In this exclusive interview with Evadne Macedo, author of The 29th Day, Emily Schultz shares her thoughts on writing. Emily Schultz is the co-founder of Joyland, a literary magazine devoted to short fiction. She is the author of Black Coffee Night (short stories), Joyland, Songs for the Dancing Chicken (finalist for the 2008 Trillium Prize for Poetry), and most recently Heaven Is Small .

1. Your most recent novel, Heaven Is Small, is a satire about the publishing industry set in suburban Toronto. Quill and Quire’s review said that you had “created a delightful cast of lost souls” and that “Heaven is Small is a keen examination of life and the afterlife, brimming with intelligence and wit.” What I enjoyed most about Heaven is Small was the details of the characters and the world you had created. For example, you describe Lillian Payne as follows: “She had a stringy, muscular body that looked as if the day she had been poured from the genetic vat she’d hung onto a bar while the rest of her body dripped down, icicle-like, and hardened: hips and legs as narrow as a splinter.” Would you agree that you approached this novel with a poet’s sensibility? How did you develop the brilliant concept of Heaven as a publishing company?

It’s true that the language is important, especially since this book references and riffs on genre fiction—in particular, romance. But I think that the way language fits together, its playfulness and musicality, is as much a part of fiction as it is poetry. If anything, in Heaven Is Small, I was more focused on plot than I had been before. Of my two novels so far, Joyland is more impressionistic, whereas Heaven is driving towards something at all times. The protagonist, Gordon Small is trapped in the afterlife, so there’s his growing awareness of death, and also his struggle to salvage his soul from the mega-corporation that is the afterlife, and his attempt to bring down the company. Of course, I do love to describe my characters. I didn’t know who Human Resources Director Lillian Payne was until I wrote that line.

Heaven Is Small came about for me because I wanted to write about work and workplaces. I found myself unexpectedly laid off from a job in literary publishing that I loved. I was thinking about the value of work, and what a single person means within a company. Any company, even one in the afterlife. In being laid off, I really felt dead, like my protagonist—uncertain, inept, set adrift, meaningless. To contrast all this smallness (or Gordon Smallness), the company or afterlife in my story had to be not just a publishing company, but an all-powerful conglomerate.

The idea continued to develop right up until the final weeks when my amazing editor Lynn Henry and I went back and forth and I changed the rather ordinary 32-storey building of Heaven into a giant 70-floor tower. She was very interested in the rules that governed my Heaven and how Heaven operated, how it imported and exported its products. I had to justify everything, and it made the world I’d attempted to build larger and more cohesive. Heaven Is Small is a satire, but it might have only been a passing joke if not for her careful treatment.

2. I often speak about the incredible mentorship of award-winning author, Terry Fallis (who wrote The Best Laid Plans and The High Road — coming out in September 2010) as Terry’s support has been instrumental to my development as a writer. At the March 27, 2010 Humber Writers’ Circle, you mentioned that you have been writing since age 5 (like Pasha Malla). Who first recognized your talent for writing? Have you had any mentors?

I can’t say that I’ve had any mentors, because I think that implies someone very famous taking one under wing, or giving one a leg up by way of introductions to other very famous people. I have had a lot of help from unfamous people though, and that’s better I think. Certainly I’m indebted to all of my editors and to my literary agent. As for who first recognized my talent, I have to say that I was very headstrong and self-motivated. I was four when I declared I would be a writer, and I pretty much forced myself on the world when I brought in my “work” from home and made my grade two teacher read my epic stories aloud to the other children (whether they wanted to hear them or not).

3. In your role as editor of Joyland, you review submissions from many writers. What are common flaws in the submissions you receive?What advice would you have for people submitting short fiction to Joyland, or to other literary magazines? Are there any books — fiction or non-fiction — that you would recommend for short story writers to improve their craft?

Joyland.ca is a website organized by region with different editors for each region. It used to be a personal author site, but now it’s an online fiction magazine run by myself and Brian Joseph Davis and many editors in other places. Brian and I conceived of it together. I only edit Toronto, and even there I have help from my assistant editor, Faye Guenther and from Brian who is the managing editor.

