There is No First Place in Writing

First of all, congratulations on taking over as the Managing Editor of The Massachusetts Review. Your new website, with its archives, readings, and artwork is refreshing. During this period of transition what challenges did you face as one of the country’s top non-profit literary magazines?

MR is renowned for visual as well as literary arts. Our design was initially conceived by the sculptor, graphic artist, and professor at Smith and Hampshire Colleges Leonard Baskin, who contributed work throughout his career. Jerome Liebling – the photographer, filmmaker, Hampshire professor, and mentor to Ken Burns – was on the MR masthead from the early 70s until his death this past year. Our covers have featured many artists over the years, and both breadth and variety are evident: photographs by Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Manuel Álvarez Bravo and Liebling; prints by Baskin and Fred Becker; works on paper by Richard Yarde, Laylah Ali; paintings by Gregory Gillespie and Will Barnet. Inside sections have showcased both individual artists and thematic art on subjects such as Women, Chinese political woodcuts, and Latin America. As New York Times art critic Grace Glueck comments,

It isn’t every literary magazine whose covers serve as visual appetizers for what’s to be found inside. One rare example is the Massachusetts Review. Its stimulating covers, adorned by paintings, drawings, photographs and such, give salient visual clues to each issue’s contents, suggesting the intellectual bounty within.

The challenge of transitioning from only print, unquestionably the most invaluable source, to print-and-online, putting MR's content up on the Internet, was fueled by a duty to share great writing and artwork with as many people as possible. MR's history, chained together with many memorable contributions, challenged me from an emotional and technical standpoint. At first, it was similar to learning to ride a bike. A few times, or many, you fall, you laugh, you cry, you try and try. Eventually, you ride the bike without crying. And if you have a dog, (s)he can run beside you.

On your website it says, "We seek a balance between established writers and promising new ones." Could you please expand on that?

The balance between established and promise is pretty obvious, really, since we've always seen it as our mission to seek out and work with younger or less published authors. Nothing better, in fact, than finding one you think could be great one day. The managing editor before me found a young writer, Dario Sulzman, who we'll be publishing in the next issue. “He's definitely got promise,” said a note left for me to read whenever I started working here. Here now, another unknown author that comes to mind is a Peruvian, César Gutiérrez, the author of 80M84RD3R0. His work made me realize that there are “promising new ones”.

Do you think there's too much talent and it's hard to find a needle in the haystack? Are most good stories often written by trained authors, post-MFA students, and previously published writers? In other words why is it hard to find good unpublished writers?

It is hard to find good unpublished writers because it's hard to write. Writing is a lonely way of life. Many writers face a blank page or screen each day. Living a life full of writing and living and loving is not so easy for most people. Most people have a lot on their plates, so to speak; a good balance is hard to find. The lucky ones make a living with their writing in their lifetimes. Most people try their whole lives to becomes successful writers and they die trying. Each day is a lifetime. Whenever a writer, able to clearly share his or her point of view, one day submits poetry, a story, or an essay, then we have found something worthwhile.

[Not having] an MFA is not a deal breaker at all, in my opinion. As a matter of fact, many great writers never went to school for writing. On this note, a couple quotes run into my mind. One is by Cesare Pavese. He said, “A writer should create a world of books for himself (or herself).” In other words, a writer has to read a lot. A person who reads a lot is not necessarily an academic or trained author.

Typical yet appropriate examples here for writers that probably read many books and that did not go to school for an MFA, or even work as writers, are the American poets Wallace Stevens and W.C. Williams, or even James Tate. Or take Franz Kafka. Another writer to mention here is Rainer Maria Rilke. Rilke's “for the sake of a single poem” is a touchstone piece for any writer to read. Upon reading that piece, a writer must live life as a human being. A writer is a person that has to live during his or her lifetime. In time, an okay or a decent writer can become a good or great writer. What's the saying, you have to write in your thirties to be read in your forties?

