interview with: dennis diclaudio, shya scanlon, todd zuniga

dennis diclaudio wrote the hypochondriac's pocket guide to horrible diseases you probably already have, used to edit but then quit editing (parenthetical note) and now edits (but will probably quit soon) ducky; he wrote this poem, this story, and this profile of himself

shya scanlon used to edit monkeybicycle; today he writes things like this, complains about one story on his blog, whose name is a derivative of this site's name, even if it might be 'satire,' or whatever, and writes non-fiction things like this; he is also writing a novel, though who isn't writing a novel, and who cares

todd zuniga edits opium magazine and wrote all this, and was twice a finalist for this, and is in print in this; he has written a novel and i think is currently editing it; and he hosts this reading series, which happens at the happy ending lounge and bar in chinatown; one time i read there and shya scanlon heckled me

the things that are questions in this interview are bolded; i am tao lin and i asked all the questions; the answers are blocked in the middle and the name of the person who typed them are there before them like this: [A HAMSTER]

You wrote a book that describes terrible diseases and it's funny. I laughed when I read it. I laughed at the pain and suffering of other people. Are you afraid people with terrible diseases will punch you in the face at readings?

[DENNIS DICLAUDIO]

I'm less afraid that people with diseases are going to punch me in the face than that the family members of people with diseases are going to punch me in the face. Or that they won't actually punch me in the face but stand up while I'm reading and tell me that I'm a bad person. I think I'd prefer getting punched in the face. Maybe because I've never actually been punched in the face but I have been told that I'm a bad person, so I can kind of understand what it will feel like.

I did a lot of worrying while writing this book, mostly because I'm really good at worrying, and it's nice to do things you excel at, especially while you're in the middle of doing things that you're not so sure you're good at. Almost all the way through my writing of this book, very few people were reading it, with the exception of my editor. And I lost track of where I was and what I was doing. All I knew was that I needed to research and write about five more diseases by Friday or I was afraid my editor would call me a bad person. Every once in a while I'd take a break from either writing or worrying and I'd think about what I was doing. I was writing a humor book about real diseases that real people get. And I would think, "Is this a really fucked up thing?" I never answered that question successfully, but what I did do was try to direct the humor toward the absurdity of how badly our bodies can fail us instead of at the victims of the diseases.

In emails someone was talking about fucking famous people and Todd Zuniga said you could put your own dick in your own ass and then you'd have fucked a famous person, and he was talking to you, Dennis DiClaudio. Please draw a photo using letters and symbols found on your keyboard depicting you fucking your own ass.

[DENNIS DICLAUDIO]

I am confused. Are you implying that I am a famous person? Or implying that Todd thinks I'm a famous person? I don't think that Todd thinks I'm a famous person, does he? I certainly don't feel like a famous person. Are famous people supposed to be this poor and insecure? Do you think I'm a famous person, Tao? Do you think that you are a famous person? You just won a big poetry contest and you're going to have your book published? Does that make you a famous person? If so, can I have sex with you instead? I think it might be a lot easier than putting my own dick in my own ass.

That said, here is a short pictorial narrative [blogger wouldn't format these; dennis spent a lot of time on the drawings, though, so we should feel empathy for that] about how I would probably fuck myself...

\ /
_____\/______
[ ]
[ 0 ]
[ ===ii=== ]
[ ii ]
[ //\\ ]
[ // \\ ]
[_// \\_]

fig 2a: Dennis in his time machine. (Please note the antenna on top. This is vital for transmitting matter across the fourth dimension.)

<3
0 0
===ii=== ===ii===
ii ii
//\\ //\\
// \\ // \\
_// \\_ _// \\_

fig 2b: One day earlier, Dennis runs into himself on the street. It is love at first sight.

{
0 0 {
ii===ii==={
ii ii {
//===>\\ {
// \\ {
//_ \\_{

fig 2c: Overcome with desire, Dennis fucks himself against a stucco wall right there on the street.