I like stories that take risks, but I have to believe in the character and I have to know what is driving that person (and the story for that matter) from the first sentence, or at least the first paragraph. My preference is toward the 4,000-word story; meaty but singular in focus. I’ve had a lot of relationship stories and coming-of-age stories on the site already, which means at this point I would favour something else. Last year, Cedrick Mendoza-Tolentino, whom I’ve still not met, wrote about a dictator. That got my attention right away because it was unique subject matter. This month, a new writer, Susan Alexander, gave us her story about a woman who remembered everything (much to her chagrin) and the entire story revolved around giving a lecture to a university psych class on this topic. Brilliant!

4a. Your collection of  poetry, Songs for the Dancing Chicken, draws from the films and life of director Werner Herzog. What was it about his films that inspired you to write these poems?

The first section of the book is concerned with the films of Werner Herzog, and after that the poems build on themes that have been established in that first section, like work, insomnia, dreams, death, cruel nature. One of the things that amazes me about Herzog as a director is his notion of ecstatic truth. He obsesses over the smallest details and their realness. When I am watching, I feel caught in a slow but very lush dream. Some of my favourite films of his I could not write about—like The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner, which is a short documentary about a ski jumper, much of it tranquil slow-motion footage of a man who appears as if he is flying free through the air.

4b. Why is it that the poems in this collection, like many Canadian contemporary poetry collections, don’t rhyme?

Yes, but the poems do rhyme. Just look at the section below that you quote: pain rhymes with pain—and the poem marches on, rhyming sometimes every few syllables and sometimes only every few lines. All of my work is concerned with pacing and aural quality. Sometimes the rhymes are buried, but there are still half rhymes and they tell you how to read the poem aloud.

5. My favourite of the poems in Songs for the Dancing Chicken was In the Factory, which imagines the industrial production of pain. I would like to quote one passage in which you describe the pain the workers produce as follows:

this is a good pain, this is a bad pain, a defect pain, a sick pain, half-formed, without flourish, like the one I made first time I walked through those doors, like the uncast anguishes of tomorrow, pressed already into the small of my spine while I sleep, when all my sleeps become twisted, corrugated with the names of childhood friends I can no longer recall, and the thick dark coils of my mother’s genitals the instant I was old enough to label them obscene in my mind, in its shamed corners where pains would grow into the faces of men, the stiff engraved souls that touched my palms like coins, went away and came back again, a pain less round than the others, one I don’t even want to call my own, a pain without any dignity, without silver or substance, without a bit of shine, and I could get you a hundred better from any one of the bins out back.

Like John Bemrose’s novels, I found that both of your novels contain this sort of poetic sensibility. How do you decide whether something you have written can stand alone as a poem or whether to incorporate it into a novel?

I wonder if it’s the poetic sensibility or because it’s the same themes? Work, the value of work. But a poem is always a poem to me. A novel always a novel. Their size alone seems to dictate that, although the other part of it could be that my novels are outright lies where my poems are more rooted in personal truth. I come from a factory town and I worked polishing coasters for a brass foundry, which is where this poem comes from. I love the way that factories look all lit up at night, but what if terrible things were produced there? Like pain itself.

6. Before your first novel, Joyland, you published a collection of short stories, Black Coffee Night. Sarah Sheard, Kristen den Hartog and Pasha Malla (who is now working on his first novel) also started with short stories. Please describe how you made the transition from writing short stories to writing novels as I know this a challenge that many of the writers I meet are grappling with. Do you have any tips for people aiming to write a novel after having written short stories?

My first novel, Joyland, is episodic—which is basically a soft way of saying it is slower paced, plot-wise, than what I’m writing now. I think that’s a fairly natural thing coming out of short stories. One of the most exciting things about short stories is the chance to try out new voices, styles, and eclectic characters—all of which are allowed to come under the roof of one thing, the collection. In a novel, one must commit to a tone that flows all the way through, one main character, one time period/setting, etc. If you’re anything like me, your first novel will nearly kill you. The best advice I was ever given came when I met poet Patrick Lane. I wasn’t a real writer yet, and although I now have a tattoo with his poetry on my arm, I didn’t then. When I asked him to sign my copy of his recent book, he said, “Are you a writer?” Boldly I said yes. “Well then,” he said, “Endure.”

