by Meg Pokrass
Dan Wickett founded the Emerging Writers Network in 2000, and co-founded Dzanc Books, along with Steve Gillis, in 2006. He edited the short story anthology, Visiting Hours (Press 53, 2008) and has a flash fiction coming in Quick Fiction 15.
How did you become so integrally involved in the day-to-day lives of writers and publishers of literary journals and small presses? You are a champion of writers and publishers that are off the radar of the for-profit press world. Many of us wonder how this came to be? How did this spring from you?
I happened to take exactly one creative writing class while at the University of Michigan, way back in the fall of 1989. The class was filled with talented people. The professor, Alyson Hagy, has published three story collections and two novels, most recently becoming a Graywolf Press author as she'll have seen her last three published by them when her next one comes out. Elwood Reid was a student, and he's published a story collection and three novels; Liesel Litzenburger, another student, has published a story collection and a novel; another of the students went on to study at Brown University and see something published in The Paris Review, etc.
While this was in my last semester in obtaining a degree in Statistics, the only other class I had was one titled "Reading From a Writer's Point of View," taught by William Hollinger. Between these two classes, I was exposed to the writing of Charles Johnson, Madison Smartt Bell, Ralph Lombreglia, Elizabeth Tallent, Mark Costello (The Murphy Stories, not The Big If), Robert Coover, Charles Johnson, and others. It was my first experience reading contemporary literary fiction and not either genre, or classics.
Big jump forward to early 2000. I'd remained in touch with Alyson, Elwood, and Liesel over the years and found out that in March/April, Elwood would see his second novel coming out, and Alyson would have both her debut novel and third story collection come out as well. I'd not been reading much the past few years (my kids at that time were 5, 3, and just about to be born) and decided this was good enough reason to spend some time and money on a former enjoyment. I was quickly reminded why I enjoyed reading and decided to write reviews of the books. Emailed to some people, they were well received, and I began searching for more books to read and spread the word about. And an attention monger was born!
With a lot of smart, independent publishers popping up recently, do you see signs that there is a strong indie movement evolving? Where are the holes (problems) inherent in the road to success for these publishers?
I do think there is something to that. It's interesting to see that it was actually starting to happen before all of the really bad news in the publishing industry last fall when every PW announcement seemed to be layoffs or firings at a different major publishing house. The writing that many of these start-ups are finding is fantastic too, and I think this has something to do with the process behind some of the decision making at larger houses. We had barely announced what our first title was going to be when we were asked if we'd be interested in looking at Yannick Murphy's story collection manuscript. Yannick Murphy – O.Henry winner, author of three critically acclaimed novels with a fourth on the way. But it was a story collection, and there just aren't that many publishers who aren't independent or affiliated with a university willing to publish story collections. We jumped at the chance once we'd read about half of it.
Problems for independent publishers? Well, finding distribution is the big one. If you don't find somebody interested enough in what you are doing to take you on, it's up to you to call booksellers and convince them to take on your books, to invoice them, to ship them product, to handle returns, and every other aspect that goes with sales. And while I certainly think that many independent publishers are putting out books just as good as, if not better (and yes, this is subjective), than major publishing houses, it's few and far between that you can find an independent publisher with the money to print up a few thousand galleys of every book they publish to make sure every reviewer and bookseller in the country has a copy.
What can we as writers (once we have a book out) do to help ourselves the most? Why do you think it is important for authors to promote their books to the best of their abilities?
Once finding a publishing home, I do think authors can be very helpful in terms of promoting their own work. I'm reminded of something we explain to prospective teachers and principals when we are promoting the running of a Dzanc Writer in Residence Program in their classroom or school. While we believe teachers do an incredible job on a daily basis, we also believe that having a writer going in once per week, one that makes his/her living based on the written word, has that little extra something when it comes to getting others excited about reading and writing, and just might be able to come up with something a little different than the teacher trained to teach across a wide spectrum of subjects.
