Interview central

Lots of cool writers get the Q&A treatment this week. First up is Barbara Seranella, the latest subject of the World’s Worst Interview. She speaks pithily of music choices, what she likes to read, and the upcoming Munch Mancini TV show:

Is there a Munch movie in the works? If so, can I be in it?

BS: There is a TV series. You could be a pedophile or a cross-dressing coke whore. Your choice, but you’ll probably wind up dead.

Meanwhile, Craig McDonald’s updated his interview site with a veritable smorgasbord. He spoke to Max Allan Collins late last year about the prolific author’s career, comic books and novelizations — and that’s just the beginning.

More recently, McDonald caught up with Craig Holden, whose latest novel THE NARCISSIST’S DAUGHTER (his first in four years) is quite the departure from his earlier books, and a long time coming. But, it seems, Holden wants to stick to a quicker schedule:

You seem to have a really enviable situation in that you’re allowed to find the book and take the time to really craft it. There’s so much pressure on people to do a book a year, usually, and often to really unfortunate results. Do you feel that pressure at any point?

Holden: I do now. That’s the problem with publishing when you’re not a best-seller: It’s hard to make a living. You know, I make my living at this and it’s getting harder. This book just took way too long. My publisher and my editor, they love the books, but they just tear their hair out over how long it takes. They like the good reviews and all that, but really they essentially said to me this year, "You really need to publish more books." I know for my editor it is very difficult because he is a very literary guy and he wants good stuff. And he knows fast stuff is maybe also not going to be as good. But he also knows that you need to build a writer. He’s someone who pushes me to write leaner books and I think that’s probably a good thing and it’s a direction I’ve wanted to go in anyway.

Leslie, my previous editor, really liked big, thick books. I think that’s fine if they’re complex and so forth, but I also think they can get kind of long-winded. And something I wanted to do, when I was at Dell, was to write short novels. I’m really attracted to and very interested in very short novels. I’ve been reading a lot of them … short stories. I’ve been thinking a lot about the structure of narrative and trying to become simpler — not in the language, but in the structure — and still have it be tension-filled and all of that. I’ve got a whole shelf of tiny little books under two hundred pages.

McDonald also spoke to Pete Dexter, whose last novel is TRAIN but who is immersed in writing a semi-autobiographical novel at the moment. He talks about the injuries that prevent him from flying (leading to huge cross-country driving trips) and whether he ever revisits old novels:

Have you had any new thoughts or revised thoughts about the book since Train first appeared?

Dexter: Not a thought in my head. For me, you know, once they’re out of the house they’re pretty much out of mind. As far as the critics go, they were pretty kind to this one overall but what they say doesn’t make much of a difference to my own attitude about the book.

McDonald: Do you go back and reread your own books from time to time?

Dexter: No.

McDonald: Never look back?

Dexter: I’ve never actually sat down and read one of my own novels. Same thing with movies I write … of course those usually end up like shit anyway. I just can’t sit there and watch something that I’ve supposedly written. And I cannot read my own books.

Look for McDonald’s interviews with Kinky Friedman, Tom Russell and Ken Bruen (for the second time) over the next few weeks.