Another Black Lawrence Press story collection from 2016 was published by Jon Steinhagen, The Big Books of Sounds. Jon took some time from his busy schedule (check the bio) to answer some questions for us.
EWN: Your short story collection, The Big Book of Sounds, was published in 2016. What story within the collection had the earliest publication history outside of being in the collection, and what was that history?
Jon: “Pamachapuka” was published in the 2nd issue of Bodega Magazine (October 2012), my log book shows Bodega as being the only place I submitted the story. The story itself was written over the summer of 2012, which seems to have been a very prolific writing period for me.
EWN: How did the publication of this particular collection come about? Were you solicited by the publisher, win a contest, agent submission, etc.?
Jon: Black Lawrence Press had an open period of submissions in 2014; they contacted me almost exactly one year later to tell me they’d like to publish the collection in 2016.
EWN: Where do short stories fit within your life as an author? Primary form to work with, or something you write when an idea hits, or …?
Jon: Many of the stories in this collection were written and published between 2012-2013, between productions of two significant plays – and during a period when I was reading a great deal of Donald Barthelme, Gertrude Stein, Stephen Dixon, and Robert Coover.
EWN: Where do short stories fit within your life as a reader?
Jon: At one time, I used to write them as a response to authors I’d been reading; currently, I write them because I’m reacting to difficulties I and my friends are having with “Life,” so to speak.
EWN: How will you be celebrating National Short Story Month this May?
Jon: With luck, I’ll be writing the last of the interlocking stories of a new collection I’m cooking up, We Are All Basically Nothing Now, which attempts to tell stories using ensemble narrators.
EWN: Thank you very much for your time!
Jon Steinhagen is a playwright, author, composer/lyricist and actor currently based in Chicago. He has won four Joseph Jefferson Awards of his ten nominations and is a past winner of the Julie Harris Playwriting Award for his comedy The Analytical Engine. His plays and musicals have been produced nationally.
PLAYS: Successors (Signal Ensemble Theatre; Best New Play, Chicago Reader Readers’ Poll 2013), Blizzard ’67 (Chicago Dramatists; New York International Fringe Festival), ACES (Signal), Dating Walter Dante (Raven Theatre), Something More Comfortable (Syracuse University), Deb and Debra , Seventeen Heads at O’Hare, Second Day of Indirect Sunlight, and ACES Wild.
MUSICALS: The Teapot Scandals (Porchlight Music Theatre), The Arresting Dilemma of Mister K (TRU), Emma & Company (Wings Theatre, North Shore Music Theatre), Inferno Beach (Bailiwick Arts, Circle Theatre), and People Like Us (Circle Theatre).
Jon’s short fiction has been published widely in print and online, notably in Barrelhouse, The Minetta Review, The American Reader, The Atlas Review, Monkeybicycle, Four Ties Lit Review, and Alliterati.
He is a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists, a member of the Dramatists Guild of America and the Chicago Federation of Musicians, and a company member at Signal Ensemble Theatre. His next musical, The Next Thing, had its world premiere in Chicago (Signal Ensemble Theatre) in May 2014.
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