For serious writers not afraid to connect with communities of writers in the virtual sphere, Meg Pokrass is a household name. From writers beyond the web, she is frequently seen giving workshops on flash fiction and the writing craft. Recently, the talented Ms. Pokrass took time to answer a few questions from THIS Literary Magazine interview editor MaryAnne Kolton.

MaryAnne Kolton: Well Meg, the time has come for you to reveal yourself to me.  I know you are busy so let’s get started. I like to go right for the jugular.
 
Would you say you were raised with or without firmly established boundaries?  In what way would you say boundaries or lack of them play out in the way that you write?

Meg Pokrass: I was raised in a family that was strongly involved in film/theater. My older (much older) sister Sian Barbara Allen was a television and film actress. I studied acting and did a lot of theater from the age of 8.

I think that the involvement in being other people (very early) made my brain quite receptive to the idea of looking at the ways we are like each other. Stripping down exterior “boundaries” as you say, looking past conditional differences between people... was something I was raised to notice.  Because of my big sister Sian, I was steeped in reading plays. I fell in love with the language and imagistic magic of playwrights like Tennessee Williams, Sherwood Anderson, Carson McCullers.

I was, and this may be more where you are getting at, at the same time and for most of my childhood naturally protective and worried about my mother who raised me alone without support. I was too responsible in some ways, or felt the need to be. As a teenager I rebelled against it. My parents divorced when I was five and we moved 3,000 miles away from family. In many ways I would say because of financial insecurity and a lot of moving around (different houses, different schools, etc.) probably contributed to my need to express myself strongly--which was inhibited by shyness.

MAK: Do you feel having to forfeit a chunk of your childhood influenced your writing?

MP:  I didn’t write then at all really except in a very basic journal. I acted in plays (local theater in Santa Barbara, California) so yes I’d say it all went into the part of my brain that formulated creative ideas as a way to release worry and to escape.

Later, in my twenties, I struggled trying to make a living as most of us did at various sales jobs, and read lots of short stories and novels from a very early age. I lugged around Raymond Carver, Richard Ford, Joy Williams collections.  They were always with me. I didn't know, then, what that meant. That I really wanted to write.

MAK:  Meg, I've read your book, just about everything else you've written and much of what has been written about you.  In doing so, I've noticed that you evoke several voices.  However, there seem to be two primary voices that are distinct and polar opposites. Each with its own agenda, so to speak. One is tender, unguarded, unrestrained and emotional.  The other is ultra clever, flamboyant and sometimes outrageous. Can you tell me something about what frame of mind leads you to choose one over another?

MP: My heroes were the entertainers that had this ability to be both things with equal comfort: Peter Sellers, Steve Martin, Woody Allen, Lucille Ball, and Jack Lemon. Many novelists, for example, John Irving and Kurt Vonnegut, have written both outrageously funny and heartbreakingly sad novels. We want to label types of writers but sometimes we can’t.

I have heard Gene Wilder speak about this, his strong need to entertain his depressed mother. How wanting and doing that made him a veteran entertainer, but deep down a worried, melancholy person.

Regarding your “outrageous writing” observation toward my work... yes! I will blame this on the Internet! In my own life, I have social anxiety, am shy. [I] blush easily.  The online world allows a much more outgoing presence and I am by nature a prankster, I love to play.

What makes me choose one over the other is dictated by the spirit I am in when I sit down to write.

MAK: Tessa Mellas said about your flash fiction: "A book of flash fiction cannot be read like a novel. Each story is like the richest morsel of chocolate. You can't inhale them by the fistful. You've got to treat yourself to a bite here and there, take it on your own terms."  What are your thoughts on this statement?

MP:  I believe you are talking about Tessa Mella's review in NewPages of Damn Sure Right (Press 53, October 2011).  Her statement had to do with enjoying the intensity in the flash fiction.  She discusses how brevity in prose, as in poetry, can create a unique intensity of experience.

Good flash fiction begs to be taken time with. It pulls one to reread and reread it, like replaying a good song.  It is similar to poetry this way.

Like with every form, flash fiction does not necessary achieve this... in fact, it rarely does. It’s what we, as flash fiction writers, hope to accomplish.  The creative process remains mysterious, which is why I crave it.  It never gets old.

MAK: Speaking of your excellent book, Damn Sure Right, one of my favorite pieces is "Her Own Music". I read the book all in one sitting--sorry about that, couldn't get enough of it fast enough--and often go back to savor my favorite bits. As in most of your work, there are some phrases so finely executed that they seem to wander in and out of my thoughts when I least expect it.

"After her marriage blew up, Jane's therapist suggested she join an ‘I Am’ class, so she could hang out with other shells of their former selves." Do you work at crafting killer first sentences like this or do they just appear on the screen when you begin to write?  Perhaps what I'm wanting to know is how much rewriting do you do?

MP: Thank you MaryAnne! I found the first sentence of “Her Own Music” in a working draft.  Usually I detect a first sentence while editing and rewriting.  I hardly ever get to them immediately.

I rewrite a lot, sometimes as many as thirty drafts. Very occasionally a piece comes out in a draft that is just about ready. Rarely though. Editing is interesting to me, as it uses a different part of the brain. Sometimes if feels necessary to let pieces rest for a month or so before editing them. I do enjoy it as much as writing.

Working with a good editor other than yourself is, at times, invaluable. Two of the best online e-zine editors I have worked with as a writer are Cooper Renner at elimae and Steve Himmer at Necessary Fiction . Both editors have made the stories they chose for their publications better than they had been before. What a gift that is to the writer.

 

MAK: Thirty drafts sounds like a lot. Why so many drafts? How long do you normally spend on one piece? Or are you working on more than one at a time?

MP: Well thirty drafts is the most probably! (Laughs). I shouldn't have said that.  Usually more like ten drafts, and they are done fast and furiously within a three day period when editing. And by drafts I mean, different variations at first; for example, when not working with linear pieces, sometimes I'll rewrite a story backwards, line for line, and see what changes, or I'll translate it into another language and then back again to English--to see what I notice in the warping, how it can be looked at differently, if that helps. And then eventually near the finish. [I add] tiny word changes and added pieces.

MAK: Be it thirty or ten edits, you obviously put a lot of time and thought into refining each piece. It shows in the finished product.

I understand you are teaching privately and offering online workshop sessions through Dzanc Books. What are you teaching, and how much are you invested in the teaching and creative process?

MP: Discussing with students what works in story, what they are trying to get to, and how to find their own way to get there intrigues me to no end. It is about half of what I do now. I enjoy working with writers who are just finding their voices, or those who have been blocked. They key, I believe, is encouraging them to be playful, less English-teacher-like.  The challenge is universally to give them permission to be less hard on themselves.

For Dzanc I’m teaching Prompts and Short Form Writing. It is a great, inclusive term; I feel “short form” [is perfect] to define what flash is. Prompts are something I use in my own work. Creating them for students feels like a natural extension of that.

Editing pieces that are good is delicious brain work, and so different than writing. But more than anything, working with Frederick Barthelme for BLIP MAGAZINE (formerly MississippiReview.com) online has taught me so much about what matters as an editor. Choosing a piece of writing, one over the other, has to do with feeling, as a reader, more engaged by that piece while reading it than [with] anything else. One becomes blind to the rest of the world, like being in love. What you are reading has got to be that compelling.  It's not something you need to talk yourself into.
 

MAK: Meg, I have really enjoyed doing this interview with you!  Many thanks for being so generous about sharing your thoughts about and passion for your work.

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