Lit Hub Asks: 5 Authors, 7 Questions, No Wrong Answers is a monthly interview series where five writers with new books answer seven questions. This month the guests are Grace Krilanovich, Emily Ogden, Paisley Rekdal, Jim Shepard and Ankur Thakkar. Each answer is a chance to see what the writer thinks about influence, process and craft, and the answers range from one-word shrugs to full-on memoirs of decade-long creative lives.
What Each Book Is About
Krilanovich’s Acid Green Velvet deals with freedom, mobility, who gets to be an artist, ornamentation, guilt over femininity, West Coast oddballism and the counterculture. Ogden’s Darkness Becomes Bright: On the Brief Life and Immortal Art of Edgar Allan Poe is about guilt, mortality and how literature helps with both. Rekdal’s Heritance centers on death, dads, bad decisions and art’s hopeful delusions. Shepard’s The Queen of Bad Influences looks at the gap between our best selves and our usual selves, complicity, comfort and nature. Thakkar’s Blow Yourself Up touches on first loves, The Diaspora, time’s flexibility and turning ringtones into Midwest emo songs.
The Influences Behind Each Book
Ogden cites the dreams of dead people, her own dreams, group biographies of one person, chapter-by-chapter beginnings, French decadence, magical realism, nineteenth-century sensational fiction and hearts under floorboards. Rekdal points to Dorothea Lange, George Stubbs, her drawing habit, Thucydides, bad marriage counseling and the oral history archive she runs at the American West Center. Shepard lists a lifetime of movies, both kids’ and adults’ books on natural science, Peanuts, Catholicism, monster lore and old archives. Thakkar mentions snow falling upwards, a B-side to the self, a one-shot romance and the pause before a final chorus. Krilanovich draws on communes, occupations, encampments, the human Be-In, the Manson Family and Dennis Wilson, plus the excess of Ken Russell, Joe Coleman, Tasha Tudor, clowns, migraines, Priscilla Presley and the Winchester Mystery House.
Life While Writing
Rekdal describes her experience as “Utter chaos on every level, thanks.” Shepard retired during the writing, lost two dogs, rescued two others, traveled, taught workshops and finally found time to read. Thakkar was reading widely, dealing with form rejections, moving cities, kettlebells, Vine and making a mask of his smiling face. Krilanovich started in 2007, lived solo in a cat condo, swam at night, worked at the Los Angeles Times, ate at Suehiro, Original Pantry, Canter’s and Burrito King, went to Spaceland, the Smell, Safari Sam’s, Glass House and Mr. T’s Bowl, raised babies and toddlers, read board books aloud, followed a toddler around a playground, lived near a thrift store, bought niche dishware, old phones and records, had up to three hours of childcare, then none, did Zoom school, folded clothes, washed faces, tracked masks, wrote all day and finished in June 2023. Ogden got attacked by raccoons.
Words Readers Use To Describe Their Writing
Shepard reacts to hearing he writes well by saying “Jeez. Now I’m depressed.” Thakkar was told by a former call-center manager that this isn’t how Indian people behave. Krilanovich hates words like surreal, stream of consciousness, automatic writing, vomiting on the page and turning on the tap. Ogden passes on naming words used to describe her books, calling it hard to describe a book and grateful for anyone generous enough to describe one of hers. Rekdal dislikes “too pretty,” “intense” and “long,” though she admits she does write some pretty intense long poems.
Other Careers Writers Would Choose
Thakkar wants to be a chef, writing with patience and trust the way he brings to a dish he’s never made before. Krilanovich names painting, drawing, culinary history and housewares design à la Taylor & Ng. Ogden wants to be a wildlife veterinarian. Rekdal lists photography and returning to medieval studies. Shepard names veterinarian, paleontologist and film director.
Craft Strengths And Weaknesses
Ogden says she’s prone to surprising turns of thought and less prone to hierarchical arguments, calling both a strength and a weakness. She frames style as a whole person, not a list of attributes and flaws. Thakkar says narrative voice and tone come naturally while plot is harder. Rekdal has a strong command of syntax and a deep attachment to narrative, calling brevity a weakness. Krilanovich describes her strengths as strong.
The Questionnaire Format
The Lit Hub Author Questionnaire asks the same questions of everyone, and the answers are anything but standard. Some writers answer in one line; others spend paragraphs laying out decades of work and family. The series is a chance to hear from writers across genres on what drives them, what bothers them and what they’d do if writing wasn’t the job.
“A style is not a collection of attributes and flaws any more than a body is.”
That’s Ogden on writing, a line that sums up the whole enterprise: not a list of qualities, but a person doing the work.
Quick Facts
- Series: Lit Hub Asks: 5 Authors, 7 Questions, No Wrong Answers
- Guests this month: Grace Krilanovich, Emily Ogden, Paisley Rekdal, Jim Shepard, Ankur Thakkar
- Krilanovich’s book: Acid Green Velvet
- Ogden’s book: Darkness Becomes Bright: On the Brief Life and Immortal Art of Edgar Allan Poe
- Rekdal’s book: Heritance
- Shepard’s book: The Queen of Bad Influences
- Thakkar’s book: Blow Yourself Up
- Krilanovich’s finish date: June 2023
The questionnaire is a simple tool, but it produces rich results. Writers get to explain themselves without promoting or defending, and readers get a sense of what actually goes into a book beyond the jacket copy.
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