A Short Interview w/ Jessica Lévai
"Bonus material" for Lévai's short story, "The Disc," published on Tuesday, 2/27.
A few quick notes:
Submissions open right now, for the month of March!
The first “That Was Awesome” short story club, where a bunch of us (30? 40?) hopped on Zoom and just hung out and chatted about one of my favorite stories, Denis Johnson’s “The Largesse of the Sea Maiden,” was a success and so going to keep it going, maybe make it a monthly thing! Toward that end:
“That Was Awesome” Short Story Club #2
Ted Chiang’s “Tower of Babylon”
Wednesday, Mar. 20, 8pm ET.
Interested? Message me here or DM me on Twitter or IG or wherever you want and can find me!
Short Story, Long features long short stories, each paired with original art, published every other week. In between stories, we feature some kind of “bonus material” for each — an interview with the author, outtakes or trivia about the story, etc. The stories are always going to be available for all, for free, with the “bonus material” saved for subscribers only. Paid subscriptions help pay writers and artists.
Read “The Disc” now if you haven’t already!
Aaron Burch: I'm kinda always curious where stories came from and what the seeds of idea were. Can you tell me a little about the genesis for this story?
Two events in my life came together to inspire this story. My dad used to buy random CDs from truck stops when we were on trips, usually oldies, but on at least one occasion we speculated that the best version of a given Broadway song might be on one of these collections, sung by someone you never heard of, and the world would never know. That gave me the germ of the story, but the ending reflects this time I played what was my favorite song at the time (Rockapella's "Change in My Life," if you're curious) to someone close to me. I was excited to share it, but when the song was over they just looked at me as if I'd confessed a horrible secret and said, "Jess, is this how you FEEL?" The song was tainted forever.
I love that background of the truck stop CDs. I’ve flipped through those on many a road trip, though never bought one. And, as I note in my intro, that opening so grabbed me! Does such a great job of setting up the tone and voice of the story to come. And, yeah, oof! That feeling of sharing a loved song and it not connecting!
I love the way the story writes about food. The gas station “junk” (so familiar!) and then Shawn cooking for his mom. Was that fun to write? Hard? Do you like writing about food? What is it about food in stories that can be so welcoming?
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Short Story, Long to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.