In this episode, Jeniffer and Chad Thompson sit down with the insightful author Dennis James Sweeney to discuss his book, How to Submit: Getting Your Writing Published with Literary Magazines and Small Presses. Dennis shares his journey through the often daunting process of getting published, emphasizing the importance of community and personal connections in the literary world. With practical advice and heartfelt anecdotes, he inspires writers to embrace their unique paths to publication. Don't miss this conversation filled with empathy, creativity, and actionable insights!
In this episode, we talk about Dennis's wife (also a writer) Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint—you can learn more about her work here.
In this episode, we talk about Dennis's wife (also a writer) Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint—you can learn more about her work here.
Creators & Guests
Host
Producer
Chad Thompson
Chad Thompson, co-founder of Monkey C Media, offers professional photography and videography services. He has an eye for detail and a command of lighting that gives him the ability to show his subjects at their very best. You can count on seeing Chad around South Park on his bicycle with a camera slung over his shoulder. If he has never taken a picture of you, chances are good you have never met him.
Guest
Dennis James Sweeney
Dennis James Sweeney is the author of How to Submit: Getting Your Writing Published with Literary Magazines and Small Presses, a guide for writers. His first book, In the Antarctic Circle, won the Autumn House Rising Writer Prize and was a Debut Poetry Book of 2021 in Poets & Writers. You’re the Woods Too, his second book, was a Small Press Distribution bestseller and a finalist for the Deborah Tall Lyric Essay Prize. Most recently, The Rolodex Happenings won the Stillhouse Press Novella Prize. His fiction, nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in Ecotone, Ninth Letter, The New York Times, The Southern Review, and Witness, among others. Formerly a Small Press Editor at Entropy and Assistant Editor at Denver Quarterly, he has an MFA from Oregon State University and a PhD from the University of Denver. Originally from Cincinnati, he lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, where he teaches at Amherst College.
What is The Premise?
Here on The Premise Jeniffer and Chad Thompson talk to storytellers of all types. From authors to musicians, poets, screenwriters, and comedians we get down to the tiny grain of sand that becomes a pearl—getting to the story behind the storyteller.
>> Jeniffer: Hey there. I'm Jennifer Thompson.
>> Chad Thompson: And I'm Chad Thompson.
>> Jeniffer: And this is the Premise where we get to the
story behind the Storyteller. This is our
sixth season, folks. Six seasons.
It's so exciting. Can you believe it? We've got a really
amazing season lined up for you, so
let's dive in.
Hello and welcome to the Premise. I'm
Jennifer Thompson. I'm Chad Thompson. And we are here today
with a pretty incredible author. I'm super
excited. Dennis James Sweeney is the
author of how to Submit Getting your writing published
with literary magazines and small presses,
which is a wonderful guide for writers. We're going to dive
into that today. I'm particularly excited about
today's conversation because of how much I enjoyed this book.
It was so inspirational and practical.
And as I was reading it, I kept thinking how every one of my clients
and all of my writer friends need this book. I want to buy, like, 50
copies and, like, mail them out to everyone I know. but
we'll get into it and why.
Dennis James Sweeney's books also include the
Rolodex, Happenings, you're the Woods Too,
and In the Antarctic Circle, as well as
several chap books of poetry and prose,
including Ghost Home A Beginner's Guide to Being
Haunted. His writing has appeared in
Ecotone, the New York Times, and the Southern Review,
among others. He has an MFA from Oregon State
University and a PhD from the University of Denver.
Originally from Cincinnati, he lives in Amherst,
Massachusetts, where he teaches and has a one
month, one week old new baby. Is that right?
>> Chad Thompson: That is true, yes. We're coming from that state of
mind, right nowes.
>> Jeniffer: Well, thanks for taking the time. And Dennis, thank you so much. Welcome
to the premise.
>> Chad Thompson: Thank you so much for having me. Thanks for your nice words about the book, too. That
means a lot.
>> Jeniffer: Oh, my gosh, I love this book so much. So I'm a
writer. Of course. I'm in the business.
I think most of us are wannabe writers, right? And I was
so inspired to, like, get back in and make
a plan. And there's so much generosity and
kindness in this book. And I knew nothing about
you before. So I read the book and then I did a little research and I'm like, o,
I get it. You're a man of empathy and
kindness.
>> Chad Thompson: I think I try to be. I was thinking recently
about how in college I joined this peer
counseling group that had kind of this
training that we go through to sort of be on call if
anybody has, like, a mental health crisis or needs to talk or anything. Like that
it's a completely random thing from a random part of my life. But
I realized recently, oh, ah. That was
that thing that I was doing. I was having empathy and trying
to connect with people on that basis. So I think,
yes, I think you're. I think you're totally seeing me.
>> Jeniffer: Oh my gosh, that's. That's awesome. Well, I
read so many nonfiction books that are like, here's the facts now
go do something with it. But this was like
being gently guided to really think
differently about the process of
submitting and getting published.
And that's what we really need because otherwise it's so
daunting.
>> Chad Thompson: I totally agree. Yeah, that's the idea. You know, I think
that so many times when we come to this process of trying to publish
our work, it can be incredibly stressful and incredibly
daunting. And it's sad because that's part of
a process, writing as a whole that should be joyful
and should be inspiring. And a lot of us come to it because it's the
satisfying work that kind of fills up our soul. But there's
almost this wall between that work of writing. And then suddenly it's time
to get published and you feel like, oh, no, I'm going to be
rejected and I'm going to have these negative experiences is. It's going to be hyper
logistical. And I get why people go to that place. I go to
that place too. And I have in the past, but I've
realized finally after, you know, decade or so of doing
this, that if I can bring that sense of inspiration
from the writing process into the publication process,
then it's all a lot more fun. And I'm, more successful with
it because I have more spirit in it.
>> Jeniffer: Nice. Yeah, yeah.
And you're connected to the process, which, you know, we'll talk
about the process, but I kind of want to go back to the very beginning of the
book. And you are an MFA student
in Oregon, and a young writer came to tell you how
it really is. Can you take us back to that moment?
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah. So this writer came and really generously. I
feel almost bad starting the book with this because the writer came and really
generously told us her exact story. She came and
sat at the front of the classroom. We'd all read her book. It was pretty
famous. She was doing incredibly well. It was kind of living the
dream that we were all dreaming ourselves. She sat up at the phone
in front of the classroom and said, this is how it works. Or at least this is how it
Works for me and for her. She went to her mfa. You
know, one of the stories that she wrote was picked out by one of her
professors to be sent to, I think, the New Yorker. Published in the
New Yorker. She got an agent immediately. Wow. Then the agent handled
everything after that. I mean, that's, far and above the dream
even for people who end up with agents and end up with, you know,
having big five publishing deals and stuff like that. But
we were all kind of odd and horrified because we'like
that could only happen to one person, you know, and.
>> Jeniffer: Right.
