Shane Jones

Shane Jones, author of the chapbook, I Will Unfold You With My Hairy Hands (Greying Ghost 2008), and the novel, Light Boxes (Publishing Genius Press 2009), answers a few questions about his forthcoming books, his literary influences, and his favorite sexual position.

 

 

MOLLY GAUDRY: You've published a chapbook with Greying Ghost, a novel with Publishing Genius, and you have more books coming soon, right? What are their titles and who are the publishers?

 

SHANE JONES: I have a chapbook coming out from Cannibal Books called The Nightmare Filled You With Scary, a novella coming out from Fugue State Press called The Failure Six, and a full-length book of poems from Scrambler Books called A Cake Appeared.

 

MG: Can you tell us a little about each book? Where do the titles come from?

 

SJ: The chapbook from Cannibal Books is a long single poem, this kind of dreamy adventure story. The novella tells the six stories of six different messengers and how each fails at their given task to retell a woman's life who seems to have no memory—it's six stories inside a novella, with many beginnings and endings and no real beginning and no real end. The poetry book is a collection of fables and poems and longer scrolls with many surprises, like cakes appearing before a fireplace
where fiddlers are playing a song.

 

MG: Okay, I have to ask: Where do you get your ideas?

 

SJ: That’s a difficult question. I don’t know really. I daydream a lot and just kind of collect ideas and then when I’m writing if the story goes off in different directions, which if often does, I just follow that. The actual creation of the story or poem or novel is my favorite part and I try not to edit myself very much. I want the story to be full of imagination and surprises and also somewhat simple and clear in terms of the language and speed of the story and that’s a big part why I write somewhat quickly once I get to it.

 

MG: In what order did you write your five books? Or were they all sort of happening simultaneously?

 

SJ: I wrote Light Boxes first, I think that was two summers ago. The following spring I wrote all the stories in the Greying Ghost chapbook, except one, in about two months. During this time I wrote most of the poems in the forthcoming poetry book. This past fall, in October, I wrote The Failure Six in a week and the long poem that Cannibal is doing I wrote the same month. I should also say, the long poem will appear in A Cake Appeared.

 

MG: You wrote a novella in a week?

 

SJ: Yes. It's just under 10,000 words, which some would probably consider a "long story."

 

MG: Ah, yes, I see. How did you find out about these particular publishers, and is there anything you'd like to say about any of them?

 

SJ: I just contacted publishers who published other writers I really liked and after talking with the editors, trading emails, if they liked the work, it was a deal. Fugue State actually read Light Boxes first and rejected it. James Chapman, the publisher, really liked it, but passed for a few reasons, and told me to send him my next book. So I did, he read it, and accepted it two weeks later. It’s funny how things work out like that.

 

MG: Are you working on a new book now?

 

SJ: Not right now, no.

 

MG: Taking a break?

 

SJ: I have an idea for
a book I want to write called The Villain’s Tree House that is this dream diary kind of thing...but it's just ideas right now. I may write it this summer.

 

MG: The Villain’s Tree House and The Nightmare Filled You with Scary are interesting titles: "tree house" and "nightmare" are things we would maybe associate with childhood, but "villain" and "scary" are, well, scary. Light Boxes, too, involves a combination of the childlike and the frightening. Where does that come from? Are there any writers who maybe influenced this?

 

SJ: I'm not really sure where it comes from...I think the balance between being kind of light and whimsical, but also having these darker elements ground that is really interesting to me and that's just how I write. Maybe Lewis Carroll some, the art work of Henry Darger, even Marquez mixed those elements. Recently, Robert Walser has really moved me and he wrote in a similar manner. It's fun for me to write this way, surprising and entertaining, and I hope people who read me feel that way as well.

 

MG: I hadn't thought of Lewis Carroll, but that makes sense. What are you reading these days?

 

SJ: I just finished Jakob Von Gunten by Robert Walser...simply amazing. Then just some other random stuff. Went back to some Kafka. I tend to jump around quite a bit.

 

MG: Did you always want to be a writer?

 

SJ: In some way, yes. I started writing poems when I was 16 and it just felt so good. I think all writers probably remember that initial feeling. Or seeing another artist or writer's work and being like, "Yes, I want to do that."

 

MG: Who was that artist for you?

 

SJ: Anne Sexton.

 

MG: Do you remember the first thing you ever wrote? Can you tell us about it?

 

SJ: The first thing I wrote was a poem called "House of Hades." It was a rhyming poem and each line ended with: dead, head, bed, said, etc. It was really good. Am I fucking up this interview?

 

MG: You are not fucking it up! I like that about the poem. Where did you get Hades from? What were you walking?

 

SJ: I wish I still had that poem. I don't remember it very much. But I remember being really proud of it and showing it to my mom, who was like, "What the hell is this?"

 

MG: Sorry, not walking...reading!

 

SJ: I don't remember what I was reading at that point. Probably Emily Dickinson. I read mostly poetry and wrote only poetry until I was about 23.

 

MG: Sorry again, I was on the phone with Blythe asking her about if I can run four miles a day or if that's too much, which is where "walking" came from.

 

SJ: Hi Blythe.

 

MG: She says, "Hi," and told me to ask you a question about sex, but I'm not going to. That's funny and sad about your mom and your poem.

 

SJ: Sex question!

 

MG: Okay, did you see the sex pictures on Crispin's blog? Those were great, right?

 

SJ: Those are great.

 

MG: Speaking of blogs, how long have you been blogging and why did you start?

 

SJ: My blog has been running for just over a year. I started because I was reading other writers who had blogs and wanted to join the fun. That wasn't a sex question.

 

MG: Oh, okay. Well, relative to the pictures, what's your favorite position?

 

SJ: I'm going to have to say the second one.

 

MG: Oh, lordy, but, well, see, I couldn't tell if that was a lady?

 

SJ: Does it matter?

 

MG: Guess not. Is this going in the interview?

 

SJ: Hey, why not. Looking at those three images, I'm most attracted to the second one.

 

MG: There are many others!

 

SJ: Oh wow...What's your favorite? Where is woman on top? That's my favorite.

 

MG: Hmmm, I am deliberating. That what you're looking for?

 

SJ: Oh yeah, that's it. That would be my favorite.

 

MG: Okay, I guess I'm this one.

 

SJ: Good pick. Best interview ever.

 

MG: Okay, here's another site Crispin turned me on to. On the first page, pick one.

 

SJ: Carne Asada Fries.

 

MG: Did you see Choco Taco?

 

SJ: I did.

 

MG: Bacon Cinnamon Roll, I think, for me.

 

SJ: That one may be the most interesting.

 

MG: Okay, where were we?

 

SJ: We were talking literature before you asked me sex questions. Blame Blythe.

 

MG: Thanks, Blythe! So, Shane, can you run four miles?

 

SJ: I don't think so.

 

MG: I don't think I can, either. Do you exercise? What's your favorite fast food?

 

SJ: I recently started jogging and sometimes I do yoga. But I don't exercise as much as I should. My favorite fast food is a bacon cheeseburger, I think. I like Burger King. And Wendy's.

 

MG: Any other questions I should ask?

 

SJ: I don't think so. Thank you, Molly. This was fun.

 

MG: Thank you, Shane. We look forward to reading a lot more of you in the years ahead.