I just found and finished watching your interview on YouTube, was great! Thanks for the new recommendation - this French philosopher sounds very intriguing. Exciting news for Silent Nightmares 🤘🏽
I'm curious to revisit all the Tom Robbins novels I read in high school. The realism of "big two-hearted" fiction bored me, and the Robbins novels hooked me the way good sci-fi or horror could.
That said, I'm concerned that I might not love those books as much as I did forty years ago. Still, there's hope: Last week I reread 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle' and it exceeded my memory of first reading it in 1975.
Hope you enjoy revisiting Tom Robbins! You’ve mentioned before you like the movies/books that hit hard, emotionally exhaust you in a leave no stone unturned, cathartic way. Totally agree. What seems too much, too unhinged and absurd to others feels just right for me haha. I love the point you made about people needing to ‘binge-watch’ because everything is so tepid, it takes more content to reap any small satisfaction. I feel that way with realism, slow-paced shit.
I grew up on you, Kafka, Plath and Vonnegut. Halfway through Shock Induction (it’s so good).
Gonna revisit Vonnegut with this book club, looking forward to it. The book club is run by Ian, he has a goal to ‘start a literary renaissance by activating 50,000 literary authors’ - he’s motivating swaths of people who watch him on YouTube (myself included) to join Substack and actually write and post their writing. Good stuff. Lots of great writers coming out of his movement: https://substack.com/@iancattanach
I’m not familiar with Stroumboulopoulos, but the mention of CBC is more than enough to get me there for the interview. Having grown up in South Canada (i.e. western new york), CBC was a mainstay because it was one of the few channels that burst through the fuzz long enough to watch on the small black and white TV that lived on my dresser.
Great news on the Silent Nightmares front. I have zero expectation my story will be selected - there are just far too many talented writers out there - but of course there’s a small voice in the background that whispers “Yes, but what if…”.
As novellas gain in popularity, I'm seeing publishers actively seeking short stories for anthologies. This year Simon & Schuster will be reinventing 'The Martian Chronicles" (my editor is the advisor for the Bradbury estate). And S&S is already seeking submissions for stories that re-explore the themes of the original book. I'll keep you posted.
Resurgence of the novella is a promising trend, as a writer who struggles with the idea…and reality…of creating novel-length stories. Anything from a few hundred words to a few thousand (or in my longest piece, about 27,000) is the right length for me, but finding a market for that has been a challenge. I do need to be more disciplined in my approach to seeking out and submitting to agents, publishers, etc. There was an orgiastic burst of submissions about a year ago, followed by another in the fall - and two literary magazines bit, publishing a story of mine - but there should be more of that. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, blah blah blah.
You should become the caretaker for a hotel over the winter. I hear it’s a great gig and environment to write a book (paranormal phenomena and risk of insanity aside)
Great interview! That part where you mentioned working on the next book for maybe a couple of years, it made me wonder: what’s the longest time you’ve spent working on a novel that got published previously? And: do you find that the longer you spend on a book the more of an investment you have in it compared to others?
Honest? A good short story takes almost as long as a novel. That means books like 'Haunted' and 'Make Something Up' came together over decades.
A new revelation? Today a big publisher asked me to contribute to an upcoming short story anthology of "transgressive" stories. The authors involved include Joyce Carole Oates, plus Sherman Alexis and Junot Diaz (both somewhat cancelled in recent years). This bodes well for transgression. I'll keep you posted as to whether they open up submissions.
Gosh I was so happy to see a new Chuck interview. I learn something new in every one. My favorite bits are the bits about Tom. How patient he was with workshop writers who kept bringing in the same things. Are you that patient? And also about the fights you had with Tom about Fight Club. I'm nosey and wanna know how those fights went.
Geez. Tom was Sartre and I was Kierkegaard. Tom was weltschmerz and I was eager to find joy in the absurdity of chaos. For a while he fought back by writing about a character he called "the fool on the hill" as a way to lampoon me; we all knew he was presenting a buffoonish character to parody the early attention I'd gotten. I just never took offense, I was just too thrilled to be ridiculed by my teacher (any attention seemed good), and he eventually removed that fool character from the book he was writing.
Tom ranted about how Gordon Lish would ridicule Mark Richard for his early success in short stories. So it seemed predictable that Tom would roast me.
Excellent discussion. I like the idea of sampling classic literature. Now I need to read Vanity Fair. Here's a quote that came to mind from your talk. "To be stupid, and selfish, and have good health are the three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless." - Gustave Flaubert
Was wondering what you were up to. Glad to hear from you again.
Just in time for me to re-up on more reading material. Thanks for the recommendations
I just found and finished watching your interview on YouTube, was great! Thanks for the new recommendation - this French philosopher sounds very intriguing. Exciting news for Silent Nightmares 🤘🏽
I'm curious to revisit all the Tom Robbins novels I read in high school. The realism of "big two-hearted" fiction bored me, and the Robbins novels hooked me the way good sci-fi or horror could.
