Interview with Elizabeth Crane

Fiction writer Elizabeth Crane is the author of the funny, sad, and immensely entertaining books When the Messenger Is Hot (2002), All This Heavenly Glory (2005), and You Must Be This Happy to Enter (2008), and she so totally does not want to talk about what is or isn’t considered chick lit.

But in late May and early June of 2009, she was nice enough to take a break from her preparations for her impending move from Chicago, Illinois to Austin, Texas to talk (over email) about her obsession with crafts, why the idea that a woman can’t be considered “successful” until she has a kid makes her angry, the aesthetic differences between the cheesy and the trashy, and why it’s not cool to be happy, but maybe it ought to be.

KR: Of what does a typical day in the life of Elizabeth Crane consist?

EC: Well, right now it includes reading a number of student stories, and trying to squeeze in a little writing or revision when I can. Most days, a nap is included, as is an occasional viewing of some embarrassing reality show.

KR: Some of your stories and other interviews hint at this, but how did you become a writer? Was it something you always knew you wanted to pursue? Did it run in your family? Where did your creativity have its genesis?

EC: Do you mean a published writer, or just a writer? I started writing when I was in third grade - we were assigned to read Harriet the Spy, and Harriet was a writer, and that was the end of that. My dad does some writing, but my family’s creativity is more centered around music.

KR: Also, you currently teach at Northwestern University, right? How did you get into the profession of being a professor, and how does that work affect your writing? Is there something you’d rather be doing to pay the bills (if that even is how you pay the bills), or is the academy really the place to be for a literary writer?

EC: Actually right now I teach at the University of Chicago, as well as a low-residency MFA program - UCR Palm Desert. I sort of fell into this line of work - I got a call asking if I’d be interested. And I said Yes, please. I can’t think of any other way I’d prefer to pay the bills outside of having a bestseller - I really enjoy it. It’s hard to say how it affects my writing, if at all. For sure, some quarters, like the present one, I have a pretty full course load, and it’s hard to make time for my own writing, although somehow I have gotten some work done. Usually I don’t teach more than two classes, so there’s enough time, and there have been quarters where I was incredibly productive as a writer, so I guess this all adds up to me saying it’s pretty random.

KR: If you weren’t a writer and teacher, what would you be? What would you be/do if money were no object?

EC: I would always be a writer! BUT, I’m pretty obsessed with crafts, so I’d love to have a ton of free time to make a lot more stuff. I made a braided rug last year.

KR: Can you say a little bit about your educational history-where you did your undergraduate work and what your degree is in? Who have you studied with and how have they influenced you?

EC: I went to George Washington University in D.C., a BA in Radio and TV, minor in American Lit. But that answer is virtually irrelevant, because for better or worse I’m self-taught.

KR: Many of your protagonists are characterized by having spent a lot of time bumming around-unemployed, directionless, lacking a career per se-before they end up succeeding (if they ever do). Do you think it’s in any way better to achieve quote-unquote “success” that way-by taking a long time/paying your dues/theoretically “earning it,” or is it better to know what you want to do early in life, do it, and thereby theoretically “succeed” (whatever that even means)? What’s the value in uncertainty and directionlessness versus ambition and purpose?

EC: Well, I doubt there’s a right way to go about it, but I can’t heartily recommend the circuitous route I personally took, although I’m sure I got a bunch of stories out of it. I think it depends on talent - I mean, when I was fresh out of college, I knew I wanted to write, and I knew I had something, but I also knew I wasn’t where I wanted to be as a writer, and I didn’t get there for a long time. But I see a lot of work in the graduate classes I teach, and on occasion in my undergraduate classes that I think is publishable, so I would hope they’d try and put it out there. I suspect there are as many ways of going about it as there are writers.

KR: In her review of your debut story collection When the Messenger is Hot, Emily Gordon wrote in Newsday, “This is hardly chick lit: In fact, it’s revolutionary fiction,” implying that chick lit is a substandard genre. What, to you, is chick lit, and does your work ever fit that category? Is it a substandard genre?

EC: I think I’ll direct you to a couple of blog posts of mine on this that I wrote some time back, because I’ve sworn never to speak those words again, and I’m sticking by it.
http://www.elizabethcrane.com/blog/2005/06/c-k-l-t.html
http://www.elizabethcrane.com/blog/2005/06/ok-one-last-thought-on-c-word_15.html

KR: Maybe related to that-or maybe not-in an essay for Powells.com called “On the Subject of Influences Blatant, Less Blatant, Random or Otherwise,” you write, “So but okay, I should start by saying, by confessing, that for years, I read a lot of-how to be kind-trashy novels, and I watched soap operas, and went to see movies like Roller Boogie.” What is “trash,” by your definition, and why is it something people tend to apologize for enjoying?

