We love learning more about our contributors, and an interview seemed like a fun way to hear more about the writers and artists we publish, so we gave them a choice of questions to answer. We hope you also enjoy hearing more about the artists and their works. Read on and check out issue 21 for work from ZK Hardy.



What was the inspiration for the piece published in the issue?
This story combines a couple of different events from my childhood into a cohesive image, while fictionalizing other parts of my childhood. I have four older half-brothers, and during their teenage years some of them had direct conflicts with my parents, which was a major influence for this piece. It was also heavily inspired by the work of Raymond Carver.


Who are some of your favorite writers or artists, and what do you like about them?
Raymond Carver is, in my opinion, the best short story writer of all time. He perfected the stories of working-class people by showing the quiet, melancholic moments within their lives. I also love Ben Lerner. I find any writer who is able to write about nothing in an engaging and hilarious way truly impressive.

In terms of speculative writing, which is my other great love, Joe Abercrombie is the best working fantasy writer today. I think he uses fantasy exactly as it should be: to shine a light on the darkness that exists within our world. And Becky Chambers is always able to make me feel better whenever I read her work.

What turns you off when you see it in a work? What are your creative/artistic pet peeves?
Probably being provided with extraneous information that is not necessary to know in this moment. Getting people to read backstory and exposition is already like making a toddler eat their vegetables. If you've successfully snuck it in, then please do not let it outstay its welcome. That's just rude.


What do you do in the rest of your life and how does that connect and/or conflict with your creative life?
I am a software engineer in my day job and I find the process of creating a story to be very similar to writing code. One of the adages that I find myself most often repeating while at work is "Do it. Do it better. Do it faster." And this same phrase can be applied to writing fiction as well. Similarly, the type of deep work that you can get into while writing is similar to the deep work you can get into while coding. Your mind goes somewhere else and your fingers move without intention, but you're still somehow able to find perfect words on the page when you're done. A colleague of mine refers to writing code as "code artistry" and while I wouldn't go that far, it is more of an art than a science. With both writing and coding, you can learn the fundamentals in a few months, but it takes years to truly understand how to create an elegant product.


If you’re part of a workshop group or other creative community, tell us about it! How did it form, what all do you do, and how does it help your creative process?
I have a writing group that meets roughly once a month. We met during a year-long workshop at the Madison Writers Studio and decided to continue meeting after the workshop ended. When we meet, we usually share how we are feeling about our current work, any blockers we've been running into, and workshop our problems. Sometimes, we will submit a section from our longer pieces or a short story and we'll discuss it, workshopping our pieces similar to the way we learned in our class. It's very useful for accountability and to get another set of eyes on pieces that you've already looked at so many times that you want to tear your hair out.