Cease, Cows' contributor Christopher DiCicco has just published a new collection of stories titled So My Mother, She Lives in the Clouds (Hypertrophic Press). In the first of our new series of auth...
In the first of our new series of author interviews, DiCicco shares his thoughts about the collection with our head editor Chuck Augello.
CA: How would you describe your collection to readers unfamiliar with your work?
CD: Weird. Sad. Playful. Like a cartoon platypus who is ultimately depressed but learning to fly. The collection is an odd assortment. Some of the stories are entrenched in a kind of everyday realism while some of those same stories cross into absurdityâwhat I mean, is Iâll write a story about a missing mom through the lens of a boy who wants to be a dog or a story about a father yelling something funny as he falls to his unavoidable death. The stories are little walks in the Park of Coping with Loss and Dissatisfaction. I joke when I say that, but I think a lot people know the place, and my stories definitely travel there, skipping down different paths. Itâs not all sad, though. The stories in the collection explore some fantastical things, and I hope some readers can enjoy that in the darkest moments there can be wonder.
CA: Most of the stories in So My Mother, She Lives in the Clouds are flash fiction. As a fiction writer, what about the flash format is attractive to you?
CD: The bright light? I kid, I kid. But seriously, the attraction starts with the darkness. My stories often tackle pain, absurd or normal, andâyou donât want to live there. Some authors talk about how they craft worlds and heart-moving stories youâd happily supplant yourself into in order to escape your own lifeâmy stories are selfish. You donât want to escape there. Thatâs what I did writing them. The flash format takes you there, shows you around, letâs you feel something, and ever so kindly lets you leave as quickly as you came. Flash, itâs a story, a whole story, but itâs one where the writer knows not to linger. It would just be a lie, like talking about the drapes when the elephant in the room is asleep on the living room sofa.
CA: You have some great story titles. A favorite is âThe Worst Thing about Hell is You Have to Climb Down to It,â although âWhat I Learned Beneath Your Shirtâ is a close second. Do your titles usually come first, or do they arise from the process of writing the story?
CD: Thank you for saying so. My story titles come at the beginning of the process. Theyâre often the first (or a close second) piece of the story I write. My theory on titles is that Iâm either naming the piece, like I would a child where I want the title to capture the idea of who the story is and will grow to beâor, and often this is the case, itâs my first line. Itâs like calling your friend over and telling her, âHey, you know the worst thing about hell is you have to climb down to it?â and then you go into it. You explain what you meanâŠthe rest of the story. The title is my point, like, hey, Iâll show you what I mean in a second.
CA: Several of your stories involve characters telling stories, like the father in the title story. What appeals to you about stories-within-stories?
CD: I suppose itâs two-fold. On one level, Iâm very interested in the storyteller. Who are they? What have they gone through. I like writing stories where I can show the end result, the teller delivering the past and the present. When the character, my narrator, tells his or her story, it allows me to relinquish more of the control and letâs the story become their own. Yeah, of course, itâs technique. Iâm creating this illusion for the reader that this story belongs to my narrator, allowing me to develop the character/narrator as much as the story, but I love the idea of the removed observer. Itâs not exactly their story per say, but it dramatically changes them. You canât un-see some thingsâso whatâs that personâs story? What did they see that has made them who they are?
CA: In âSo Bright We Quit Our Shadows,â published by CC, the characters are trapped by an unforgiving, penetrating sun. In several of your stories characters are at the mercy of impersonal forces, as if the world has grown too big for us and the best we can do is hang on to our decency, our humanity. Can you comment on that?
CD: Sure. Those impersonal forces you mention, the ones that have us clinging to our humanity, I see them more asmaking us decent. At their mercy, we become human. They make us real. When the world crashes down on us, when we have nothing left, we cast aside a lot of the trivial stuff and live, and thereâs a story there, whether itâs a painful one or not, and the characters there, well, theyâre so human, itâs definitely worth writing about to me.
CA: Your work is often surreal, weaving the fantastic into everyday lives. Do you consider your style to be in the slipstream tradition?
CD: Fabulism, magical realism, new magical, minimalismâI do it all! But seriously, Iâm definitely a product ofsomething, and that something seems to blend elements of my childhood interests. Sometimes it seems like whatever the end result is that itâs weird enough to slip out of the standard genres, but thatâs where my mind goes when writing stories. I suppose similar minds fall into the slipstream tradition, somewhere between literary fiction, science fiction, and magical realism. So yeah, I consider myself part of it.
CA: Which story in the collection took you the longest to get right? Why?
