Creating Reassuring Writing Frameworks w. KRISTEN ARNETT

Kristen Arnett

Kristen Arnett is a queer fiction and essay writer. Her debut novel, Mostly Dead Things, is out now from Tin House. (Buy now from IndieBound.) Kristen won the 2017 Coil Book Award for her debut short fiction collection, Felt in the Jaw, and was awarded Ninth Letter’s 2015 Literary Award in Fiction. She’s a columnist for Literary Hub and her work has either appeared or is upcoming at North American Review, the Normal School, Gulf Coast, TriQuarterly, Guernica, Electric Literature, Volume 1 Brooklyn, Bennington Review, Tin House Flash Fridays/the Guardian, Salon, the Rumpus, and elsewhere.

Discussed In This Episode

The absurdist delight of Twitter. “Weird sexualized taxidermy, that’s just funny.” Writing the body. When the characters aren’t done with you. Kristen’s personal rules for writing short vs. long fiction. No re-reading! “Pushing on things” in the work to learn more. “There were things I didn’t realize I was trying to ask of the characters.” Needing to have a lot of projects on the go at once. Queer writing beyond the coming-out narrative. “I want things to be an interrogation.”

Bonus Segment: Writing a Florida Book

Kristen talks about writing prose that captured the tactile experience of her home state.

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