Brad Rose

RS:

Your stories often dabble in the macabre and the ironic, and are usually funny or bizarre. What makes you most comfortable with that theme?

BR:

Over the years, my writing has become more "surreal" (for lack of a better term.) One's writing continues to evolve and mutate - both in spite of, and because of, what one intends - and mind has increasingly gone in a surreal direction - although I still occasionally write something in a realistic/naturalistic style. Examples of these appear here. At first, this surrealist turn surprised me, so much so, that I think I resisted it a bit, but then, gradually, I began to realize that I was solving some problems by using this form. As you know, I write both poetry and micro/flash fiction. Over the last 6 or 7 years, I've concentrated on writing prose poems. I find this form is perfectly suited for a kind of "country and western" surrealism I tend to write. The embrace of the surreal and the prose poem form has enabled me (through my speakers/narrators) to be funny, ironic, dark, pessimistic, and bizarre - all the while having a lot of fun. It may be possible to incorporate these qualities into lineation poetry, but in my view, the prose poem - and even the micro story - is much more amenable and open to these qualities. Over the last few years, I have tended to follow a dictum espoused by Paul Valery, "Every view of things that is not strange is false."

RS:

The first time we met, we talked a lot about our writing histories. Like me, you've been writing basically all your life. Tell us about some of the things you've written that haven't been published. You were working on a novel for years, weren't you?

BR:

Sadly, I have hundreds of unpublished poems. I sometimes wonder if maybe it's better that they aren't published. You know, like many they're not really that good? So, there might be an "upside" to not having them parading around "out in public" so to speak. I console myself with the thought that you can't hit a home run every time you're at bat. At least I can't.

I've been writing since I was 11 or 12. I began writing in response to the death of a family friend - as a way for me to process that event - through poetry. I wrote a fair bit of poetry throughout high school and into college, after which my output began to decline. I wrote poetry periodically until my early 30s, then took about a 25-year hiatus - mainly because I had other things I needed to do. During my hiatus, I worked a number of jobs, ranging from railway worker to management consultant, to non=profit administrator. In retrospect, these experiences became source material for my later writing. I returned to writing when I was in my early 50s. My first published piece after my return was a poem called "Clown Car" about a kid's birthday party clown. Shortly after that, Robin, you were so kind as to publish a number of my short fiction pieces and poems in Boston Literary Magazine.   

Some time in the middle of the first decade of this century, I began to write a novel called Lola Loves Richard. It's a tragicomedy that takes place in Hollywood, composed of six-sentence chapters. I wrote about 130 "chapters" then kind of ran out of gas. I had a blast writing it, but fear I stopped because I didn't know how to finish it.

RS:

Do you have any bad literary habits that crop up from time to time?

BR:

I like to think that all of my literary habits are good, although I should read more novels than I do.

RS:

Favorite tip for short fiction writers?

BR:

It's important to read widely, including non-fiction. I try to read as much science and philosophy as I can. I also recommend trying to write as often as you can, each week. Practice - a lot of it - is what helps a writer perfect his or her craft. I think the nostrum about the necessity of 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert, or a master craftsman, is true. Only, I fear, the actual figure is 20,000 hours. That's two 500 8-hour workdays. Yikes! Always keep a notebook by your bed. You think you'll remember that great idea when you wake in the morning, but as I've found, you don't if you don't write it down.

The Truth About Love

Long ago, when music was rectangular, I was voted by my senior class "most likely to survive capital punishment." Of course, there are many different kinds of love. Some are angry, fun; others, a one-car funeral. Like that time we were driving across the Golden Gate Bridge and you told me that I have two different colored eyes. I realized, right then and there, we are spied upon by our own Wi-Fi. As long as I am barreling through this amnesia, I might as well mention that incident with the lesbian robots. At first, I thought it was a party trick, until you told me it was just me. How was I to know it wasn't necessary to communicate exclusively via homophones? What did you expect? I don't read music, although I do own all the Led Zeppelin Christmas albums. By the way, I don't care what color they are, Fruit Loops are all an identical flavor, and I'm willing to bed some real Hollywood money to prove it, too. Yes, I was in church when that terrible weight-lifting accident happened. The barbells were so heavy, not even Jesus could lift them. But as you know, we're always willing to forgive beauty, even if we're never prepared to forgive love. Just as time leaks from a clock, little by little, love leaks from our lives. There is nothing we can do about it. It's the just law of averages. Because everyone knows love is nothing like that.