EC: Without naming any names, they tended to take place in Hollywood, and may have involved Wives and such. I think we can all agree that Roller Boogie is not exactly high art. Really, I’m always happy to see people reading anything on the bus, or the train, but for me it’s because I knew there was better written stuff out there that I could be reading, I just didn’t know how to find stuff that really excited me. I personally got tired of it once I started to be able to predict dialogue and what was going to happen next.

KR: In what ways, if any, has your early affinity for trash positively affected your literary output? For example, in “Betty the Zombie,” the second story in your most recent collection, You Must Be This Happy to Enter, you use the trashy genre of reality TV (and, obviously, the genre of “zombie”) to creative and hilarious comic effect. That’s neat. Do you think you’d be able to do this if not for your early consumption of less-than-great art?

EC: Glad you liked it. See now here I’d differentiate between cheesy and trashy. I guess I can’t find a lot of literary merit in the sort of fictional dramas I was reading, but reality television has an interesting pull for me. I continue to be fascinated by what people will do and say on TV, and what they think it might do for them.

KR: While we’re sort of on the subject, how do the pleasures of a B movie differ from those of an A one? And how do you know, as a writer, whether you’re producing A or B material?

EC: There’s a new channel called “This” that shows movies that often feature movie stars before they were really stars, and they tend to be B movies; also they show movies from the 70s that are generally awful but remind me of that time in one way or another; they tend not to show anything made after about 1991. I of course prefer a great movie, but there is something riveting about these movies to me, maybe the idea that anyone took them seriously. Like one with a depiction of a NY gang made up of guys who looked like they were 40, wearing various crazy costumes, leather jackets, pimp hats, feathers. Anyway, as a writer, I’m not sure I’m the one to judge that, ultimately, but if I don’t think it’s as good as I can do, I usually don’t put it out there.

KR: Do you still have the same agent that you mention in the Powells.com essay? The one who manages not to carry a purse? How did you end up working with her, and if you’re still doing so, do you have any advice on getting and keeping a good agent?

EC: I do. She pulled my work out of the slush pile. Getting an agent - well, obviously I think good work will be pulled out of the slush pile, if you don’t happen to have any contacts. A good agent - that’s a little harder. I could just have gotten lucky! Maybe only time will tell, or again, if you have contacts that can make recommendations.

KR: WTMIH came out with Back Bay Books/Little, Brown and Company in 2003, and your follow-up book, All This Heavenly Glory, came out with them in 2005. What was your experience working with a big trade publisher like? In what ways were you pleased and/or disappointed?

EC: By and large my experience with Little Brown was fantastic, and I am still pals with my former editor there. She’s awesome.

KR: On the other hand, your most recent story collection, YMBTHTE, was published by legendary indie publishers Akashic/Punk Planet. How did you decide to go with an independent press on this project, and how has this experience differed from that of working with Back Bay?

EC: They approached me, and because things hadn’t gone as well with my second book as everyone had hoped, I made the jump. And they were terrific. They worked really hard to promote it, sent me on a big tour. They’re champs.

KR: For example, to harp on this distinction just a little while longer, what do you make of the way that the BB books include “Reading Group Questions and Topics for Discussion” but the Akashic one doesn’t? How did this respective presence and lack of questions come about, and did you get to have any input on the guides in the BB books?

EC: I had some input on those guides, but I could just as well live without them. I’m not sure I made much of it at all, except maybe they thought it would be useful for book clubs, which can help sell a lot of books.

KR: ATHG struck me as not really a story collection, exactly, and not really a novel, but more of a book of linked stories that was kind of novel-esque-was that your intention? Do you think you’ll ever write a novely-y novel, or do you prefer the shorter form? Also, please know that I find your short stories to be brilliant, so this is not a criticism-veiled-as-a-question. I’m just interested in whether you consider yourself a novelist, and why there seems to be such an insistence (among agents, editors, publishers) on writing a novel as opposed to writing short stories?