7. I read Joyland with interest as I am thinking that the main characters in my third novel may be teens but I am not sure if the audience would be adult or teen. I have spoken with some of the teens I know and — sorry to generalize – they seem to have a small range of what they would find interesting and there are even fewer ideas that would excite both boys and girls. This makes me appreciate the expertise behind books like the Harry Potter series or the Twilight series that feature young people but appeal to people of all ages and genders. The characters in Joyland are young people and the world you have created seems so realistic in terms of the sarcasm in the dialogue or the descriptions of peer pressure, bullying, homophobia, exploration of sex & sex roles, hierarchies and so on. What kind of research on teens did you do? Though the characters are young people, this strikes me as a novel intended for an adult audience — which age group has appreciated this book the most and why?

The book was for adults: I think of it as cruel and kind of perverse, actually. It does have some tender moments, but the mix is too complex emotionally for me to ever feel comfortable recommending it to young people. My teenagers were particular to the 1980s, so I really didn’t want to immerse myself with current teens. I did more research into the 1980s and thinking about the naivité of that time. My research involved playing a lot of classic video games, and documenting slang from ‘80s movies, magazines, and books, as well as polling my friends for what they could remember from their own youth.

8. The review by Flare magazine described Heaven Is Small as ”tailor-made for a Hollywood adaptation.” I am inclined to agree with that – your descriptions of people and places are so detailed that it is easy to form a visual image (whether in one’s mind or on film). In your interview with Rob McLennan, you said that you watch a film every evening before bed. Do you think your writing has been influenced in any way by your love of film? What lessons about story-telling or characterization do you draw from the films you watch? Have you ever tried to write a screen play? Would you like to see Heaven Is Small adapted for the screen or would you be worried about things being changed?

Heaven Is Small was optioned by Markham Street Films this past fall—the company who produced David Bezmozgis’ film Victoria Day. I thought that was a fantastic Canadian film, and I’m looking forward to seeing how my novel adapts. Markham Street is also finishing up an adaptation of Christopher Dewdney’s Acquainted with the Night.

I also had a short story from Black Coffee Night adapted years ago. I think that as a writer you have to give up control a little, and understand that the work is being conveyed through a different medium. I love film, but its relationship to its audience is different. On the page, you spend a lot of time trying to convince your audience. You have to describe every detail to make them believe. But onscreen, an actor appears and he immediately has a face, a voice. With that said, paying very active attention to films has changed how I write. I see the story in my mind as if it were playing out in front of me. Then I try to make what I’ve seen into words.

9. At the March 27, 2010 Humber Writers’ Circle, you spoke about your writing process and the way Flannery O’Connor’s essay “Writing Short Stories from Mystery and Manners” validated your approach. I was really excited to hear your remarks as my approach to writing novels is more similar to yours than many writers who outline, like Terry Fallis or Kim Moritsugu. Please describe how you develop your ideas into novels and what your goals are, in terms of plot, character development or the craft of writing itself.

To even use the word “goals” is large of you. When I sit down to write, I seldom know the story—or the plot—that I want to tell. This type of understanding of plot is vital to a good book, yet for me it comes later in the writing. I will be a good ways in before I know the course a book—or even a short story—is going to take. When I begin, I know very little. I may not even know much about the character. As I said at the Humber Writers’ Circle, I know something about something of what I want to do. When I began writing Heaven Is Small, I knew a few things. I knew I wanted to write something funny and also fantastic, maybe as satirical as Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” or maybe a mix of sad and quirky, like Banana Yoshimoto. I knew the essence of my protagonist, Gordon. I knew that I wanted him to be angry and isolated. I knew that I wanted him to be so isolated he might exist in a world that was neither living nor dead—that perhaps he wouldn’t know if he was alive or not, and that that might become clear to him at some point in the novel.

I can’t give myself a free pass to wander for 200 pages though. Using my method means rewriting like crazy. (I admit there are some things I can’t salvage. I’ve probably thrown out about five short stories in the past year.) But I do think that having just a couple ideas or incidents one wants to write around means there’s room for the story to grow organically and find its natural path and pacing.

