Search This Blog

Friday, January 18, 2013

Interview: Christopher Barzak on the Story Fount of the Surreal


Aqueduct Press
ISBN: 978-1-61976-014-1 (13 digit)
Publication Date: 8/1/2012
(paperback) 96 pages


QWhere do your ideas for surreal stories come from? surrealist paintings mentioned in your essay? dreams? wordplay? misunderstandings? Do they arrive whole? Or do you milk them to see what greater speculations you can squeeze out?


Barzak:  Well, in the specific stories in Birds and Birthdays, much of the imagery comes from the paintings I used for inspiration. But the imagery I responded to in those paintings and used in my stories also led me to originate some of my own, as I wrote the stories. So in that way I "milked them to what greater speculations I could squeeze out of them." In other stories of mine that aren't written directly in response to paintings, I tend to arrive at my images and visions from all of the ways you suggested. Dreams, wordplay especially, misunderstandings and misreadings of things in my daily life in general.

No comments:

Post a Comment