>> Chad Thompson: How, what kind of role do we have in this? Do we have
any control over our own fate if somebody doesn't do that
anointing for us? So I was sitting there and I was like,
oh no. Like this is the thing that has to happen and it
hasn't happened yet, maybe it never will. But at the same
time I was engaged in these communities of small press
literature and literary magazine publishing that
I hadn't realized it yet, but they were actually
formulating the community that ended up being the place where I published
my work and where I found so much fulfillment and so much
positivity and I had a hand in my own publishing
fate. Like, it felt like more of a conversation than sort of
being anointed and selected from above. And that
conversational, more community aspect, I realized that's incredibly
fulfilling. And that's the thing that is giving back to me a lot.
And I think a lot of us walk that path too. So I wanted to trace it. I wanted to
give some credit to that path that so many of us follow. instead
of pretending like that singular dream is the thing that
happens for everybody. Because I think what I'm writing about is
the thing that happens for more people. And, it's something we can find a lot of joy
in.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah, yeah. Because if we think to ourselves,
well, that's never going to happen for me, we just give up.
>> Chad Thompson: Exactly. Yeah. You don't want to have that feeling of it being
out of your hands too. I think that's the other thing. If you feel
like it has to happen from somebody else giving it to you,
then it feels like it's out of your control, you know. And I think some of the fun of
writing is also when we have this sense of being able
to do it ourselves. Right. Being able to self determine
a little bit. I think publishing is like that too, because you build
yourself into the conversation and you don't know when that book'going to get picked up.
You don't know when somebody's going to invest in your work, but
you do know that you're there and you're present for it, right?
>> Jeniffer: 100%. Yeah.
>> Chad Thompson: That's the thing that has to happen before it all kind of
clicks.
>> Jeniffer: So one of the things that I think is so great about this book, you know, aside
from just the generosity and, like, it's a fun book to read
and a quick book to read, too. Right. Is you
literally set it up and you take us through your journey. You know
why? To submit, where to submit, getting set up.
I'm actually reading the table of contents, listeners.
>> Chad Thompson: Amazing.
>> Jeniffer: Y your strategy, the COVID letter, behind the
scenes. There's case studies that are all a little different
and, you know, their journeys. And you point out, like, your
journey needs to be your journey. You're not going to take this template and be
like, okay, I'm going to do it. Exactly. You're going to do it the way you need
to do for you. And you talk about intuition
and your own personal goals. And you asked this one question. In
fact, one of the things I love. Oh, my gosh, I'm going to talk too much during
this interview is how many times you have,
like, a writing prompt or like a little
journaling moment for the reader to get
us to put ourselves into the story, which I thought
was kind of brilliant. But why do
you want to publish? What are, you know, talk about why that's so
important.
>> Chad Thompson: Oh, my gosh. Me personally?
>> Jeniffer: Well, no, like,
>> Chad Thompson: Oh, for all of us.
>> Jeniffer: Yes, yes, yes. Y oay. I was like, too.
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. My secret reasons that I will never
div. Boge. No, I think it's.
>> Jeniffer: It's about the money. Just kidding.
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah, it's all about the money. It's important because those are so vulnerable
to us. Right. I teach these classes sometimes on, how to
submit. And that's actually what the book bloomed out of. Like having this
discussion among small groups of about 15 people. And
it'd be an informational class at first, but eventually I evolved
it into a discussion class because I realized it was actually something people
needed to talk about, not something people needed to hear
me talk about for three hours. And those discussions were
so beautiful because they brought out that vulnerable side
of it. Right. It's all that stuff that's inspiring us
to submit. So some people are saying, I want to submit
or, publish my writing because I need validation
for, you know, to my story being important and being
important to other people. Some people are saying this is a story that hasn't been
told enough. And I really want to get it out there in the world. Some
people are like, this is an important mind. ###estone for me, I love writing,
and I want to have a time when I know that it's done. And
so everybody has kind of a different approach to it. But I
find that the reasons that people are trying to
publish their writing and trying to share it with people often do
bloom out of that writing process itself in that moment when
you're really invested in having a good
experience and doing something for your soul. Right.
And for me, those writing prompts in the book, I'm really glad
you keyed in on that, because I wanted there to be some writing in
a book about publishing. I wanted be able to keep circling back
to the page and keep asking themselves those deep
questions that we can often lose track of. Right. I give
some of these lists in the book, too, that rank
publication venues in terms of prestige. For example,
these, kind of p. Pushcart prize rankings, for
example, for literary magazines. And those are a really good
place to start for people who are looking up where to submit.
But it's so easy to get drawn into that narrative of I have
to go to the best possible venue and I have to submit to
the place that's going to look best to other people. Whereas
what really matters is what looks best to you and what gives you a good
experience as a writer and as a person.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah, I love how you tear.
You know, this whole process of submitting, you, you
created a strategy that makes so much sense, and part of it
is tiered. And I'd like you to kind
of walk people through what that means, you know, in terms of,
like, the big five are like the most prestigious
literary journals. If we're talking short stories,
you. And then how many you submit, how
long you wait, what it means to get it. There's so many things to dive
into, but, like, talk about why the tiered system is so
important.
>> Chad Thompson: For me, it's all about compartmentalization. The
process of submitting your writing, sending out
your work can feel so scattered because of the way the
Internet works. If you just Google how to submit, you get a
million articles, you get all this information, a bunch of different venues,
and you can feel like you don't know where to begin. Or maybe you start sending out your
work, but you do one place here, one place there, you freak out
for a couple weeks, another place, another place. Right. Freaking out
is a big part of that process. But if you can compartmentalize the
process and make it into something that's a little more, distinct, where you know when
you're doing what you're doing and why you're doing it. That can really help your
mental state a lot and help you have more success with achieving the
goals of publication too, I think. So.
Tiers are basically when you select a group
of venues that are roughly the
same preference for you in terms of your desire to get published in
them. You select maybe five venues and submit to them all at
the same time. And you know if one venue accepts
the piece that you've just submitted, that you won't
feel bad about withdrawing it from the other venues you've
submitted to.
>> Jeniffer: Right, right.
>> Chad Thompson: You don't want to have that situation where you've submitted to a highly
prestigious journal or somewhere you really love and then a place you love
less accepts it and then you feel weird about withdrawing it from the place
you really love. Right. So that's why you select tiers
of about five to eight venues usually, and
submit to those tiers as a unit. And then after you do that,
you can kind of let go of the process. You can just let the
responses come back. And after you receive know,
three, four or five responses from that tier, you can move to your
next year and submit another group
based on your preference of how much you want to be published in those
particular places. So it's just a way of compartmentalizing your
effort and making it so that you have
a little more feeling of being in touch
with the specific places and specific reasons
that you want to submit.
>> Jeniffer: Well, and one of the things you talk about is timing. You know, it
takes for those more prestigious
journals, it takes a long time to hear
back. So it's like, how long do you want to wait?
Right.
>> Chad Thompson: And it can take years. Oh my gosh.
And you don't want to wait forever. Exactly.
Sorry to interrupt you.