10. In your interview with Rob McLennan, you indicated that your novels often flow from a title. I had originally conceived of my first novel under the name, The 29th Day Hypothesis, and wrote the manuscript with this title in mind. But, when I mentioned my book’s name to Margaret Atwood at the Toronto launch of The Year of the Flood, she said the title sounded too scientific and suggested I shorten it. Her agent, Phoebe Larmore, had the same reaction. I felt very lucky to have been given this advice and changed my book’s name to The 29th Day (people told me this name sounds intriguing). I have recently gone through a similar process of renaming my second novel (a work in progress of about 40,000 words). I have now decided to keep the name of Novel #2 to myself until I am really sure about it. How do you choose a title? Do your agent, editor or friends have any role in deciding your book’s name? If not, how do you know it is the right title? When do you announce it?  What do you think makes a good title?

With my poetry book, Songs for the Dancing Chicken, my editor Michael Holmes and I decided on that title together. It was originally named after the second suite of poems in the book, Better Hell, which I like even though it does sound a bit like a Lifesaver flavour to me for some reason. With Joyland, that was always the title. It was the name of a small chain of now-defunct arcades running through rural Ontario from London to Windsor. Heaven Is Small had such a terrible working title that I can’t—won’t—recall it. But it became Heaven Is Small before it was sold to House of Anansi; I suggested it and my agent, Shaun Bradley, agreed it fit.

11. Could you please comment on the practicalities behind your writing? For example, do you keep notes in a notebook? If so, at what point do you transfer them to a computer? Do you write on a laptop or a desktop? Do you hide yourself away in a quiet room or write at cafés? And the biggest question of all: Do you use a Mac or a PC?

I’m really not particular. As long as I’m doing it, that’s all that matters. I’ve been known to rummage in my bag for a pen and scrawl on my hands while at rock concerts. For a fun piece about creating anywhere, check out this link about my homemade, self-imposed writing retreat: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/scene-change/article1436651/

12. Do you have any final words of advice or encouragement for aspiring writers?

Just what’s been said to me: Endure.

For more information about Emily Schultz visit Joyland or follow her on Twitter under Manualofstyle. See also Rob McLennan’s interview with Emily Schultz or another interview on the Toronto Public library book buzz discussion. You can also listen to an interview and Emily Schultz reading from Heaven is Small on the House of Anansi website.

This interview was originally posted on May 5, 2010 at http://books.macedo.ca . Follow Evadne Macedo on Twitter (under evadnemacedo).

When you visit http://books.macedo.ca, see also Evadne Macedo’s previous interviews and profiles:

• Sarah Sheard: Almost Japanese, The Swing Era: a Novel, The Hypnotist: a Novel (April 14, 2010)
• Kristen den Hartog: (Water Wings, The Perpetual Ending, Origin of Haloes and The Occupied Garden with Tracy Kasaboski (March 31, 2010)
• Priscila Uppal: To Whom it May Concern, The Divine Economy of Salvation, Traumatology, Successful Tragedies and many, many other published works (March 17, 2010).
• John Bemrose: The Last Woman, Island Walkers, Imaginary Horses, Going Under (March 3, 2010)
• Pasha Malla: The Withdrawal Method (The 2009 Trillium Award; The Danuta Gleed Literary Award) (February 17, 2010)
• Kim Moritsugu: The Restoration of Emily; The Glenwood Treasure; Old Flames and Looks Perfect (February 3, 2010)
• Terry Fallis: The Best Laid Plans and The High Road (coming in September 2010) (January 20, 2010)
• June Hutton: Underground (January 6, 2010)
• Thomas Trofimuk: The 52nd Poem, Doubting Yourself to the BoneandWaiting for Columbus (December 16, 2009)
• Gina Buonaguro & Janice Kirk: Ciao Bella and The Sidewalk Artist(December 9, 2009),
• Don LePan: Animals (December 2, 2009)
• Ray Robertson: David (November 25, 2009)
• Deborah Willis: Vanishing and Other Stories (GG Finalist) (November 19, 2009)
• Joy Fielding: Still Life & many other novels (November 14, 2009)

After Evadne Macedo’s interview with Emily Schultz, please visit http://books.macedo.ca for the last interview of Evadne Macedo’s 2009-2010 author interview series: Karen Connelly.