I think it's the same with authors and their work. While we at Dzanc Books look at every book like it's our own and want to find every single possible reader in the world for it, in the author's case, it really is his/her own. It's his/her non-human baby and as much as we want success for it, I can't believe we want it as much as he/she does (though I do think it's pretty close).
And to be honest, having seen a wide spectrum already of authors that were really into the idea and those that maybe needed a little bit of a push, any involvement on the author's end is a huge plus, and while the interest level spectrum may be very wide, the end result usually is much closer.
What brings you the strongest joy and excitement in running Dzanc Press?
To start with, seeing a solid friendship with my partner Steve Gillis turn into something much more than that has been fantastic. Beyond that, the joys and excitements regularly rotate—telling an author that he/she is going to be published (in book form) for the first time, picking up final copies of books from the printer, hearing progress reports on the DWIRP programs we run, hearing positive feedback about Dzanc, and just the fact that every day brings something different.
Can you tell us about your new Creative Writing and your Artists In Residence programs? Is Dzanc the first press to initiate such programs?
We believe we're the first press to initiate such a program as the Dzanc Creative Writing Sessions. To our knowledge we just might be the first of any type of program to set up something like the DCWS. It brings inexpensive one-on-one mentoring of writers by published writers, so maybe writers who can't afford the time or money for an MFA program can still get some studying with a fantastic author. Or somebody that lives in an area that seems devoid of writer groups can find somebody to work with. And it has the additional bonus that we'll utilize the money that comes in to set up more of our DWIRP programs. These Writer in Residence programs have us setting up an author with a school/classroom. They visit that school once per week, every week, for the entire school year. They work on writing and revising and getting a story or poem to a final version throughout the year, and we publish an anthology of student work at the end of the school year and set up readings for the students as well.
This particular type of program is not unique, though I don't know of any other publishers doing them. But Writers in the Schools in Houston, InsideOut Literary Arts Project in Detroit, and many other fantastic groups run programs similar to the DWIRP across the country. They are all really great groups and run by outstanding people.
I try and imagine snuggling into the sofa on a rainy day with my cat and my Kindle. I can't go there. The cat is soft, reading is a sensual experience (involves the senses and the emotions), and I'm holding a cold electronic box (smartly named "Kindle" to evoke warmth). I imagine that I'm not alone in this feeling, the desire to hold, to dog-ear, to make notes in a book. What are your thoughts on Kindle and other like devices? What does it mean to a book publisher like Dzanc?
Well, I'm probably much more familiar with the devices because of having a hand in publishing. I'm a book lover as well as a reader and publisher and to be honest probably would know very, very little about such devices at this point in my life, but as a publisher wanting to be as strong as possible for our authors, it's not something we can just ignore. It's another avenue for our authors to find readers, and so we are looking into every avenue that we can and plan on having titles available by mid-summer at the latest.
Since I'm interviewing you here at SmokeLong, and SmokeLong is an e-zine of flash fiction, I must ask you: Do you feel that flash fiction is coming into its own?
I have to be honest and say I have no idea how it's being taken in academia. In the circles that I travel in though, of literary people, it certainly is taken seriously. In Dzanc's Best of the Web series, we look for stories of all lengths for inclusion. Many of the journals I read publish flash fiction, and Quick Fiction, which publishes nothing but, keeps finding itself on great top five and top ten lists of literary journals.
Who is Dan Wickett apart from Emerging Writers and Dzanc Books? Where have you lived? Do you have any animals? What are your favorite movies?
I'm an extremely proud father of three children who occasionally read, are all active in sports, and do well in school. I have coached sports teams for all three over the past half dozen years and have apparently signed up for taxi service this past year as they begin to get older. I was born in Detroit, MI and have lived within an hour my entire life, currently residing in Westland. There hasn't been a day in the last 15 years that there wasn't a dog living in my house. Movies? I tend to find myself watching the same directors over and over—David Lynch, Jim Jarmusch, Akira Kurosawa, the Coen Brothers. And I watch a frightening amount of television, of course shows that I consider above the standard fodder mocked by readers, but who am I kidding?
