Interviews and Readings | Bob and Jack's Writing Blog

Remick and Ray Interview Sherry Decker

Posted by Jack Remick | Interviews and Q and A, Interviews and Readings, Science fiction, Sherry Decker, Short Story | 2 |

We interviewed Sherry Decker in September, 2014. She has just signed a contract for her novel Hypershot. R&R: Congratulations on your Hypershot deal. Decker: Thank you. I’m very happy about this. It happened the way I always assumed it would, by total surprise. R&R: When did you start writing Hypershot? Decker: In the late eighties, about three months before I met you at Louisa’s, (Tio’s Bakery back then wasn’t it)? I wanted to apply to your fiction writing class at the U.W. and that required sending you a minimum number of pages. I had just written the first thirty pages of Hypershot, so that’s what I submitted. Thinking back to that early manuscript, I’m amazed you accepted me into your class. R&R: When did you finish? Decker: The first time? It’s been rewritten and revised so many times that question is difficult to answer. I thought it was done when I sent it to Richard Curtis, my agent in New York. Especially after he read it and liked it, and decided to represent me. That was August 15, 2011. R&R: We like to cluster questions. So here are a few: What genre is Hypershot? Is it science fiction? Urban fantasy? Dystopian? Decker: I like what Ray Bradbury said about his Martian Chronicles: “I don’t write science fiction,” he said. “Science fiction is a depiction of the real. Fantasy is a depiction of the unreal....

Remick and Ray Interview Zack Hoffman

Posted by Jack Remick | Interviews and Q and A, Interviews and Readings, Rewrite | 3 |

Remick and Ray Interviewed Zack Hoffman between May 1 and June 15th, 2014 R&R—Thanks for agreeing to sit down with us for this interview, Zack. Let’s get right to it—you’ve been onstage, in film, and on TV. How did you get started acting? ZH: I’ve always wanted to be anyone but me and I thought acting was going to give me that opportunity. Of course I was wrong. At first it was an attempt to get attention and then after years it became a craft. I took some classes in High School and then in College but it never really clicked for me. I found my way to the Speech department in college, then radio and then back to acting after I left school. One night friends took me to see “The Committee” at the Tiffany theatre on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood. It was the first improv troupe I had ever seen. I fell in love with acting style and within a year I was taking classes and performing with Kent Skov and the LA Connection. R&R—Of all your roles which one strikes closest to home? ZH: There has to be part of you in every character you play. If I really have to choose I would have to say it’s the one I wrote. That would be lounge singer Nick Sands in “Tuxedo Man”. I get to take...

Remick and Ray Interview Janet Yoder

Posted by Jack Remick | First People, Interviews and Q and A, Interviews and Readings, Janet Yoder, Short Story, Timed writing Writing practice, Vi Hilbert, Writing About Writing, WRITING WITH DISCIPLINE | 4 |

We interviewed Janet Yoder in March & April 2014 R&R: You write in three forms: essays, creative non-fiction, and short stories. What is the difference between “essay” and “creative non-fiction?” Is a short story different from “creative non-fiction?” JY: To me, essays and creative nonfiction are essentially the same. Some publications use one term and some the other. I divide my essays into two categories: 1) personal essays inspired by my 30-year friendship with Skagit tribal teacher Vi Hilbert and 2) all other essays. My short stories are definitely fiction. I wrote a novel set in Indian Country but tucked it away in a drawer and I sometimes work on a new novel set in eastern Washington in between work on essays and short fiction. R&R: What are the techniques of fiction that you use in essay and creative nonfiction—if any? JY: I try to develop any real person I write about as I would a fictional character, trying to understand what makes that person tick. Lately I am concentrating on the idea of place in both essay and fiction. Looking at geology, mythology, plants, animals, weather, and the cultures of a place. R&R: When do you decide on the form? Do you start writing and watch the words morph into something? Or do you know the form before you start writing? JY: I wish I decided on...

Remick and Ray interview Joel Chafetz

Posted by Jack Remick | Interviews and Q and A, Interviews and Readings | 0 |

Joel Chafetz is the author of The Chaff. We interviewed Joel between February 5 and February 9, 2014.The novel is on amazon.com and other mainstream outlets. R&R: In this interview, we want to focus on technique and process in your writing of The Chaff rather than on story so we’ll get right to it: How did you get to this place? Why did you write this novel at this time? JC: I used to think of myself as a short story writer. I believe that the meat grinder of critique – getting feedback from writers I trusted – would hone my skills or at least remind me to deal with the weaknesses of my prose. Combining multiple views of writers with different focuses, strengths and insights helped me clarify what I couldn’t see in my own work. Then, over twenty years ago I started writing practice, structured timed writing. It helped develop the writing of scenes, develop voice, push a story to the end. This added to my focus of what I thought writing should be, do, become. The short story, novel, poem, creative non-fiction prose, all are the products of the narrative. Robert Olin Butler said about short stories, “I have this to say about that.” Butler also said of the novel, “I have all these things to say about that.” My struggle in trying to write a...

Remick and Ray Interview Max Detrano

Posted by Jack Remick | Interviews and Q and A, Interviews and Readings, Rewrite, Short Story, STORY, Story Development, STRUCTURE, Timed writing Writing practice, Writing About Writing | 3 |

We interviewed Max Detrano between February 20th and February 27th, 2014. R&R: We’re interested in the techniques and processes of writing. So let’s start there. First let me say, thank you for including me in this interview process. I am flattered and grateful, though unsure that I have much to contribute. Most of all I want to thank you, Bob and Jack, for all the hours, days, months and years you have devoted to mentoring writers, creating a scheduled place, a sacred space for the madness that we know as timed writing here in Seattle. If it were not for the two of you, I don’t think that would have happened. R&R: You practice timed writing. What is timed writing? I sit down at a crowded table at Louisa’s Cafe. The timer is set. At two-thirty all heads bow. I write without looking up till the buzzer sounds. I write fast. It’s best done with other people, in a noisy place full of distractions, because that’s what puts me in the zone. Because I can’t cheat. I can’t get up and make a sandwich like I would at home. Once done, I have something. Not always something good, but something. Once upon a time an aspiring poet asked William Stafford if it was true that he wrote a poem everyday before breakfast. He nodded that, Yes, it is true....

Category: Interviews and Readings

Remick and Ray Interview Sherry Decker

Remick and Ray Interview Zack Hoffman

Remick and Ray Interview Janet Yoder

Remick and Ray interview Joel Chafetz

Remick and Ray Interview Max Detrano

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