CD: If I had my way Iâd still be revising most of my stories, so the idea of getting a story right is a bit hard for me. There are moments, days even, where I think a story is right where I want it, and then one morning Iâll wake up, flip open the computer, and read and hate and read and believe every word, every phrase, every idea is shit and sounds like shit and should have never been written. But Iâve come to understand that, so I know now to flip the computer shut again, and to walk away. I suppose there was a month or so, maybe more, where that happened a lot, so it made all the stories I was working on feel particularly difficult to get right. I was trying my hand at a novel, and it was ruining me. I love flash. I love the short story. Those things appeal to me more than any other medium, so when I was attempting the novel, everything else I wrote left a bad taste in my mouth. Iâd come to one of my short stories, and Iâd read a line aloud, and it would sound so silly and wrong to me because it lacked a novelâs detail. It was a hard place to be as a writer, and it almost destroyed me.
CA: If you could have lunch with one fictional character, who would it be?
CD: By the way, are we talking about one of my characters or any character from any book? If itâs the latter, then Iâd like to have a trout lunch with the narrator from Trout Fishing in America or maybe with Trout Fishing in American himself, as he is his own character from time to time. A close runner up would be Eli from Patrick deWittâs The Sisters Brothers, as he made sense to me.
If we were talking about one of my characters, then Iâm not sure. Most I feel I know, that Iâve broken bread with them in my head plenty of times, but maybe, if we had both finished work for the day, and there were an open pub serving dark beer and warm food, maybe Iâd like to sit down with Pop from âPieces of My Junkyard Father.â
CA: Who are some of your influences? Whatâs the best book youâve read so far this year?
CD: Lots of influences. Lots. Over the summer I took it hard to poetry, and then to the works of Richard Brautigan. A Confederate General from Big Sur, The Hawkline Monster: A Gothic Western. Revenge of the Lawn. In Watermelon Sugar. Iâve been reading over a lot of his work, and yeah, heâs not so much new or alive, but his writing really does what it wants. Some of it, Iâm just shaking my head at, but I respect it, so itâs been quite inspirational to me. And yeah, Trout Fishing in America. I canât tell you how many times Iâve read that in the last year. Any time I felt my prose getting stiff, any time I felt my stories limited, I read a chapter and remembered that this guy could break the rules before I even knew there were rules.
CA: What are you working on now?
CD: Well, I took this past summer to explore poetry and ended up producing a chapbookâs worth. Before that, I was getting silly with hybrid form, writing childrenâs stories for adults. But right now, Iâm just slowly working my way back into what I loveâthe minimalist story. Iâd call it flash, but I donât always get my stories in under exactly 1000 words.
CA: Whatâs the best writing advice youâve ever received?
CD: I feel like all the good writing advice is learned, not told. Anytime I hear something that really rings true itâs because Iâve already suffered it. Okay, thatâs just me complaining, but I think thereâs something to be said about learning what works for you, and that no advice is a one size fits all kind of thing. And thatâs probably the best advice I hear good writers giveâthat some of the writing advice out there is gold and that same gold can be complete crap, that you have to learn to reject what might be good advice for another writer but death to you. You can waste a lot of time believing you should be doing it a certain way, fighting an unnecessary fight.
And oh yeah, that whole thing about finding a time and place that is your writing zone, thatâs terrific advice, but donât let it get out of hand or itâll govern you and youâll only be able to write at 5:00 am in the morning sitting on a lukewarm wooden rocking chair. But knowing that you write better in the morning, well, thatâs good for a writer. Learn what you like, repeat.
What an absolutely amazing night. A massive thank you to everyone who came out to help us celebrate the launch of Chris DiCiccoâs first collection, So My Mother, She Lives in the Clouds. It was a phenomenal night with a phenomenal turnout in a phenomenal location. Arcadia University is one of the most beautiful places we have ever seen, and we are so grateful they allowed us to host the book launch with them.
Christopher D. DiCiccoâs âHeavy Shoesâ won our September 2013 Story Of The Month competition. Itâs a fine piece of writing among so many wonderful and gorgeously rendered stories included in his new collection So My Mother, She Lives in the Clouds published by Hypertropic Press www.hypertrophicpress.com . Each of these stories opens up worlds of longing, beauty, âŠ
Itâs a tremendous collection of forty-five short, short stories. How did you choose the first story to place in the collection, and how did you select the title story?
Iâm happy you asked that. The title story was my doing. The first story was not. The first story âTalk of Fireâ is one I was actually apprehensive about because Iâm a schoolteacher. Yeah, of course itâs metaphorical in nature, like a lot of my pieces, but like a lot of my pieces, thereâs still a strong element of realism to it. The idea of starting my book with a college student who lights himself on fire because he wants to hear his words crackle, well, it made me uneasy. My editors though believed it was a piece that worked as a preface to the rest of the collection; that the metaphor, the realism, worked for what was to come next in the collection. And in the end, I agreed. I want to hear my words crackle too. As for the title story, I felt âSo My Mother, She Lives in the Cloudsâ captured my offbeat, minimal approach. Itâs a favorite story of mine. It has a lot of the elements I enjoy it, fantasy, realism, potential truths, no answers, big questions. I like that about fiction; that, like in real life where some of the biggest events go unexplained, unanswered, in fiction the fantastical elements can be just as crazy and real and unexplainable. Itâs nuts and beautiful.