EC: Thanks! I’m happy with people calling it whatever they want, but it was meant to read somewhat like a novel in the sense that I wanted there to be a narrative thread that had some sort of arc and resolution at the end. But I do not consider myself a novelist. I do prefer short stories, although that’s not to say I won’t write a novel one day either. I didn’t originally think I’d be a short story writer either. To answer the last question, I think it’s the simple idea that novels sell better. But I’m convinced that that’s just marketing, and that short fiction could sell just as well if it were promoted the right way. Not that I know what that is.

KR: What are you working on now, and who do you think will publish it? Like do you think you’ll try to go trade or indie? How do you decide, or do market forces kind of decide that for you?

EC: More stories, and I have no idea! I don’t think a lot about the market.

KR: A tangential freakout to the ongoing freakout about the tanking global economy seems to be the one about the panic in/slow-motion collapse of the publishing industry. Have you noticed that? And which do you think is better route for authors to pursue: trade or indie? Where do you think the publishing industry is headed? Are books dead? What will it all look like when the dust finally settles?

EC: I really think it’s an individual decision - there are good arguments to be made for going in either direction. But again, these are all questions I’m not really equipped to answer. I just do what I do. But I can’t imagine books would ever be dead.

KR: In the Powells.com essay, you write of the “trashy epics” you spent your youth reading, “it took me a number of years to get bored [...] and realize I was essentially reading the same book over and over with different names and locations…” You often write about the same concerns and plot points over and over (just for instance, Charlotte Anne, the protagonist of ATHG, shares the identical inability to fantasize about a man who is involved with/married to someone else that the protagonist of “The Super Fantastic New Zealand Love Triangle” does). Not to imply that what you write is trash, but: why do you do that? How do you decide which elements to repeat and which to leave as stand-alone originals?

EC: Well, my hope is not to repeat myself at all in terms of content - “Super Fantastic” was a story that I could have probably held out for the second collection, as I did with quite a few other stories, so that I could have changed it some and used it as a Charlotte Anne story. But hopefully the only thing I repeat is themes, since there are themes that interest me that I haven’t tired of exploring yet.

KR: Many of your stories are about women whose lives are, to a greater or lesser extent, characterized in part by their past or present involvement with a crazy/toxic male significant other. Is the trope of the “bad boyfriend” overused, in your work in particular or in literature by female writers in general? Why do you keep mining that vein?

EC: I don’t think that stories about bad boyfriends will go out of style until bad boyfriends go away. What interests me more than the specifics of any bad boyfriend, which are sometimes very interesting, is the idea that we make these poor choices, and what that says about us, or what we can learn from it. But actually I sort of retired that subject, at least for the time being, with my second book. All but one or two of the main female characters in my third book are in good relationships.

KR: Relatedly, how important is revision to your work? Do you have a revision process and how does it operate?

EC: Revision is everything. I personally write a short draft, or a draft where at least the basic story is in place, and then add and add and add and tweak words and phrases until I’m ready to let it go.

KR: Many of the incidents you write about seem like Things That Actually Happened to You, but are they? How much does the “real you” differ from the protagonists of your stories?

EC: My second book had the most autobiographical source material, but I always change things to make a better story. Sometimes I start from a real event or feeling and change it dramatically or throw in a ghost or something. I think there’s as much real me in my work as there is of any fiction writer - even when a character isn’t like me at all, I’m certainly using him to convey my point of view about something, ultimately.

KR: And some of the things you write about that are part of the repetition mentioned above (having your mother die of cancer, having briefly formed a religion inspired by the Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, being a native New Yorker who fell passionately in love with Chicago, etc.) really Did Happen to You, for real, in your real life. Why write about them over and over as fiction, instead of say, a memoir?

EC: I have to respectfully disagree about this ‘over and over’ idea - if I thought that was the general perception, then I would definitely not be doing my job. I write fiction because I get to make stuff up.

KR: In “Something Shiny” in WTMIH, the protagonist states, “Anyway, I hadn’t ever given a lot of thought to exactly how to do that, not being an actress or a director or anything related to that at all, but then all these crappy things happened and I wrote a book about it (a memoir they call it, even though I’m in my thirties and it seems a bit premature in spite of the events)…” How reflective of your own attitudes about memoir is this assessment?

EC: I don’t think this particular passage is really making any statement about what the character thinks about memoir, all she’s saying is that she wrote one. Nevertheless - I love a well-written memoir. The Liar’s Club by Mary Karr is one of my favorite books ever.

