{"id":1053,"date":"2014-02-25T15:55:42","date_gmt":"2014-02-25T20:55:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cuppapulp.com\/?p=1053"},"modified":"2014-08-07T16:11:36","modified_gmt":"2014-08-07T20:11:36","slug":"meet-elizabeth-eslami","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cuppapulp.com\/writers\/2014\/02\/25\/meet-elizabeth-eslami\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Elizabeth Eslami!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ESLAMI_-_HIBERNATE_COVER_JPG\"<\/a>We are beyond thrilled to announce the launch<\/span><\/a><\/span> of Elizabeth Eslami’s short story collection, Hibernate<\/em>, winner of the Ohio State University Press Prize in Short Fiction, right here at Cuppa Pulp Booksellers this April!<\/p>\n

Elizabeth’s debut novel was the lovely Bone Worship<\/em>, about an Iranian-American college dropout walking the line between two ethnic worlds while she tries not to fail out of life altogether. Elizabeth is not only a remarkable writer, but a much-loved teacher in the MFA Program at Manhattanville College. The Program will also host Elizabeth in New York City with a special reading<\/span><\/a><\/span> to honor Hibernate<\/em>.<\/p>\n

She shared with us some insight to her work, her life, and the difficulties of supporting a dog on a writer’s paycheck.<\/p>\n

Liz, we loved the way that Bone Worship<\/em>\u00a0portrayed the second-generation American experience. Will we see more of that in Hibernate? What else can you tell us about the new collection?
\n<\/strong>Hibernate<\/em> is a collection of eleven stories, set everywhere from Montana to Los Angeles to Tehran and beyond, populated by people whose lives have been profoundly, irrevocably disrupted, forcing them to navigate substantial obstacles. Sometimes those obstacles have a more literal stopping power, like a ship wedged in a frozen sea, or someone being born into a certain kind of life, or not having money, or encountering a stranger who talks himself into being trusted. Other times, the obstacle is seven layers deep: the desire to meet a nebulous standard of beauty, or the pull we sometimes feel toward self-destruction as an end to boredom.<\/p>\n

The characters and the places in these stories are all over the geographical and psychological map, yet you meet them on the same uneven terrain. They\u2019re all going to make a move, you know that much. Whether that move is going to bring them to destruction or salvation or some more treacherous between-land is what you\u2019ll want to know.<\/p>\n

So, more world-straddling heroes! Sounds delicious. Why a story collection, after the success of the novel?
\n<\/strong>Because writing a novel is hard! As you well know. I\u2019ve always loved story collections, and I always imagined writing one, even back when I was writing Bone Worship<\/em>. Most of us cut our teeth, certainly in grad school anyway, on short stories, kind of like dissecting a frog before you try your hand at a cadaver. (That\u2019s neither a dig at frogs nor at stories, by the way. I love both of them!) I feel like you can get closer to perfect with a story in a way that\u2019s nearly impossible with a novel.<\/p>\n

The other thing that\u2019s fun with a story collection is that you get to try a little of everything \u2013 tonally, stylistically. If you screw up with one, maybe you get it right with the next one. Stories are such an intense immersive experience. It always makes me laugh when people say that stories are gaining popularity because they\u2019re designed for the short attention span. You can\u2019t afford to zone out with a short story! What, you\u2019re gonna grab a sandwich while Arnold Friend is teetering on the porch steps? Please.<\/p>\n

Sometimes a short story is so intense, like really good poetry, that I actually do have to take a break between sections of a single story. I had that experience reading\u00a0Every Good Woman Has An Ax<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/span>–and after I finished, I took a break and then read it again. What a pleasure! What are some of your favorite stories, and what are you writing next?
\n<\/strong>My students get sick of me talking about it, but Sherwood Anderson\u2019s \u201cDeath in the Woods\u201d is my gold standard. Lawrence Sargent Hall\u2019s \u201cThe Ledge.\u201d \u201cMajorette\u201d by Lauren Groff. Ben Percy\u2019s \u201cWinter\u2019s Trappings.\u201d \u201cPeople Like That Are The Only People Here.\u201d Everything from Turgenev\u2019s Sketches from a Hunter\u2019s Album. Flannery O\u2019Connor and Alistair MacLeod and Pam Houston and Alice Munro and Danielle Evans. I\u2019ve taught Aimee Bender\u2019s \u201cIronhead\u201d and \u201cYsrael\u201d by Junot Diaz dozens of times, and each time they yield something new. I loved \u201cThe Diggings\u201d from Claire Vaye Watkins\u2019s Battleborn.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Every Good Woman Has An Ax<\/em>, which you read\u00a0in the Manhattanville Review, is actually an excerpt from a novel by the same name, which I am currently writing. Okay, actually, I\u2019m lying to you, because right this second, I\u2019m writing a short story. (Told you I love frogs.)<\/p>\n

\"boneworship-liz2\"<\/a>
\nLast but not least, for all the struggling writers out there, we all want to know about your transition to professional status. Is it true that you are able to support a dog with your writing? How’d you get there? \ud83d\ude09
\n<\/strong>You\u2019d have to define \u201cstruggling\u201d vs. \u201cprofessional\u201d for me. If professional means \u201cpublished,\u201d okay. But I always feel like I\u2019m struggling. I always want the writing to be stronger, to take less time to get there, to be published in better magazines, to get more reviews, better reviews. To be noticed by critics and readers, which is weird for a shy person but goes with the territory. I think the struggling part is permanently necessary. To be hungry and active and never truly satisfied.\u00a0But if we\u2019re talking about money, the answer is easy.<\/p>\n

No, I cannot support my dog with only my writing. Teaching helps with that, having a husband who teaches helps with that. Denali is twelve now, our little old pointy-headed lady, so it\u2019s a world of arthritis and hypothyroidism and vet visits. Everybody thinks it\u2019s funny that I include her in my acknowledgements, but she\u2019s the key to my writing. Never judges, is fully disciplined, in her dog bed next to the desk before I\u2019m in the chair. She rode around in the back of a Toyota Corolla all over the Pacific Northwest for the first book tour. Every event, I have a memory of looking back, seeing her pointy head staring between the head rests. I told her I\u2019d be back. I was off to earn her Pupperonis.<\/p>\n

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We are beyond thrilled to announce the launch of Elizabeth Eslami’s short story collection, Hibernate, winner of the Ohio State University Press Prize in Short Fiction, right here at Cuppa Pulp Booksellers this April! Elizabeth’s debut novel was the lovely Bone Worship, about an Iranian-American college dropout walking the line between two ethnic worlds while […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,10,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-news","category-cuppa-blog","category-homepage-firstfeature"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cuppapulp.com\/writers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cuppapulp.com\/writers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cuppapulp.com\/writers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cuppapulp.com\/writers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cuppapulp.com\/writers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1053"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.cuppapulp.com\/writers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1064,"href":"https:\/\/www.cuppapulp.com\/writers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions\/1064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cuppapulp.com\/writers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cuppapulp.com\/writers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cuppapulp.com\/writers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}