David J. Schwartz 2009 Interview
David J. Schwartz is nominated for his novel Superpowers.
In your Bookslut interview, you mentioned at how frustrating writing a novel can be. What made you persist? What’s the appeal of the novel format for you?
One of the things I said in the interview is that I think it’s easier to get lost in a novel than in a short story. I enjoy that experience and it’s something I’d like to replicate for other people. And my stories tend to sprawl, frankly, because ideas accrete and connect like hyperactive synapses, and that means that I often end up with more story than fits into a 5-7,000 word story. I can either trim it down, which works sometimes, or I can culture it into a bigger story. Both are satisfying in different ways.
I persist mainly because I’m stubborn, and because I think it’s one of the two keys to succeeding at this, or anything. The other is to never stop learning.
What was the most difficult part in getting Superpowers out?
Well, there were editorial challenges, mostly in that the editor who bought the book was let go before we actually got to do any editing! I think, too, that there was a little bit of disconnect on genre; the book is mainstream-y but it does have superheroes, and finding the balance of weird stuff that everyone was OK with was a negotiation. I don’t know how different that experience would have been, though, if the book had sold to a genre house.
How did the novel end up getting picked up by Three Rivers Press (in the US) and Vintage (in the UK)?
It happened pretty quickly, actually. My agent, the fabulous Shana Cohen, had sent the book around just a week or two before when Three Rivers made an offer to take it off the table. I know that some of the other editors hadn’t even looked at it yet. The Vintage deal came later, through the offices of both Shana and Will Francis in the UK.
Have you ever thought of trying your hand at writing comics?
Definitely. It’s a bit of a daunting prospect, to hold together a continuous storyline on a monthly deadline, but I’ve been a comics fan most of my life and I’d like to give it a shot. One of my goals for the near future is to put together a couple of proposals for both established properties and original stories.
Let’s talk more about your writing. What’s the appeal of speculative fiction for you?
I guess, primarily, it’s that much of “realistic” fiction doesn’t reflect the world as I experience it. The world is a pretty bewildering place most of the time, and it’s the weirdness of it, the slipstream-y texture of everyday life, that intrigues me. This is why I tend to spend a lot of time on the edges of genre. I like dragons and spaceships, too, and that’s part of the appeal; but I usually like to put that sort of thing in a more or less realistic context in order to really pull it apart. If an Apatosaurus walked down your street, you’d see everything in your neighborhood differently. The houses would seem small, the trees would look like snack food. If a door opened up in the side of that Apatosaurus and a clone of yourself stepped out, you’d see yourself differently. That perspective shift is one of the things I enjoy most about, say, Philip K. Dick, and it’s the thing I’d most like to inflict upon readers.
What made you decide to pursue fiction writing? At what point did you consider yourself a professional author?
I think I had always--at least since junior high--wanted to be a writer, but there were always people around telling me what a bad career choice that was. So I screwed around doing a lot of other things, the usual mixed bag of jobs that writers rattle off: bartender, warehouse worker, tech support drone, temp, temp, temp. Along the way, though, I kept on writing and eventually attended the Odyssey workshop in 1996, which convinced me that yes, I really wanted to do this and be serious about it.
I’m not sure how I feel about the word “professional” in this context; the easy answer would be that I felt like a “real” writer when I sold the novel. But I still get much of my income from other sources, and I’m not a dogged freelancer like some other folks I know. So I’m not as professional as some, and I’m not sure that the number of stories I’ve sold makes me more professional than any given up-and-comer, if that makes any sense.
What’s the biggest hurdle that you had to overcome before getting published?
I think it was learning to write stories that were really coming from me and not from my perception of what editors wanted. Market research is one thing, but there’s a danger in reading a lot of, say, F&SF to try and figure out what sort of story Gordon van Gelder wants. At some point you’re not writing your own story, you’re squeezing yourself into a box of your own making.
It was a huge boost for me when I wrote a weird little story called “The Ichthyomancer Writes His Friend With an Account of the Yeti’s Birthday Party” and sold it to Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. I wasn’t even sure the thing was a story, and I knew it didn’t fit with what I’d convinced myself was marketable, but they loved it and it taught me something. I had to worry less about what I thought would sell and more about what I could be proud of.
Can you tell us about your novella The Sun Inside?
It’s the story of an Iraq War veteran with a prosthetic leg who finds his way to the center of the earth via an Internet dating site. The setting is actually Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Pellucidar, at least part of which is in the public domain. (I only wrote about that part.) It was inspired by Burroughs but also by Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, a book by Jeremy Scahill about the security company working in Iraq. I wanted to look at American imperialism and turn it inside out with some extrapolation as to what Pellucidar might look like now, 90-odd years later. So it’s part old-fashioned sensawunda adventure story, and part a critique of that sort of story.
How did Rabid Transit Press end up publishing it?
They were looking to make a change from the (excellent) multi-author chapbooks they had been doing and start publishing novellas. Two of the Rabid Transit editors were at the Sycamore Hill Workshop two years ago, and read the story that became “The Sun Inside” there. They expressed interest, and after doing some work on the story I submitted it to them, and they accepted it.
I’m quite happy with how it turned out. The cover is spectacular, and I’m really proud of the story. I wish more people had seen it; maybe the Nebula nom will encourage folks to check it out.
What projects are you currently working on?
I’m recuperating right now from a long struggle with a difficult novel, but I’m getting ready to start another. It’s set here in St. Paul, Minnesota, where I grew up and which has a lot of interesting history. At least, I think it’s interesting, and I hope to make it interesting for everyone else! It’s going to have time travel, Dakota, Hmong and Irish folklore, mayoral politics, and John Dillinger. Naturally.
A quick Google search reveals that there’s another David J. Schwartz. How would you describe your doppelganger and what would happen if both of you met each other?
There are many David J. Schwartzes, but the one that I’m most often confused with is the one who wrote The Magic of Thinking Big. Given that he recently died, I can pretty safely say that if we met I would scream and faint, and he would either offer me financial wisdom from beyond the grave or eat my brains.
David J. Schwartz’s short fiction has appeared in numerous markets, including the anthologies Paper Cities, The Best of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and Twenty Epics. He attended Odyssey in 1996 and has participated in workshops with the Semi-Omniscients, the Supersonics, and the Sycamore Hill Writing Workshop. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. You can visit his website at http://snurri.livejournal.com/
Charles A. Tan is the co-editor of the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler and his fiction has appeared in publications such as The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories and Philippine Speculative Fiction. He has conducted interviews for The Nebula Awards and The Shirley Jackson Awards, as well as for online magazines such as SF Crowsnest and SFScope. He is a regular contributor to sites like SFF Audio and Comics Village. You can visit his blog, Bibliophile Stalker, where he posts book reviews, interviews, and essays..