KR: WTMIH was adapted by Laura Eason for the stage, resulting in a production, of which the New York Times said “Combine two parts Lifetime television movie and one part ‘Sex and the City,’ add a dash of whimsy, mount it onstage, and you would probably come up with something resembling ‘When the Messenger Is Hot,’ a sweet but pedestrian comedy-drama about an urban woman undergoing an emotional crisis.” What was that process like, and do you think that’s a fair assessment of the production?

EC: I think it’s a rather unfair assessment of the production. I really had very little to do with the production other than giving occasional notes to Laura, who I thought did a spectacular job of combining the stories. What she did was so imaginative, and yet also so true to the source material, and I would never have thought of it myself. And I have to say, having seen eight or ten performances/rehearsals, it was obvious to me that the audience response was overwhelmingly positive. I expected laughs, which came in spades, but I did not expect complete strangers to come up to me with tears in their eyes.

KR: There’s a lot about your work that I admire, but two of the traits I find most compelling are your repeated treatment of the notions that a) things may or may not happen for a reason and thus there may or may not be a god, and b) it’s not cool to be happy, but maybe it should be. So this question should probably be two questions, but: a) do you think things happen for a reason/there is a god, and b) why is it not cool to be happy, or is it?

EC: I absolutely do not believe things happen for a reason, I do believe in something greater than myself, and I totally think it’s cool to be happy. I think there’s a perception that writing about being happy isn’t the stuff of great literature, which is one of the reasons the subject interested me.

KR: A lot of your stories, and many of the chapters of your novel-esque book, derive their structures from various non-traditional story forms, such as outlines (in “The Daves,” for instance) or lists. How do you decide what structure a story will have, and what benefits do you find come from using these semi-unusual shapes? Does structure drive your stories/creative process more, or does content?

EC: Content always drives the story. The structures happen organically - the way my brain works, I think very tangentially, and so I am very naturally drawn to outlines, lists, parentheses, etc. But I rarely make a decision about that ahead of time. I try to let the story tell me what it wants to do.

KR: Also on a structural note, the title story of WTMIH happens to be the second-to-last one-how do you decide how to structure your books?

EC: It depends on the book. WTMIH we played around with to see what would work best. It wasn’t my idea to put “Good For You!” last, for example, but I thought that was genius. ATHG was the most difficult, because I wanted there to be a sort of linear progression, but I also didn’t want to bunch the childhood stories up and then the adulthood stories. So we decided to alternate, which for me was a nice way of showing how much our childhoods can be present in our adult lives.

KR: Another big picture kind of question: the titles of your three books to date are long and phrase-y-how do you decide what to call your books, and do you prefer longer titles to shorter ones?

EC: I actually like both. I just try to choose one of the story titles that seems to relate most to the overall themes in the book, and so far they’ve been long.

KR: Continuing down this road, the covers of your books-except maybe the paperback edition of ATHG, which is kind of meh (sorry! I just really prefer the hardcover constellation version)-are pretty spare and iconic. Did you get to help decide on the covers, or was that pretty much a marketing decision made by your publishers?

EC: The only cover I’ve really had any input on was for YMBTHTE. That’s my Precious Moments figurine! Which I got for a quarter at a rummage sale - after I’d written that story. Crazy, right?

KR: For what it’s worth, you have three very nice author photos-I’m especially partial to the one of you with your dog. How did you get them done and how did you decide which ones to use?

EC: Thanks, I think I like that one best too. My husband took the two more recent ones. The first one I hated. I had the sense that I was supposed to have a very “author” author photo and so I went against my better judgment. Never again.

KR: Relatedly, many of your protagonists, especially Charlotte Anne in ATHG, contemplate what it means (or doesn’t) to be “pretty.” In light of recent debates about female author photos on Gawker and elsewhere, have you ever run into pressure from anywhere to Be a Good Looking Author?

EC: I had to go look at that piece because I stopped looking at Gawker a while back (too snarky), but I think that the idea that a critic would somehow judge a book, even in part, by comparing it to what they suppose is a woman’s real experience, is pretty outrageous. But to answer the question: no. Who would dare to tell someone they needed to be attractive to write or promote a book? Alright, I’ll answer my own question. One person, not even remotely in the book business, did tell me that I needed to ‘fix myself up’ and guess what - I don’t talk to that person anymore. I’m not naïve enough to suggest that lookism isn’t present in pretty much any profession. Clearly it is. But if you can’t be a writer and look however you look, what the hell? Could that possibly influence a reader’s experience of a good book?