That said, I'm concerned that I might not love those books as much as I did forty years ago. Still, there's hope: Last week I reread 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle' and it exceeded my memory of first reading it in 1975.
Hope you enjoy revisiting Tom Robbins! You’ve mentioned before you like the movies/books that hit hard, emotionally exhaust you in a leave no stone unturned, cathartic way. Totally agree. What seems too much, too unhinged and absurd to others feels just right for me haha. I love the point you made about people needing to ‘binge-watch’ because everything is so tepid, it takes more content to reap any small satisfaction. I feel that way with realism, slow-paced shit.
I grew up on you, Kafka, Plath and Vonnegut. Halfway through Shock Induction (it’s so good).
Gonna revisit Vonnegut with this book club, looking forward to it. The book club is run by Ian, he has a goal to ‘start a literary renaissance by activating 50,000 literary authors’ - he’s motivating swaths of people who watch him on YouTube (myself included) to join Substack and actually write and post their writing. Good stuff. Lots of great writers coming out of his movement: https://substack.com/@iancattanach
There are Greek people in Canada? But why?
PS: You look thin in that video. I just dropped 20lbs myself, and managed to not lose any strength. Victory!
My weight is pretty constant. Odd how we age, but my lower body strength is better than ever.
I already watched it yesterday! It was a wonderful listen.
LOL I thought about sending you the link as soon as I found it but you've been on top of things lately and now I can't do it anymore.
:(
You should anyway just in case! Thank you Joe G!
Aaaah! Good to see you!
He’s right about that line he mentions in “Shock Induction.” Well said.
GREAT INTERVIEW!
I am hour serial killer, so of course I've got an hour to kill
Howdy, Chuck!
I’m not familiar with Stroumboulopoulos, but the mention of CBC is more than enough to get me there for the interview. Having grown up in South Canada (i.e. western new york), CBC was a mainstay because it was one of the few channels that burst through the fuzz long enough to watch on the small black and white TV that lived on my dresser.
Great news on the Silent Nightmares front. I have zero expectation my story will be selected - there are just far too many talented writers out there - but of course there’s a small voice in the background that whispers “Yes, but what if…”.
716!
As novellas gain in popularity, I'm seeing publishers actively seeking short stories for anthologies. This year Simon & Schuster will be reinventing 'The Martian Chronicles" (my editor is the advisor for the Bradbury estate). And S&S is already seeking submissions for stories that re-explore the themes of the original book. I'll keep you posted.
Resurgence of the novella is a promising trend, as a writer who struggles with the idea…and reality…of creating novel-length stories. Anything from a few hundred words to a few thousand (or in my longest piece, about 27,000) is the right length for me, but finding a market for that has been a challenge. I do need to be more disciplined in my approach to seeking out and submitting to agents, publishers, etc. There was an orgiastic burst of submissions about a year ago, followed by another in the fall - and two literary magazines bit, publishing a story of mine - but there should be more of that. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, blah blah blah.
I was just thinking about how I missed you
The science fiction book is turning into a whopper, and winter seems to be my best time to write.
You should become the caretaker for a hotel over the winter. I hear it’s a great gig and environment to write a book (paranormal phenomena and risk of insanity aside)
Great interview! That part where you mentioned working on the next book for maybe a couple of years, it made me wonder: what’s the longest time you’ve spent working on a novel that got published previously? And: do you find that the longer you spend on a book the more of an investment you have in it compared to others?
Honest? A good short story takes almost as long as a novel. That means books like 'Haunted' and 'Make Something Up' came together over decades.
A new revelation? Today a big publisher asked me to contribute to an upcoming short story anthology of "transgressive" stories. The authors involved include Joyce Carole Oates, plus Sherman Alexis and Junot Diaz (both somewhat cancelled in recent years). This bodes well for transgression. I'll keep you posted as to whether they open up submissions.
I suspected it may have been the short story collections. I recall you mentioning the three anecdotes for “Guts” being collected over decades.
And that is one exciting revelation! Very interested to see how it develops.
We'll give ol' Georges a shot
Gosh I was so happy to see a new Chuck interview. I learn something new in every one. My favorite bits are the bits about Tom. How patient he was with workshop writers who kept bringing in the same things. Are you that patient? And also about the fights you had with Tom about Fight Club. I'm nosey and wanna know how those fights went.
And please send mushroom gummies to my house.
Geez. Tom was Sartre and I was Kierkegaard. Tom was weltschmerz and I was eager to find joy in the absurdity of chaos. For a while he fought back by writing about a character he called "the fool on the hill" as a way to lampoon me; we all knew he was presenting a buffoonish character to parody the early attention I'd gotten. I just never took offense, I was just too thrilled to be ridiculed by my teacher (any attention seemed good), and he eventually removed that fool character from the book he was writing.
Tom ranted about how Gordon Lish would ridicule Mark Richard for his early success in short stories. So it seemed predictable that Tom would roast me.
Excellent discussion. I like the idea of sampling classic literature. Now I need to read Vanity Fair. Here's a quote that came to mind from your talk. "To be stupid, and selfish, and have good health are the three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless." - Gustave Flaubert