Writer on Writer: Claudia Smith and Ben Tanzer

How it goes on, a conversation with Claudia Smith by Ben Tanzer

I once knew this guy who fell in love with this beautiful woman from Texas. He knew he wanted to marry her the moment he met her and was very nervous when he had to meet her dad for the first time. Afterwards, I asked him how it went and he said that her father was a man of few words and that he said more in one sentence than the rest of us did in five minutes. I thought about this as I was reading the story “Ice” from Claudia Smith’s new short story/flash fiction collection Put Your Head in My Lap and came across the line “…you just like the word, it is all words to you, words, words, words.”

Claudia Smith packs more emotion, loss and empathy into a handful of words than most writers do in stories than run on for pages and Put Your Head in My Lap is a terrific collection of stories in a year that has already seen a number of terrific collections. I recently asked Claudia if she would discuss Put Your Head in My Lap with me and in not so many words she said yes.

I wanted to ask you, “why your lap,” but then realized we’ve never actually met and that could be offensive. Is it, and either way “why your lap?”

Oh, I'm not offended at all. I just wish I had a clever, funny, enticing answer. I'm better in person with those. Kevin Sampsell liked the part in the story "Valentine" where the man falls asleep with his head in the narrator's lap. That story is in second person. And we thought "Put Your Head in My Lap" might be a warm, enticing, and vulnerable title. The chapbook is what it is now, in large part, because of Kevin. We worked together very well; he spent as much time pouring over those stories as I did. I can't imagine it with a different title.

So, I was especially taken with your use of the word “vulnerable” in your last response. People always like to use that word in relation to children, and I was struck with how your stories are really focused on children, as either the protagonists or as characters the protagonists are caring for. I found it both refreshing and painful. And I was wondering why you think they seem to loom so large in your work?

I've been asked variations of this question, and I have given different answers. I think it comes down to this; almost six years ago, I got pregnant, and then had a child. The stories I wrote for The Sky Is A Well and Other Shorts and Put Your Head In My Lap were almost all written after this happened. Having my son around brought back my own childhood, and made me consider it differently. So even though it is fiction, I think it comes down to personal experience and how it influenced what I felt like writing. Also, I write about what haunts me. Loss of innocence, memory, how the past informs the present; those are all things I've been preoccupied with for awhile.

You write short stories and flash fiction, forms that can receive a certain amount of negativity from both publishers and readers. I’ve never understood this, and I am wondering why you think this might be?

I don't understand it either. I've heard it is for readers with short attention spans. What? Does that mean short stories are for people with shorter attention spans than novels? It's a form, like any other. I guess it has come to have certain conventions, but if you think about it, it has been around for awhile. Just read some Chekhov. And what does that make poems? I know the online world takes to them, and there are a few mediocre as well as pretty bad short shorts floating around in online publications. Probably a few of my own, especially ones written years ago, fall into that category. But that is true of any form. It seems to me a curmudgeonly thing to say. It is like saying you shouldn't put the word "ipod" in a poem. It reminds me of how some say online publications are inferior. I think online journals, just like print ones, can vary in quality. Some are sloppy and not very thoughtful, and some are beautiful.

I feel better, sort of. I now want to ask you something else that’s on my mind, but I want to do so as un-misogynistically as possible. And no, I don’t think that’s a word. I have your book sitting here, and across the room is One of These Things Is Not Like The Others by Stephanie Johnson and Big World by Mary Miller, and all three collections have come out at more or less the same time, and all are receiving a lot of well-deserved acclaim, and I’m just wondering what’s going on. What’s going on?

I haven't read One of These Things Is Not Like The Others, but I have read Big World a couple of times, and Mary Miller stuns me. It's a beautiful book. Her stories get stuck in my head. I'm glad it's gotten attention. I don't know what is going on...you mean in the literary world? I can barely keep up with myself. I'll be honest, I have a stack of books I haven't gotten to because I have papers to grade and write, and laundry to do, and I'm still behind. I haven't even read Kevin Sampsell's A Common Pornography yet and it is on my shelf. I am not the person to tell you what is going on. I'm the last person to tell you what is going on and how it goes on. I think patterns are easy to pick out after the fact. They say famous people die in threes. Maybe that means my new chapbook will get some attention. That would be nice.

Since this is an Orange Alert interview I now need you to say something about coffee
and/or music, ideally both. Anything. Feel free to riff.

Another Claudia once said, "Coffee is a fleeting moment and a fragrance." (Claudia Roden)

I drink a lot of coffee. If we get to live other lives, and we get to choose those lives, I might be a singer and a songwriter in the next one. I don't know how to read notes, but I love to sing. Maybe I could be a man missing a finger, who plays the guitar with lots of skill and soul. Or a woman with a sweet, gravely voice.

Wow. I think we may be done after that, but is there anything you want to add?

I don't think so. Do you think I said enough?

Yes, for sure.

Of course, if I’m being honest, I don’t think Claudia Smith will ever have ever said enough. I would add that I have no idea what ever happened to the guy and the beautiful woman from Texas either. I just thought you might want to know that.