KR: Your story “An Intervention” ends with a poem-do you write poetry? What does it mean to be a poet and are you one?

EC: I am not, and so I am utterly unqualified to answer the question. In that story I was trying to write something that was neither great nor horrifically bad so that it would be a little ambiguous about how she’d do with it.

KR: A fair number of stories make mention of a mother who was a bit of a seamstress, and of characters who are themselves into doing “crafts.” Where does this originate, and do you consider yourself to be crafty?

EC: I love sewing and different crafts, so I’ve had fun creating characters who are into it in one way or another. There was a period of time when I was obsessed with a number of craft blogs, and I still watch some of the craft shows on local access TV - I always learn stuff, and I absolutely love the earnestness of these women. Some (not all) of the crafts are slightly on the corny side, but these crafters are quite serious about it.

KR: A lot of your protagonists speak with cute, quirky, conversational tics, like saying “but so anyway,” for instance, or saying they are “sucky” at something, or that something is “crappy,” and so on. What effect are you going for with these verbal idiosyncracies, and do you ever worry that your protagonists-you seem to be an expert in witty, neurotic, socially anxious heroines-all sound similar to each other?

EC: I just like characters who sound like real people. I’m not really aiming for ‘quirky’. I’m not too worried about characters sounding similar, no - again, I think that description might fit the characters in the first book more than the others - I hope they sound similar in All This Heavenly Glory because it’s all about one character. And You Must Be This Happy to enter features a zombie and a woman who’s far past neurotic and into severely delusional, so I do hope these characters sound different.

KR: At the end of “Something Shiny,” the protagonist finds that, even after a brush with screenwriting fame and superstardom, “there is something shiny with my name on it, but there is still no me.” And in “Year-at-a-Glance,” the protagonist muses that her mother might have been prouder of her had she “written an Oprah book” among other things. How much are fame and recognition motivating factors for you as a writer, if at all? And have you found greater senses of self and fulfillment now that you know what it’s like to have books out which places like Glamour and Entertainment Weekly have totally loved?

EC: None? Perhaps if I’d gotten any recognition in my twenties, I might very well have found a false sense of self there, but fortunately for me that didn’t happen. My sense of self and fulfillment come from many things, but definitely not from the outside. I’m not saying it’s not nice to be recognized - in fact, it’s great. I write because it’s what I love to do; the fact that critics might enjoy it is just a bonus, and theoretically helps generate interest and sell books.

KR: In the aforementioned careening train of thought in “Year-at-a-Glance,” the speaker experiences ambivalence about not having had kids/never having given her mother a grandchild-what do you make of the pressure (parental, societal, or otherwise) on women to not be able to consider themselves complete/accomplished unless they’ve had a baby?

EC: It actually makes me kind of angry. Who’s to make that choice for anyone, or to imply that someone’s life is less fulfilling if they choose not to have children? Doesn’t it actually seem like a few more people should make the choice not to? I almost think it can be hard for women to sort out their own feeling about it because there is such pressure about it. Same with being single. Can’t someone’s life be productive, valuable and worthwhile if they’re not married? But there’s an assumption that something’s wrong with someone if they don’t get married or partner up, and honestly, I really think meeting the right person is very hard, I think a lot of people settle because it’s what’s expected, and I think sometimes it’s just dumb luck that we meet someone we’re truly compatible and in love with.

KR: And speaking of success and babies, in the story “Christina,” the protagonist-a woman on a break from her boyfriend who finds herself haunted by the ghost of a baby who used to live in her building-observes of Christina the Baby that her thoughts are “bestsellery. What do you mean by this, and do you ever wish you could write this way?

EC: I think I was talking about - self-help-Zen kind of bestsellery. So no, not really.

KR: In the Reader’s Guide section of ATHG, you mention that you have a “solid place in [your] heart for popular culture” and a pretty strong awareness of celebrity news-why are you drawn to this kind of celebrity-following, and why has it become such a widespread obsession for so many people?

EC: I can’t really speak for other people, but for me it’s a few things. Often it seems like the behavior is- a bit beyond what would be acceptable under ordinary circumstances. Certainly I understand that this is to some extent about how the media portrays these people, but having known a few celebrities, I do know that things that seem perfectly normal to them are kind of outrageous to us, like jeans or haircuts that cost six hundred dollars. I guess maybe it’s about a sense of entitlement I don’t understand?

