Check out the whole website, I LOVE what they are doing. “Our aim is to be experimental without being obtuse”. How could I not?

http://theneweryork.com/the-lady-and-the-pygmy-rattlesnake/

    The image I had of him from childhood was of an old crocodile basking on his rock in the South of France, rather forbidding and frightening.  It was a revelation to find out how   vulnerable, emotional and in many ways fragile he really was.

2.      One of my favorite parts of your book was your description of  his travel to the South Seas. To me, the South Seas stories seem to really show Maugham’s empathy for people and his understanding of human fallibility. Do you think that there were elements of his personal life at the time of those travels that softened him?
When he embarked on those long voyages of exploration he was accompanied by the great love of his life, Gerald Haxton, but I’m not convinced that had much influence on his outlook and understanding of the people he met in the Far East and wrote about in his stories.  He was always intensely curious, particularly about sexual relationships.
3.      I am a big fan of Maugham’s Ashenden stories, based largely on his experience during the war as a spy. I believe this coincided with the beginning of difficult times with his wife Syrie. Do you think the personal chaos in his life played a part in his adoption of such a cool-headed narrator?   An interesting question, but on balance I’m inclined to believe that this cool-headed narrator was the essence of Maugham and had little to do with any turmoil in his private life. 4.      In comparison with the way Maugham used the novel and the plays , how do you think he used the short story?                 Not quite sure what you mean here.  I think he understood very well the differences required by the three genres and was an expert practitioner in each. 5.      On a personal note, what are some of your favorite short stories by Maugham?             My all-time favourite is The Outstation, an absolutely flawless story.  Also, P&O, The Human Element, The Door of Opportunity and Sadie Thompson (Rain). 6.      Maugham had such tremendous success as a living writer. Do you think that history has treated him as fairly?
He quickly fell out of fashion after his death, unfairly in a way because fashion was changing so rapidly.  He died in the middle of that great decade of change, the 1960s,                 and so inevitably he was regarded as a back number.  He was also closely associated with the British Empire, and for almost half a century it became politically incorrect even to mention the Empire.  Now, however, it’s back on the syllabus, historians are writing about it, tele-dons lecturing on it, and Maugham, too, is having a revival, with films (The Painted Veil, Theatre [renamed Loving Julia], and new editions of his works.

1 – Which of these stories do you think is the most representative of your personal style? Which is most similar to the style of Flannery O’Connor?

I would say that the story “A Puddle of Sex Books” comes close to something I’m aiming for, which is to write a story that goes off on as many tangents as possible but remains coherent. I’ve aimed to make it emotionally fraught and absurd at the same time.

I don’t really think any of my stories are much like Flannery O’Connor, maybe because her stories are about people being redeemed, though in absurd and sometimes horrible ways—and I’m more interested in the ways in which people aren’t redeemed but have to go on living with what spiritual resources they have, insufficient though they may be.  Perhaps the story “Burt Osborne Rules the World” has some resemblance to Flannery O’Connor, because it’s fast paced and consists of weirdly dramatic moments.

2- A lot of these stories made me think of the waiting period right after graduating from college. There seems to be a feeling of the last days of summer and of wistfulness. Was that intentional or was it a theme you discovered after writing them?

I wasn’t thinking consciously of that particular period, but I am interested in people being in an undefined place, and about people being disconnected and unsettled.

3- Are there any particular places that inspire you to write?

I don’t know the answer to that. I love to travel, but I don’t really get inspired by exotic or beautiful places. I’m more interested in the places in between. I kind of like airports, and I like the idea that when you’re flying you’re pretty much literally nowhere. I’m interested in the way that un-dramatic and unadventurous places can still manage to be strange and exciting.

4- Can you tell me a little about the story “Ralph Goes to Mexico”? It was my favorite in the collection.

That’s probably my most ambitious story in the collection. I made a point of creating a narrator that wasn’t like me, or at least was a different gender. I took a lot of macabre and funny ideas that I’d been thinking about for years, and managed to make them sound like a real person’s experience.

5- What are you working on now?

I recently finishedThe Cat Food Kid: A Novel in Limericks.  Right now I’m working on finishing a second short story collection.

1. I loved your division of short stories between At Home and Abroad. How are the two related? Do you consider these stories more European or more American?

We’ve lived abroad a lot (Poland, England, France, Africa), and my first published stories were ones set in Warsaw.   Some time while I was assembling the book, I was teaching Victorian poetry, and Browning’s poem “Home Thoughts, from Abroad” came up (“Oh, to be in England Now that April’s there . . .”)–and I thought immediately, Here’s a way to organize these stories.      Most of these stories are clearly more American than European, basically seen from an outsider’s point of view.   But we lived in Warsaw for 15 months–I was a Fulbright Professor at the U. of Warsaw–during the tumultuous time when Solidarity (Solidarnosz!) was breaking out and the Pope camthe e to speak, etc.; so I think in “A Decent Life” and “The Twisted River” (and a few others in my other collection “Unheard Music”) I was able to get into a fairly Polish head (even though the square in “A Decent Life” is modeled on the one in Prague).

