I had decided to retire the literary Would You Rather series, but didn't want to stop interviews on the site all together. Instead, I've pulled together 40ish questions - some bookish, some silly - and have asked authors to limit themselves to answering only 10 of them. That way, it keeps the interviews fresh and connectable for all of us!
Say hi to Jon Chaiim McConnell. Jon lives in Delaware. He is the author
of thrum (2021, Eye Cult Attic), and his short fiction can be
found in Heavy Feather Review, Yemassee, and Blackbird, among others. He is the
former Fiction Editor of Split Lip Magazine, Redivider, and a former Associate
Editor of Whole Beast Rag.
Why do you write?
I have a mechanical compulsion to write, and it comes out of a need to 1)
articulate myself in ways that I never get a chance to in the course of normal
life and 2) to problem solve (like as an activity; solving the puzzle of how a
piece of writing can be successfully expressed is my favorite thing to do). I
go back and forth on the idea about whether this is “enough” of a reason or not.
Today I think it is.
What’s your kryptonite as a writer?
Characters – I feel like there is a spectrum of types of writers, and I am not
on that side of it.
If I’m collaborating with someone I’ll do everything I can to end up with
effective characters on the page, but in my own work it’s when I finally
focused on emphasizing my strengths as a writer rather than trying to balance
things out that my work started being published, receiving good feedback, etc.
Sharpening the edges instead of rounding them out.
What’s the best money you’ve ever spent as a writer?
I’ve only done it twice, but getting an AirBnb for a few days and turning it
into my own personal writers retreat. One of them was at a pool house in
Northridge CA during the summer with just enough room for the bed, the desk,
and about six feet to pace across back and forth.
I’d recommend it to anyone.
What are some of your favorite books and/or authors?
The Road is probably my single favorite if I had to pick, and then Obscene
Bird of Night by Jose Donoso has inserted itself in every book conversation
I’ve had over the past few years, so that goes on top of my list now. I
recommended MEM by Bethany Morrow to everyone I know and it’s become one
of my totems while I write, alongside Crystal Eaters by Shane Jones. The
Pulp vs The Throne by Carrie Lorig changed how I think about books
entirely.
What is your favorite book from childhood?
Probably either the Asian Saga books from James Clavell, LOTR, or The Belgariad
series. Sabriel and The Abhorsen series by Garth Nix stuck with me a lot
actually, and I think I used the name of the “cat” (spoilers) from those books
as a username for just about everything online when I was in high school.
What are you currently reading?
Comics/graphic novels – I feel like I have a lot of catching up to do. Alan
Moore’s Promethea. Anything that looks the slightest bit twee or
fantastical from Image (Arclight by Brandon Graham and Marian Churchland,
Angelic by Simon Spurrier and Caspar Wijngaard), and then my wife just
got me Sandman so I’ve finally started reading that.
Do you read the reviews of your books or do you stay far
far away from them, and why?
Oh I read them, I’m desperate for the attention implied in them – especially if
someone starts extrapolating something from the book that I hadn’t thought of,
didn’t mean, or don’t agree with. I’m (usually) fairly good about shutting off
and getting to more important things, so I’ll let myself indulge. If I’m
writing to articulate myself, then I gotta know if it’s worked.
It’s at least healthier than indulging on social media as the third party to
someone else’s back and forth, right?
Do you DNF books?
I do now, with fiction at least. Non-fiction and poetry I’ll tend to stick it
through no matter what because of my unfamiliarity with the writing process for
them, but with fiction it feels (arrogantly) like I can see behind the curtain.
And unless I find that things back there are being impressively, expertly, put
together OR are a nearly incomprehensible gambit that I need to see if they can
pull off, I can tend to get a little bored.
What are your bookish pet peeves?
That thing where book covers have yearly fashion trends – when several books a
year come out with essentially the same cover, from a design perspective, it
feels almost disrespectful to the author? In an impersonal “let’s move some
product” kind of way.
I know why it happens, I just don’t like that it does.
Also, the thing where the most grounded, realistic, sober examination of a
domestic conflict will have the most cryptic, abstract and fantastical title
you’ve ever seen. Editors should impose a weirdness tax on an author’s
revisions if the title of a book is anything more than 50% more mystical than
the plot.
Are you a book hoarder or a book unhauler?
I hoard. I’ll discover something, like an author’s favorite author, and go down
the rabbit hole. I’ll sometimes do a thing where I want the project I’m working
on to be the product of certain books, as in “this is the type of book that
would have been written by someone who’s read x, y, and z.”
Sometimes I’ll get distracted though and it becomes more like “this is the type
of book that would have been written by someone who owns x, y, and z,
but then read these other three books instead.”
And then they all remain on my shelves for years, on the off chance I’ll live
up to that original promise.
Sometimes I do.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“The tenuous infrastructure of a society fueled by liquid
electricity is on the verge of collapsing. thrum is the story of a city
in a state of aneurysm, told by a man who believes he's fortunate enough to
have escaped to the countryside, a woman without the means to, and the long
history of obsessive excavation that, for centuries, has invited ruin.”
Buy a copy
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