short stories, plays, and taking a full load of academic courses. It was absolutely beautiful, a very a happy time for me. The hollow shell of my life began to fill with meaning. Oh boy, a novel, oh boy! BUCHNER
Had you been writing much before you came to Washington State? JONES
I started young drawing cartoons in grade school. They looked like the William Hogarth depiction of "Gin Alley." I wrote my first short story at twenty-one. I wrote "Wipe Out" a month later and several decades later it appeared in Esquire. 1 was at the University of Hawaii and was writing regularly. In Seattle I really cut loose. I put o ut a huge amount of stuff. BUCHNER
I recently reread "I Love You, Sophie Western," and I'm curious how that story came to be? JONES
Hubert Selby Jr. was a god to me. I wrote that story just after reading Last Exit to Brooklyn. I didn't "intend" to write a blowjob story, it just turned out that way. It almost got me tossed out of Iowa City. 1 was never a meticulous plotter, things just seemed to happen. I later met Selby in West Hollywood while they were filming Requiem for a Dream. Selby was the nicest guy in the world. 1 wrote a piece on him for Men's Journal. BUCHNER
Your characters often talk very straightforwardly, sometimes brash and forceful, in a voice that seems both hardened yet poetic. There's also an authenticity in the voice, and I'm wondering where these characters come from or how they come to you?
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