KR: WTMIH contains a couple very short stories that one could, if one were into labels, call short shorts or flash fiction. Do you write much that could fit into this genre, and if so, how are its challenges different than those of writing more standard-length short stories?

EC: I don’t - when I read people like Lydia Davis and Deb Olin Unferth, I want to be them, but it’s not my specialty. I’d like to do more of it. I do think that it’s a lot about choosing your words extremely carefully, and not having anything there that isn’t absolutely necessary to tell a story.

KR: Many of your stories deal with the differences between New York and Chicago, and the reasons why Chicago turns out to be a surprisingly superior place. How important do you consider place to be to your writing? I think you mentioned you were moving to Texas soon-are you excited/worried about the impact this might have on your work? Do you think you’ll keep writing about the NY/Chicago comparison, or move on to other subjects?

EC: Place is very important to me. I know that the effect of both of those places on me as a person has been profound, and each of those places are different from each other and had a different type of impact on me. So I suspect Texas will absolutely have an impact on me and my work, but I’m not worried about it, I’m sure it will be good.

KR: Also, I’m not sure if the driving phobia (or at least serious resistance to/resentment of driving) possessed by Charlotte Anne and several of your other protagonists is also yours (it’s definitely mine), but if so, how will you deal with the car culture of Texas?

EC: I don’t mind driving. Expressways are not my favorite thing. That’s about it.

KR: In “An Intervention,” the protagonist says she’s “heard about this hip neighborhood called Wicker Park, so we got in a cab and went there only to find nothing but a grungy-looking coffee shop on Division Street, and I was not very comfortable in this neighborhood that for some reason reminded me of parts of Mexico city [...] and I was not at all sure what was so hip that was going on there that I should overlook the feelings of endangerment I was experiencing.” Do you consider Wicker Park hip? What other parts of Chicago do you find especially hip/appealing, and what are your feelings on the rapid gentrification of such neighborhoods as Wicker Park?

EC: Wicker Park is very, very different than it was when I wrote that. Hip isn’t really what I look for in anything. I like all parts of Chicago for different reasons, but I especially like some of the more industrial areas, where there might be a block of houses across from abandoned lots or warehouses, like Pilsen. Gentrification is just kind of inevitable, I think. Maybe the change will slow down because of the economy now, but I’m not necessarily pro or con. There are advantages to thriving businesses, obviously. These areas often become gentrified because at some point it’s the only area an artist can afford to live, and then people are like, Ooh, let’s go live where the artists live, and then it changes. And in that way I’m as culpable as anyone.

KR: Because you write often about the feeling of being at home in the Midwest and the comforting allure of things Midwestern, I wonder: what comprises Midwesternness? And why is the Midwest so frequently dismissed/overlooked, especially by East Coasters, or so it seems?

EC: Well, the typical things are considered to be down-to-earth, hard-working, friendly and I think that’s all fair in the general sense. I’m not sure anyone overlooks it anymore - when I tell people I’m from Chicago everyone always says what a great place it is.

KR: A big source of self-reflection and doubt for the protagonist of “An Intervention” is the pierced/tattooed-ness of her wrong-for-her boyfriend and his hipster friends-do you have any tattoos? If so, what are they of?

EC: I have a couple, but I’ll keep that to myself.

KR: Many of your protagonists are, or have been, in Alcoholics Anonymous and seem fascinated by the peculiar vernacular that gets employed in AA (”acting as if,” and so on)-how do you know so much about AA, and why does it appear so frequently in your work?

EC: Research. And because it’s an interesting thing. I thought Infinite Jest dealt with that subject extraordinarily well, and also extensively, and it struck me reading that book, about a somewhat bleak near-future, that AA was this sort of enduring thing, that even though some fun is poked at it, it’s like, part of the heartbeat of the book, the hope. I’d also like to add that one of the core traditions of AA centers on that word “anonymous,” and I respect that greatly.

KR: Many of your protagonists, especially Charlotte Anne in ATHG have a penchant for refusing to make a choice between a set of descriptors (as when C.A. observes of her friend Jenna that they seem to share a “bond/dependence” and that Jenna has “a sense of humor/ability to laugh at herself”) and therefore use a slash to go ahead and use them both (I dig/do this)-why do you choose to write this way?

EC: Flagrantly ripping off David Foster Wallace?

KR: It’s become something of a signature move for me to end my interviews by asking my subjects if they cook, and then-regardless of the answer-asking them to share a recipe with readers of Redivider. Could you answer those? Thanks!

EC: I so don’t cook.