Our fiction co-editor Natasha Mieszkowski recently had this exchange with Evan D. Williams, our Issue #19 featured fiction author. Here’s what he had to say about his story “An Unknown Place,” the artwork that accompanies it, and writers who have influenced and inspired him.
What inspired you to write this piece?
I started this story in 2007 right after my first of three brief stints in Manhattan, so I was clearly contemplating the city/country dichotomy.
What do you hope readers take away from it?
I hope that readers will appreciate the parity and unity of text and image in this piece. I am proud of the story and I absolutely love Meredith’s ink wash paintings but I think those elements function best when given equal space and attention.
I’m curious about the origin of this piece, and the decision to integrate the artwork. Did this begin as a visual piece, or was the text the beginning. They blend so well together, supporting each other. How did you and the artist arrive at such collaboration?
The text came first, but when I reached out to Meredith I envisioned a true collaboration where text and image were equals, as opposed to an illustrated story where the artwork was ancillary. To me, this meant that the text blocks and the corresponding images had to be of the same size and aspect ratio, and the editors kindly allowed me to prepare a custom layout. This isn’t the first time I’ve worked with Meredith; we co-designed the cover art for my band’s LP (evandwilliams.bandcamp.com) and she hand-lettered a 17th-century cartouche that became my marriage certificate. Meredith is a wonderful artist and person.
The story definitely doesn’t follow a traditional, straight narrative line; its structure is very compelling. What is your reasoning behind this? What sensation or conclusion do you want the reader to walk away with?
Life isn’t a straight line, right? With the exception of certain highly enlightened mystics on mountaintops, most of us don’t live in the present very much. We’re constantly recalling and anticipating, and I think that most of the authors I admire challenge chrononormativity in their work. I hope that the story, like Meredith’s art, is seen as ambiguous but not opaque.
Several of our staff members said this felt more like poetry than fiction, but you were somehow defying a genre typesetting. How do you feel about this?
As I say, my typesetting choice was really about giving the text and the art a level playing field in a very literal way, as opposed to trying to fit into or break out of a particular literary genre. You could take the text, put it in all lower case, and give it some funky line breaks and indents and it would read as poetry, but that is assuredly true of lots of prose. My wife Savannah, for instance, writes gorgeous stories and vignettes that are at turns crystalline and impressionistic, but attempts to taxonomize them seem kind of pointlessly pedantic.
Could you describe your writing process, and how you approach revising?
I wrote this story over nine years at an average rate of 85 words a year. The first draft had several more characters, including another busker named Auguste-Dominique and a mailman with aphasia named Fred, but it had no real ending. I sent it to my colleague Andrew, who is a phenomenal travel writer, and he said, “You are strongest in describing people and atmospheres. Work on having a plot.” I axed the minor characters and gave the story what I thought was a proper dénouement, although it took two more professional critiques (from my poet friend Jerry Mirskin and the fine folks at Mud Season Review) to make the final paragraph even vaguely comprehensible.
What are you working on now?
I just finished a short poem entitled “The Feudal Horn” which is part of another word/image project dedicated to the Innocence Project, an organization that exonerates the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and reforms the criminal justice system to prevent future injustices.
What is the best advice about writing you have ever received?
My undergraduate advisor Dr. Wells tried to cure me of my addiction to em dashes—which have their place—but shouldn’t be overused. It’s been a process. Cormac McCarthy said, “There is no reason to blot the page up with weird little marks. If you write properly you shouldn’t have to punctuate.” In the penultimate draft of “An Unknown Place,” I deleted absolutely all punctuation including apostrophes in contractions and then selectively added them back in.
What writers have been important to your development as a writer?
Aside from the aforementioned: William Least Heat-Moon, Yvonne Vera, Richard Russo, Pattiann Rogers, Adam Zagajewski, Paul Fattaruso, and the anonymous authors of the Psalms. Also, songwriters like John Prine, Tom Waits, and Dan Messé.
I’m also inspired by the moral vision of Angela Davis, Jonathan Dancy, Alan Watts, Thích Nhất Hạnh, Stanley Milgram, Fred Rogers, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. I would read what they have to say on any topic, with or without literary finesse.
What is the first story you remember writing?
This is the first piece of fiction I have written in my present adult consciousness. I am fortunate to still have all my stories from when I was five or six; titles include “1 Happy Jugiling Dog Family,” “Evans’ Advenchre in the Tonele of Love,” and “Bettys Exuce,” and “Lemanade Cars.”
What’s your favorite children’s book?
Mr. Bear’s Chair by Thomas Graham. I have a signed copy.
What is your ideal creative weather?
67°F. I often think of moving someplace with a temperate maritime climate like The Netherlands, or at least summering in Yellowknife.
