Q&A with Breakout 8 Winner Brian Crawford

Brian Crawford lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he does corporate communications by day and writes fiction in his garage in the early mornings. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Crazyhorse, Arts & Letters, Carve, New South, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and elsewhere. His stories have placed in several contests this year, and his story collection was a finalist for the 2019 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction and has been long-listed for the Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Award.

Brian is one of eight winners of the 2019 Breakout 8 Prize, co-sponsored by Epiphany and The Authors Guild. Read his prizewinning story “The Fun Committee” (the first paragraph of which is excerpted below) in the Fall/Winter 2019 Issue of Epiphany.

From the Fall/Winter 2019 print issue of Epiphany.

How did you first come up with your winning piece?

“The Fun Committee” is about two colleagues who turn a routine corporate teleconference into a bizarre, buzzword-laden sex chat. When I conceived of this story, I had just graduated from the MFA and was in that post-program void where you get sucked back into life and it feels impossible to write consistently without the structure. I was not writing much and super busy with my job, which involves a lot of video conferences with colleagues in Europe. With video, there’s this faux intimacy because you can see people but you can’t make genuine eye contact or read body language very well. We think we’re more connected because of our screens, but really it’s probably worse than a phone call. Have you ever noticed you have the dumbest conversations on FaceTime? At my job we often take these meetings from home because they’re early in the morning or late in the evening depending on your time zone. So it’s this weird blending of professional and personal life. I started thinking about all the other things people were doing during these calls — getting dressed or surfing porn or going to the bathroom or whatever. Then I thought, with the millions of videoconferences happening every day, I bet some really weird shit has happened, and it’s all been captured on the video feed. And I started asking, What if...?

What do you hope to gain from the year ahead?

I have a story collection, and I’ve had some success with the individual stories, placing in contests and getting published. Now I’m trying to get the collection published as a book. I’ve been submitting the manuscript to contests, so if all goes well, in a year I’d love to have a contract and publication date. Also, I hope the Breakout 8 resources and connections with other authors and editors will make me feel more a part of the literary community this year.

What, for you, is the most exciting development in contemporary literature?

I just googled “developments in contemporary literature” to see if there are any trends I should be aware of. It wasn’t very helpful. I am intrigued by the blurring of fiction and nonfiction. This is obviously been a huge development in TV, and I think the acceptance of this in the literature world is catching up. I attended a lecture on this topic by author David Shields, where he handed out a list of books that blew my mind: Kobek’s I Hate the Internet; Daudet’s In the Land of Pain, Gray’s Smoking Diaries, and Shields’s own Reality Manifesto.

What resources are most valuable for writers just breaking into publication territory?

Duotrope is a great way to get a feel for which journals are active in terms of processing a lot of submissions and responding in a reasonable timeframe. But don’t get obsessed with the stats like I did. There was a period where I would look at every magazine I’d submitted to and think, “Their median response time is 150 days and I’m at 152 days! That must mean they like my piece, and they’re taking some extra time to make up their mind….”

I can tell you which tool NOT to use when you start submitting: Twitter. Follow a bunch of writers on Twitter and you’ll be convinced of two things: the world is ending; and everyone is publishing more than you are. Just shut it down and write.

Who is your favorite underappreciated author we should all be reading?

Ottessa Moshfegh. Is she still underappreciated? I’m not sure.

Do you have a memorable experience of an influential teacher you’d like to share?

At the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference I workshopped with Lauren Groff. It was my first experience of… here’s this famous writer whose work I admire, and she’s saying genuinely nice things about my work. I thought, maybe I can do this. She also illuminated for me what it actually takes to be a successful writer. Beyond being a brilliant and talented human, Lauren has carved out a non-negotiable space for writing in her life, and within that space she works harder than anyone. Also, she’s read everything. She reads a book a day. And somehow, she’s still generous with her time and encouragement with other writers. So there you go, that’s the secret. Just do all that.

It’s been said we write what we obsess over. What themes do you find keep cropping up in your writing again and again?

I guess you could say I’m obsessed with obsession. Many of my characters are caught up in some form of obsession, and my stories explore the point at which this obsession collides with the physical world.

What was your favorite book growing up?

My Side of the Mountain, by Jean George. Even today, I fantasize about going up into the mountains and living in a hollowed-out tree. Surrounded by books, of course.

If the pursuit of writing is a quiet solo one, what are some ways you connect with other writers?

I’ve been bad about connecting with other writers this since I’ve been out of the MFA program. Actually I wasn't that great at connecting while I was in the program, either, since I had three young kids and a full-time job. I do miss the workshop experience more than I thought I would. One thing I like to do - if I read a story I love, sometimes I’ll reach out to the author, and they usually respond. That’s the cool thing about this profession. If you’re an aspiring basketball player, you can’t just email LeBron James and get a personal response. But even “famous” writers are surprisingly accessible. No matter the level of success, we writers are all still needy, underappreciated souls.

What’s one bit of advice you wish you’d have gotten early on?

I used to think writing a great story was all about finding a great idea. It took me a long time to realize that my best ideas come from the process, from following fifty bad ideas until I eventually end up somewhere I never expected to be. Then the real writing starts.