>> Jeniffer: No, totally. Please do, anytime. I mean, that's the
whole thing, right. Is in the beginning, like you
just want to get one acceptance. And you talk about
your first acceptance with such joy. I loved it so
much. Can you tell our listeners about that moment that
you got your first acceptance?
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah, I think the one I key in on is my first
chat book acceptance, which was the first singular
unit of my writing that was going to be published with my name on it,
said Dennis James Sweeney on the front. It was a chap book called what they Took
Away that was highly influenced by these linked
flash fictions I was reading in a lot of small press
venues at the time. And I sent it out to several chatbook
contests. You know, I'd written it, revised the hell out of it. I
felt good about it. I felt like it might work, but I didn't
know. And so just like everything, I kind of expected to be
rejected for a long time, and then maybe it would get picked up
somewhere. And one of the first few contests
I sent it to, I got this email saying, congratulations, you won
the chatbook contest. We're going to publish your chat book.
>> Jeniffer: Nice.
>> Chad Thompson: And I definitely did not believe it. And I
sent an email back to the editor saying, no, it's not
true. I don't believe you. Can you
please confirm that this is accurate? I was pretty sure it was a glitch and
subitable or something like that. And they did
ultimately write back, and they confirmed that it was reality that
I was living. And, yeah, it was just such an amazing
experience, you know, to realize that somebody cares about your work
and they think it's amazing. And I ultimately got to do a reading with them,
awp. And I was still kind of new to the
literary world in that sense, the sort of awp,
like, literary magazine literary world at the time. And so I
went and I did this reading to, a room full of people.
And I felt like I was, like, coming out into the
world after being in this dark cave. For a long
time, I've been writing on my own. And then suddenly I was in front of a group of
people. I was like, do they like it? Am I really here? Is this
happening? So it was this kind of moment of magic
and acceptance, you know, in more ways than one.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah. That's so cool. I love that story.
You brought up so many things I want to talk about, but I
think the first thing is, you know, we have to remember that
there is someone who received that email from you. And I can't even
imagine how tickled they were to get this email from
someone who is one. And they're like, wait, did I really
win? Like, there's. There's a person on the other
end making these decisions and readting your work, and we forget
that.
>> Chad Thompson: Absolutely. And it's weird because later on, when I was doing
my Ph.D. this is maybe five or six years down the
line, I became one of those people, right, who was
judging, not the contests, but who was reading submissions for
Denver Quarterly when I was an assistant editor there. And
suddenly I realized, oh, the people who are reading these
submissions are not these gatekeepers that are standing
on top of a mountain passing down judgment on everybody
below. Right. It's actually a lot of times it's
students, it's people without a lot of literary
capital, as you might frame it. It's people who
aren't acting as gatekeepers or really thinking of
themselves as gatekeepers. It's just other people who really love
the written word and, are also writers themselves
and who really want to help kind of keep the literary world
running. So I realized when
I ended up in that position that it's actually more of a
lateral relationship, like a non hierarchical relationship
than I thought at first. I was talking to more
peers when I was writing that email bag than I was talking to somebody
who was at the top of that mountain. Right. But it took me a
while to realize that because it's really hard. It feels
really hard to break into these communities or at least
to break into the act of getting published. Right.
Suddenly when you do, you realize, oh, we're all in this together and
we're all kind of doing it together and contributing alongside
each other.
>> Jeniffer: And you talk so much about community too, and how important it is to
find your community. And that's when you start developing
relationships that open
doors and show you places maybe you didn't
know existed. One of the things you talk about is how you wrote
to. I'm forgetting her name now, but you
offered to be a reader for.
>> Chad Thompson: Oh, Janice Lee. When I was writing do reviews. HTML
Giant.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah, yeah, yeah, say it again. I interrupted you.
>> Chad Thompson: I was reading a lot of small press literature at the time and I
stumbled across this website called HTML Giant, which pret.
Big and like the alt lit scene at the time, the Internet literature
sign, scene. And I realized
that that was a place where I wanted to contribute to and be part of the
conversation. So I wrote to Janice Lee, who was the reviews editor
there, and I said, could I please review some books? I just
want to be part of the conversation. I know people need books reviewed so maybe
I can do this. I had no experience whatsoever doing it. but I
reached out and she sent me books. You know, she
engaged in this real act of trust in sending me books to review and
then publishing the reviews. And I did about a million of
those over the course of a couple years. And I think she
realized that I was a person with a lot of time in my hands and a lot
of excited energy about the literary world.
And so when she started a new website called Entropy, she asked if
I wanted to come on board, be an editor for the site eventually.
and that's actually what got me into this work around submitting, I
ended up helping to assemble this list called the where to
submit list, which was a seasonal list of all the places that
were open for submissions. And it was this kind of
snowball effect right, where I got involved and I started contributing
my energy. And then all of a sudden, to my surprise, I
had presses and literary magazines emailing me saying,
hey, can you put us on the list? We want to share our submission calls with other
people. And then I had writers being like, thank you. And even
years later, there are people who remember that resource and say, oh,
that was such a service that you compiled that. So it
was kind of this beautiful moment where just reaching out
and offering one thing and asking to be a part of the
conversation bloomed into a much bigger thing.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah, yeah. And that's
the piece that was so beautiful for me is like,
go out, find your people. And in most local
communities, I mean, here in San Diego, I'm the co founder of the San Diego Writers
Festival, because we wanted to build community. That's why we
founded that festival. And we get so many
volunteers and so many people that, like, meet each
other and open doors, opens doors, and it's such a beautiful
thing.
>> Chad Thompson: It really is amazing to get together, especially in person,
with folks. I was living through the Internet for so long, partially
because I was living abroad or I didn't live in
geographical locations where there was a lot of stuff going
on. But when I finally came together in those
physical communities, I was like, oh, this is the most amazing
thing I've ever experienced. And I. I did the same thing I did in that
email response to Cutbank, which was be a huge fan
and be extremely excited to the point where probably people thought
I was, like, maybe a little overexcited or maybe they thought
it was cool. I'm not really sure how they were perceiving me, but
I was bringing a lot of fanboy energy to the table. So I'd go up
to the tables where these small presses were
sort of sharing their wares, and I would say, oh, my gosh,
this press. I love essay press. I love to see what you all are
doing. Like tarpaulin, Skyp press. Oh, my gosh. You affected
my aesthetic as a writer so much. That's.
>> Jeniffer: It's so cool, though. They must have been so happy.
>> Chad Thompson: I think they were. Yeah. And that's the amazing thing about
the community for me, is that it's happening kind of quietly.
Right. Especially because we're doing literature. It can be this sort of
quiet thing, but simply by virtue of just Reading
books and sharing the same
conversations around pieces of literature that we're reading.
Sometimes there's maybe a hundred people who read a specific book or
there's, you know, a few people who read a specific issue of a literary
magazine and keyed in on one piece in that literary magazine.
And sometimes the smallness of that is
really beautiful because you become really tight by virtue of
having that shared reference point. So that's something that really
helped me a lot to come to the specific conversation around literary
magazines and small presses too.
