SHALLA CHATS with Richard Peabody

 

“Writing and Publishing Literary Fiction”

by Shalla DeGuzman

 

First of all, who ’s Richard?

Richard Peabody, a prolific poet, fiction writer and editor, is an experienced teacher and important activist in the Washington , D.C. community of letters.

He is the founder and co-editor of Gargoyle magazine and editor (or co-editor) of fourteen anthologies including Mondo Barbie, Conversations with Gore Vidal, A Different Beat: Writings by Women of the Beat Generation, Alice Redux, Sex & Chocolate, and Grace and Gravity: Fiction by Washington Area Women. He is the author of the novella Sugar Mountain, two short story collections, and six poetry collections including Last of the Red Hot Magnetos and I'm in Love with the Morton Salt Girl.

He is currently working on Kiss the Sky: Fiction & Poetry Starring Jimi Hendrix (forthcoming 2007). Peabody holds a B.A. from the University of Maryland and an M.A. in Literature from American University. He has taught at the University of Virginia, Georgetown University, The Writer's Center, and at Hopkins, where he has been presented the Faculty Award for Distinguished Professional Achievement. Peabody lives and works in the Washington, D.C. area.

You can find out more at: www.wikipedia.org and www.gargoylemagazine.com.

 

Shalla: Hello Richard. Thanks for being here.

Richard: Sorry to be so slow. I broke a rib six weeks ago and I’m still not 100%.

Shalla: First of all, please tell us about you. Are you a writer?

Richard: On a good day. My wife just split for ten days and I have my daughters solo for now. One is 6 and the other 4. I’ve spent most of my life in the Washington, D.C. area. Lived downtown, and in both Metropolitan Maryland and Virginia. I’m basically an inner Beltway kid.

I’ve wanted to move to New Mexico for 20+ years. Now more than ever I think it’s time to split for Chile or Montreal. These are very grim times.

Shalla: What do you write? And do you have a story and/or poem you would like to share with us? (for this, we can post one of your stories/poem, if you like, or you can send us a link, hopefully it’s one we will always be able to access)

Richard: People always ask me what I’m writing and I just kind of laugh. A short poem now and then. Sometimes a short-short story. But mostly I do the anthologies because they don’t require vast chunks of time. They’re easy (for me) to do piecemeal. But to answer the question--yes, I write whatever comes out. Mostly poetry and fiction.

Here’s a long story I wrote last year at Melvin Sterne’s splendid online mag—Carve.

Shalla: Where do you get your story ideas?

Richard: From reading, from living, from movies, from music, from eavesdropping.

Shalla: Many writers look at their work and think it’s the best, yet, they’re not getting published. Did this ever happen to you? Any suggestions on how to get out of this rut?

Richard: Annie Dillard recently said in print what I’ve been telling my students for a while now—odds of getting published in the NY book world are slimmer now than when I began in this heartbreaking biz 30 years ago. Quality has absolutely nothing to do with getting into print. (People just hate it when I say that, but it’s true.) Knowing the right people, having a great author photo, making it in some other field, all have more to do with today’s book world than actually writing something unique.

So how does one keep a placid mask and cling to hope in today’s daily atrocity sort of world? Drugs, faith, kids? Beats me. I’m like the Energizer Bunny—I just keep gathering material and trying to find time to write. Beyond that I assemble magazines and anthologies because I know how to create an object. Just a knack I have. We don’t ever make any $, nor do we break even. But I love books—the smell, the feel, the shape. That’s where I’ve poured most of the last 30 years of my life.

Shalla: Please tell us about your magazine. Why the name “Gargoyle”?

Richard: I had a list of names and “Pan” was the one the three founders agreed upon. But we simply couldn’t get a decent photo of the Pan statue at the Washington Cathedral and while we were bickering, the photographer kept snapping photos of the Gargoyles above our heads and a lightbulb went off when we saw them.

There have been a lot of literary Gargoyles through the years—in Paris, in London, and the humor mag in Chicago. We of course thought we were unique. Plus we liked all of the baggage that comes with the name—pagan holdovers on Christian churches, water spouts that collect water (writing) and spew it out. The stone grotesques are also rumored to scare evil spirits away from gothic cathedrals. It did cause some confusion early on. Writers assumed we were a horror mag or a Sci-Fi mag. And I believe that assumption chased away a lot of women poets and writers at the onset. Took years to overcome.

Shalla: Do you have any tips on editing? Any suggestions on where can we find a good critique group for the kind of smart-witty stories you publish?

