Joshua Chaplinsky Interview
[GS-INT-012]
I understand you do creative work as your profession. Could you tell me what that is, and how you find the juices to crank out some of the weirdest stories I've ever read?
I do work in a creative field—that field being film and television production—but in a totally uncreative capacity. I'm an Assisant Production Coordinator. Basically a glorified office manager. And while the long hours and demanding personalities don't necesarily sap me creatively, they are a drain on me mentally and physically. Film is a freelance industry, and I jump from project to project, so I tend to get most of my writing done between gigs, in frantic bursts where I treat it as my day job.Â
How do you think the compression between gigs adds to your decision on what to work on next? And have you come to prefer your books being written in this manner?
I suppose I'd prefer to not have a job and write whenever I want, but what can you do? When I'm working on a longer project, like a book, I do like to devote large swathes of uninterrupted time to writing, especially when dealing with a more intricate narrative. If my writing sessions are too spread out I tend to lose some of the threads. Both my novels have involved complicated timelines and atypical formatting, so I haven't made it easy on myself.Â
Two-parter:
Do you think you would like what you'd make if you could just write whenever?
What happens to the stories where the threads are lost? Do you lose the motivation to continue them?
Sure. I don't think it would be much different. Unless I got to a point where the ratio of time to ideas tipped in the wrong direction. Because right now I've got a backlog of story ideas waiting to be written.Â
I tend to do that thing where I have to read a story from the very beginning every time I sit down to work on it. That's fine for short stuff. For novels, not so much. But I guess that's what chapters are for. I don't think I've ever fully abandoned a story in progress. No child left behind!
Do you have other art forms you practice outside of writing?
I played guitar in a bunch of bands when I was younger. Mostly punk/hardcore adjacent stuff. There was Irony of Lightoot, which was a noisy, screamy hardcore band. Then I was in a band called Last Days of August, which was an attempt at the midwest emo thing, although our main influences were Bad Religion and Guns n' Roses. After that I was in a band called SpeedSpeedSpeed, which was another noisy punk kind of thing. Equal parts Fugazi, Clutch, and again, for some reason, Guns n' Roses. We loved us some Appetite for Destruction, ha ha.Â
I've been thinking of a way to word this, but what I find that I like the most about your work is it is clearly written by a person who is equal parts silly and serious. Your collection Whispers In The Ear Of A Dreaming Ape is one of my all-time favorite short story collections. You are able to take the piss, and somehow, like a magic trick, turn a story on its head to highlight things that are deeply profound. Is this intentional?
I definitely have two sides: a dark side and a silly side, and I think that's reflected in my writing. Most of the time I start a story with the most serious of intentions, yet somehow my sense of humor manages to find a way in. Thankfully people seem to appreciate it. In the case of something like Letters to the Purple Satin Killer, it probably works in my favor. Without the humor, as dark as it is, that book would be too unrelenting for a wider audience. I mean, I'd read that book, and have read plenty like it, but I'm probably in the minority. It just isn't the book it was meant to be.Â
Can you expand on what you mean by it isn't the book it was meant to be?
This is more of a clarification, really. I should have said THAT wasn't the book it was meant to be, meaning a relentlessly dark, humorless book, like the one I may have envisioned at the beginning.Â
Do you think it's important to allow your work to come out differently than you envisioned? Do you get anything out of that process?
As artists, I don't think anything ever comes out exactly as we envisioned it. Filmmakers talk about "happy accidents" due to time and budget constraints that ultimately improve the finished product and I think this is akin to that. You have to do what's best for the story. Most of the time that's something you discover along the way. In the case of LTTPSK, it wasn't something I was conscious of as I was writing it, but then people kept telling me how funny they found the book, and that's when I realized how important the humor was to the story. Good job, subconscious! Â
I think that's a good place to end it. You feel good?
Joshua Chaplinsky is the author of ‘Letters to the Purple Satin Killer’, ‘The Paradox Twins’, ‘Whispers in the Ear of A Dreaming Ape’, and ‘Kanye West—Reanimator.’  His short fiction has been published by Vice, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Thuglit, Severed Press, PMMP, Expat Press, and Broken River Books. He was the Managing Editor of LitReactor.com (2011-2023). Follow him on Instagram, Twitter, & TikTok at @jaceycockrobin. More info at joshuachaplinsky.com.