ZZ Packer is already a well known author of short fiction due to her works being published in magazines like The New Yorker, Harper's Bazaar and Story magazine. Her first book, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, is a collection of those previously published stories.
Buy Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
Daniel Robert Epstein: Ive been talking to a lot of short storywriters lately and they seem to say that short story collections dont sell very well. Did you ever think to do a novel first?
ZZ Packer: Im writing a novel now but it has nothing to do with how well short stories sell. I decided to write short stories because thats a form I really like writing in. To me it seemed to be the most natural form. I knew that short stories didnt traditionally garner huge advances but I was writing them anyway.
I just started writing a novel because I came across a subject matter that I thought needed to be explored in a novel. I know several short storywriters who are really excellent and when they go to the novel form they arent as good. I do think there is a short story renaissance but the publishing world still seems to believe the novel form is the big moneymaker.
DRE: Were these stories all new?
ZP: Theyve all been other places. I call it finding a home for the stories. I want them to have homes before they are collected. Not to say I would have kicked a story out of the collection if it didnt get published previously but I feel that having a story in a magazine is a way for it get circulated outside of the bookstore.
DRE: How autobiographical are these stories?
ZP: I think thats a hard question for any writer. On the one hand anything a writer writes is going to be to some extent autobiographical because it filters through their experience. What people really seem to be asking is Did these stories occur to you? or are they real? I would say no because then I would call it a memoir. One of the things that happens to my contemporaries is the prevailing realist school authors will use details of actual things or events to make a story sound realistic to increase its verisimilitude. If I have a story and it concerns a brownie troupe in Atlanta the fact that Ive been a brownie in Atlanta doesnt mean that story is me. Thats the sort of thing that confuses readers. It does lend some veracity to the story.
DRE: Is it cool to do stories that involve black characters without it being all about race?
ZP: Yeah but I think that is true for how life is. Race is usually not the main issue of peoples lives. The real things that people think about are trying to lead happy and fulfilling lives. Those tend to be the things that rule people and things like race usually end up being obstructions in life. I first look at characters through what I think they want. When race does come up I feel I have to address it but I dont feel as though every story needs to be about race. Obviously if you are in the majority group then you do think about race more simply because you are often times categorized by it.
DRE: How was it writing with the main character being male [in the short story [The Ant of the Self]?
ZP: I did have to think more about that. One of the reasons I wrote the story was because I had a sense of those characters. Then I was scared to write the story and I would have to tell it from the point of view of a male character. I wanted to do it in a novel but I wanted to do it in a short story first to see if I could make it work. Then I finally realized that its a character just like any other and the fact that hes a male shouldnt keep me from writing it and keep the character from being realistic. Once I delved into the character I was able to write. Im pretty satisfied with it. I think one of the best compliments regarding that story is that someone wrote me a letter after it came out in the New Yorker magazine. They began with Dear Mr. Packer. I was glad this person assumed I was male because it meant that they never questioned it. My assumption was that the story worked then.
DRE: One critic pointed out that made unflattering references to your home state of Kentucky.
ZP: [laughs] Yes that was from a paper called the Courier Journal. You can take it as flattering or unflattering. Thats the kind of thing the character thinks and in that particular instance I happen to share that characters view. I dont always share all my characters beliefs. For me I had a tough time growing up in Kentucky and on the other hand it was good for me. But Im not here to spread propaganda about the state of Kentucky. Its not to say that I have a problem with everyone in Kentucky because I dont know them all.
DRE: Your editor at Riverhead, Cindy Spiegel, called you an old fashioned writer. What does that mean?
ZP: She told me that and I feel that its a compliment. I take it to mean that I am a storyteller. I like to pay attention to the words and language; at least I hope I do. I want it to be as tight, good and economical as possible. Maybe she means a writer that is acutely aware of story. That may sound self evident but I think the reason she is saying that is because it may belie a weariness for the way some new writers may write a polished story but have no core to it.
DRE: Whats your novel going to be about?
ZP: It's set in the 19th Century after the Civil War. The subject is the Buffalo Soldiers who left the South, Louisiana in this case, and traveled to the West.
