Many early reviews have mentioned that your new collection, Stay Awake, is disturbing and depressing. One Amazon review says: “For those wanting to float in a dark world of unsettling edges and places you want to leave quickly, I’d highly recommend this book.” Another Amazon reader asks: “I would just like to know what, if anything, makes Dan Chaon laugh.”

I do not know this word, ‘laugh.’ What is it? The sound of this word has an unsettling edge that I find disturbing and depressing. It makes me want to leave this place quickly.

Why do you think the word “dark” appears so often in the reviews of your new collection?

I think they mean “dank.”

Your stories include a family burnt to death in a mysterious fire, a kid whose parents commit suicide, deadly car accidents, and a murderous mother, among other grim subjects. Two pieces feature dead babies. Do any of your stories look at the lighter side of things?

Ah, but of course there’s a lighter side to dead babies. I once heard a wonderful joke about dead babies when I was a youth attending Sidney Junior High School in Sidney, Nebraska. It goes like this: “How do you unload a pickup truck full of dead babies?”

You wouldn’t think this would be so hard since you spend so much of the day home alone talking to yourself.

That’s true. I, we rather, have had plenty of practice.

So on with it then. What’s new?

The cereal kick I suppose, but you already knew that. I’m going on like three months of this bizarre cereal kick. In fact…I’ll be back in five…

- Half an hour later -

That was longer than five minutes.

Sorry. I have Cowboys and Aliens On Demand. Anyway, yeah, the cereal kick. I’ve been going at it hard for a while now. Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds. Honey Bunches of Oats with Raisins. Frosted Cheerios. Mixing and matching. I’ve been trying to cut back as of late, half-bowling it and such. I have an addictive personality and a man can only push his luck so far.

What else is happening in your life? I mean, besides cereal?

The book is happening I suppose. I mean it is happening. It’s a short story collection entitled Fires of Our Choosing.

Is The Rules of Inheritance about how you inherited a bunch of money and acted like a Kardashian?

Sadly, no. It’s more depressing, gritty and uplifting than that. Both of my parents got cancer when I was fourteen. My mother died when I was eighteen and my father when I was twenty-five. I’m an only child and these losses left me very much alone in the world, and going through something that none of my peers had really experienced. The book is kind of a coming-of-age story. It follows me through cities like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, through various relationships I cultivated with men and with alcohol. It’s definitely a grief memoir, but it’s also a lot more than that. You don’t have to have lost someone to relate to someone who is trying to figure themselves out and fucking up a lot along the way.

Aren’t you kind of embarrassed to publish a memoir?

For a long time the word memoir really made me cringe. When people asked what I was working on, I would go to great lengths to avoid that word. I’m actually a big fan of memoirs, but there can be something really trite and embarrassing about them, especially given our culture’s obsession with the intimate details of other people’s lives.

Hi. Are you ready for our interview?

You again. Seems like every time I turn around, I run into you.

Guess I’m the omniscient narrative voice in your head.

Ha ha.

Hey, I have the credentials to ask you questions—seeing as how I was a reporter for seventeen years and all that.

I liked you better when you turned your gaze outward.

Why do you find it so hard to talk about yourself? I’d think after all these years of being a published writer, it would get easier.

I agreed to being interviewed. Not psychoanalyzed.

Pearl: Thank you for inviting me to share a meal of Rwandan food and for giving me this chance to interview you. By the way, what am I eating?

Me: You are most welcome. It’s a pleasure to have someone to talk to. Usually, during my writing hours, it’s pretty lonely in here. You are eating isombe—the green stuff—which is made from cassava leaves, a stew made with chicken, tomatoes, cabbages and onions and pili-pili (hot pepper sauce), beans—similar to our pinto beans—and ugali.

Pearl: And what’s this mound of white stuff that looks like paste? Oh – and I’m sorry, but you forgot to give me silverware.

Me: That white stuff is the ugali. It’s a traditional staple in most African countries. In Rwanda, it’s made from cassava flour. In many countries, they use maize flour. Traditionally, food is served from a common bowl. You wash your hands and then everyone dips in. Sharing food in Rwanda is a very bonding experience. It’s a depth of tradition I think we have lost in this country. The ugali is your silverware. You tear off little balls of it (demonstrates) and wrap it around the rest of the food. (food drips up arm). It’s harder than it looks.

Pearl: Did you make all this yourself? Everything is delicious. The tastes are very earthy and rich. And unique – I can taste each of the ingredients.

Me: Well, since this is all virtual reality, yes. In my non-novel existence, I am not much of a cook. In Rwanda, cooking is done on a small charcoal stove called an iziko. It takes patience, love, and a lot of quadricep strength, since you have to squat for long periods of time. I made an omelet once, with my unofficially adopted son. It was quite a production, but it came out delicious.

Cila Warncke discovers that writing is more than a job.

An excerpt from Stielstra’s debut collection of stories.

I teach creative writing, and while thinking about this self-interview, I recently asked my students what they’re looking for when they visit literary websites. They said, overwhelmingly, that they want information about the writer’s process. Where did the stories come from and how do the writers live and write at the same time? There are eighteen stories in my collection Everyone Remain Calm, all really different, and I thought it would be interesting to share one aspect of the process in writing each story.

Shot to the Lungs and No Breath Left

A few years ago, there was some big case in the news about parents who were seeking revenge for something that had happened to their daughter. The clincher was, she didn’t want them to. I remember talking about the ethical implications of this over and over: what was justice in such a situation? Did her parents have the right to move forward with something she didn’t want? Why didn’t she want revenge? I wrote the word REVENGE on a post-it note, stuck it to the wall above my computer, and tried to imagine a character in this same boat.

Recently, my friend Amanda Delheimer Dimond, a theatre director here in Chicago, made a video with KBH Media in connection with this story, exploring the idea of revenge from many viewpoints. That’s my favorite thing about literature, my favorite thing about story: how different people define similar terms, and how much we can learn about ourselves by just… listening.

Incredible

I got dumped and it sucked.

Why write?