Interview with Elise
Juska
Aileen Bachant
feeling of clicking, of sudden understanding. It ended up being the first story I published (in the Seattle Review). Looking back, of course, the story feels young and flawed; I can see in it how much I didn’t know yet. But in a way, this lack of knowing was a strength as well as a detriment; the story had a kind of raw, unfiltered voice I’m not sure I could recapture now. But I can
Elise Juska is the author of the novels One for Sorrow, Two
still recall the moment of “clicking” and, as I keep evolving as
for Joy; The Hazards of Sleeping Alone; and Getting Over Jack
a writer, that process continues–hits, misses, instructive failures,
Wagner, all published by Simon & Schuster. Her short stories
moments of new understanding.
have appeared in numerous magazines including The Hudson
Review, Harvard Review, The Carolina Quarterly, Black Warrior
Q. What can you tell us about developing characters that
Review, and The Missouri Review and been cited by the Best
you have little in common with? Did you have any difficulty
American Short Stories 2010. She teaches fiction writing at the
developing the character of Charlotte in your book, The
University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
Hazards of Sleeping Alone?
Q. Who are your three favorite authors and why?
I had no difficulty developing Charlotte, which may say less
about my ability to inhabit characters than it does about the
That’s a hard question, and the answer changes, but in general
sense of kinship I felt, at twenty-eight, to an anxious fifty-year-
my favorite authors are short story writers. I gravitate most
old. I related to her internal makeup, but I was not a mother,
toward reading (and writing) in that form. Tobias Wolff, William
so that part of her character was more of a leap. In general,
Trevor and Alice Munro are writers I return to again and
though, I love the exploration of characters with whom, on the
again. My favorite authors are those whose fiction feels honest,
surface, I don’t have much in common. This is one of the great
real, and unpretentious, who manage to illuminate something
joys of fiction, isn’t it? As a writer and a reader, it allows us to
universal and true.
enter other lives, empathize with them and recognize them and,
if we’re lucky, return to our own life with some new insight.
Q. What are you reading now?
In the novel I recently completed, the central characters range
from a sixty-three year old dean to an eighteen-year-old cellist.
I’m currently loving a book of stories called Yesterday’s
I notice that, the more I write, the further I move away from
Weather by the Irish writer Anne Enright–biting, honest, funny,
myself.
devastating. She manages so much in so few pages.
Q. Tell us about your newest novel. Did any of your personal
Q. When did you first start writing? Can you recall the first piece
teaching experiences help shape this story? Have you learned
you were truly proud of ?
anything new about yourself as a teacher through the story’s
development?
I’ve been writing stories since I can remember; I started typing
when I was about four. When I was eight, I wrote a “book”
My experiences helped shape the story, but only indirectly. None
called Ten Candy Sticks for Mother that was bound and shelved
of the characters in the novel are based on people in my life, but
in the library at my elementary school–it’s still there, I believe!
the question at the heart of the novel–about how to deal with
As an adult, though, what stands out is a story I wrote in grad
students in trouble, when and how to intervene–is something
school; after writing several stories that were plagued with
that I, and I would imagine many teachers, struggle with. It’s
problems, I finally wrote one that “worked.” I remember that
the fictional what-if: take your small, real fear and exploit it–
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