Etc.

7 Questions
by John Haskell

John Haskell (APS 1, 2, 7, 14) is the author of the novels Out of My Skin and American Purgatorio, and I Am Not Jackson Pollock, a book of short stories. His story "DOA" is forthcoming in APS 17. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

1. Can you describe your daily routine, any rituals or habits?

I'm in the middle of changing my habits and routines. I've given up the "office" I've had for a number of years and with it the familiar rituals that got me to sit down and think about words on a page and how to make them perfect. So now what I'm doing is trying to forge new habits, new ways to make the not-quite-perfect a little better. Some of these habits, I hope, will be temporary. For instance, lately I've been doing what other people have been doing for years: going into a coffee shop, getting a baked good, a large cup of coffee, and trying to block out the world and focus on the words that exist, either on my computer screen (for as long as my batteries last) or on the papers I've brought with me. I'm finding the difficult part of this is to make the muffin or scone or whatever it is last as long as my attention. Sometimes I get a refill and that can keep me going for a while but eventually the coffee and the croissant have been consumed and I'm left with just me, slightly buzzed, stomach full, and that's the habit I really have to be rid of. The habit of putting something into my mouth. I would like to learn to just sit, typing or scribbling, and letting the white noise background of music and conversation become conducive to concentration. That's what I want to develop, the habit of concentration, the habit of sitting and working, and if all goes well, soon I won't be sitting in coffee shops but in a real room, small, with books, and there will be distractions, no doubt, but I will have learned to incorporate them, and in fact will be able use those distractions to make my mind a little more focused.

Posted on January 9, 2013 | Comment | Permalink

Etc.

7 Questions
by Matthea Harvey

Matthea Harvey (APS 1, APS 15) is the author of three books of poetry, an illustrated erasure, and two children's books, including Cecil the Pet Glacier (Random House, 2012). On Thursday, December 13, 7 PM-10 PM, Matthea and artist Giselle Potter will celebrate Cecil the Pet Glacier at A Public Space. Children welcome!

1. Can you describe your daily routine, any rituals or habits?

I am the lucky owner of an eighteen-year-old cat called Wednesday who takes a lot of medication, so most of my routines involve squishing pills into pill pockets three times a day—those pill pockets are a great invention. I also probably take six pictures of her on a regular day. I'm a seltzer addict so I also spend a lot of time making seltzer with our seltzer maker. Neurotically, I like to have four full bottles in the fridge just in case.

Otherwise I spend a lot of time writing poems, thinking about writing poems, freezing miniatures in ice cubes and photographing them, and making silhouette cutouts of mertools—a Swiss mermy knife, a merhammer, mersaw, powmercord, etc. Starting in January, I also embarked on embroidering handkerchiefs as part of a soundwalk for the Guggenheim Museum (Teletrofono, with sound artist Justin Bennett). That morphed into embroidering people's favorite book covers onto handkerchiefs. However, this weekend, while wrapping Christmas presents, I stepped on a glass of seltzer and had to have nine stitches in my heel. As a result, I can't quite bring myself to pick up a needle again.

Posted on December 12, 2012 | Comment | Permalink

Etc.

7 Questions
by Corinna Vallianatos

Corinna Vallianatos is the author of My Escapee (University of Massachusetts Press, 2012). In 2011, Corinna was awarded the Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction. Her work has appeared in Tin House, McSweeney's, The Gettysburg Review, and A Public Space Issue 2.

1. Can you describe your daily routine, any rituals or habits?

I write in the morning, without e-mail, with coffee. It's decaf coffee, so it's really just a prop. If I'm in a rut, listening to loud music helps—it puts pressure on whatever I'm writing to have a voice. Music can sort of crack open the sometimes deadening logic of a piece. I like to have a dog or two in the room with me. Right now I'm officeless, so I write on the living room couch, staring out the window at the house across the street, which is strung with Christmas tree lights in gallon milk jugs.

Posted on November 30, 2012 | Comment | Permalink

News

Tickets can be purchased in advance here.

Posted on November 8, 2012 | Comment | Permalink

Fiction

Issue 2

Bit Forgive
by Maile Chapman

In honor of Halloween, we bring you an excerpt from Maile Chapman's ghostly tale, "Bit Forgive," which was originally published in APS 2.

This morning I received a letter ostensibly from my friend Niklas Nummelin, fifteen years almost to the day since the accidental sinking of his ship and his presumed death by drowning somewhere off the Finnish coast of the Bay of Bothnia.

The letter doesn’t contradict the version of events we all heard long ago from the single crewmember who survived by reaching (if indeed he was not incarcerated in) the small punition boat towed behind the Bit Forgive; criminal or not, we believed him when he described his drowning comrades shouting and gurgling through flooding mouths, pulling at him in the endless cold water with heavy, sharp fingers. And we forgave him for what we knew he must have done—fighting off the drowning men who reached his tiny boat, who would have sunk him under their combined weight. We believed and forgave because no one else from that ship came back to our harbor, neither alive nor dead, and surely we needed him, because we needed to see the proof preserved on his back, shoulders, and cheek in the form of five-fingered scars from those who did not survive.

Posted on October 16, 2012 | Comment | Permalink

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