Pepper in a pinch of Barthelme, a sprinkle of Russell Edson, a sprig of Etgar Keret, stir til it boils over your hands, the stove, every tile in your kitchen floor—Steve Gergley’s THERE ARE SOME FLOORS MISSING twists and turns itself in every story and never fails to stick the landing. Are these prose poems or micro-fiction or lost books of the Bible? Mostly they are dreams within dreams within nightmares and fantasies, where every page is deliciously discomfiting and full of awe. Every next line feels like a new metaphor for your life and all our lives. How does he manage to zig every zag, take every wrong turn, and still deliver us to some random perfect deranged destination we never saw coming? Buy the book, take the ride, as they say.

– drevlow

BD: So last year you published THE TOPINE TRILOGY (Anxiety Press 2025), EPISODE 3328: IAN SHARP (Translucent Eyes Press 2025). In the three years before, you published HE GREAT ATLANTIC HIGHWAY & OTHER STORIES (Malarkey Books 2024), SKYSCRAPER (West Vine Press 2023) and A QUICK PRIMER ON WALLOWING IN DESPAIR (Leftover Books 2022).

And now you’re about to publish THERE ARE SOME FLOORS MISSING (Bullshit Lit 2026).

What the fuck were you doing between 2000 and 2020–sitting on your ass? Resting on your laurels as the 8th-grade Spelling B champion?

So I’m going to just bypass the whole “are you prolific” question and move on to the how do you decide which stories are going in what collection? Especially considering that though Skyscraper is a novel, the others are all stories, and a lot of the stories are somewhere between flash, micro, and prose poems.

Yes, there’s that “gut feel” that everybody talks about (which is always kind of a copout I feel… in my gut).

So seriously, no bullshit: Do you always have projects in your mind or are you mostly just writing stories and seeing where they land in terms of theme, characters, etc. that maybe later some will go together better than others?

No copouts here: What’s your approach to putting together a collection?

SG: Well, it’s funny that you mention the spelling bee, because I was in the spelling bee in third grade and I was about to get second place, but I got disqualified because I didn’t say the word out loud before spelling it, which was against the rules. (The word was eighteen, which I knew how to spell, so I got overexcited and just started spelling. My life has been downhill ever since, haha.)

But seriously, that anecdote is relevant because outside of work and writing, all I do is exercise and then sit around reading books, watching movies, listening to music, and playing video games. And my tastes in those things are pretty eclectic. One day I’ll watch a David Lynch movie, and then I’ll read some of a William Gaddis novel, and then I’ll play Elden Ring. Then the next day I’ll watch a Scorsese movie like Casino or Goodfellas, read some Zachary Schonberg poetry, and play The Binding of Isaac.

And then all of these disparate images and themes and emotions will get filtered through my mind and experiences, and stories of all different styles and even genres will extrude out into the word document.

Then, when it comes to which stories to include in each collection, I start with quality above all else. Once I choose which stories I think are the highest quality, sequencing comes later.

But starting with THERE ARE SOME FLOORS MISSING and the next two collections I have out on submission, I have tried to make those much more cohesive, with recurring images, characters and themes that flit in and out of the collection at different times. That’s been really fun too, and a new challenge.

 

BD: Related to this, with many of your stories being pretty short, it puts a lot of pressure on you to break out of the old bag of tricks–especially in terms of endings.

I’ve written about 400 prose poems/flash fictions in the last couple years, and sometimes I’m like damn, that’s a great last line, and then I’ll be putting together a collection of them and I’m like, Damn, you used that same damn “great line” like 47 times.

You, on the other hand, seem to always be able to come up with that last line that is completely satisfying but also surprising in the best way.

How often do you find yourself actively working against your natural instincts to avoid getting formulaic or boring yourself? When you’re putting together a collection of these, do you go back and change parts (even if they are your “darlings”) to make the pieces all hit different notes?

Do you have that voice in your head that says you’re a one-trick pony and someday somebody’s going to figure me out and it’s all down hill from there?

Asking for a friend.

SG: Wow, thanks so much for saying that about the final lines, that’s a huge compliment! I try really hard to strike a balance between doing something completely new each time and doing interesting permutations of what fascinates me. No part of this online writing thing is very serious, and I’m definitely not in it to make money, so I don’t fret about it too much. But that doesn’t mean I’m lazy. I work very hard to make sure I’m satisfied with the level of quality and variation in last lines, first lines, subject matter, imagery, and everything else. The reason I write in the first place is to transport myself and the reader into these surreal worlds of imagination, and if I can do that at a high level without boring either of us, that’s all that matters.

And I don’t worry about imposter syndrome too much at all. I have a very pragmatic view of the skills I have and the ones I lack when it comes to writing. I know there are certain things I’m pretty good at, and I know there are many, many, things I’m not good at, so I try to highlight my strengths and then practice other things to improve my weaknesses.

 

BD: As I was reading THERE ARE SOME FLOORS MISSING (along with your other work I’ve read), I often found myself thinking about Barthelme and Russell Edson and James Wright and more recently Etgar Keret.

The surrealism to start–the mix of mundane with weird with fucked up and back again.

But also the sentences. How part of the experience of a Steve Gergley story is the sometimes jarring sentences–often straightforward, subject-verb–like a typewriter kind of feel. Often building speed and then stopping on a dime or completely working back on itself.

That it’s not just the plot twists, it’s the syntax twists.

And it’s the same with the aforementioned surrealist writers–writers who write kind of mini-fables.

What’s your approach to syntax and story? Do they usually work in tandem for you? Or does one start out with the steering wheel and then the other will jump in?

Were there authors where you would dissect their sentences when you were a younger writer?

