October 17, 2003

Today is the day to sleep in your car.

I'm still guest editing Opium Magazine!

Today's interviewee is a former literary agent, and has utilized the skills he learned at his former occupation in his popular McSweeney's column as well as the Little Gray Books Lecture Series. Oh, also, he can write, as he's been published in One Story, The Paris Review, and recently, according to my sources, rocked the house at Philly's 215 Festival. Thanks to him for the gracious answers; I only regret leading him astray with my erroneous final question.

The John Hodgman Interview: Slightly Less Than Twenty Questions

For those who don't read McSweeney's Internet Tendency, what is "Ask a Former Literary Agent"?
You are referring to a defunct internet column I used to write in which I, as an actual former professional literary agent, answered questions about publishing, writing, The Lord of The Rings, and most other subjects, including chronic knee pain.

I was looking back over that material in an effort to answer this question, and I am surprised by how unembarrassed I am by it, and how much I learned (again) about chronic knee pain. I chalk this up to my collaboration with the question askers, and the fact that I was guided by their curiosity rather than my own laziness, and the fact that while the column was often misleading and full of lies, it was always, in its own way, true.

But it is largely a thing of the past, found secretly under the "ADDITIONAL MATERIAL" link in the deepest basement of the McSweeney's archive, where Neal Pollack and I are bricked up together behind a wall, faintly rattling our chains and finishing off that last cask of Amontillado. Which is fine and more than I deserve.

I am now a professional writer about food and alcohol, which is an amazing transition. It is rare enough that you find your way into a career like book publishing when you are encouraged to drink constantly and for free; but to accidentally end up in a second is a kind of boozy fortune I hardly deserve. At one free-alcohol function I attended recently, I was very pleased to meet a man who recalled the column and claimed to have been in some way touched by it. He sells peanuts by mail, and you can't ask for much better than that.

Is there any hope of getting a book published if you don't have an agent? Do publishing companies just laugh at authors who send in cold submissions?
I am happy to say that even if you do not have a literary agent, publishers will not laugh at you if you are a famous person. I trust that is very comforting. And if you are not famous, as apparently occurs from time to time, you should still feel comfort.

Generally speaking, people who work in publishing are people who love books and don't really love money all that much or else they'd be doing something else. They are readers. They are curious and eager to be surprised and would like to give you, yes you, Claire Zulkey, a chance. But there are so few of them compared to the many, many people who wish to be published that they are required to make their world smaller so that they will have time to eat and to breathe. Thus they rely on the editorial judgments of agents and friends and graduate programs and other arbitrary credentials; and like all of us they occasionally fall prey to the obligations imposed on them by family members, bosses, and celebrities. This is the complete conspiracy of publishing, and it is the conspiracy of acquaintanceship around which pretty much most human lives are organized.

There are those who feel that this isn't fair, and I suppose it isn't, as discretion and individual taste are unfair by definition. I would say however, that practiced talent, applied persistently, has in my short experience tended to find its way to those who appreciate it both within publishing and without. And I think it is beyond question that writers have more opportunity to reach more readers, with or without a book deal, than ever before in human history. Thank you internet: the means by which an individual, a small group, or a large corporation are reaching readers all over the world are for the first time essentially identical and largely affordable to all.

For the first time, I think it is fair to say that all of us who write may be published at our own will. This sadly does not guarantee all of us a hefty advance and book tour. But equally sadly, there are not enough dollars or bad hotel rooms in the world to support such a scheme.

Why are you a former literary agent? What made you stop being a current literary agent?
A long-awaited professional milestone (the publication of Chang and Eng by Darin Strauss, the first novel I took on) teamed up in June of 2000 with an great and unwelcome personal loss to convince me that it was important to do as many different things as I possibly could while I still had time.

Are there any advice columnists who you really like? What do you like about them?
I would like to say that I never wrote an advice column. I received questions and attempted to answer them with facts, and when that failed, with convincing fictions. And so, like most, I tend to like that which most reminds me of me. I am addicted to people giving financial and home repair advice on AM radio stations late at night, though I have neither a home nor finances. I enjoy the Ask the Non-Expert column at The Morning News. The Car Brothers on NPR seem to laugh a lot still, and I enjoy their manic cackling.

You say that you want to "revive the corpse that is the literary reading." Does that mean it's dead?
I would say that it is more undead. It wanders the countryside in a zombie haze, reenacting the motions of life without understanding their meaning anymore, intent on eating brains.

And how are you going to go about this revival?
Largely through the use of lightning channeled through a machine. Nothing surprising there. As you will ask about in the last question, I and some others have been presenting a monthly reading and performance series in Williamsburg called the Little Gray Book Lectures which sometimes falls prey to gimmickry (overhead projections, spelling bees, people in seagull outfits) but really wishes only to remind people of that living point of connection between prose, author, and reader, which should be easy to see when they are all in the same room, but is too too often forgotten.

In this regard, here is my secret to keeping and holding the attention for any audience.Do not let them see you loathing yourself. This is particularly hard for writers.

Your Little Gray book lectures seeks to bring in an audience that might not normally attend a reading. But that seems like a pretty wide audience. Is there anybody in particular you're trying to reach?
Claire Zulkey comes to mind. I wish I could say the disadvantaged or those who normally do not participate in the literary community, and indeed it would be great to welcome as diverse a crowd in sensibility and background as possible. But I fear the truth is, as with all of my creative endeavors, I am trying to entertain my friends and to expand the definition of "my friends" as broadly as possible.

How important is liquor at a reading?
It is not as important as words, but as the saying goes, it is certainly quicker.