1. i am trying to figure out
why i am the way i am.
why i am made of
three-parts running
and one-part
fighting so hard to stay.
2. there is a bad habit
that lives inside of me;
one that searches for
exit signs,
unlocked doors and
cracked windows
every time i step into
a new space.
3. my exit strategy is flawed
but itâs the only thing
i know how to do: leave
before you become
the one on their knees,
before you become
the one who keeps
looking for answers
inside of all the wrong
ghosts.
4. nobody asks
me to stay anymore.
instead they ask: do
you ever get tired? where
are you going? were you ever
going to say goodbye?
5. all my dreamsÂ
are about a world
where i donât run.
a world where i stay long enough
for someone to remember who i am.Â
i unpack my bags,Â
i stop looking for a way out,
i come home.Â
this is the world i want to live in.
Prefer to shop locally? Check out So My Mother, She Lives in the Clouds on Indiebound and grab your copy from an indie bookstore near you!
PLUS show us you've purchased the book and we'll send you a BONUS never-before-seen short story by Chris DiCicco! Leave a review on Goodreads or Amazon and we'll send you a second bonus story!
an online literary journal dedicated to short fiction
Ask an Editor Series: Hypertrophic Press
Oct 25, 2015
Lynsey Morandin is the Editor of
Hypertrophic Press
Originally from Canada, Lynsey holds a degree and post-graduate certificate in book publishing. After working as an editor for an ad agency, a few national magazines, and two publishing houses, she decided to start her own press in order to publish what she loves and encourage up-and-coming writers. For this segment of our Ask an Editor Series, we asked Lynsey what she typically looks for when she considers stories for publication (as well as what tips she could provide for writers interested in publishing their work). Â Hereâs what she said:
WHAT SPECIFIC CRITERIA DO YOU LOOK FOR WHEN CONSIDERING A STORY FOR PUBLICATION?
We donât look too far into previous publications or MFAs or anything like that, we just look for pieces that speak to us. We love writing that can make a reader cry or laugh, and Iâm a sucker for really great, lyrical prose. Our goal with everything we publish is to evoke a physical reaction in our readers and promote great writing from great writers regardless of their publication history (or lack thereof).
COVER LETTER OR NO COVER LETTER?
That depends! Iâve seen some really great ones that pull me in right away, and Iâve seen some really long ones that actually hinder the work. If I had to pick Iâd say to keep it short and sweet. Introduce yourself briefly, add a bio in case your work is accepted, maybe add something about how you found out about the press or why you think your work would be a good fit. Ultimately the writing speaks for itself, but a really interesting and captivating cover letter does make me look at the submission with a more attentive eye.
AS AN EDITOR, I SUSPECT YOU RECEIVE STORIES THAT ARENâT QUITE FINISHED. DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE FOR WRITERS CONCERNING REVISION/EDITING?
ALWAYS PROOFREAD! When you send something in that has glaring errors it immediately turns the editor (or me, at least) off and makes it seem like the writer isnât as serious. You definitely need to make yourself stand out among the other hundreds of submissions in the folder, but this is a bad way to stand out.
WHAT IRRITATES YOU AS AN EDITOR WHEN YOUâRE EVALUATING A STORY FOR PUBLICATION?
What bothers me the most is probably when I can tell that the person submitting has disregarded the type of writing we look for. We get a good portion of material that states in the cover letter that it isnât what we publish, and that doesnât do any favors for the writer. Of course there are always exceptions to the rule, but we (like every other journal) publish a specific type of writing and rarely venture away from that. If you start off by saying you know that publisher doesnât publish sci-fi or erotica or whatever else but youâre submitting that genre anyway, it isnât likely to go very far.
WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU PROVIDE TO WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH SHORT FICTION?
If you love certain lit mags enough to submit to them, then show them some support â read their issues, buy a copy or even a subscription, or donate a few bucks if thereâs an option to do so on Submittable. You donât even have to contribute financially â there are hundreds of mags you can read in whole or in part online for free, and you can always follow them on social media. They work hard to put out a quality product, and it matters when you show them some love in return. Keeping up with an assortment of magazines will also help you understand whatâs out there, whatâs getting published, who accepts what, etc. But above all, once youâve checked out the scene, submit like itâs your job. Donât give up when you get a few rejection letters â it happens to the best of us. Keep going, believe in your work, and eventually youâll find the right audience for you.
Thank you so much to Fiction Southeast for including us in your Ask an Editor Series!
With over 50 stories published in the last two years and nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, âshort story masterâ DiCicco weaves
his tales into an auspicious debut collection. Through his minimalist style, DiCicco explores the ties that define us â the relationships between fathers and sons, husbands and wives, and men and their own fear. He navigates the human condition with a fresh voice, pulling you through each story with a sense of urgency and excitement while expertly balancing the readerâs sense of delight and despair.
Featuring 11 never-before-seen stories, So My Mother, She Lives in the Clouds propels DiCicco into the spotlight as the next major voice in indie fiction.
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