Lit Hub Asks: 5 Authors, 7 Questions, No Wrong Answers

The Lit Hub Author Questionnaire is a monthly interview featuring seven questions for five authors with new books. This month we talk to:

Dan Chiasson (Bernie for Burlington: The Rise of the People’s Politician)
Eileen G’Sell (Lipstick)
Chloe Michelle Howarth (Heap Earth Upon It)
Larissa Pham (Discipline)
Jess Shannon (Cleaner)

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Without summarizing it in any way, what would you say your book is about?

Larissa Pham: Making art and realizing actions have consequences.

Dan Chiasson: Analog politics at the dawn of the digital era; the coming of age of a community and cultural scene; the early life and political rise of Bernie Sanders, my former mayor.

Jess Shannon: Self-titled creative reckons with the reality of uselessness. Ignorance. Art and ideas around parenting. Ennui. Meaninglessness. Aesthetics and gender politics of cleaning. Nonsense.

Eileen G’Sell: Visual decadence and sex work stigma. Grace Jones and Chappell Roan. Feminism vs. femininity. Art vs. artifice. Sigourney Weaver vs. Melanie Griffith in Working Girl. Working girls (and women). MAC’s Ruby Woo. Iran.

Chloe Michelle Howarth: Ignoring feelings until they get so big they attack you, drizzly rain, primal lesbianism, yearning, Ireland.

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Without explaining why and without naming other authors or books, can you discuss the various influences on your book?

Dan Chiasson: Minutemen, “Double Nickels on the Dime”; Robert Altman, Nashville; Camel’s Hump; Iberville Shale; the Lake Champlain Monster; Frederick Wiseman, City Hall; Bread and Puppet Theater; high school tennis; the Sandinistas; bone-dry martinis; my dog.

Chloe Michelle Howarth: The way that January can feel so long and boring, pops of red, the 1960s, fog, the burn of whiskey, the heat of panic, and irrepressible desire.

Larissa Pham: Figure skating, exes, the tyranny of art, painting (verb), very dark blue, walking through airports alone, bioluminescent plankton, playing with first-person narration.

Jess Shannon: Holy trinity of birth, sex, death. Quirky prose, nothing plot. Life drawing. Modeling. Abstinence. Cleaning. Sex. Aesthetics. Pigeon. Domestic sphere. A-level literature. Class. Shame. Jane Austen megafans.

Eileen G’Sell: Bonne Bell Lip Smackers lip gloss, 1980s anti-feminist backlash, being called “Lady Gaga” during jury duty, a desire for color in bleak times.

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Without using complete sentences, can you describe what was going on in your life as you wrote this book?

Chloe Michelle Howarth: Office job of three years, leaving office job of three years, full-time author, liberated and freaked out.

Larissa Pham: Waking up before sunrise; meditating daily. Looking out the window and watching a landscape change. Hanging out with cows.

Eileen G’Sell: Anxiety about Trump’s possible re-election, despair about the dissolution of free speech on college campuses, excitement about going to Oslo, pride at improving my karaoke skills every Monday at Keypers dive bar.

Dan Chiasson: Creemees, swimming holes, Frederick Wiseman documentaries, Waxahatchee, long runs, insomnia.

Jess Shannon: Everyone can leave the house now and be useful except me; must finish dissertation; new career; am writing so slowly I must be useless; he loves me; he doesn’t love me anymore, I might die; not dead, might as well finish novel; it’ll do; whoa, that was fast; you need 15,000 words in a month and a half? No problem! Cool summer.

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What are some words you despise that have been used to describe your writing by readers and/or reviewers?

Eileen G’Sell: “Snarky” and “clever” both seem to reduce what I hope is some degree of thoughtfulness in my prose—both toward ideas and other people.

Dan Chiasson: Poetic.

Larissa Pham: I’ve never cared for “sentimental.” “Sensitive” is okay, though!

Chloe Michelle Howarth: The word “slow” being used in a bad way, because I go slow on purpose.

Jess Shannon: I get triggered by “weird girl fiction,” even though it’s a valid expression for marketing and readers. What makes me uncomfortable is the subliminal suggestion that all these so-called “weird girl” protagonists are one and the same.

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If you could choose a career besides writing (irrespective of schooling requirements and/or talent), what would it be?

Dan Chiasson: Breakfast cook.

Jess Shannon: Actor / director.

Chloe Michelle Howarth: Private yoga instructor to somebody very wealthy and very committed to yoga. Low stress, guaranteed work.

Larissa Pham: Every few years I threaten to go to social work school or the Gestalt Center for Psychoanalytic Training… it could still happen!

Eileen G’Sell: Cinematographer. They literally shape what we see onscreen and teach us how to see the rest of the world in kind.

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What craft elements do you think are your strong suit, and what would you like to be better at?

Jess Shannon: Good at voice, good at interesting prose. Like intuiting the next stage of the story, which takes time and is inefficient. Bad at plot; I found it boring and unhelpful when I was writing my debut, and now I’m trying to learn how to do it because it’s useful to me now.

Larissa Pham: I really enjoy spending time with sentences and paragraphs, and I’ve been told I have a good sense of rhythm. I’d like to work on writing set pieces, and also writing more third-person POV, especially as it follows multiple characters.

Dan Chiasson: I’m good at auxesis. I’d like to be better at dispositio.

Chloe Michelle Howarth: I’m good at emotions and human relationships, big on longing. I have zero organization skills.

Eileen G’Sell: Playful, evocative description is my most pleasurable type of writing, and it comes easily. I’d love to be better at elegant, efficient summaries of events, cultural phenomena, or personal narratives.

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How do you contend with the hubris of thinking anyone has or should have any interest in what you have to say about anything?

Dan Chiasson: Gotta lean into it!

Chloe Michelle Howarth: I never write with a reader in mind, so it’s totally okay with me if nobody wants to read what I’m writing.

Larissa Pham: I never go into writing something thinking anyone should have to read it, but I trust that if it’s true enough for me, it’s true enough for readers.

Jess Shannon: Artists need hubris or nothing would ever get made. Hubris is a gift because it pushes you to make.

Eileen G’Sell: Painting my mouth with its lustrous hue every single day. More seriously, I worry less about my worthiness than about the dwindling number of readers listening to anyone at all.