The readings have included music and powerpoint presentations. What are some of the other highlights?
There is a man named Jonathan Coulton who writes and performs an original song for nearly every Lecture, which I consider to be an astounding musical feat. I think that he has contributed more even than the man in the seagull outfit to the lifting of the moribund reading to a fizzy sense of theatrical wholeness that the best Lectures have, through no fault of my own, occasionally attained. Everyone should listen to his songs, and of course, now they can

You've done work for This American Life. Do you write differently for radio than you do writing meant for reading? Or does all good writing come out well over the airwaves?
I do not write differently, but I do write briefly, as radio does not tolerate long digressions and my regular hemming and hawing. Working with that program is the most rigorous and rewarding editorial experience I have ever had the pleasure to endure, and my writing is always much better for it. And also briefer, which everyone appreciates.

To answer your second question, writing always comes out well over the airwaves if it is written for someone who is not you, for radio is by definition intimate and generous. It also helps if it is read by a professional radiophonist, such as myself. I stand by if you should ever be of need.

What's a common plot twist or theme in literature you'd like to see laid to rest for a while?
Epiphany, I think, gets more attention than it deserves, especially in the short story department, especially when you consider how rarely we experience it. There is an important and useful old book that Strauss brought to my attention called 36 DRAMATIC SITUATIONS, and of these 36 I think that "An Enemy Loved" does not get enough play these days, particularly "the lover pursued by the brothers of his beloved," and "the beloved is the slayer of the husband of the woman who loves him, but who has previously sworn to avenge that husband"

Radio doesn't grab the same audience it did fifty years ago, now that we have the Internet, TV, more films, etc. What do you think radio has to do to stay a fairly competitive entertainment medium?
Obviously it would do better if the sound had moving pictures attached, and/or porn.

It was nice to read a quote as down to earth as this: "no offense to Dave [Eggers], but he's not stratospherically famous. He's, you know, a major, bestselling book author, but in the global scheme of things, I think Dame Edna gets more press than he does. And that transvestite is old! You know, he ain't J.Lo." Do you think writers can be celebrities on par with Dame Edna (or J.Lo), or is it just the nature of the beast to toil in comparative anonymity?
I recall saying those words, but I do wish I had come up with better examples than Dame Edna and Lo. Can you think of any? [Editor's note: I think those are probably the best conceivable examples.]

I am recently returned from England, where it is clear that writers are admitted a certain cultural centrality that we normally refer to as celebrity that does not happen as much here. This is a factor I think of the comparative populations of our two nations, and the very kind regard the mainstream national media there still has for novels and what is typically called "high culture," even if they are otherwise as obsessed with boobies as the rest of us.

While I was there, for example, I was amazed to see that the Daily Express, which is essentially a gossip-addled tabloid, thought it would be an ace promotion to give away hardcover editions of Wuthering Heights with their newspaper. Not to be outdone, The Daily Mail responded by offering every reader a copy of the film "The French Lieutenant's Woman", of all things, on DVD. Can you imagine this happening here? I doubt we would even get "The French Lieutenant's Woman" on fucking beta.

What is it with men and hot sauce? Is it a masculinity thing?
You are referring to my never-published treatise on ultra-hot hot-sauces, in which I examine the chemistry and metaphysics of condiments that are packaged in coffins and promise death by ultra-hotness. Curiously, I did not find this to be a particularly masculine art, especially as practiced by the great Fire Girl, whose help I have not been able to repay until now.

You went to Yale. I sort of imagine life at the Ivies being a.) professors reminding you at Yale so you'd better do a good job and b.) students saying, "I can't believe I go here!" Are either of those correct?
Thank you for bringing up my posh ivy league credentials. A is not so correct, in that the faculty of Yale, while not un-house-proud, were I think more concerned as we all are with when they were going to get home that night and what was in the freezer than with whether or not we lived up to the reputation of our fine school.

As for B, I for one was certainly intimidated, as I had attended an experimental "alternative" high school program which had many good points, but focused less on the classics of English and American Literature and more on reading One Hundred Years of Solitude as many times as possible. You would think this would at least give me a grounding in what the word "chthonic" meant. But in truth, the first time one of my well-trained classmates spoke that word my brain exploded in fear.

Luckily, I knew if I made it, Geo. HW Bush would be handing me 100 bars of gold at graduation with "Skull and Bones" stamped on them, so I took some comfort in knowing I would always be provided for.

Did you write for the Yale Record? And is there any hope of being a successful writer if you didn't write for the Record or the Lampoon? I wrote for the Georgetown Gonzo once but it folded before my piece (titled "Student Forgets Words to Dave Matthews Song") ran.
I did not, but I worked in a video store with a fellow named Mike Gerber who was nearly singlehandedly responsible for reviving The Record from oblivion and restoring it to mere obscurity. Mike is a very funny man who has since written a parody of Harry Potter which I gather from its prominence at Heathrow airport is a big bestseller in England. He is arguably the J. Lo of Harry Potter parodies in London.

"Professional blowhard-ism" is a very good term that you coined. This genre seems pretty popular, a sort of tongue in cheek "I'm rich and famous (but I'm really not.) Why do you think this is popular now? And will it wear out its welcome?
We are all missing the wit, talent, strange accent, and sublimely humble arrogance of George Plimpton, and we were even before his tragic passing. I have already worn out my welcome, but he never shall.

Were you a funny kid? And what was your first memory?
Cats. That shall serve as my answer to both questions.

How does it feel to be the 75th person interviewed for Zulkey.com?
I believe that the 75th is the "100 Bars of Gold" anniversary, so it feels quite happy and fitting. Especially since I have only one bar of George Bush's gold left, and I'm aiming to spend it tonight. I shall think of you as I do, with gratitude to you and your readers. Many thanks and godspeed, Zulkey.

That is all.

[Editor's note: Actually, Mr. Hodgman is the 77th person interviewed for Zulkey.com. So who is to tell what is true and what is false? Not the editor.]