>> Jeniffer: You recommend that, you know, find
the magazines or the online
journals that you love the stories and
then follow the stories. You know, the
authors whose stories you like the most, where else are they
writing? And then, you know, subscribe to those
and, you know, volunteer if you can get involved. And
this is such amazing advice. In fact,
Chad and I work with authors, so we help people get
published and we help build author platform. And
this book is really kind of a masterclass in how to
build an author platform. You know,
establishing goals and building community and why are you doing
what you're doing? And then, you know, make relationships and
it's so good.
One of the things I loved was you talking
about social media and
you know, it can become a vacuum and take away,
take away your joy, really. But talk about how you've
used social media and managed to keep it from like,
overwhelming what you really want to be working on.
>> Chad Thompson: U, I don't know. I think I have to ask you all about that
too. Right. It's a perpetual struggle. It's so impossible because these,
these algorithms that are made to
exploit your attention.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Chad Thompson: And then even people's content that you ultimately want to see
feeds into those algorithms by virtue of how
it's organized and stuff like that. So to some extent
there's no way to get out of that. And you just have to limit your time
and yeah, be really strategic about how you engage with it.
But I think the leading ethic for me
really has to do with not seeing those
relationships as exploitative. Right. Like, even if
there's sort of money changing hands behind it and you
know, meta trying to make money off of us on Instagram or whatever it may
be to let your own ethic not
be about making a quid pro quo or
not making kind of a deal, not having it be a business decision,
but rather it being like a personal decision, a personal
relationship. That's kind of how I try to end conduct it.
When I hear words like platforms sometimes I'm like, ah. Because
that's the thing that people ask for in query letters and things
like that. And it. It makes people want to sell your
book. Right. They can sell copies. They can sort of move copies
of a book. Or networking is a word that
always felt, like, not super great to me. Yeah.
And I know y'all are doing it in super exciting, super interesting
ways. And this probably the same ethic I'm talking about
here. But sometimes I feel like that language
can become a little bit more like
money changing hands, or I'm getting something from you and
you're giving something to me. and I like to think about it really
on a human level. Like, I just want to connect with people.
I want to have a relationship. And the work
isn't. That's not a means to sharing
the work. It's actually sharing the work as a means
to getting to the connection with other people. So I try
to have the connection be the end rather
than selling the work be the end. And I think if you're on
social media, that's a thing that you can do that can make
you feel a little bit better about it. Like, hey, we're navigating
this weird quasi wasteland of
digital technology. And we can do it in a way where we
have a shared ethic and we have a, shared
investment and having relationships with each other instead of just
having everything be commoditized. But I'm super guilty
of it, too. You know, I'm always trying to hype my book and
share the message with people, and I want to do
that because I think the message is important and I want
to sort of celebrate myself. It's, like, important for
me. And I hope it's important to celebrate this conversation
for other people, too, because it honors so many of the communities
that have been influential to me in the past, and
it veers into hype so easily. And so, yeah, we
just got to be vigilant at those edges and always come
back to the place kind of where our hearts connect rather than, whatever
it is our pocketbooks or whatever is meant to be changing
hands according to the corporate overlords.
>> Jeniffer: The corporate overlords. And you're right. You're absolutely right. And I
couldn't agree more. People think of it as, you
know, a commodity when really, if you think of it as
a genuine relationship and sharing with people who
care about the same things you do. And, you know, my
branding work with authors isn't about, you know, how can
we get you, you know, how can we hype
you the most? It's more like where do we want you to
be, where you're going to find joy, what's really sustainable,
you know, and we talk about, budget. Like, budget isn't just money or
time. It's your emotional bandwidth. You know, you
don't have to do everything, but you need to choose something
that really provides. Joy is
sustainable. You know, that
you enjoy the process and you're meeting people and building
those relationships. And I think that's what platform is now.
You know, platform used to be you have 10,000 followers on Facebook.
Well, no one cares. And those people aren't buying your books
anyway. Right. Like it'keeping your visibility alive.
Yes. And it's important. But. But
really what's important is those relationships in
that community. And that's why I think your book is such
a masterclass on author platform. Because it's really not
a commodity. It's a relationship. It's a
process of understanding why you do things
and who is the person who's looking for that thing that you're
doing.
>> Chad Thompson: Wow. I love how you framed that and how you described your own
work within it. Because platform becomes community. Right.
It becomes like an end in itself, which is the thing
we're kind of all seeking. And I didn't think about it as kind of
like a deep connective work when you're helping people
work on that, but I love hearing how you frame it that
way.
>> Jeniffer: Well, thank you. I appreciate that.
so I want to go back to the writing.
One of the things you dig into is the
revision process. And, you know, when is it done
and when do you decide I need to shelve it
or do more work on. So kind of like, take us
through how the submission process can help. You
know, where you're at with the piece.
>> Chad Thompson: Absolutely. And maybe we can describe it as the rejection
process.
>> Jeniffer: There you go. There you.
>> Chad Thompson: Rejection process at the stage of the game. Right. you start sending
stuff out. I have a long history with kind of
navigating different relationships to rejection. Right.
And many of us start really taking those rejections
personally. And then they get a little less personal over time because
you realize you just get so many of them. It's not really a personal
judgment on your work. And more recently, I've evolved
into having a more dynamic relationship with
rejection that helps me figure out how much I care
about a piece. That's how I like to frame it to people is
if you can really pay attention to rejections and specifically pay
attention to your own responses to them, that can play
a huge role in how you respond to your own work. So
ideally, your work is extremely revised. When you send it out,
you've read over a million times. Right. But you can
always read over a million more times. So in my case, at least
I'll get rejections back and it'll help me realize,
okay, do I really care about this piece? Is this something I want to continue to
pursue in terms of revising it even more
and continuing to send it out and experience you, the
rejections associated with that and the difficulties of figuring that out
logistically? Or is it something that
I want to let go of? Right. And if it's something I
want to hold on to, that's really good information for me.
It really inspired me to stick with certain projects that have meant
a lot to me in the past. one example is I've
done a lot of writing about having ibd, Crohn's
disease, ulcerative colitis, which I feel is this
kind of undiscussed or under discussed
conversation, among chronic illness and disability
conversations, because it involves poop and it's
kind of gross and people don't know how to talk about it and
stuff like that. Right. and so I have this kind of personal
investment in making that a thing that people can talk about. And
so when I got rejections for that work, it was a moment
when I had to look at myself and say,
okay, do I care more about what this person
thinks about this work, or do I care more about what I think about this
work? And I realized I cared
more, cared about what I thought about that work.
So it allowed me to come back to it, keep
revising, keep looking at it, keep changing the framing of
things, and just keep doing that until the project
is successful. that's publishing with literary
magazines, like shorter pieces from that work, as well as sending out the
full book. Earlier on, I had written short
stories that I feel like were
fun and we're a little experimental and
me playing around with things, but after a certain number of
rejections, I got the information
that I felt like I needed to get, which was these
aren't that fun. And maybe they're not that fun for
me. Right. I don't need to continue dumping energy into them
because the particular narrative here doesn't mean that much to me.