Maybe it's hard to find good unpublished writers because it's even harder to write.

If Patricia's personal experience is one of unrequieted love, how would you advise she share love through her stories to come out of "a lonely way of life"?

An artist can come out of a lonely way of life by reading, going to movies, bars, concerts, restaurants, meeting someone, getting a job, or by simply walking on streets or paths in woods. That is, an artist can seek balance with all kinds of things in his or her life. He or she does not have to live a certain way to be creative. Besides, don't artists paint, sculpt, write, film movies, sing songs, or dance in order to share that humanity with an audience? Even when it comes to creative writing, and even if the writer lives like crazy, say, like Frank Stanford, do not people always say a writer is an observer? I mean, something has to be at stake in the written expression, and that something is not just for the writer but for everyone, all the time.

Today is a different world than when Baudelaire or Hemingway or Rimbaud or Kerouac walked the earth. Today there is no reason a person cannot have the will power and the energy to be a happy person, a lively person, with friends and family, and still be a writer. Besides, a writer should know that we all alive endure struggle, pain, loneliness. I do not think anyone suffering would want another person to know what that madness feels like.

Patricia, whenever you write, you can write anything. Use your imagination. If you need a good starting point, go outside. Notice how much is in the world to love you and be loved by you. Enjoy the simple pleasure of watching the sun go down. Enjoy hearing the birds you cannot even see but can hear sing. Go sit by water. Throw a rock in water. Listen. Pick a daisy. Watch clouds crumple. Go sit on a bench in a park. Watch people. Maybe talk with a stranger. Take a risk and live, love, love, live, love!

How do you resolve an artistic conflict of opinion between you and your staff of editors while picking the best stories during each reading period?

We resolve an artistic conflict between editors very simply. Together, we drink whiskey. A bottle is always in my desk drawer.

Landon is interested in writing science fiction and reads mostly postmodernist literature. Of late he's intrigued by Literary Fiction and has read the works of Kurt Vonnegut, Nabokov, Hunter Thompson, Roberto Bolano, and Haruki Murukami to name a few, and decided to commit to Literary Fiction. Any advice for Landon? On a larger note, do you think the world of "Literary Fiction" is blending with other genres these days?

Thinking of the phrase "Literary Fiction" brings to mind the Argentine writer Ricardo Piglia. There is his idea that there are at least three sorts of avant-gardes: a Hemingway sort (a dance with truth and death), a classic avant-garde (where you dig into the nature of writerly form itself), and the postmodern variety (where you mix high and low, pop and serious, etc., etc.). Depending on who is doing it, we like them all!

And as for Landon, Landon, keep reading, writing, living and loving. Remember Rilke's “for the sake of a poem”. And from your list, Bolano is a lovely example because you can tell he ate books. Hell, 2666 seemed equivalent to earning a humanities degree, after I read it. Landon, keep reading writers from around the world.

These days literary fiction is very much alive, in constant motion, keeping up with this crazy world. Right now people need each other more than ever. To have to bear pain or struggle alone these days is terrifying. So, we need more of each other, we need more of you. We need you to share your point of view because that is the most valuable thing you have. It's something no one can take away from you. You sharing that point of view helps us see the world differently and hopefully helps you understand yourself better.

You said, "To have to bear pain or struggle alone these days is terrifying." Why do you think most writers of a certain literary quality, or aiming for one, end up in depression, substance abuse, and perhaps, isolation from society and family? Consider Hemingway, Barry Hannah, and David Foster Wallace. How could you advise a young writer to be serious yet not go crazy?

Firstly, "To have to bear pain or struggle alone these days is terrifying", meaning people need to be understood, loved, and supported by each other rather than being given up on, turned away, or dragged along behind grief. As a person grows older it seems as if he or she will, consciously or not, submerge into a world of undeserved pain, from which lucky people, sometimes writers, receive unimaginable blessings and gifts as a result of what seems like only pain.

