by Jennifer Itell
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Eric Sasson, coming to a Lit Fest near you (we hope) in June.[/caption]
I met Eric at the Aspen Summer Words festival a few years back, in a week-long workshop facilitated by Elizabeth McCracken. Andrea Dupree and I went there together, and though she and I swore we were going to hole up in our hotel room and write during all our non-workshop hours, by mid-week we'd tossed our pens and taken to going out for beers with our workshop group. We'd become quick friends in the way that can happen in a retreat setting, and for a year or so afterward, four of us met somewhat regularly via Skype to talk about our works in progress. In this way, I was lucky to get an advanced read of many of the stories in Eric's collection, Margins of Tolerance.
Eric's stories have been nominated for the Robert Olen Butler prize, the Pushcart prize, and one is in The Best Gay Stories 2013. His novel Admissions is forthcoming from Foxhead Books in 2015. He writes “Ctrl-Alt,” a column on alternative culture for the Wall Street Journal, and he is a frequent contributor to The New Republic and Salon. He received his MA in Creative Writing from NYU and has taught fiction writing in Brooklyn, where he was born, bred, and still resides.
He'll be joining us soon, at Lighthouse Lit Fest 2014, where he'll teach Why Dialogue Matters and Reading as a Writer: George Saunders's Stories. He kindly agreed to a few questions.
JI: In both your fiction and nonfiction, you challenge readers to think about the nuances of current issues. Your work seems to encourage dialogue. Is it important to you that it do this? Or are you just writing what's on your mind and not thinking about what reader reaction might be?
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Eric's first collection, Margins of Tolerance. Look for his novel to come out next year.[/caption]
ES: Perhaps because I've been writing fiction for so long I'm more prone to consider nuances and to encourage dialogue in my nonfiction. Fiction often is about not giving our readers the answers and allowing them to reach their own conclusions even while we strive to portray fully realized characters on the page. Nonfiction certainly requires more of an angle—you have to have an argument and defend it. Still, I have to admit that articles that come across as hyper-opinionated, that seem to be more about the author venting on the page than a carefully considered premise—turn me off.
In the sense that I think about fairness and looking at the other side of an issue, I do consider readers' reactions. But I don't dwell on them, mainly because I can't (and don't want to) predict them. People will react as they will. As long as I'm being honest and can explain how I've reached my conclusions in a fair way, then I feel like I've done my job.
JI: One way you get that fairness into your fiction is through dialogue. Your characters aren't afraid to confront one another, or argue. One of my favorite moments happens in "The World Needs Every Body," when Bernie, the point of view character, turns to the couple he's seated with on a plane and asks, "Does it matter?" The man and wife are orthodox Jews, and when the wife tries to stop the husband from eating a bag of airplane peanuts, Bernie, who's been observing them closely, steps in to call them on their hypocrisies. I found it funny, Bernie chiming in when he does, but also—it sparks a thought-provoking conversation. I wonder, do you enjoy writing dialogue? So many writers find it challenging.
ES:Interestingly enough, that's based on a true story. I did see an Orthodox couple eating non-kosher-for-Passover food, but I didn't confront them on it. I think fiction is the perfect place to have our characters express things we may not be brave (or foolish) enough to express in real life.
I love writing dialogue! I love how it relates a character's personality in a subtle, more organic way than direct description often can. I particularly love what is left unsaid in dialogue, and how those omissions can express so much of the tension between characters. I'm really looking forward to exploring the crucial role dialogue plays in stories with my class. A lot of writers struggle with dialogue, so I think if we examine those who do it really well we can learn so much about how to handle it effectively.
JI: In your collection, you play around with narrative approach. Several of your stories use some form of direct address; one is a letter ("Dear Guy in 24B"), another is a series of emails, and another (a favorite of mine!) is a representative of the gay community explaining to the straight community the appeal of steam rooms on cruise ships. Can you talk about finding the right slant for a story?
ES: Like many people nowadays, I have a short attention span and get bored too easily. So a lot of the times I'm experimenting with form simply because I'm tired of writing that typical 3rd person past tense story and want to try something different. Questions surrounding point of entry and point of view have long fascinated me. They pretty much set up everything in the story: Imagine for instance, if Nick Carroway wasn't narrating Gatsby or if Eugenides had not chosen the first person “we” for The Virgin Suicides. Or if Lionel Shriver had decided against using the epistolary form for We Need to Talk About Kevin. They would all be entirely different novels. Before I write a piece, I think a lot about the POV and point of entry. I want to make sure they both feel like necessary choices, because they will dictate everything that is to come.
JI: What did reading George Saunders teach you? (Can you give us a little teaser?)
ES: So many things. His fiction is consistently challenging and bold. It reminds me to assume my readers are smart and courageous enough to expect me to never hold back, to allow my work to be as dark or as weird or as disturbing as it needs to be. But Saunders' work never disturbs his audience just for the sake of being edgy or funny. There is always an emotional core, a deep sense of humanity and interconnectedness that he is exposing. He believes in people, no matter how misguided or lost we all may be. He reminds us all to never have contempt for our characters. There's so much more to say, but better I save it for the class, right? ;)
JI: You've attended writing conferences and festivals all over the country. You also spent time, as a fellow, at the Anderson Center of Minnesota. I'd love to hear your thoughts on writers' gatherings. Writing is such a private act, but it seems for you there's also a public component. Can you talk about writing communities and the role they've played?
ES: Precisely because writing is such a private act is why I feel writers' conferences, festivals, etc. are so important. We writers spend so much time at our desks alone, writing “into the void” as it were, not really knowing how our work will be greeted, or if we'll ever get it right or finish anything. These kinds of doubts are uniquely shared by writers, and writing communities allow us to express our anxieties and concerns, our ups and downs, with other individuals who are experiencing the same thing.
I don't think I'll ever stop learning as a writer, so every conference/workshop/fest I attend is another opportunity for me to grow and hone my craft. It's also a vital way to network—the friends I made at these conferences have helped me in so many ways that it's fair to say I wouldn't be where I am now without them. At pretty much every stage of publishing Margins of Tolerance—workshopping, editing, blurbs, copy-edits, promotion, setting up-readings, reviews—my writing community friends helped me out. Even the person who offered me my first WSJ article was someone I met at a conference.
JI: There's a lot of sex in your stories. Can we expect a steamy excerpt from you at the Lit Fest, after the "Let's Talk About Sex!" panel?
ES: I'm not sure what you should expect. It might be steamy. It might be disturbing. It might be funny. It might be all three! Fortunately I have a lot of sex scenes to choose from in my fiction, so I'm sure I'll find something juicy. :)
JI: Sounds great! Don't miss Eric's juicy reading in June, and in the meantime, learn more about him at www.ericsassonnow.com