Your site, Parenthetical Note, has not been updated in forever. How can anyone trust you with anything else you are doing? For example, you have a literary site called Ducky. Why would I submit to Ducky if I already know you are just going to quit Ducky soon and not care anymore? Why should anyone talk to you if they know you are just going to quit them pretty soon?

[DENNIS DICLAUDIO]

I would encourage people to not talk to me.

Anyway, it's true that (parenthetical note) has not been updated in a long time. I actually feel really shitty about that, but, you know, not so shitty that I'm moved to getting going again right now. I would like to get it going again, but only after I'm certain that we (Mike Ewing and I) have the time and energy to keep it going. There's a bunch of reasons we let it go to fallows for so long, but the biggest was that we were losing our vision of what we wanted it to be. It was initially conceived as journal that would experiment with breaking down the line between that divides fiction and non-fiction. But that's a really big tent, and when really good writers are sending you really good stories, it's hard not justify a reason that it fits your obscure mold. I mean, just about any piece of fiction has its roots in fact, and any piece of non-fiction is fictionalized to some degree. So, the more we opened up our guidelines, the less we understood what we were trying to do. At the time, there were just next to a trillion other web journals publishing stuff that we really liked, stuff that (pnote) was publishing. So we didn't know what our specific purpose was. Now, before we bring it back to life, we have to take a hard line and decide what we want: stay strict to our original intent, go all non-fiction, or just open the gates and be content with publishing the best whatever we can find.

You published [deleted] on your site. That is my favorite story I have read on the internet pretty much, probably, or one of. Do you feel ashamed because you quit Parenthetical Note and now less people are going to read [deleted]'s story? In a way, you have fucked-over [deleted]. Do you feel ashamed? If you don't feel ashamed, please explain your rationalization for blocking out other people's emotions.

[DENNIS DICLAUDIO]

I do feel ashamed about that. I think that everybody should read that [deleted] story. I think that everybody should read all the [deleted] stories we published on (pnote). For a while, she was just sending us an incredible amount of stuff, and I was actually starting to feel guilty about how much of her stuff we were publishing, but they were all so good that we couldn't not publish them. There's actually a whole bunch of stuff that I wish people would read more. Heather Kelley had a couple great stories in there. Susannah Breslin had a fantastic one, as did Pitchaya Sudbanthad. Chris Monks had a great celebrity obituary column. We started Tony DiGerolamo's 'Ask the DM' column that I think is (thankfully) going to get picked up elsewhere. I'm just going from memory right now; if I went through the archives, I'm sure I could list a few dozen more "favorites."

One story that I feel particularly bad about was by Will Layman. After I asked him to send in a story, he did, and I went so far as to put it up on the site for his approval, but somehow it never got moved to the table of contents, so it never officially went "live." And then we unofficially went into hiatus. That's really shameful of me. I've since apologized to Will through email and over the phone, but I really need to buy that guy a drink one day. I still feel really bad about it.

I feel really good about the stuff we put up on (pnote), and I do want to get it going again, because one of my favorite things in the world is introducing people to writers that excite me. But I don't want to do it half-assed. This is not a slight against the writers; this is a slight against me. I'm tired of doing things half-assed. I want the whole ass on (parenthetical note) when it rejoins the e-world. Until then, though, I'm just hoping that maybe someday some self-rightous blog writing person will give me the opportunity to highlight a few stories through another means.

Shya, you derided my web site because you are jealous that I was interviewing Dennis Diclaudio and not you and because you used to edit Monkeybicycle but you quit that and now you don't do anything except send people links to Diane Williams stories. You also talk about syntax a lot. I don't know what this question is about. Just say something.

