Last June saw Grove/Black Cat publish Disasters in the First World, the debut title and short story collection by Olivia Clare. I recall reading a few right away when picking up a copy mid-last year and then, like most books coming in the last half of 2017, it got set aside for a bit. I do remember liking the stories quite a bit. I need to track that book down again. Olivia was very kind in taking some time to answer questions for us.
EWN: Your short story collection, Disasters in the First World, was published in 2017. What story within the collection had the earliest publication history outside of being in the collection, and what was that history?
OLIVIA: The first story to be published is the first story in the collection, “Pétur,” and it was the first story I’d ever published. I’d originally titled the story “Eyjafjallajokull.” I lived in Iceland for part of the summer, and I worked on the draft for quite a long time. Drafting, revising, putting it away, taking it back out again, revising, and so on. Later, the story was accepted by Ecotone, and then it won an O. Henry Award and was published in The O. Henry Prize Stories 2014. I was elated. I’ll never forget drafting the story and all that the story and I went through – it was one of the first stories I ever wrote. In February of this year, I published a blog post with Ecotone on nostalgia. The journal is dear to me.
That’s a long answer to your question, but of course your first story publication is something you don’t forget.
EWN: How did the publication of this particular collection come about? Were you solicited by the publisher, win a contest, agent submission, etc.?
OLIVIA: My agent submitted the collection for me along with chapters of my novel. The novel takes place in my home state of Louisiana and is also forthcoming from Grove Atlantic.
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 …?
OLIVIA: I began as a poet (I’m still a poet) then moved to short stories. The lyric poem and the short story have a great deal in common, and so as soon as I started writing fiction I was drawn to the short story form. Just as with good lyric poems, there’s a great trick to good stories. By “great trick,” I don’t mean that there’s any deception going on. I mean that there’s some marvelous feat in motion. One or more of a few things may happen: you arrive at the last sentence and want to go back to the first; the story lingers with you for the day or week or years; you remember the rhythm, pattern, story, characters, dialogue; the story, though short, somehow feels complete.
EWN: Where do short stories fit within your life as a reader?
OLIVIA: I read them constantly. Today, for example, I’m excited to read Jamel Brinkley’s A Lucky Man and Joy Williams’ “Stuff,” a story I just read about on this blog (thank you, Andrew Roe). I read and re-read them, study them. I’ll fixate on them, then make myself take a more laid-back approach (just read, let yourself enjoy, Olivia), then fixate again. Part of the “great trick” that I mentioned earlier is that a story can be read in one sitting, and god, the pace and momentum thrill me.
EWN: How will you be celebrating National Short Story Month this May?
OLIVIA: I teach, and the semester’s just ended for me, so I’m going to read, read, read and draft more stories too. In addition to Brinkley’s A Lucky Man, I plan on reading Ottessa Moshfegh’s Homesick for Another World, Paul Yoon’s The Mountain, Danielle Lazarin’s Back Talk, and Mary Miller’s Big World. (I just read and loved Miller’s Always Happy Hour.) And I’ll return to two of my favorites, Amy Hempel and Eudora Welty.
And reading this blog. I’ve been enjoying the posts. (ED NOTE--aw thanks).
EWN: Thank you very much for your time!
OLIVIA: Thank you for all you do, Dan.
Olivia Clare is a fiction writer and poet. She was raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and has lived in California, Iowa, New York, and Nevada. She currently lives in Texas.
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