who would take my story collection if we sold them a novel along with it. So I sent them DISLOCATION along with an outline of the rest of anovel, which I had an evening to invent. Dan Was this your first attempt at writing a novel? John No. I had tried to write a number of novels, all of which turned into short stories. I knew how to write a story. So as soon as I recognized the structure of a story on the page, I’d write it and forget all about the novel I wanted to write. I found novels nerve wracking. They’re huge investments of time and energy that might never pay out. Stories on the other hand take a week or so (or sometimes a month or two). If they don’t work, you throw them away and start another one. Dan Have you done many readings from your work? What type of crowds have you found? How much do you think a small tour of such readings helps sales for the typical author? John Readings aren’t my favorite activity. I tend to get nervous and over-invested in whether people buy my book or not. My experience is that not a lot of people show up to hear a writer they’ve never heard about read from a first collection of stories. The reading circuit isn’t glamorous, to say the least. And I have to say that personally I love to encounter an author on the page and in the space of my head where I create the voice and imagine the author myself. Seeing the author in front of you is often rather deflating. That said, I do enjoy readings and giving readings now and then. But after an 8-city book tour, I feel like I’ve been hit by a bus. Dan Who are some of your favorite writers, both current and past, and why? John I try to be as promiscuous as possible in my reading. I like THE CORRECTIONS a lot, though I know quite a few people (including you, Dan, and my girlfriend) didn’t. I like select works of Joyce Carol Oates. I love Jane Smiley. Raymond Carver and early Richard Ford were especially important to me when I first started writing. I have a weakness for language and smart tricks a la Donald Barthelme and Nabakov. Aimee Bender is a young writer I enjoy a lot. THE ICE STORM by Rick Moody is one of the great novels I’ve read in the last five years or so. There’s so much wonderful work being done out there right now. Dan What trends do you see in the near future of literary fiction (if any)? What is your opinion of audio books? How about e-books? John I love real books. They’re great to page through and put on the shelf. I don’t have much time to listen to audio books, though if I had to drive a lot I’m sure I’d appreciate them. As far as literary trends, some ambitious young authors out there seem to be working in both postmodern and realist modes. The book I’m thinking of is EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED, which tells two different stories that mix postmodernism, magical realism, and realism. I haven’t read Dave Eggers memoir, A HEARTBREAKING WORK OF STAGGERING GENIUS, though from what I understand it also mixes self-reflexive writing and straightforward autobiography. But, again, there’s so much going on out there that I can’t even begin to comment on it. Dan Having grown up in Utah and Montana, do you feel any sense of displacement living in Ann Arbor? John I miss the mountains and the skies and the weather of the West. I’ve been away almost sixteen years now and one of the ways I have of conjuring up that sense of place is writing. I think that’s why almost all my stories take place in the West. The chance to construct a setting with mountains or desert is deeply satisfying to me. On the other hand, I’ve not yet written a single story that takes placein the Mid-West or in Ann Arbor. Dan You recently won a full fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center. What exactly was this and how did you go about winning it? How does something like this help you in your writing career? John Being a writer involves a great deal of rejection. Even when you start to publish, you get rejected all the time. So getting a fellowship or an award or a good review or anything else that affirms you and your work is a huge boost. Dan You teach both literature and creative writing at the University of Michigan. How important do you believe it is for a person embarking on a fiction writing career to study literature at the college level? John I think fiction writers need to be smart and sensitive readers. I don’t think they need to study literature or read scholarly work or be versed in theory. The more a writer knows the better. So if they happen to have a formal education in literature that’s great. But I think it’s even more rare and maybe more valuable for a writer to have a formal education in something like engineering or physics, something that has seemingly nothing to do with writing. Dan When you have been interviewed, based on your writing, what is the one question you expect to be asked, and what is your response to that question? John I haven’t been interviewed a lot. But when I am interviewed or when I give a reading and someone asks a question it is often the one that goes like this: To what extent does your writing come from your own experience? My answer is this: I often start with something I know well, with an experience from my life or a friend’s life. An incident from my childhood might start a story or a novel. Without fail, however, this incident takes on a life of its own once it enters my fiction. It changes and becomes something I could not have foreseen when I began writing. The way something I thought I knew morphs and becomes strange and new to me in a story is often what keeps me excited about and surprised by my writing. Dan A general question. If you were a character in “Fahrenheit 451,” what work(s) would you pick to memorize for posterity? John Shakespeare to begin with. I’d memorize HAMLET and TWELTH NIGHT. His stuff is great for sharing with others and for parties. Parts of the Bible, PSALMS and JOB. Passages of HUCK FINN are great as are select poems of Keats, Frost and Stevens. How’s that for a short list? Dan Great John, thanks again for taking so much time away from your schedule to answer my questions. John Thank you Dan, I enjoyed it.
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