AUTHORS INTERVIEWING AUTHORS

AUTHORS INTERVIEWING AUTHORS - Eliot Parker and Meagan Lucas

For this issue, short-story authors Eliot Parker and Meagan Lucas discuss writing short stories, their favorite short story writers, and what fictional world is the best.

What do you like about writing short stories/the short story genre?

Eliot: I feel like I learned to write a structured narrative from writing short stories. The importance of precision, word choice, quick and impactful character development and tightly woven plots are all characteristics I learned from writing short stories. I love how a good short story has so much narrative heft packed into a few thousand words. As a writer, writing a good short story is a challenge. As a reader, finding a great short story is such a reading pleasure.

Meagan: As a writer, I like being able to experiment, to challenge myself and try new storytelling tricks in the controlled space of a short story. I find that my short stories are often a lot riskier than my long work. I think I’m more likely to throw myself at something scary for months instead of years. As a reader I love the intensity of short stories; there’s no room for filler. I think that encourages an honesty that we don’t always see in longer work. I loved your first collection Snapshots, can you tell me about Table for Two?

Eliot: The characters in these stories do not always get listened to, and many of them find that the need for attention comes from aggression. A woman confronts her father about his dementia. Two fathers whose guilt and shame over the disappearances of their sons hide more sinister motives. A young boy frustrated with a ring appraisal learns a lesson about how people and things can be valued equally. Each of the characters in the collection is faced with a balance of talking and listening with a need for action, which often leads to manipulation and coercion.

The belief of the antagonists in these stories is that- who needs to talk when there is action that needs to be done? The antagonists believe that there is no need for conversation when the protagonist can be manipulated, coerced, or discredited by actions. Each story is a thrilling adventure with unexpected turns. Parker's honest and provocative prose will captivate readers with its urgency. I know that you are a short story writer with a recently released collection titled Here in the Dark.

Meagan: Here in the Dark is a collection of gritty genre-blending short stories, set mostly in Southern Appalachia, that explore the female experience of lawlessness. In the tradition of Dorothy Allison and Bonnie Jo Campbell, these are character-driven stories about crime, but less a who-done-it mystery and more a meditation on how the vulnerable navigate a world devoid of true justice. They’ve been described as unflinching, perceptive, intimate, and brave. These sixteen stories encompass shame and forgiveness, loss and redemption, oppression and revolution, and hopefully signal a new way of thinking about power and trauma. I’m attempting to blend musical prose with high-tension stakes, and resonant characters.

Obviously, I adore Campbell and Allison, who are some short story writers you admire and why?

Eliot: The first short story writer I fell in love with as a reader was Ron Rash. His collections Something Rich and Strange and Burning Bright were dazzling and wonderful. Those two collections accurately depicted the southern/Appalachian grit dynamic that I knew so well from growing up in West Virginia. Each story in both collections left me wanting more and thinking about the characters long after I finished reading. Jamel Brinkley is another short story writer whose work is amazing. His collection of stories Witness was fantastic. Jamel understands the human condition so well and his honest, unflinching portrayal of people in disparate circumstances makes for some great short stories. I also enjoy Nick White’s short stories. His collection Sweet and Low features Southern fiction stories of deeply flawed people on journeys that are often wild and compelling.

Meagan: That’s so funny you mention Ron Rash, I too love him, and George Singleton. I don’t think you can live in the southeast, let alone Western North Carolina (where I live) without idolizing those guys; they are masters. Some maybe lesser known short story writers that I think are just incredible are Ashleigh Bryant Phillips, Halle Hill, Natalie Sypolt, Laura Leigh Morris, Ann Pancake, C.W. Blackwell, and William Soldan. What I love about all these folks is the boldness and honesty they put on the page. There’s a bravery there that I adore and try to emulate.

This next question is about settings and how writers build worlds for readers. If you had to be stuck in a fictional literary world, which one would you choose?

Eliot: That is a tough question, but I am going to pick the worlds created by Roald Dahl. They are filled with people of all ages and sizes, animals, nature, and cool things happen in each of the worlds he creates. Plus, his worlds reward people for being good people and makes things uncomfortable for bad people or people who don’t treat other people with kindness and grace.

Meagan: I LOVE your answer. I’m going to be super disappointing here. I read mostly grit lit and crime, so I honestly can’t think of many of those worlds that I’d like to hang out in. Speaking of my love of crime novels, you’re also a novelist! What’s your practice like? How do you balance projects?

Eliot: I write thriller novels and I get a lot of my ideas from reading newspapers all across the country. I tend to focus on newspapers in smaller communities because crimes that occur there are often covered for weeks and you get great insight into the people involved, the investigation, the mood of the community, etc. From the time I get an idea until the first draft is completed takes me around nine months, followed by around three months of revisions before it’s ready to be reviewed by beta readers. I like to write in the mornings when my mind is fresh and I try to write five days each week.