Secondly, there is no First Place in writing; there is no national tournament like there is for college wrestling each year. As far as Hemingway, Hannah, and Wallace go, there is no literary quality in their lives; they are people with human qualities in their lives. They lived and they died how they did, as people. They loved to write because it made them happy, no matter how much success or not came their ways. The way that some people think that those big name writers, such as Hemingway or Hannah, even today’s Denis Johnson, are rock stars saddens me. I know those writers are hung like horses, so to speak, but those writers were and are human beings-- and that’s why they are important. A rock star is a rock star. A writer is a writer.

It’s not important to try to live a certain way to be considered a writer. There are too many examples of writers that are not depressed, not reclusive, and not drug addled, with great successes. Those many examples trump the idea that a person must be screwed up in order to really write or create art.

Not long ago I read a short essay, “Improving Your Dreams”, by the poet William Stafford, that comes to mind. It basically says take bits and pieces, from the successful dreams of people that you admire, in order to create your own dreams. After a while, you learn what works for you and what to leave out. In the end, I do not think any of those great writers would encourage desolation in order to write great sentences. Those great writers would know better than to use their troubled lives as examples for young writers.

Could you give insights to your selection process for Fiction at MR and perhaps, discuss this process in relation to a story recently published?

Sure. As far as selection process, a piece is submitted electronically, on-line, or sent via snail mail. The submission gets logged in, i.e. who sent the pages, were they fiction or poetry, etc.. And then the editors read through the submissions. If an editor likes a story, for instance, then he or she passes it over to another editor. In the end, our main editor Jim Hicks will take the story, assuming he concurs with the others of beforehand, and then send it to me. I contact the writer, draft up a galley, and then the story accepted is published in the next issue or two.

With that Dario Sulzman story, it was a little different, as sometimes things can be. The managing editor before me left the story with a note on the desk for me. I easily read the story, noticed Sulzmanis a student, unpublished, and then forwarded “What Comes Through These Walls” to Jim, our editor. Jim then sent it to Michael Thurston, our fiction editor, and the two of them had a chat about it. We then worked with Sulzman on a couple of minor points. In the end, the story will appear in our Spring issue.

It is said that fiction is a lie that tells the truth. What kind of truth do you look for in MR’s fiction? 

It's hard to answer these questions because writing is not religion. If there was a truth already written then why would people keep struggling to write, to say the unsayable? I read to travel and see other points of view, which enrich my idea of truth and beauty.

One last question -- I hope you don't mind. Name a short story that blew your mind, and continues to, each time you re-read -- and why?

There is not one. Maybe “The Nose” by N. Gogol. Or, I guess Breece DJ Pancake swims to mind. The Italian writer Cesare Pavese, who wrote many stories, is one of my favorites. Of course I love Denis Johnson and Roberto Bollano. There is one short novel I really love, and that is Franz Kafka’s The Trial. I cannot explain it, but that book is real to me. I loved the guitarist Slash's book. There is a poem by a guy named Miklos Radnoti. The poem is called “Hesitating Ode” and every time I read it, I love it more and more. The Black Heralds by César Vallejois a touchstone book for me. How could I forget Sylvia Plath?I love Frank Stanford, who wrote some short stories, a lot, a whole lot, which reminds me of Flannery O'Connor, her book Wise Blood. Another writer that blows me away and that I love to re-read is Lautreamont. Those are not short stories and they are not just one-- I do not know how to answer this question, maybe. I just don't know.
 

Priyatam Mudivarti writes fiction at late nights, writes complex software code during the day as a freelance software engineer, and documents people's lives taking time-off as a traveling documentary photographer. He has earned his bachelors in Computer Science Engineering and is currently pursuing MFA from Pacific University. He is working on a collection of interlinked short stories and a novella, Yuti, set in India. He lives in Cambridge. He is the Interviews Editor for The Review Review.

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