Jeff Jackson Interview #2
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I understand you enjoy experimental work. Now, I have an engineering background, so for me, there’s a process or procedure, and I execute based on those conditions and analyze the result. And even if it sucks, that’s still cool because it’s not anything I’ve seen. But I feel that if something is surreal or psychedelic it automatically gets lumped in as experimental. What would you consider “experimental” in terms of fiction? Is it process or content?
The term “experimental” seems to have lost any coherent meaning for most forms of art, basically becoming shorthand for “weird shit.” For me, it’s neither process or content that marks fiction as experimental—it’s form.
In most cases, you can’t know a writer’s process. The only thing the reader can judge is what’s on the page. There are plenty of writers who’ve employed unusual processes to arrive at fairly traditional work. And many so-called experimental writers despise that term because they’re not sharing their experiments with the reader–they’re sharing their hard-won and carefully refined successes.
As for content—to me, it’s how a writer handles content which marks their work as experimental. Are they using unusual structures and styles that force a reader to rethink their ideas about what fiction can do, what it can be, what emotions it can convey, what pleasures it can offer? I like how new forms invite readers to explore story in unexpected ways—opening up a true collaborative experiment between the writer, the reader, and the work itself.
Of course novelty for novelty’s sake is a dead end. Work can be genuinely experimental and still be terrible. And at the highest level, form and content are the same thing. But that’s another conversation.
With abstract art, the whole point (and this is a generalization) is to remove as many frames of reference, so the viewer is forced to decide within themselves what they see/feel. It reminds me of that famous quote by Wolfgang Paalen, "It has become the role of the painting to look at the spectator and ask him: what do you represent?" Sometimes I like leaving in the unintentional Freudian slips, ridiculous double negatives, or creating a word I feel is a phonetic representation of a feeling, because although on a technical/logical level it might not seem correct, my train of thought still led me there in that moment. And I trust that. And I find it interesting. And so it works...for me...
But for a reader, it could be different. And I think that's a unique problem writers get to wrestle with because our artistic medium is language. I feel like there's a lot of confidence a writer needs to have to show work that might force the reader to rethink how they read, or what they're even reading. And knowing this, the writer may ask themself, "Am I the only one that sees what this is doing?", "Is it only doing it to me?" I know from experience it's talked me out of ideas (some I'm grateful it did). I think experimental artists have to build that level of trust in themselves in order to show that kind of work. But how do you know the difference between something worth showing, and something that's not?
For any fiction – experimental or traditional – time is the most important factor in figuring out whether it works. Once a draft sits for a while, you can see it with colder eyes. Does that unintentional mistake still resonate? Does that jump in time or sudden perspective shift still seem exciting?
That’s where other readers come in handy, too. As much as any specific comments or suggestions, I find talking to readers useful because I start to see my work from the outside, which lets me better gauge how unusual material might be landing.
If you’re interested in using so-called mistakes as part of your work, it’s probably wise to make that a conscious and continuing part of your process. John Ashbery did that with his poetry – intentionally introducing “wrong” words to see whether they added surprise or unexpected moves to his poems. Doing this more systemically, you’ll figure out quickly what’s generative and what’s a dead-end.
But no fictional experiment can be replicated in every reader. Everything’s subjective. Dennis Cooper talks about “attending to the reader’s pleasure” and I think that’s a principle worth serious consideration. Beyond making yourself happy, what pleasures are you delivering to an attentive and interested reader? Are you giving them reasons to keep reading?
I don't know many painters who ask for second opinions on their work. Why can't the writer trust themself? Is it something medium-specific?
I don’t know many painters, so I can’t comment on that. I do know plenty of photographers, filmmakers, musicians, and installation artists whose process involves asking their colleagues for comments at different stages. Does getting feedback mean you don’t trust yourself? I’d argue it’s the opposite: you trust your work and your process enough to open it to outside influences. You trust your work isn’t so fragile that outside eyes will tarnish it and understand someone else’s opinion might be generative and help you to improve.
There’s this romantic capitalist notion that the artist creates alone and in a total vacuum. No doubt that’s true for some artists, including writers. Everyone has their own process. But for most people, I think creation has a more communal aspect than we tend to acknowledge these days. This wasn’t always the case. Look back at the painting workshops in Renaissance times where many hands generated a single canvas, where “masterpiece” merely indicated that the piece bore the mark of the master’s hand in some meaningful way.