Meagan: I love small town papers for inspiration too! I am ashamed to say it, because I would like to write only for the love of writing, and not care about publication, but I care about publication. And since writing a novel takes SO long, I like writing short stories when I need a break from the novel. Or when I’ve set a longer work aside to get fresh eyes for revision. Or while I’m waiting to hear from my agent or beta readers. I think it’s good for creativity, and writers block, but I also need the little ego boost when a short story gets published. Writing short stories feels like a way to get better as a writer, but also a palate cleanser. I know you teach too, so you understand that teaching is one of those jobs that expand to the time that you give it, so I’ve been trying to prioritize my writing this past year. I write in the morning before I even check my email. Since I’ve been treating writing like a job, and not a reward I give myself, I’ve been a lot more productive.

In Thrill Me, (p.81) Ben Percy says that short story readers love endings that make them want to gargle with Drano or jump off a building, while readers of novels, memoir, etc like a gladder, luckier closure. What do you think? What kind of ending do you like?

Eliot: I like an ending that resolves many of the conflicts, but doesn’t always return everything back to “the way it was.” This is especially true with thrillers. In that genre, there is often loss of life and people connected to the victim(s) and the police often go through great physical and psychological trauma to uncover the truth and to find out what happened. To me, those individuals are never completely the same after that experience. For me to just have everything return to the way life was prior to the incident(s) in question is disingenuous to the characters and to the reader’s sense of reality, I think.

Meagan: Totally, agree. I like a gargle Drano ending. Even in a novel. I want reality. I want something left unsaid that makes me wonder and allows those characters to go on living in my mind. I don’t want it tidy, cause real life isn’t tidy. I do understand though, that there are many readers who are looking for more of an escape, and a happily ever after has its place (just not in my work!)

Speaking of tougher stuff, we both like to include social justice issues in our stories. Is that something you plan for, or just something that comes out?

Eliot: I don’t always set out to include social justice issues specifically in my work, but they often do have a way of encroaching on the story. People are immensely passionate and complex creatures and their passions, desires, and goals for themselves sometimes put them in direct conflict with the mores of society or the cultural norms established by their families, faith, place or origins, etc. When those two goals and mores don’t connect, it can create great additional tension in a story and provide another layer of conflict that challenges the protagonist and those people closest to him/her.

Meagan: I intentionally write about mostly women because, particularly, in literary crime and horror fiction women are underrepresented. We are all too often only the victims. The reason that the (white, cis/het) male hero decides to be heroic. To me that’s not realistic, but also uninteresting. Women can be heroes too, and villains. The other stuff sneaks in on its own, I think because it’s stuff I care about and it’s often on my mind, but it isn’t always deliberate – you know, stories and characters go where they want to, not where we want them to.

It's always a pleasure chatting with you, Eliot. I’ve loved our chats on your podcast, Now, Appalachia, too. I hope one of these days we get to meet in person!

Eliot: Thanks so much, Meagan, for being a part of this author interview series for WELL READ Magazine! You are an amazing writer and one of my favorite people! Can’t wait to see you soon!

Eliot Parker is the author of four thriller novels, most recently A Final Call, which was named a “Best Book to Discover in 2022” by Kirkus Magazine and was also a finalist for the Hawthorne Prize in Fiction. His first short story collection, Snapshots, won the Pencraft and Feathered Quill Book Awards and he is also the recipient of the West Virginia Literary Merit Award and a finalist for the SIBA Book Award in 2016 for his novel Fragile Brilliance. His newest short story collection, Table for Two is forthcoming later in 2024 (Colorful Crow Press) and his newest thriller Double-Crossed will be released in early 2025 (Wolfpack Publishing). Eliot teaches writing at the University of Mississippi.

Meagan Lucas is the author of the award-winning novel, Songbirds and Stray Dogs and the Anthony nominated collection Here in the Dark. Meagan has published over 40 short stories and essays. She has been nominated for the Pushcart, Best of the Net, Derringer, and the Canadian Crime Writer’s Award of Excellence multiple times, and won the 2017 Scythe Prize for Fiction. Her short story “The Monster Beneath” was listed as Distinguished in the 2023 Best American Mystery and Suspense. Her novel Songbirds and Stray Dogs was chosen to represent North Carolina in the Library of Congress 2022 Route 1 Reads program, and won Best Debut at the 2020 Indie Book Awards. Meagan teaches Creative Writing at Robert Morris University. She is the Editor in Chief of Reckon Review. Meagan lives in Flat Rock, North Carolina.

“This book shows a intimate, private world full of mystery and broken relationships. Great stories and characters!” - Five Star Reader Review

“This collection of short stories about women is, as others have said, raw and sometimes gritty, but it offers a depth and level of honesty that is rare. The writing grabs the reader and doesn't just clearly explain the situation, it transmits all of the motivation and emotion behind it. To pull this off in a book of stories is a feat to be admired.” - Five Star Reader Review