So I think it can really help you figure out
what means the most to you as a writer.
>> Jeniffer: One of the things you talk about is journaling
your feelings about those rejections. So,
yes, this whole concept, you
know, I'm a big fan of spreadsheets and tracking data and figuring out where we
are and keep. We're not losing track or doing the same thing
over and over. And you talk about having
almost a journal for the
rejection process as a way to stay
connected, to know if the p. How important the piececes to you,
you know, where you are in your teier structure. Like it keeps you moving,
it keeps you doing something. And I loved
ablly, but. But it was more than data. It was like, how did
this make you feel?
>> Chad Thompson: Exactly. Yeah, because we can get into these Excel spreadsheets,
right? I don't even use an Excel spreadsheet. I totally think it's great
when people do. I think it's probably really organized, but I like to have a
giant messy Google document. This just kind of a bunch
of words and you know, I make the re the rejections red
and I make the acceptances green. And, and
then after I get a response from somebody that I don't like, you
know, I'll write a note that's, you know, it's far from journaling.
It's more like, what the heck is going on? I don't even know what they're
doing. Trying not to select this piece. You know, just whenever I need to
get out of my system or if I have an acceptance, you know, something I'm
really excited about, I'll kind of hype myself and give
myself a lot of positive self talk to keep myself going,
you know, and whatever I'm working on at that time. But I agree, it's a
really beautiful opportunity to reflect
on what you want to do and the reason that you're publishing.
Right. And to come back to that question of why that's
inspiring all of this work. Because again, it's so easy to just get
lost in the sauce and end up being like, okay, I got to submit
it to this place and I got to figure out what I'm going to do logistically with
this, that and the other thing. And if you can stay connected to that,
why and to the heart work of it,
you know, it'll make you a lot happier in the process and also
help you figure out what you need to do next.
>> Jeniffer: Exactly. So cool. I love it so
much.
Let's talk about positive rejections. What the hell
does that mean?
>> Chad Thompson: That was the other thing about rejections that I should have mentioned too.
Positive rejections are when somebody sends back a
note. Usually you get a rejection that just says, thanks so much
for sending this, but we can't publish it. Sorry, we don't have
time to Give you more feedback, but a positive rejection. This beautiful
thing is when somebody sends you a rejection
that says, no, we can't publish it, but we did really
enjoy it and, you know, we appreciate you sending it. We'd
love if you send more writing in the future, something like that. It usually
includes a positive comment on the work and invitation to send
more in the future. And these things come along every
once in a while. They're more common than acceptances. And there's
something to take really seriously as a writer. They give you a lot of information
about what's starting to stick with editors.
And it's a real investment from
editors on behalf of your work. Right. It's them saying,
we really believe in what you're doing here. This particular piece
didn't click, or maybe you didn't landy the ending or something like that.
But we really want to see more of your work, and we really like what you're doing. So
it's a really big encouragement to keep going. And if somebody sends
that to you, I think they're really serious about it. As an editor myself, when
I would send those letters, I was like, I really want to make sure
we see something from this author in the future. Because you're
seeing them at a moment in time when they're
still creating work and they're still making things, and, you know, the next
thing is going to be even more exciting and. And you get to sort of be a
part of that as an editor. So it's like the beginning of this
relationship. Right. The beginning of, like a sort of a small
community, relationship between you and an editor. When
somebody sends you something like that.
>> Jeniffer: You made it really feel so human,
I think, which is something that, you know, going
back to the beginning of this conversation, the process
of submitting your work and getting rejections does not
feel human. But when you think of that editor,
you know what they're doing and what their goals
are. We all have the same goals. It
becomes more of a community, a relationship. And
I think the journaling piece of it in the tiered
system, it like, brings it all together.
And that is so uplifting
in this way that I didn't expect,
like, oh, my gosh, I'm so excited. I want to start the process now. I
don't want to wait.
>> Chad Thompson: That makes me so happy to hear. I really appreciate that.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Chad Thompson: Because I think the language, even in these positive rejections can
really ab. Obscure that sense of human connection.
Because they're form letters a lot of times, even when they're
positive and they'll have this kind of language that
says we're sorry we can't provide more detailed
communication around this, you know, and you can tell it was sent to
multiple people. And it's so easy to lose track of the fact
there's that human element in it. But I think if we can keep
track of that and just remember that there is somebody on the other end
who's super excited about language. You're on the other
end, you're really excited about what you're creating and what you're
reading. Then you realize, okay, all that language that
is between us, that sort of more standard
language, these sort of form letters, these are
just a passageway through which our excitedness
moves.
>> Jeniffer: Let's talk about submission fees Ca because you
talked about subitable and the fees
and you know, a lot of these literary journals, they are
not making money know, and they have to pay for subitable.
So can you kind of talk through how the process
works? So we, you, those of us
submitting to understand why am I paying fees to do this?
>> Chad Thompson: Absolutely. So in the old days people were sending
in mail submissions with
anssayse, a self addressed stamp envelope in which they
would send you back your rejection if you got a rejection. And
you know, it cost maybe two or three bucks, whatever postage was
at the time to mail that submission in. So you were kind
of paying for the process that allowed you to share your
submission with, with the place that you sent it to.
Now there's this organization, SL
platform called Subitable that charges
really a good amount of money to
platforms like literary magazines, small
presses, lots of other places now that
charges a lot of money to these places and that cost
often gets passed along to writers. So writers will often
have to pay submission fees. A lot of small
presses also use submission fees as a way to drum up money
for their publications. So
they'll charge you $20, $30 to submit
to a contest. The upside is if you win, you get maybe
$1,000 or $2,000 and a book publishing
contract. But if you don't win, you just gave them that money,
maybe you get a free book out of it, maybe you don't. and it's
something that as a thing that small presses sometimes
do. And some small presses
say absolutely what not, we're never going to do it. I
just gave a short talk with an organization called
Authors Publish who refuses to list
venues that ask you for submission fees because they don't
think writers should have to pay to submit their writing.
And when I was doing these interviews with small
presses for Entropy back when I was also assembling the where to submit
list. I Talked to like 200 and something presses
over the years. And many people were also very
vehement about not wanting to charge submission fees because they didn't
believe that that cost should be passed on to the writer. They thought
if you're a publisher, you should pay for everything and
that's the way it should work. I'm not sure
how I feel about that. I'm curious to know how y all feel about it. But it's
important to know that it's out there. Right? And it's important to
know that the reach of your submissions can increase if you
are okay with paying submission fees. And it's
important to know that it can cost a ton of money because
getting an acceptance can take a lot of
submissions and a lot of submissions can add up to
a lot of expenditure on those submissions.
>> Jeniffer: You know, this brings us to the conversation of privilege,
which I was very impressed that you brought up. The
this exists in publishing, whether it's, you know, can you
afford submission fees? But talk a little bit more
about why you decided to include, you know, privilege
and how that affects publishing.
