{"id":628,"date":"2015-06-04T11:48:36","date_gmt":"2015-06-04T15:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/?p=628"},"modified":"2015-06-04T11:48:36","modified_gmt":"2015-06-04T15:48:36","slug":"mar-asks-sean-hammer-answers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/mar-asks-sean-hammer-answers\/","title":{"rendered":"MAR Asks, Sean Hammer Answers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sean<\/a>
Sean Hammer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sean Hammer was born in 1988 in Washington, DC and raised in nearby Silver Spring, Maryland. He holds degrees from Boston University and Johns Hopkins, and is beginning his MFA in Fiction at Hunter College in September 2015. His work has been featured in various journals, and his monthly column can be found online at The Prague Revue<\/em>. He lives in New York City and kneels at the holy altar of validation, so if you like his work, follow him on Twitter<\/a> and boost his ego.<\/p>\n

Sean\u2019s short story, \u201cThe Charity Diet,\u201d appears in MAR 35.1.<\/p>\n

Quick! Summarize your story\/poem\/essay in 10 words or fewer. Extra points if your answer rhymes.<\/strong><\/p>\n

After meeting Rasputin (maybe), a lawyer obsesses over charitable giving.<\/p>\n

What can you share about this story prior to its MAR publication?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019d planned on \u201cThe Charity Diet\u201d being a much longer story. In the original draft, I\u2019d made it to the scene in Central Park (top of page two in the final, published version) at page 10. At the time, I worked for the public transportation system in New York City. To distract myself from the soul-depleting bureaucracy, I wrote stories while I was supposed to be writing construction proposals. (You didn\u2019t hear that from me.) Realizing the story I was working on didn\u2019t merit the bloated length it was leaning toward, I decided to spend the afternoon writing quick paragraphs plot point by plot point from my original, longer outline. The promise I held myself to was that I would \u201cget something done\u201d in every single paragraph, and in that way would move the story along as quickly as possible. I wrote the draft in an afternoon, revised it a number of times, and here we are.<\/p>\n

What was your reaction upon receiving your MAR acceptance?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pumped. Really, really pumped. I\u2019ve had a number pieces published online, some of which have sold\/been read in far greater numbers than I\u2019d ever expected, but this is my first story in print. To have that milestone come in such a long-standing, respected journal is special. Then when I went through MAR\u2019s<\/em> author index and saw names like Aimee Bender and David Foster Wallace I vacillated from feelings of inadequacy to outright ecstasy. I think that\u2019s about as good as it gets for a writer. Side note: the afternoon I received the MAR <\/em>acceptance, I\u2019d been at The Whitney Museum on Manhattan\u2019s Upper East Side. I\u2019ve only been to the museum twice, and each time I came home to an e-mail telling me I was having a story published. (The other was in The Prague Revue<\/em>, where I now write a monthly non-fiction column.) Needless to say, I\u2019ll be returning to the Whitney next time my desperation reaches critical mass.<\/p>\n

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

My good friend John Miller told me to take out some of the specificity I\u2019d included. Normally I hate this note (I don\u2019t believe in the \u201coverly specific references date a work\u201d school of thought) but in this particular piece, he was right. I\u2019m glad I listened.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re at a family reunion and some long-lost relative asks about your writing. What do you say?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most of the time people ask, \u201cwhat kind of stuff do you write?\u201d I start broad, answering simply, \u201cfiction.\u201d This answer is almost never sufficient, despite my prayers. If pressed, I\u2019ll upgrade my response to, \u201cI always have a number of things going at once, usually a few stories and I\u2019m working on some \u2018longer\u2019 projects, too\u201d \u2013 sometimes people just nod here, and I\u2019m off the hook. If they call my bluff and ask what the mysterious \u201clonger projects\u201d are about, I\u2019m forced to admit it\u2019s nearly impossible to talk about a work-in-progress without hyperventilating. I\u2019m not sure why that is \u2013 maybe because it feels like cheating somehow, as though announcing the existence of a draft is promising a finished, published project. Unsolicited advice for everyone: never, ever tell your grandmother you\u2019re writing a novel.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong: I love my family and I love talking about writing with them. It\u2019s just difficult to discuss your own projects a) before they\u2019re finished and b) without sounding self-congratulatory. Pretty much the only person I can do that with is my dad (he gets me about as much as anyone is going to, I think) and even then, it\u2019s rare.<\/p>\n

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

My first published short story, \u201cCornbread.\u201d It was pulled from the slush pile by the intern readers at Kindle Singles<\/em> and then championed by the editor-in-chief, Dave Blum. I was young for something like that (24), it sold well over 10,000 copies, and was named one of the \u201cTop Ten Kindle Singles<\/em> of 2012\u201d by Amazon.com against some incredibly stiff competition from Big Name Writers. It still sells a few copies every day, a fact I\u2019m certain of because I remain vain enough to return to the website regularly.<\/p>\n

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

Any wasted time. Something I love about writing is that it turns the all-time greatest leisure activity \u2013 reading! \u2013 into homework\/research, but something I hate about writing is that it makes me feel guilty for pretty much any downtime unless I\u2019ve already written a significant amount that day. It can be hard to enjoy things when there\u2019s a voice in my ear telling me I\u2019ll never get where I want to be if I keep wasting time. You can\u2019t write twenty-four hours a day, but you can certainly obsess over it every waking moment.<\/p>\n

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

Not picking up my phone the time Bode Miller called me. It\u2019s a long story.<\/p>\n

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

Bode Miller called me, once.<\/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

I\u2019d have to go with \u201cThe Girl Who Not Once Cried Wolf\u201d by George Choundas<\/a>. One of those stories I read with my jaw on the floor. I don\u2019t want to spoil much for anyone who hasn\u2019t read it, but I will say that it\u2019s a nearly impossible task to take a story everyone already knows and not only make it your own, but make it riveting and shocking. That\u2019s what Choundas has done here. My eyes raced my heart to the ending.<\/p>\n

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

\"Sean<\/a>Thanks for the interview, Sean!
\n<\/em><\/strong>Laura Maylene Walter, Fiction Editor<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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