An interview with
Michael Fowler
What is, in your opinion, the best thing (or your favourite thing) that you’ve ever written? Tell us about it.
The first story I had published, in the now defunct Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, is probably my favourite. In that story, called “Cody’s Glance,” everything seemed to come together well for the first time, and not because I had figured out how to do a mystery or any other kind of story. I still don’t know how to do that. But for the first time I was able to create an existential mood in my writing, by which I mean an absurdist view of life, by combining an intelligible plot with dark humour in a way that pleased me. Writing that story also taught me the amount of editing that’s necessary to make things satisfactory. I was hunting-and-pecking on an electric typewriter in bed, and I realized that 1) I would have to learn to type or go mad, and 2) I needed to go over each paragraph twenty times before it seemed right. In the end I think I received a quarter of a cent per word for “Cody’s Glance,” or around six dollars. It still ranks among my highest-paid stories.
Who are your favourite writers, and what influences your writing?
Roughly speaking, I divide my favourite fiction into four categories: novel, postmodern novel, short story, and humour pieces. My favourite writers, including the quick and the dead, are in the novel Kafka, Austen, Donleavy, Hardy, Melville; for postmodern novel William Burroughs, Auster, DeLillo, Nabokov, Beckett, Murakami, Jennifer Egan, Mark Layner, Martin Amis; for short story Hawthorne, Borges, Donald Barthelme, Ballard, Ligotti, and Al Burian; and for humour Benchley, Thurber, Perelman, Woody Allen, David Sedaris, Ian Frazier, and Blaster Al Ackerman.
In the essay I like Hitchens and Vidal, in drama Shakespeare and Ibsen, and in philosophy Russell, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer.
Lately my writing has been influenced by my dreams, which have evolved into a kind of grotesque but amusing nightmare. I’ll wake up with an image that I know a story can be built upon, and then work to build it. If I’ve learned anything from reading the wonderful science fiction stories of J.G. Ballard, it’s this: never give up on a striking image just because you can’t think of a rational explanation for it.
What are your hobbies?
Reading, writing, walking, watching low-budget movies on Tubi and Freevee (I’m partial to Gravitas productions), and seeing my two grandkids. Other favourites are Indian food and afternoon naps.
Describe yourself as if you are a character in one of your own stories / poems.
Fowler is a tall corpulent man with a wry smile concealed by a false beard, the sort of man you’d run over in your car and not think twice about it, but who you wouldn’t be surprised to find in bed with your maiden aunt, provided she had healed from her recent uterine ablation.
What’s the weirdest question you’ve ever been asked in an interview? And what did you answer?
I was once asked whether, in a statewide crisis, I would be willing to work around the clock, days, nights, and weekends, so that there would be no break in the service the agency provided. I said I would, if everyone else was doing the same, but I would need time off occasionally to see my kids. I didn’t get the job.
What is your writing set-up? (E.g your garden shed, a cafe etc) and are there any things you must have to get the words to flow, e.g a lucky hat or a favourite shirt?
I wish I had a colourful reply like Nabokov, who said he wrote standing at a wooden lectern, writing in pencil on 3x5 cards (on one side only) which he arranged in chronological order in a shoebox. My own set-up is different: I sit in my bedroom on the edge of my bed, my word processor on a low table before me. Behind me is a wall, to my left a closed door, straight ahead a closet filled with books, and to my right a window overlooking a tall pine tree. The tree is very refreshing.
Sometimes I like soft classical music playing when I write, other times dead silence.
Tell us something crazy.
To quote Steve Martin, I believe that robots are stealing my luggage.
The first story I had published, in the now defunct Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, is probably my favourite. In that story, called “Cody’s Glance,” everything seemed to come together well for the first time, and not because I had figured out how to do a mystery or any other kind of story. I still don’t know how to do that. But for the first time I was able to create an existential mood in my writing, by which I mean an absurdist view of life, by combining an intelligible plot with dark humour in a way that pleased me. Writing that story also taught me the amount of editing that’s necessary to make things satisfactory. I was hunting-and-pecking on an electric typewriter in bed, and I realized that 1) I would have to learn to type or go mad, and 2) I needed to go over each paragraph twenty times before it seemed right. In the end I think I received a quarter of a cent per word for “Cody’s Glance,” or around six dollars. It still ranks among my highest-paid stories.
Who are your favourite writers, and what influences your writing?
Roughly speaking, I divide my favourite fiction into four categories: novel, postmodern novel, short story, and humour pieces. My favourite writers, including the quick and the dead, are in the novel Kafka, Austen, Donleavy, Hardy, Melville; for postmodern novel William Burroughs, Auster, DeLillo, Nabokov, Beckett, Murakami, Jennifer Egan, Mark Layner, Martin Amis; for short story Hawthorne, Borges, Donald Barthelme, Ballard, Ligotti, and Al Burian; and for humour Benchley, Thurber, Perelman, Woody Allen, David Sedaris, Ian Frazier, and Blaster Al Ackerman.
In the essay I like Hitchens and Vidal, in drama Shakespeare and Ibsen, and in philosophy Russell, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer.
Lately my writing has been influenced by my dreams, which have evolved into a kind of grotesque but amusing nightmare. I’ll wake up with an image that I know a story can be built upon, and then work to build it. If I’ve learned anything from reading the wonderful science fiction stories of J.G. Ballard, it’s this: never give up on a striking image just because you can’t think of a rational explanation for it.
What are your hobbies?
Reading, writing, walking, watching low-budget movies on Tubi and Freevee (I’m partial to Gravitas productions), and seeing my two grandkids. Other favourites are Indian food and afternoon naps.
Describe yourself as if you are a character in one of your own stories / poems.
Fowler is a tall corpulent man with a wry smile concealed by a false beard, the sort of man you’d run over in your car and not think twice about it, but who you wouldn’t be surprised to find in bed with your maiden aunt, provided she had healed from her recent uterine ablation.
What’s the weirdest question you’ve ever been asked in an interview? And what did you answer?
I was once asked whether, in a statewide crisis, I would be willing to work around the clock, days, nights, and weekends, so that there would be no break in the service the agency provided. I said I would, if everyone else was doing the same, but I would need time off occasionally to see my kids. I didn’t get the job.
What is your writing set-up? (E.g your garden shed, a cafe etc) and are there any things you must have to get the words to flow, e.g a lucky hat or a favourite shirt?
I wish I had a colourful reply like Nabokov, who said he wrote standing at a wooden lectern, writing in pencil on 3x5 cards (on one side only) which he arranged in chronological order in a shoebox. My own set-up is different: I sit in my bedroom on the edge of my bed, my word processor on a low table before me. Behind me is a wall, to my left a closed door, straight ahead a closet filled with books, and to my right a window overlooking a tall pine tree. The tree is very refreshing.
Sometimes I like soft classical music playing when I write, other times dead silence.
Tell us something crazy.
To quote Steve Martin, I believe that robots are stealing my luggage.