>> Chad Thompson: Absolutely. I always start with my own self
when I'm talking about privilege and publishing and writing.
I think one of the things I mentioned in the book is my own submitting
practice was definitely affected by
growing up as a white, relatively
wealthy kid, raised as a boy, you know,
in Ohio and Cincinnati where I grew up, and having a lot
of confidence, feeling like my stories
automatically mattered. Right. Like I was getting a lot of
validation from the world that I deserve to tell my story no matter
what. So when I started writing, I felt like
whatever I wrote was probably going to be awesome and
I could send it out. I wouldn't be wasting anybody's time.
And I think I overs submitted quite a lot.
And I think it can be common for people who have
some level of privilege, you know, different intersections of
identities to have that sense of overconfidence and maybe send
out a lot of work. The vita count was this
important count of literary magazines and who's
published in them that identified how many men are
published in comparison to women and non binary people.
And of course found that way more men were published
because there's just this massive, privilege differential
and differential and kind of discrimination.
>> Jeniffer: But meaning, like, but I was just going to interrupt you and say but it's
meaning that they submit more like they
submit m their work even if maybe it's not ready like women
wait and polish. And so it's a self confidence
thing which I guess comes from this
feeling.
>> Chad Thompson: Of privilege that's kind of how I'm tracking it
in my own life. I, I don't want to say how every single person,
where that's coming from for every single person. I think it's also the editors
are disproportionately going to be white, and
disproportionately go going toa be men. Right. And so they're selecting things
that they personally resonate with. It's this incredibly
systemic thing that travels through, the entire
publishing industry. So I'm kind of talking right now about how
I see it in relation to my own past submitting practice and
how I kind of had to learn about that and realize myself
and pull back and have like a lot more humility about what I
was doing. But yeah, it's really pervasive in the entire
publishing landscape. And I think there have been conversations
about especially the racism of
publishing and the inequalities with regard to race.
Like in Big five publishing, there's been attempts to deal
with that and then failures to deal with that.
And because it's such an ingrain system,
it continues. But that
extends into small presses as well. Right. It takes a lot of resources
and it takes a ton of time to run a small press
or literary magazine. And not everybody has the ability
to give that kind of labor. Right.
And not everybody's chosen by the institutions to do
that. So it's really important to acknowledge that that's
real and to acknowledge that there's incredibly vibrant
communities of writers of color, editors of color,
for example, or women writers, women editors, trans
and non binary editors and writers. They have all
these great organizations that are collecting around
those identities and creating a lot of great work. So even as we
identify these shortcomings of the system as a whole, I think it's
really important to note and remark on
the communities where it's really dynamic, how
people are engaging with that. Right. And how there's a lot of safe
spaces out there.
>> Jeniffer: I think a lot of it has to do with reach too.
Like'it's hard to
reach the communities and say, hey, we want to hear your voice, we want
your stories.
>> Chad Thompson: You know, and who the we is and who
the who's being reached out to is is
also complicated. Right. in
big fiction, this book that was published by
Dan Sicin recently about the
way that big five corporations,
publishers, became conglomerates over the course of the
Years. I think he talks a little bit about the
strangeness of, you know, largely white editors,
like curating a sort of quote
unquote, multicultural list of
writers for their press. And I think it's a really
good mission, but it's also, you have to think about who's
publishing what and who you want to be in
charge. Right. Does that get at the
question that you're asking, too?
>> Jeniffer: No, totally.
>> Chad Thompson: The we. Who's the they?
>> Jeniffer: Ye.
>> Chad Thompson: And, is it about bringing people into a conversation you're
already having? Especially, you know, in my case, if I'm coming from a place of
privilege? Or is it about identifying the fact that there's
already a conversation out there that's happening and I'm
not at the center of it? I don't need to be at the center of it, and I
can just listen, amplify that conversation
and choose that as, like, a conversation that I
engage with, as opposed to needing to center
myself within it or something like that.
>> Jeniffer: Well, you brought up authors published earlier, and,
you know, I'm a huge fan of that organization, and I tell
all of my clients to subscribe to their
newsletter because they do put out a weekly
newsletter telling you places that are, you know, accepting
submissions, contests, they're
free. And a lot of them do, in fact, you know,
specifically seek out those
bipoc, Latinx, you know, diaspora
voices. and I think that's so
important because it's. If you don't
know your story is
needed, you're less likely or
wanted, you're less likely to try and find a place
to submit to.
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah, that's absolutely right. I mean, I come at it from
my own perspective, you know, in the areas of privilege I
was talking about, but also as a disabled writer dealing with, you
know, the stress of, chronic illness and. And Crohn's disease
and things like that. And it's meant a lot to me when people
have specifically made spaces for
that.
>> Jeniffer: Right, yeah.
>> Chad Thompson: Organizations for disabled poets, for example.
there's groups of, you know, kind of loosely
organized writers who have chronic illness that
share reading lists and are coming together to have
related conversations and things like that. And it's really
meaningful to find those communities and realize that there's a space
where you don't have to be the only person bringing
that perspective to the table. Right. It's a perspective that's
being shared amongst a lot of people. And then you can start from way
further ahead. Instead of catching everybody up on your identity
or catching everybody up on your experience, you're all coming from
the same place, and then you can just go from there.
>> Jeniffer: This comes back to community, right? Finding your
community and feeling part of a community and
lending your voice to the conversation. And I think that's a
beautiful thing.
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah, I agree with you. I agree with you. If we can find it. You know,
it's increasingly a struggle in life these days,
but I do think, for me, that's what
I want to find. Not just as a writer, but as a person. You know, I want to
connect with people, and I want to connect on the basis of
shared experience. I also want to connect by sharing
experiences that other people don't have. And I
want to have these moments where, you know, we're just talking, which is kind
of what we're doing right now. I think that's what's so magic for me about this book.
We get to not only, you know, have this conversation
that's pointing back to the stuff we're talking about, but we get
to enact it. You know, we get to say, hey, this is happening right
now. We're having this conversation, and we're getting
at some deep kind of soul stuff. And it's
hard to give language to that. Right. Because it's ethereal. But I
also think it's really beautiful when we try to do it in a collective
space.
>> Jeniffer: I want to talk about you and your
writing. I went and listened to some of
your poetry and, you know, read some of your work. And
what I found, the through line
for me, is that you really
share your personal, you know, very
intimate experience of life.
And I found that really, true to
how to submit as well. You know, that comes across in
a nonfiction book as much as it does in your. Your poetry
and your short stories. But let's talk about
how, you know, your disease, Crohn's disease, has affected
your writing and how you see
yourself in the literary space.
