by Michelle Reale

Michelle Reale: Robert, honestly, I am a huge fan, but I don’t even know where to begin with this interview–you are everywhere!   Make a list of your top five writerly activities at the moment.

Robert Vaughan: Ah, Michelle, the feelings are completely mutual. Top five this moment:

1)     Published my first book: Flash Fiction Fridays chapbook of all the stories we aired live on our radio show in 2011.

2)     Participating in collaborations like Exquisite Quartet, edited by Meg Tuite or Stripped, An anonymous Anthology, edited by Nicole Monaghan.

3)     Working on my poetry and flash fiction chapbook.  Any  interested publishers?

4)     Preparation for AWP Conference, and the Truth & Beauty Workshop I am attending in May-June with Marie Howe, Ellen Bass and Dorianne Laux.

5)     Redbird-Redoak, the local organization where I lead writing roundtables, and work with the children’s program every summer.

Michelle:I am so intrigued by your foray into radio, thus taking the written word to the airwaves.   Tell us about Flash Fiction Fridays.

Robert: We are so lucky to have WUWM, the local NPR affiliate, and its program “Lake Effect,” which is so supportive of writers of all genres. I was invited on the show initially in August of 2010. I’d sent some short fiction pieces to one of the editors, Stephanie Lecci. During our initial taping, we talked about publishing, and the state of indie presses, and some other business things that were all off tape.

Stephanie asked if I’d return for a second segment and read more of my flash in September. After that, unbeknownst to me, Stephanie pressed to have a monthly show, and got approval by her boss, Mitch, and the powers that be. Voila! Our concept is to showcase local writers who submit their work, and if chosen, come in to read their writing. Then I select a “national” writer whose piece I read every month. Stephanie and I tie them together by discussing them thematically. It’s a blast, and we work so well together. She is also a fantastic editor!

Michelle: Tell us how you juggle your creative activities.  One of the hardest things for writers is “keeping it all together.”

Robert: For me, support is essential. So many writers or artists are in the “closet” and I’ve had to work through that process, ongoingly, about what, where, and how to share my work.  It’s vital, I believe, to gain support, by finding ways to GIVE support. This is such a basic premise, and yet, it really a cornerstone of my beliefs.

I’m pretty active in some online writing communities like Fictionaut.  New members will ask me how to get the most out of the site. I suggest they read 5-10 pieces a week (most are short fiction or poetry) and comment on them.

Also, I write whenever possible. Every Saturday I gather for prompt writing with three or four writers. Again, seems inconsequential, but this commitment, these “exercises” keep my mind fresh, and engaged in starting something new that I return to edit later.

Michelle:I know you are going to AWP, though how you find the time, I can’t figure out!  How does a conference like this keep you writing/motivated/connected?

Robert: This will be my first AWP.  I tried to go last year and Mother Nature had her way with me: a huge storm prevented it. This year, I’m centering my focus on off-site readings. I will be reading in three different events: Festival of Language on Wednesday night, Connotation Press on Thursday afternoon at Kasey’s, and Larry O. Dean’s event on Friday night.

I love the energy of readings, hearing writers share their work orally. I was invited to read last October in two events in NYC, Fiction Addiction hosted by Christine Vines at 2A and Susan Tepper’s FIZZ at KGB Bar. Both were spectacular, so I’ll continue to seek these opportunities. This April, I’ll read in Timothy Gager’s Dire Literary Event in Boston. Reading and attending fundraisers to support indie bookstores, like Milwaukee’s Woodland Patterns, our poetry focused gem, is vitally important, too.

Michelle: Your short piece, “Implications,” in red lightbulbs is deceptively, simple—and the effect is AMAZING!  (That last line is a killer) Walk us through the writing of this little piece.

Robert:Writers often draw from personal experiences in order to create fiction. It’s inherent in the process. I actually knew someone who went through a similar experience, told to me by a mutual friend. I was in my young 20s. Sometimes, with hindsight, these experiences become less “trying to get it all right,” and more about the essence of the experience.

A boy, barely a man, has murdered someone in self-defense, but there were no eye -witnesses. He then tells his mother (in “real life ” it was our mutual friend). I wrote the scene in pure “memoir” first. Then I embellished: changed POVs, added details. There is no question that sometimes life is scarier, or stranger than fiction. This was one of those events, my first acquaintance that went to prison for murder.

The last line of the piece came much, much later. I wanted something that left a haunting umbrella. I thought of how they offer criminals whatever they want for their “last meal” before an execution. Gruesome, but that was the seed of it. Sometimes you can go to those core thoughts, then scale back. Especially in flash, because of brevity, often LESS IS MORE. In “Implications,” his “last meal” became symbolic of the mother-son relationship.

Michelle: RANDOM QUESTION ALERT:  Describe one of our mutually favorite people/writers, Meg Tuite in five words.

Robert: Brilliant, soulful, hysterical, empathetic, ballsy (you can check out Meg’s and my interview forthcoming at The Lit Pub on 2/23)

Michelle:You are about to be dropped on a deserted island where you can only write in one genre–which will it be, fiction or poetry, and why?

Robert: Poetry. Economy of words, paper might run out. I’d discover new ways to communicate beyond traditional techniques, like my writing friends Joseph Quintela, David Tomaloff, and Eryk Wenziak are currently experimenting with. I’d take cues from turtles, frigates, urchins.

In the 1980s, I spent time on Maui, and of course, not a deserted island by any means, I sometimes fantasized it was. I lived for a time in the jungles of Huelo, and felt like Mowgli. I like remote places without people, continuously seek them out.

Michelle: TAKE MY CHALLENGE!  Write a 150 word flash piece with the following words:  shelves, circular, enemy Philadelphia, corduroy, Prozac , cookies.

Robert:

Slips

She dozes as images slide in and out of her mind, snapshots from a 1930s silent movie. Churling smoke hovers in the gauzy air, the wheels of the train lull her further toward sleep. But she forces her eyes open.

Empty slips hang on a line over a pool, blow in the wind and snow, hover over empty shelves and benches. In each circular frame there are no people. Only a portrayal of a person, a ghost-like enemy permeates past and corduroy present. The empty slip is vacant of the body. It defies a sense of gravity as air passes through, creating a dance, cookie-cutters of time.

It was in Philadelphia that the Prozac stopped working. She exited the train, into spitting rain, slipping into a silky night.

Michelle:

Thanks so much, Robert. “Churling” is such a sick word.  I love it.  Is it still okay if I hero-worship you?

Robert: Only if I can bow at your feet.

Michelle: Yes, please!

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Robert Vaughan’s plays have been produced in N.Y.C., L.A., S.F., and Milwaukee, where he resides. He leads two writing roundtables for Redbird- Redoak Studio. His prose and poetry is published in over 200 literary journals such as Elimae, Metazen and BlazeVOX. He has short stories anthologized in Nouns of Assemblage from Housefire, and Stripped from P.S. Books. He is fiction editor at JMWW magazine, and Thunderclap! Press. He co-hosts Flash Fiction Fridays for WUWM’s Lake Effect.  His maintains a  blog, One Writer’s Life here.