Shimmer staffers talk books! Victims Participants this time include: Beth Wodzinski, Sean Markey, Grá Linnaea, Sophie Wereley, and Keffy Kehrli.

 What’s the last book you bought? What’s the last book you read?

BW: The last three books I bought are: Dan Wells’s serial killer trilogy; George Martin’s Dance with Dragons; Joan, by Donald Spoto. The last book I read was Scott Westerfield’s Midnighter trilogy.

KK: The last book I bought was Stina Leicht’s Of Blood and Honey. The last book I read was Cat Valente’s The Grass-Cutting Sword, which is placed somewhere on the intersection between poetry and prose. It’s about ancient gods, eight daughters and a monster. Beautiful language.

SM: The last book I bought was The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.  The last book I read was The Magician King by Lev Grossman.

SW: The last book I bought was The Complete Pelican Shakespeare. For college. The last book I read was Across the Universe by Beth Revis.

GL: I just picked up Boarding Instructions by Ray Vukcevich, who’s amazing. I just read The October Country by Ray Bradbury. I guess I’m having a Ray week!

Five questions with five Shimmer staffers this time around. Victims Participants this time include: Beth Wodzinski, Sean Markey, Grá Linnaea, Sophie Wereley, and Keffy Kehrli.

What inspires you?

BW: Tater tots and monkeys.

KK: I was originally inspired by all the “change the world” bullshit that I got fed in the 90’s. I had some crazy idea that if I wrote an amazing book it would do… something. In reality, though, the best thing that a good book could do is be read by people who may or may not even read it the way I wrote it. That’s fine. And while I do think there’s a solid reason to work on better/more representation for minorities in our fiction, I’m not sure that really inspires me directly anymore. I suspect that I write for the same reason a lot of other people do (even if they won’t admit it) – I like hearing myself talk. I know! I’m not supposed to admit that shit, but it’s true. It’s true for a lot of other people, but they like to cushion it by saying things like, “Oh, I just like telling stories.” As an editor, I’m inspired by people writing awesome stories.

SM: Music inspires me.  I enjoy the idea of using elements from a work that someone else created in another medium to give energy to my individual ideas.  As a writer, I find music compliments prose; it gives the words a new dimension to me as I write them.

SW: Characters have always plopped fully-formed into my head, and I’ve had to figure out their stories myself. I take a lot of inspiration from my childhood – I’ve grown up a multiracial queer girl in a world that isn’t totally ready for that concept. I fell in love with the sea when I was little. The feeling I got when I stood next to it was like my head had been popped open, and then the world fell inside. A lot of my stories are about coming back to the ocean, reconfronting something that inspires some strong emotion.

As an editor, I like stories that gobble me up and don’t let me go. I think I’m inspired by the authors’ creativity and skill more than anything else. I always get so excited when I find a story that I like, and I still carry a few candles for stories that haven’t been published. I’m also inspired by how different authors will use language, either English or another, to tell their story. It’s all very cool to me.

GL: Good writing inspires me. I really buy into the the line “We read for survival skills.” I want to change people’s perceptions with my writing, make them think. I love it when writing does that to me. As an editor, what I want most in the world is to find stories that make me go, “Whoa, I could never have written that.”

Next time: Storytelling

Five questions with five Shimmer staffers this time around. Victims Participants this time include: Beth Wodzinski, Sean Markey, Grá Linnaea, Sophie Wereley, and Keffy Kehrli.

What kind of story do you not see nearly enough?

BW: Well, I’ve never seen a good Adam and Eve or Hell is a Bureaucracy or Cat Narrator story.  But if I say that, then we’ll be inundated with not-very-good ones, and the Shimmer slush readers will rise up in revolt. We’re always happy to read stories from outside the United States, stories that draw from sources other the usual American and European sources, and stories with GLBT elements. And I personally would love a fabulous Joan of Arc story.

KK: Truly weird shit. I’m not talking about the sorts of stuff you think up when you’re four drinks into the evening and giggling with your writer friends, either. I’m talking about the kinds of stories that make me feel like I’ve been listening to Radiohead’s Kid A on repeat, so reality’s slightly sideways and I can’t quite be sure how to tilt it back the right way again. I’m also a sucker for voice and distinctive vernacular when it’s done well. A good example would be Shweta Narayan’s “One For Sorrow” in Issue 10.

SM: Stories that trust the reader to understand what’s going on without the author bashing the idea into our heads over and over again.

SW: It would also be cool if we could get more stories that featured minorities as main characters! Not only racial minorities. I’d love to see more LBGTQ characters. And characters that don’t necessarily identify as “American.” Stories set in other places, like Sri Lanka. Or Brazil. You know, wherever.

GL: Really solid character pieces. Something weird, something with a plot, but with people who read as real and unique who touch us in some way.

Next time: Inspirations

Five questions with five Shimmer staffers this time around. Victims Participants this time include: Beth Wodzinski, Sean Markey, Grá Linnaea, Sophie Wereley, and Keffy Kehrli.

What kind of story would you pay good money to never see again?

BW: That’s not a very good business model! I would never do that. Besides, just when I say I never ever ever want to see another Adam and Eve story, or a Hell Is A Bureaucracy story, or a Surprise! The Narrator is a Cat! story, a really good one will come along. I don’t like unicorn stories, for example, but Shimmer’s run three of them now.

SM: Any story where the characters are constantly addressing each other in dialogue.  It drives me crazy and I can’t get through the story!  No one talks like that in real life except infomercial hosts…

GL: My God, if I never see another “poor struggling author who is at the mercy of evil editors” story it’ll be … well, it’s already too late. My eyes, they burn! I mean seriously people, we’re all writers, we’ve all been there. What makes you think your frustration at not getting published is so special that the rest of us need to see it?

SW: I really dislike it when authors use their stories as substitutes for therapy. I know there’s a lot of attraction to writing characters with messed up psyches, and I do it all the time, but once the story starts touching on issues that the author has… it gets a little weird. You can tell if that’s what’s going on based on the writing, and I’ve never responded well to it.

KK: I feel like I should be able to snark on demand for this one, but I can’t think of anything. (I’ve already ranted about time travel and heaven vs. hell stories. Basically, your chances don’t improve when you’re starting with the same tired concept that a million other people have already used and been rejected for…) I suppose I’m most frustrated by stories that start with a really intriguing idea-germ and then plug the Neat Idea I Haven’t Seen Very Often Or At All into a standard plot. So I start out thinking “WOW, this is a great voice” or “WOW, you could really do some neat things with that,” which just means that the disappointment is that much worse when I get halfway through the story and find a big steaming pile of MEH in the middle of it. Yes, yes, drugs are bad, people like to get revenge, detectives solve crimes and fairy tales still end with fairy tale endings…

Next time: What stories do we not see enough of?