>> Chad Thompson: Oh, my gosh. Yeah. That's a really deep and awesome
question. You know, I think it comes from all the repressing that
I did of it for a long time. Right. I'm from
Cincinnati, and, the modus operandi
that I was raised with, I don't know if it's my family or
the larger culture or even beyond the
Midwest or what. But it's just if you have feelings,
if you haven't experience, like, you probably don't want to share it
too much because it's going to stress everybody out, and, you know,
it's probably better off repressing your thing and just keep your head down. And
work hard. Right. And, you know, I can
see why that sort of ethic developed.
But it was also a thing that led me to not
be super vulnerable in my life and
led me to, you know, just try to pretend like
everything was cool most of the time. So everybody I knew my whole
life thought it was this incredibly chill person. I have long
hair, you know, I used to like to wear tie dye shirts a lot.
I guess I still do. people thought I was really relaxed, and I
was like, no, inside I'm losing it
because, you know, I'm just not showing you. And so I think
for me, the process of coming to writing and coming
to the specific stuff I'm communicating about in
the old days, it really wasn't that vulnerable. And I think that's why those
early short stories, for example, the experimental stuff I was talking
about, wasn't that vulnerable and didn't click that much with
people because it didn't have that vulnerability. Right. But as I've
gotten older, I've realized how. So almost
the fundamental thing about connection for me is
sharing parts of yourself that are a little bit of a risk
to share. Right? Like saying things that really mean
something to you. And it's hard to go to that vulnerable place. But
that's actually, in a way, like my definition of strength. Like,
how vulnerable can you be and
still be okay? Right. Like, still hold yourself
together. Still working on that theory. But, if
you can exercise that vulnerability, I think it opens you up to people. And
for me, it's almost like it's like the currency of
relationships, without making it a monetary metaphor.
It's like this thing that we all use to connect with each other.
And it's when I feel like I really meet
somebody where they are. We can both be vulnerable in a shared
way.
>> Jeniffer: When we're thinking about the written word, the
experience is so different for the person who's
writing it. And they put. I think we're trying to figure
out what's happening internally on the
page and for the reader, but
they're feeling, oh, my God, I'm not alone. That's why memoir
to me is so compelling. And I'm really curious, actually, if you're
going to write a memoir at some point, but. But like
the experience. And you talk about this in your book, how to submit as
well. You know, think about
what the reader is getting from it. You know, who is your
reader and why are you writing this for them?
And when we. When we start to think of that
experience, like, for the reader as well, as us, as the
writer, it takes on a whole new life of its own.
>> Chad Thompson: I think that's a beautiful way to think about it. I do
remember the first time I read David Foster
Wallace's Thing about writing makes us feel less alone. I don't
think he's the only person to say that. but he was the
first place where I encountered it becausee I wrote my undergrad thesis
on him.
>> Jeniffer: Oh my gosh. Impressive.
>> Chad Thompson: Stereotypical white man. You know, it was like
totally a classic narrative, becoming a writer. You know, I have long
hair now. It's almost like two on the nose.
glasses. I don't. I mean, I do, but I don't
wear them just to avoid, any and all comparisons.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah, you're a much happier person, I would think. But yeah, well, that's a
thing.
>> Chad Thompson: I totally agree. I mean, I don't know if I know
anything about, you know, his own interstate or anything, but like,
that aloneness, you know, I think it seems like it
was hard for him. And anyway, I don't need to talk about David Foster
Wallace, but I do think
that this question of connecting with the reader is so essential.
Right. And I think that's what we're trying
to do in our work. Right. I'm always trying to think about
that. And I think, particularly for me, it comes out in revision.
You know, I almost have to pretend people aren't there when I'm
writing because I can't even be that
vulnerable with myself. I have to just be
alone with something to be able to say something that's really hard to
say. But then in the process of coming back
to it, I can give a little bit of shape to it.
I can make it into something that I feel comfortable with sharing with people.
Maybe take out things that are too vulnerable. and I haven't figured out yet.
Right. So I have a little control over it. And that, that makes me
feel safe doing it. But yeah, the magic is really
just being like, I am going to share this with people. This is a story
that I want to tell and that I care about. And and I
think seeing those in person communities that we were talking about.
When the page or the online experience transforms to
actually sharing something in real life, those are the moments that have meant the most, me
as a writer. Like, I remember reading some of my
story or my, essay. It's not how to subm
M. Excuse me, Reading some of my essay. The Last
Remedy to a Room Full of People when I was in
Denver. And it was this experience of reading
it, not knowing if people werenna
like it or care about it or really see
the experience that I was talking about. It was all about, like, when I
eat, I feel really anxious because I know I'm going to have to go to the bathroom a
million times. And what I eat really changes my mental
state. And I just have all these difficult experiences around
it. But I'm afraid of talking about going to the bath, et cetera.
And everybody lives sat there and listened. And I was
like, I don't know. Did that work? Was
that a moment of connection or was it a moment of like, I'm just going
to be embarrassed. But then people came up to me afterward and they told me,
wow, that really resonates. You know, I. I deal with this ex.
Chronic illness or whatever.
>> Jeniffer: Yah.
>> Chad Thompson: And, it became this moment of realizing, hey, a lot of us are
in the same boat in different ways. And
opening up in that type of vulnerable way
can really be a mode of making lasting relationships
with people. So seeing that in person and really accentuates all that
you're saying for me.
>> Jeniffer: Absolutely. I wonder if you
record a lot of your conversations.
>> Chad Thompson: Wow. Like conversations with people.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah. In real life, but like your loved ones, because. And, here's
why. Maybe our listener needs some. Why is she asking that?
There's this one piece that you read in one of your
interviews, and you were re in bed. You had had
a terrible experience with your
Crohn's disease that day. And your wife, her name is Theory.
Is that right? Yeah. Hello, Theory, Shout out to
you.
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah. She's an amazing writer. Theory Moja Mian to definitely check her
out.
>> Jeniffer: You'll have to, spell that for us.
>> Chad Thompson: I will. right now you can send it.
>> Jeniffer: To me and I'll just put it in the show. Notesah. I'll
do. So you're in bed with her at the end
of this really long, hard day, and you're having a conversation. And
I know you recorded it because you told us.
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah. Honestly. Wait, what?
I'm totally blanking on.
>> Jeniffer: It was the piece where you were having blood drawn. And
the blood. The doctor said there's just no more blood in that vein. And then
it went to the other. He went to the other vein and
you squeezed your fist and then I think you passed out.
>> Chad Thompson: Oh, God.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah. And it's.
>> Chad Thompson: Yeah, yeah, you gotta leave me through it becausee I'm totally. There were a couple times
when something like that happened and I'm trying to remember.
>> Jeniffer: Oh, my gosh.
>> Chad Thompson: Wait, where did you find this piece.
>> Jeniffer: You were reading it. It was during COVID
and you were reading a piece with a lot of other
people. And I forget who was hosting it,
but you were talking to Theory about ghosts. So it was
based on, you know, that it was a
piece actually from Ghost Home, A
Beginner's Guide to Being Han. And I think you were talking about your sister
at one point. But were. You said that you had recorded conversations
with your mom and your dad and theory. And
in this particular conversation, you were talking about, like. Like
the deep self and like, when we don't feel like ourselves and is
that a ghost? And it was this, like, really personal
conversation that you were having in bed with your
wife after this day of, like, horror
for you. And, it was so generous
to the reader. And I wondered, like,
you recorded that conversation. So of course it begs the question
for me, is that something you do often? And is that
how you get so much intimacy into your writing?