2. Do you see parallels of the way you play with stereotypes of Polish people to the way Flannery treated Southerners?

I don’t particularly, but of course, as a teacher who loves Flannery O’Connor and has often taught her work, some influence must seep in that I’m not aware of.   I worry more about this in my poems, where for all I know whole phrases come from the poets I teach.   I think O’Connor leans toward surrealism and the bizarre more than I do (though I’ve been told that “The Piano Tuner–not one of my Polish ones–is pretty bizarre.

3. Aside from “The Piano Tuner”, which stories are closest to Flannery O’Connor’s style? Which are most indicative of your personal style?

“Sealink” may be a bit like O’Connor–just the idea of hitting a sheep on the road to Mont St. Michelle is weird, though perfectly possible (we took our kids on a trip much like that one, without the accident).

I’d guess that “Alice’s Brother” and “Conversation with a Pole” are pretty much my basic style, where a normal situation and conversation just gets pushed over the edge in little steps and bits.   My mind seems to work that way, and I often, in social situations, refrain from remarks or answers that might head the party in a darker direction.

4. How do you decide whether you will tell a story in first person or third person?

I like writing in the first person, especially if it’s someone a little like myself, but nastier, less responsible etc.  I can see why actors like to play bad characters, it’s quite freeing.   But usually the way my “plots” work out, I need to keep to the third person.

5. Your endings often take a surprisingly violent turn. Any comments on that?

Critics have said that my poems like boffo endings, too, so I guess it’s fairly natural.  Maybe that’s why I’ve never tried writing a novel–my characters seem to move along pretty well, but they dig themselves in a bit too deeply and suddenly, BANG, it’s over.   I like music like that, too, with dramatic endings–not heavy, necessarily, but definitely sharp:  you know you’re at the end.

7. The father in The Starlings of Leicester Square was such a memorable character. Did you ever think about writing something else about him?

 I’m glad you find the father memorable.  We did, too, because that’s a rare story that came from a particular event.  Jeanne & I were eating in a Swiss restaurant in Leicester Square, when a loud and probably drunk man at the next table was talking aggressively without stopping to a younger companion.   We weren’t really listening until he finally stopped and said to his companion (who couldn’t possibly have squeezed a word in sideways), “Have you lost your voice?”  I wrote that down on my napkin (a common practice with my poems, but not so with stories).   After the story got started, we’d go back to Leicester Square and I’d write some more, and of course saw the starlings.

8. What are you currently working on?

Mostly I’m writing poetry, but I would like to put together a “Complete Stories,” adding 5 or 6 new ones to the 2 collections I’ve published.

QUESTIONS FOR MELINDA MOUSTAKIS
1. You paint a haunting version of Alaska. Do you think when a writer comes from such an immense landscape they are compelled to write about it?
Inspiration comes in many forms. I think immense landscapes can be inspiring to some and boring to others. Writing is often about compulsion and obsession, something captures your interest and won’t let go–a color, a place, an image, a setting, a voice.
2. What is your process like? Do you come up with a story and then deconstruct it or does it come fully conceived the way it is?

This varies story by story. Most stories I have to think about for a long time and then sit down and write and carve out a draft. I often realize that this story is actually a reworking of a former failed story from a few years before. I’m not one to pour out words and pages and then cut down. I wish I wrote more that way at times. I try to make sentences as good as I can make them as I go along, which is a slow process.

3. Do you write better in Alaska or outside of Alaska?

I usually can only jot down notes while I’m there as there’s too much to do: go fishing, see family, do cabin chores. I soak in as much as I can and write later.
4. Which of the stories in BEAR DOWN BEAR NORTH do you think has most in common with Flannery O’Connor?

Which is most indicative of your personal style? I’d say the most Flannery-like story is “Us Kids” where the kids at the homestead find an eaglet at the bottom of the outhouse because of it’s down in the muck-ness and the themes of birth and destruction. The story that captures how my brain thinks by bringing together multiple narrative strands and focusing on strong images is “The Mannequin in Soldotna.”
5. These stories seem to be completely interlinked, a meditation. Would it have worked with this collection to have the title taken from one of the stories?

I hope not because titling this collection was a maddening experience. I had friends help me make lists and lists of possible titles and they’re saints for enduring this ordeal. I liked all the story titles but none of them could speak to the collection as a whole. One day my friend Kathy, a bit exasperated, said, “Why don’t you just call it Bear Down, Bear North?” The title was just specific enough to point to a sense of survival, migration, and sense of place. Then I added Alaska Stories as a subtitle to showcase place.
6. Do people ask you often what certain stories mean and, if so, how do you handle the question?

Most of the time a reader has a certain interpretation and wants to know if that interpretation is correct and is I meant to convey. Writing is such a strange process and often what one sets out to do changes, warps, and transforms into something else by the time a story is done. A professor of mine once said, “The fiction is smarter than you are.” There is a sense of discovery and surprise in the making and telling of a story.

7. The collection leaves some some very strong images-the outhouse built like an orthodox church, the mannequin with fish hooks, little girl left to find her way home with the rifle. What are the advantages of using more experimental forms of narrative when trying to explain a sense of place?

Different forms allow me to find different angles, as in camera angles, or different doorways into a story. There are many disadvantages and one is usually, How in the world am I going to make this work? In this book I was also teaching myself how to use different points of view, as if trying to find a way to show a mosaic of collage of a place with multiple perspectives.

Thank you so much to Melinda for taking the time to answer my question. More information about Melinda and her writing can be found at her website (http://www.melindamoustakis.com/)