{"id":203,"date":"2014-09-21T23:52:29","date_gmt":"2014-09-22T03:52:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/?p=203"},"modified":"2014-09-22T09:06:40","modified_gmt":"2014-09-22T13:06:40","slug":"mar-asks-james-warner-answers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/mar-asks-james-warner-answers\/","title":{"rendered":"MAR Asks, James Warner Answers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"James.Warner_contributor.photograph\"<\/a>
James Warner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While the protagonist in James Warner’s short story, “Using the Word ‘Posterity’ in a Sentence,” finds himself slowly being erased, there’s no forgetting this quirky tale, which appears in MAR<\/em>‘s Spring 2014 issue (Vol. XXXIV, Number 2).<\/p>\n

James Warne<\/a>r’s stories are forthcoming most imminently in ZYZZYVA<\/em> and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine<\/em>, and have appeared most recently in Web Conjunctions<\/em> and The Literarian<\/em>. His novel All Her Father’s Guns <\/em><\/a>was published by Numina Press and was a San Francisco Public Library reading list selection. He runs the reading series InsideStorytime <\/a>and helps organize the San Francisco Lit Crawl <\/a>for the Litquake festival. In this interview, he discusses catastrophe, the unforeseeable future, Voltaire, and the justification of human existence. You know. The lifeblood of writing. Enjoy:<\/p>\n

Quick! Summarize your story in 10 words or fewer. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Forgotten by everyone else,
\nA man starts to forget himself.<\/p>\n

What was the best (or worst) feedback you received on this piece?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Originally there was a line towards the end where the narrator addressed the reader directly, saying \u201cYou too, soon after reading this, will forget ever having digested my words…\u201d When I read the story to the San Francisco Writers Workshop, Ian Tuttle told me to take that part out. I ignored his suggestion, but when [past Fiction Editor] Jason Marc Harris was editing the story for Mid-American Review<\/em>, he said the same thing. So I gave in \u2013 I guess that was taking the idea a stage too far…<\/p>\n

What do you consider your biggest writing-related success?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Any time I feel I’ve nailed a sentence, gotten some detail just right, my existence feels justified for a moment or two…I think one has to take satisfaction in the writing itself, since what happens afterwards is so unforeseeable.<\/p>\n

Your biggest non-writing-related regret?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Maybe I wish I’d survived more catastrophes \u2013 they might have taught me something.<\/p>\n

Tell us one strange thing about yourself that does not involve writing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I often forget to exhale.<\/p>\n

Tell us one strange thing about yourself that does<\/em> involve writing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It sucks being compared to Voltaire in a rejection letter.<\/p>\n

Do you have another favorite piece of writing in this MAR issue? If so, name it and tell us why.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot of good writing in MAR 34.2…I think I’ll go with Brian Costello\u2019s \u201cTracking the \u2018Choose Life\u2019 Balloons: Our Findings Thus Far.\u201d I like the relentlessness of his narrative strategy, in giving us each balloon’s distinct unpredictable trajectory, mirroring the baffling vastness of destiny and evoking the sanctity and profanity of human lives.<\/p>\n

Can you show us a photo of you holding your MAR contributor\u2019s copy?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"JamesWarner_contributorphotograph\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Thanks for the interview, James!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Laura Maylene Walter, Fiction Editor<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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