The relationship between a writer and editor is a beautiful one when it's mutually beneficial. I have noticed a lot of places that have published my work, less than 25% of them offer an edit, or edit at all. It's more curating it seems. Which may be good or bad depending on how you look at it for young writers. Especially if you're not worried about the capitalist approach, and just want to see your work out there--there are publications for that everywhere, and that's exciting! But I think a fruitful step is missed in this. In Portland, before Less won the Pulitzer, I saw Andrew Sean Greer talk about how the editor is the patient and the writer is the doctor. The patient points to where the pain is at, and says, "This hurts." And it's the doctor(writer)'s job to decide how to move forward. But some writers might have a larger group of readers than others. I know for myself, I feel isolated. I can think of at least 20 people I'd want to read my novel, but only 3 would probably, maybe, agree to. And only 2 would actually do it. And to give credit, just a few really, really good and intense edits after 2 people's feedback can create wonders. But, what would you say to writers who want to reach out and widen their net of trusted readers? How do you pick yours?
I don’t think there’s any trick to expanding your trusted readers beyond the usual advice: join writing groups, take classes, offer to read for others, reach out to peers and friends, apply to residencies, etc.
My trusted readers are mostly friends and fellow writers who’ve been helping me for years. It’s always in flux depending on who is free: post-pandemic it feels like people are more squeezed for time than ever. So it can be a challenge – both to get readers and to be available to read for others.
I worry the intensive writer-editor relationship is mostly a thing of the past. The new documentary Turn Every Page about the editorial relationship between Robert Gottlieb and Robert Caro plays like science fiction. Publishing simply doesn’t work that way now. The majority of large houses don’t allot time for their editors to substantially edit work. A lot has been lost because of this. See also the recent study Big Fiction: How Conglomeration Changed the Publishing Industry and American Literature.
If the writer-editor relationship could be a thing of the past, do you have any predictions of what could be in the near or far future for publishing?
The state of publishing seems more uncertain than ever, but it’s likely writers at all levels will need fully polished manuscripts to submit to publishers. The collaboration that used to happen with an editor after a book was acquired will have to happen beforehand – with peers and/or paid freelance editors. So more labor gets shunted onto the writer while the publisher does less than ever. Basically an escalation of what’s already happening now.
I had the honor of seeing one of your installations while it was still in progress where you used found materials. I recently read that Picasso used found materials in his work over 100 years ago. What is the draw of using objects with an inherent non-artistic function and what does it do for your self-expression?
I love the tension using found objects generates. Especially objects that you don't normally see in visual art: food items like brightly colored soda, milk, flour, fruits, and candy; plastic traffic cones; concrete blocks; pages ripped out of books; gauze and medical tape; etc. When the viewer questions whether what they’re seeing should be considered art, that’s always interesting to me.
There’s usually something strange and lovely about these found objects that we tend to look past as visual noise. Featuring them in an installation is a way of seeing them with fresh eyes. I try to find the simplest “Zen move” to create a new context for an object and make its qualities sing. For instance, I was fascinated by orange jelly candies. I nailed them to the wall so they stood out about two inches from the plaster. Then I created a precise rectangular grid of them so they became both totally alien and more easy to see as themselves.
As a writer, it’s also nice not be working with language. The physicality of moving objects around in space and reacting to them visually definitely stimulates a different part of my brain. Installation is my favorite form of collage because it’s on a three-dimensional scale.
On some levels, writing is also a type of collage. I love how Kathy Acker introduced other texts into her fictions to create new textures and types of narratives. She didn’t call this collage, but more provocatively labeled her practice plagiarism and theft. This feels like an unexplored path in literature. There’s a lot of latitude in terms of what’s considered fair use in visual art, but the legal rules are much stricter in writing and music. It’s a shame, though it also opens up an interesting outlaw territory for those brave enough to explore it. As the sampling band Negativland once proclaimed: “Copyright infringement is your best entertainment value.”
I think that's a perfect way to end it.
Jeff Jackson is a novelist, playwright, visual artist, and songwriter. He is the author of the novels "Mira Corpora" and "Destroy All Monsters," and the novella "Novi Sad." Six of his plays have been produced by the Obie Award-winning Collapsable Giraffe theater company. He writes and performs with the band Julian Calendar.