>> Chad Thompson: Wow, that makes me want to record more conversations.
Because that piece was like a gift. It was one of these things
that arose, and I just started writing it as a break from
other stuff. I was like, I can't write this other stuff. It's too stressful. I'm just going
to write this piece about ghosts and my stomach and I need to
say it, and who knows what will happen? And, I just wrote that
piece and I wrote the first couple halves of it. And then
I realized I needed something else. I needed other people's voices.
And that's what inspired me to have the conversations with people. So
I interviewed my dad, interviewed my mom, and
interviewed, had a conversation with Theory. And that was
the only time I've ever done that.
>> Jeniffer: Oh, wow.
>> Chad Thompson: It was, also the only time I've ever reached that depth
of vulnerability in my writing, to be honest.
And I think it makes sense that that comes
from having those conversations with other people
and opening up that space to a reader.
That's a really beautiful observation that I never even really
thought about with regard to my own work, you know? Cause it's so
difficult to find that. And I think with that particular piece, you know, I
wrote it in a period of a couple weeks, did it really
fast, and I didn't even need to revise it that much, ca. Because it just
was what it was. Mostly I revise
ton ton, ton. I'll revise for weeks
if I write a piece. And I know I need to do a lot on
it. But this particular piece, it just came and it was there,
and it was.
>> Jeniffer: What it needed to be.
>> Chad Thompson: It was what it needed to be. Yeah. So in a way that's
because there was such a direct access to the reality of
those conversations in that piece. it makes sense, but
I need to record more conversations. You know, the only other time I did that
went was when I recorded kind of a conversation with
myself. I was doing a lot of running at the time and I
recorded myself talking for an eight
mile run, describing what I was thinking
about and what was going on in my mind during the run.
And I was going to intersperse it with this description of my
relationship with my dad, who's also a runner, and my
relationship with running as a thing. But I think theiacy
of recording things really does
lend like an openness to the moment because you can't edit it,
you can't mess with it, it's just right there.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Chad Thompson: And, in a way I was talking about revision, you know, being kind of like
a safety mechanism for when you're doing something
vulnerable. But you can't really revise the conversations, can
you?
>> Jeniffer: No, you can't. You know, I find that interesting
because sometimes when I go on walks, long walks,
I want to record myself and I find it to be so
uncomfortable and forced. Like my brain doesn't work
the same when I'm speaking into recorder
as it does when I'm thinking. So when I'm walking or I'm in
the shower or and I'm doing something where I can't do anything else, that's when
I get all these ideas for story. I mean, they just like
flow like I've opened up a spigot, a
fire oose. And yet when I try and
talk them, to retain them, it just doesn't work.
>> Chad Thompson: I know what you mean. I feel like the thought,
the imagination is so pure, in a
sense, it just happens. There's nothing standing in the way.
But the second you try to articulate it, like words get in the way.
>> Jeniffer: Of I'm like, oh, that sounds dumb.
>> Chad Thompson: I know, it's kind of brutal. And then if you try to write it down,
it sounds even worse.
U and I feel like writing for me is the process of
figuring out how to not let all that stuff get in the
way. Right. Like, how can you pretend like you're not writing? How can
you pretend like you're not talking? And actually, something I recommend to
students is to do that exact thing, even though you described how
hard it isus it really is, is if they're stuck on a
story just to take a tape recorder and just tell
the story. This guy does this thing first, and then they run into
this, that, and the other thing, and then they fall in a hole. And if you
can just speak something out loud, it's kind of a no pressure situation. I
actually make my students on the first day of class tell the
story, like, out loud for five minutes to one of their
peers. Yeah. And everybody's like, no, that's the. The
most difficult thing ever. Yeah. But then I do it for them, and my
story's terrible, and it gets us all kind of opened up and makes
us vulnerable. But that's. It is an opportunity
to connect you with a thing.
But I agree, there's no substitute for thought. And the magic of the shower.
It's just like so many great novels have been written in the shower.
It never appeared in the world. Right. If only we could harness that
energy.
>> Jeniffer: Well, it makes me think that I need to do it more. As I was
telling you that, I was like, God, that just means I needed to do it. I need to
force myself to do it. Cause I think there is some magic in it.
>> Chad Thompson: Well, our, three and a half year old is
obsessed with stories, and he just wants to hear us
tell stories all the time. So I'm in a very, like, oral story
storytelling mode right now. It's almost like my form of
writing and Theorory's form of writing as a writer as well.
And, you know, he has the good fortune of having two, like, professional
storytellers, you know, telling him stories all day.
But, a lot of them are based around Frozen and the characters from Frozen, you
know, Olaf and also stuff like that.
But it really is nice when you can sort
of cultivate. Cultivate that relationship of your
imagination to the oral storytelling,
like, to speaking things out loud, because it
flows the more you practice it. Right.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Chad Thompson: Suddenly I can tell these stories that are incredibly winding and
borderline coherent that just come off the top of my
head. Right. And it's partially just about taking my foot off the
brakes, letting whatever happens happen. You know, if an ice
monster needs to come in and bite everybody's head off or whatever,
it's okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really
magic to kind of open up that vein in a way and just. Just kind of,
like, let it happen.
>> Jeniffer: And I think if we were to think of our storytelling as speaking
to a three and a half year old, we'd probably have a lot less
judgment of ourselves.
>> Chad Thompson: N. Totally. Yes. It's a no stake
situation, you know, except maybe he'll get upset if I make
something so silly happen. You know, like there's a little bit of
stakes, but I agree. I think if you can just envision
yourself talking to somebody who really wants to be
entertained and really wants to be loved, you
know, in a way, the story is a way of
giving love to that person.
>> Jeniffer: Totally.
>> Chad Thompson: That really takes the pressure off and you realize that whatever you're giving,
it's a gift.
>> Jeniffer: Wow, that is so cool and a really good
way to end this amazing conversation.
Thank you so much, Dennis. I am a big fan
and, I can't wait for everyone to read your book.
>> Chad Thompson: Thank you for joining USK so much, Jennifer. Yeah, I just loved having this
conversation as well. I feel like we got to some really deep stuff and it's
just so fun to talk to you about it.
>> Jeniffer: well, I really appreciate it, listener.
You can learn more about dennis@,
dennisjamessweeney.com Follow him on
Instagram denisjsweeney. You
can subscribe to his substack, which I plan to do,
see what he's reading on Goodreads and buy his
books. Go out and buy this man's books. We need to support
each other and, you know, give that love as we
want to receive it. This has been another
episode of the Premise. You can visit us online,
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Jennifer Thompson Consulting until
next week. Thanks for listening. Goodbye.
Goodbyebye M.