A Short Interview w/ Josh Denslow
"Bonus material" for Denslow's short story, "Infinite Possibilities Outside the Screen," published on Tuesday, 1/23.
A couple quick notes:
Going to open submissions for a month in March!
Date/time isn’t yet set, but at some point in late February (probably something like Thursday evening (ET), 2/29, but we’ll see), I am going to host an informal Zoom chat about one of my favorite stories, Denis Johnson’s “The largesse of the Sea Maiden. 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 “Infinite Possibilities Outside the Screen” 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?
Okay so there’s the genesis of this story, and then there’s the genesis of the whole story collection where this one lives. If I don’t tell you a little about the collection, the genesis for this story will sound nuttier than it actually is.
What feels like decades ago, Tin House ran a flash fiction contest called Plotto or something like that. They gave a writing prompt for the week and you wrote something quickly and submitted. I’ve never entered a contest like that before, and I haven’t since. I’m not sure what possessed me to do it. I don’t even remember the prompt. The important part to relay here is I didn’t win. But, thinking about it years later, I don’t know. Maybe I did. Because the story I wrote for that contest was picked up by Wigleaf. It was about a guy who had recently gone through a breakup and his dog brings him a dead leprechaun while he’s sitting in the backyard he used to share with his girlfriend.
Scott Garson, the editor at Wigleaf, had some nice things to say about the story thematically and how he thought I should read Arthur Bradford. Which I will say is just really good advice for anyone. I felt empowered to continue, which as a writer, I greatly appreciate.
I wanted to recreate the magic of that story, so to speak. I began experimenting with more flash stories that involved breakups and magical creatures. I began working on them while taking breaks from larger projects. It’s been going on for seven years now. During that time, the stories stopped being flash length. And they began to come alive. It’s like a zen state for me. When I decide to write one of these stories, I flip on the voice and the characters begin talking. I don’t have to feed much into it before they begin to build on their own.
The collection, which is called MAGIC CAN’T SAVE US and will be published by UNO Press next year, recently developed a structure. There were stories with couples toward the beginning of their relationship, couples in the middle, and then tragically of course, couples at the end. As I assembled everything, I saw I needed one more story for the beginning of the relationship section.
Then I Googled magical creatures until one jumped out at me. So to answer the question now finally, the genesis of this story is that I wanted to write something with a centaur that featured a couple near the beginning of their relationship.
And then I went into my zen state and the story nearly wrote itself.
Oh! I love this answer. Has me even that much more excited for the collection. It's interesting, in the context of this story, too. You know I loved your first collection, and your recent novel... but there's an... energy here in "Infinite Possibilities..." that feels different. I wonder if you noticed that while writing, if that's something you can tell or see? And if so, this is admittedly a kinda abstract question, but I wonder if you can talk about what it feels to capture that energy when you're in the middle of it? Do you think there's something there that's maybe either connected to or a natural outgrowth of these stories being “about” magical creatures, or do you think it's more just a different phase in your writing life, or...?
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.