Richard: I teach from Sol Stein’s writing books these days. His “How to Grow a Novel” is brilliant. Few people know his fiction but he is an extremely gifted editor. I also like John Dufresne’s new book on writing. His list of Don’ts in the back is worth the price of the book. read that list and you’ll never chop your nose off to spite your face again.

Shalla: What are the easy-to-correct blunders writers do in their submissions? (Bad formatting? Misspelling?)

Richard: Easiest is never having spent more than 10 seconds with a copy of the magazine. If they did they’d realize that there’s a reason we’ve published folks like Kathy Acker, Nicole Blackman, Nick Cave, Richard Hell, and so on. We’re not a safe little litmag geared to pet lovers or romance writers. The world is burning. Hello. We’re trying to make people think and shake things up a bit.

Shalla: What can new writers include in their cover letter instead of writing credentials?

Richard: Oh people send me entire resumes. It’s awful. Back in the old days people actually even sent head shots. I could care less about all of that. It helps to be familiar with work by some of the people we’ve published. Nice to have read somebody besides Dan Brown or Stephen King. We like to say that our fave writers are Paul Bowles and Jeanette Winterson. That alone usually separates the wheat from the chaff. But Lucinda reads a novel a day and I used to read tons before I became a father six years ago. These days I mostly read student manuscripts and submissions.

I’ve always preferred a casual, hey how you doing, to some of the ego-driven cover letters I read. And besides, these days, I much prefer e-mailed submissions. Snail mail is over.

Shalla: What do you enjoy reading? What makes you say AHA! perfect for Gargoyle!

Richard: I love Kelly Link’s stories and I’ve been pestering her for something for the mag to no avail. Ditto with Lydia Davis. I read a lot of women’s writing these days—Kim Addonizio, Marie-Claire Blais, Kate Braverman, Mary Caponegro, Karen Connolly, Rikki Ducornet, Eurydice, A. M. Homes, Keri Hulme, Shelley Jackson, Pagan Kennedy, Kate Pullinger, Elizabeth Sheffield, Laren Stover, plus work by my successful students like Julia Slavin, Carolyn Parkhurst, and Nani Power.

I’m also a big fan of Richard Powers, George Pelecanos, T.C. Boyle, Lance Olsen, Julian Rios, Jasper Fforde, George Steiner, Flann O’Brien, Rick Moody, Sherman Alexie, and more obscure folks like Charles Simmons, Charles Webb, Shelagh Delaney, Tim Hildebrand, Bill Knott, Catherine Kidd, Ernst Junger, Mina Loy, Joyce Mansour, Erin Moure, Lorine Neidecker, Robert Musil, Deborah Pintonelli, Miklos Radnoti, Raymond Radiguet, Jeremy Reed, Arno Schmidt, Frank Stanford, but I could go on for hours.

Oh and most days I feel like Nick Hornby is stealing my life.

What makes a perfect Gargoyle story? You get a zing. You can read it over and over again and always find something new. You have to be able to live with it. It has to be more than just a one-night stand.

Shalla: Lastly, any writing groups and/or writing communities you recommend for literary writers?

Richard: I’ve produced a lot of work at both the Virginia Center for the Arts near Charlottesville, VA and the Blue Mountain Center in the Adirondacks in NY. I also stayed at the Byrdcliffe Colony in Woodstock, NY a few years back. I think they’re great opportunities to hang with the tribe (other poets and writers), work, play, trade information, and network.

The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, MD has always been that kind of a place as well. I’ve taught there off and on since 1987. They have a bookshop, stage readings, plays, and have an annual book fair for independent publishers.
The annual BEA and AWP conferences are also great places to come face-to-face with what this biz is really like at its best and worst. I think every writer should know the realities and learn self-reliance in terms of their own writing.

Shalla: Thanks Richard!

For more on Richard Peabody and Gargoyle, please go to http://www.gargoylemagazine.com/

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Shalla DeGuzman's short stories have appeared in Poetic Diversity, the Mad Hatters Review, etc.; her articles in The Scriptorium and L.A. Freepress; her skits at the Stella Adler Theatre. Shalla, a former writer and producer of a health and fitness cable show, is currently writing a novel. She is President of The ShallaDeGuzman Writers Group where she interviews literary agents, publishers, editors, etc. News! Shalla DeGuzman gets nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize! Plus! SHALLA Magazine, which features short stories, poetry and more, is here! For more on Shalla: www.shalladeguzman.com

 

 

 

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