[SHYA SCANLON]

There are currently no consistently readable literary journals. Name a literary journal you think is consistently worth reading, and I will randomly open an issue of it, begin reading, and within 3 sentences be completely bored. This goes for everything from Monkeybicycle (or any young journal with a similarly pathetic print run) to The Paris Review, which two journals, despite the popularly held perspective, have much more in common than they'd like to believe. Neither journal publishes authors who provide the reader with interesting, unique insight or unfamiliar characters. And worse, said authors are not writing these second rate, regurgitated narratives with any pizzazz. I could bear reading something that was essentially worthless, so long as it was written in a compelling way. You mention that I have spoken about syntax. Yes. I wonder how many people reading this right now feel confident giving an explicit definition of "syntax" without having to consult dictionary.com. Which is fine, if you're a stock broker. But not if you're a writer. Syntax is one of many things that could be used to make writing more interesting. How about a little playfulness? Or maybe for starters, how about giving it one second of your thought. As a writer. Actually using one of the basic building blocks in some intentional way. Most writing today is like Express Mail. Get that meaning to the readers' door! In any manner possible! The faster the better! Pay on receipt! This is an acceptable (though by no means exclusive) approach if you're trying to say something important or original. But oops, see above. I think the first thing writers have to do is play a little mind game with themselves: pretend that you have nothing interesting to say (this is the truth, of course, but most people don't believe it, so it will feel like a "mind game"), and then pretend your goal is to hold someone's attention (again, the truth, but this doesn't seem to enter the mind of most authors these days, as if what they're writing were interesting simply by nature of it having come out of their heads.) If writers played this simple "mind game," almost overnight we'd see a change for the better. We'd almost certainly see the end of lines like: "When you walk down to the beach, you can be alone with the crash of water, the cry of gulls, the feel of cold sand under your toes." (The Arrival, by Robin Romm, from One Story, Issue Number 67) This is perhaps the most insipid, uninspired line imaginable. And the story is filled with them! And One Story is filled with stories filled with these lines! And the market is filled with literary journals like One Story! Where did we go wrong? It's as if we pumped out twice too many mechanical engineers sometime back in the early nineties, and had to find something for all these capable but completely unimaginative working stiffs to do with their time. "Why not turn them into fiction writers?" someone said from the back of the auditorium. The rest is history.

You said my novel blog was stupid because I only posted one sentence a day. Make a list of links to three stories on the internet that you like reading. Write one sentence talking-shit about the stories in my voice.

[SHYA SCANLON]

michael kimball

brian evenson

dawn raffel

Tao said, "these stories make me sad, but not in a good way."

Todd, you have organized a reading on February 4th for Opium Magazine's fifth anniversary and for Opium Magazine's second print issue and I am reading. But I am not in the magazine itself because you rejected my stories. You read them on a plane. You also never read the other story I sent you because it was too long. Now that story will be published by Dirt Press. My question is... I don't know. You also just say something.

[TODD ZUNIGA]

The Opium All-Star Gala on the 4th of February is pretty much a celebration of the essence of Opium (which is why we've got Jonathan Ames, Diane Williams, Jonathan Baumbach, Amanda Filipacchi, Dennis DiClaudio, Shya Scanlon, you, and me reading at it). When you read poems, people pretty much want to tear their skin away from the meat of themselves. Your poems are that good. And create that much joy in the room. It's really quite something.

But your longlonglong stories make me want to tear my skin away from the meat of myself in a completely different way. A very bad way. I thought your story in Opium's first print was amazing, but it was too long, and you didn't take any of my editing suggestions. So not reading your long story was a big fuck you to the world that doesn't take every suggestion I suggest. It's all your fault, and now everyone's paying for it, but mostly you're paying for it, because you were the only one rejected. I accepted EVERY OTHER STORY submitted. Kidding. You know I'm kidding, right? Well, I mean, I'm only kidding about the last part. Plus, you didn't submit a shorter story to Opium that was as good as your poems, which pained me. Because there's this one story, this specific story that I wanted you to submit (you know the one), but you didn't think it was good enough yet. WRONG. It's excellent and beyond. Way to blow it.

Oh, and Shya, as far as literary journals go, two things: Open both of Opium's print issues. Read the opening pages. Apologize.