You don't hear much about blacks in the West and I became really fascinated by them. I thought to justify my interest I had better write about them.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Buy Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
Daniel Robert Epstein: Ive been talking to a lot of short storywriters lately and they seem to say that short story collections dont sell very well. Did you ever think to do a novel first?
ZZ Packer: Im writing a novel now but it has nothing to do with how well short stories sell. I decided to write short stories because thats a form I really like writing in. To me it seemed to be the most natural form. I knew that short stories didnt traditionally garner huge advances but I was writing them anyway.
I just started writing a novel because I came across a subject matter that I thought needed to be explored in a novel. I know several short storywriters who are really excellent and when they go to the novel form they arent as good. I do think there is a short story renaissance but the publishing world still seems to believe the novel form is the big moneymaker.
DRE: Were these stories all new?
ZP: Theyve all been other places. I call it finding a home for the stories. I want them to have homes before they are collected. Not to say I would have kicked a story out of the collection if it didnt get published previously but I feel that having a story in a magazine is a way for it get circulated outside of the bookstore.
DRE: How autobiographical are these stories?
ZP: I think thats a hard question for any writer. On the one hand anything a writer writes is going to be to some extent autobiographical because it filters through their experience. What people really seem to be asking is Did these stories occur to you? or are they real? I would say no because then I would call it a memoir. One of the things that happens to my contemporaries is the prevailing realist school authors will use details of actual things or events to make a story sound realistic to increase its verisimilitude. If I have a story and it concerns a brownie troupe in Atlanta the fact that Ive been a brownie in Atlanta doesnt mean that story is me. Thats the sort of thing that confuses readers. It does lend some veracity to the story.
DRE: Is it cool to do stories that involve black characters without it being all about race?
ZP: Yeah but I think that is true for how life is. Race is usually not the main issue of peoples lives. The real things that people think about are trying to lead happy and fulfilling lives. Those tend to be the things that rule people and things like race usually end up being obstructions in life. I first look at characters through what I think they want. When race does come up I feel I have to address it but I dont feel as though every story needs to be about race. Obviously if you are in the majority group then you do think about race more simply because you are often times categorized by it.
DRE: How was it writing with the main character being male [in the short story [The Ant of the Self]?
ZP: I did have to think more about that. One of the reasons I wrote the story was because I had a sense of those characters. Then I was scared to write the story and I would have to tell it from the point of view of a male character. I wanted to do it in a novel but I wanted to do it in a short story first to see if I could make it work. Then I finally realized that its a character just like any other and the fact that hes a male shouldnt keep me from writing it and keep the character from being realistic. Once I delved into the character I was able to write. Im pretty satisfied with it. I think one of the best compliments regarding that story is that someone wrote me a letter after it came out in the New Yorker magazine. They began with Dear Mr. Packer. I was glad this person assumed I was male because it meant that they never questioned it. My assumption was that the story worked then.
DRE: One critic pointed out that made unflattering references to your home state of Kentucky.
ZP: [laughs] Yes that was from a paper called the Courier Journal. You can take it as flattering or unflattering. Thats the kind of thing the character thinks and in that particular instance I happen to share that characters view. I dont always share all my characters beliefs. For me I had a tough time growing up in Kentucky and on the other hand it was good for me. But Im not here to spread propaganda about the state of Kentucky. Its not to say that I have a problem with everyone in Kentucky because I dont know them all.
DRE: Your editor at Riverhead, Cindy Spiegel, called you an old fashioned writer. What does that mean?
ZP: She told me that and I feel that its a compliment. I take it to mean that I am a storyteller. I like to pay attention to the words and language; at least I hope I do. I want it to be as tight, good and economical as possible. Maybe she means a writer that is acutely aware of story. That may sound self evident but I think the reason she is saying that is because it may belie a weariness for the way some new writers may write a polished story but have no core to it.
DRE: Whats your novel going to be about?
ZP: It's set in the 19th Century after the Civil War. The subject is the Buffalo Soldiers who left the South, Louisiana in this case, and traveled to the West.
You don't hear much about blacks in the West and I became really fascinated by them. I thought to justify my interest I had better write about them.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
missy:
ZZ Packer is already a well known author of short fiction due to her works being published in magazines like The New Yorker, Harper's Bazaar and Story magazine. Her first book, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, is a collection of those previously published stories....