I don't remember which AWP I met Sam Ligon at, but I believe it had something to do with Robert Lopez and/or Peter Markus, so it didn't surprise me earlier this year when Sam and Robert were on a reading tour together. I was fortunate enough to catch the two of them read both at Nicola's and at Casa Hobart in Ann Arbor. Great as these stories are, getting to hear Sam perform them, and that's the right word, opens them up that much more. Thanks to Lost Horse Press for publishing Sam's Wonderland in April 2016.
EWN: Your short story collection, Wonderland, 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?
Sam: The earliest published story was WAY earlier than the rest, and it was “Glazed,” published in a British anthology, The Flash, in 2007. It was the first piece of short-short fiction I’d ever written, and it was solicited. The second earliest was “Professor Astor’s Unsolicited Blurb,” published in 2011 in another anthology, The Official Catalogue of the Library of Potential Literature, and also solicited. I still wasn’t writing short-shorts because I was in love with them. And then I became infected, and wanted to read and write in the short form all the time.
EWN: How did the publication of this particular collection come about? Were you solicited by the publisher, win a contest, agent submission, etc.?
Sam: I started becoming really interested in short-shorts and absurdity and artifacts. Some of the stories in Wonderland are based on nursery rhymes or fairy tales, and all of them but one are love stories. I was working on a novel for years, and these shorts became a relief from that, a place to stretch and play, to screw around, to see what I could do in a small space. I didn’t plan on these becoming a book until I talked to Stephen Knezovich about illustrating some of them. I thought maybe we’d do a chapbook, have some fun. But Steve’s illustrations were so good that I wanted to keep seeing them. I sent him a few more stories. I had quite a few short-shorts by then. Then he asked for more, and illustrated the ones he thought were strong, asked for edits on some others. The book emerged out of play, first mine on the page, then his, then ours back and forth, this awesome collaboration. I love that Wonderland is a picture book. It wouldn’t exist without Steve’s illustrations.
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 …?
Sam: I work on stories and novels and now essays, too. In the last few years, and as noted above, stories have felt like a place to stretch and play with form, to play in general. Essays are starting to feel like that now, too, because I don’t know the rules that pertain to nonfiction, really, so I have to stumble.
EWN: Where do short stories fit within your life as a reader?
Sam: In addition to being a writer, I’m a teacher and an editor, so I’m reading short fiction all the time. I love to get lost in novels and longer works of nonfiction, but I also love the quick fix of shorter work, and just how fresh it can be. Like my approach to writing stories, I’ve lately been loving stories that stretch the form, that show a degree of innovation and play.
EWN: How will you be celebrating National Short Story Month this May?
Sam: I’ll be giving away bags of gold to strangers and drinking goat milk.
EWN: Thank you very much for your time!
Sam: Thanks for celebrating stories, Dan!
Samuel Ligon is the author of two novels—Among the Dead and Dreaming and Safe in Heaven Dead—and two collections of stories, Wonderland, illustrated by Stephen Knezovich, and Drift and Swerve. He is co-editor, with Kate Lebo, of Pie & Whiskey: Writers Under the Influence of Butter and Booze, due out in October, 2017. He edits the journal Willow Springs, teaches at Eastern Washington University, and is Artistic Director of the Port Townsend Writers’ Conference.
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