SmokeLong Quarterly

One quality of “Aeroplane” that I particularly enjoy is how the
objects work together to create a character out of the house itself.
Does setting usually have this level of importance to you?

I really like the interaction between character and surrounding.
The physicality of a situation — the way that someone sees or moves through a room, the way they touch an object — can say a lot more than someone’s first name or the color of their hair.

There are so many moments in the story that are filled with warning and defeat, and yet the characters seem to feel there is free will involved in what transpires. How did “Aeroplane” evolve as a story?
When I write, it is sentence by sentence. I had the opening image in my head, of the man and the girl in the woods, of the girl trying to look away and the man encouraging her to participate, but the rest of the story came along step by step, at the same pace the girl was moving. The pieces of the story were born in almost exactly the same place and order they appear in the final draft.

At the same time, the way the main character feels that the decision to stay or leave is entirely her own, even though in reality the situation she is in is a difficult one to escape from, and is getting more so with each move she makes, was something I wanted to portray without ever explicitly putting that thought process on the page.

In a genre where many writers rely on conciseness, “Aeroplane” has distinctly lyrical qualities. What leads you to the decisions you make about language in your work?
The breath and muscle of each line is something that absorbs me when I’m trying to write a story. More than plot, if a sentence can’t breathe on its own, it isn’t worth keeping. In this story, words bled out fiercely. I wanted every line to possess the same dangerous physicality of the girl’s situation.

The last time I was in Michigan, I was four years old. Where should I go if I visit again?
Northern Michigan’s got that surrounded-by-pine-trees-and-wind-chimes escapism feel to it, which can be nice. I just got back from the Sleeping Bear Dunes this weekend, which was kind of a lot of work for a little pay off, but Mackinac Island is fun for horses and biking 🙂