Who are some authors who write weirdo sentences that more people should read? People whose voice is driven by their sentences?

SG: Thanks so much for noticing this, this is actually a huge part of the writing process for me with these newer stories. The answer is that the syntax and the story develop at the same time, and it’s about the rhythm of syllables and words. There are times when I get to a sentence and realize I need a two-syllable adjective in front of this verb, or three simple sentences in a row, each with a one-syllable verb in front of a two-syllable noun just before the period. It can get complicated at times, but when I do find a way to get into a satisfying rhythm like that, it’s a lot of fun. And then like you said, it’s even more fun to suddenly cut off that rhythm and take an unexpected left turn. When I’m able to pull that off, it’s one of the most creatively satisfying things I’ve been able to accomplish.

Two writers that are absolutely brilliant at mixing plot twists, syntax twists (which is a great phrase by the way, I love that), and very bold imagery are Zachary Schomburg and Shane Kowalski. I sound like a broken record because I’ve talked about this so much, but Shane Kowalski has been writing weird, brilliant, and incredibly creative micros five days a week for over ten years straight on his tumblr page, “Died Disappointed?”, and he employs these twists and turns in both plot and syntax in almost every piece. His book, SMALL WOODS, was my favorite of 2022, and it’s amazing.

And the same goes for Zachary Schomburg. He’s one of my favorite writers working in any genre today, and I’ve read his prose poetry books THE MAN SUIT, SCARY, NO SCARY, and FJORDS VOLS. 1 AND 2 at least three or four times each.

 

BD: Reading your stories often feels like somewhere between a dream and doing shrooms while trying to accomplish other important things at the same time.

I know that you’ve mentioned in the past that a lot of what you write comes from the boredom of work and that kind of escapism (even when the stories themselves are not necessarily “fun escapes).

I’m assuming that all of these are directly autobiographical to your own dreams, boredom, and experiences with hallucinogenic drugs.

What’s wrong with you dude? Like, let’s do the Better Help question here and take a deep dive, no judgment.

Also, do you ever feel like if you were to have a mental break that they would lock you up and never let you out based on all the stories you have written so far?

And are you ever talking to people and people are like, what? What the fuck are you talking about? Or maybe you’re not talking, your just zoning out thinking of Smurf Fan fic?

Asking for a friend.

SG: Thanks, I’m glad the writing is such a vivid experience! But yeah, I’ve only done drugs one time, and that consisted of smoking weed and watching a video of Randy Macho Man Savage throwing like fifteen coffee creamers over his shoulder during an interview with a backstage reporter, so there’s not much that’s autobiographical in that sense, haha. All the stuff about working mind-numbing jobs is true though, and I insert all the weird and interesting stuff into the stories because real life is very repetitive and boring, and none of those bizarre/interesting events ever happen in real life.

Haha, there are many things wrong with me, and my therapist and I do a deep dive every Friday to get to the bottom of things. Eleven years on, and we’re starting to make some progress.

As for the mental break, I’m not worried about getting locked up because of my writing. These things are just weird little stories, haha, they’re not that serious. If someone can’t tell the difference between fiction and reality, that’s their problem, not mine.

 

BD: Here’s the one where I take a random sentence of yours and then turn it around on you as a question.

“Since these people are the only people I understand, these people are the people I will sing about?”

Well, start singing. Who are these people that you understand?

SG: I really only understand myself, and I’m a misfit and a weirdo who doesn’t know how to interact and communicate with people very well, so other misfits and weirdos are the types of people I really like writing about. I’ve done so many things in my life that make perfect sense to myself because I have access to my thoughts and reasoning, but to an outside observer must look like the most bizarre, nonsensical things on earth. And I think it’s so much fun to write about people like that, to have them do these very strange things with no explanation, and then to have the reader and the main characters come in contact with that strangeness and react to it.

Here’s an example: back in 2019, I started wearing a lacrosse helmet every time I went for a run on the treadmill in the basement of my house. To an outside observer, that seems very bizarre and borderline ridiculous. But to me it made perfect sense, because a few months earlier I’d started having issues with epilepsy out of nowhere, and so I started to wear the helmet to protect my head in case I had a seizure while running on the treadmill. But without that explanation of my reasoning, that’s a striking, weird, and very interesting occurrence. And I love that particular mix of bizarre, absurd, funny, and interesting.

 

BD: Lastly, you’ve spoken about coming up with stories while bored at work. And you write a lot about work.

What’s a day in the life of you at work? What are the most inane things you have to do and talk about without losing your shit? What are the most inane things that you secretly love doing in a way nobody else would understand? What types of words and phrases do you find yourself talking about that kind of sucks the soul out of you but also establishes your being competent at work so you don’t get fired or looked at as the fuckup/slacker nobody can depend on?

Rules about the microwave? Rules about how long to spend in the bathroom? Rules about how not to get caught writing fiction instead of doing your job?

Strategy when dealing with colleagues? Customers.

You don’t have to name the company. I want the most random, inane, anxiety-producing deets possible.

Nobody’s ever going to read this interview anyway, so don’t worry about any actual repercussions of sharing the dirt.

SG: Well I’ve spent the past fifteen years working crappy retail, warehouse, and custodian jobs, so cleaning up gross messes and dealing with rude customers and gossiping coworkers are the main things I’ve had to do at work each day. Taking passport photos at CVS was one thing I always hated for some reason. It was always so awkward and uncomfortable taking pictures of people while having a line of ten angry customers standing in front of the counter and and muttering curse words under their breath.

One thing I do enjoy is stocking shelves in the stockroom, far away from customers haha. That and breaking down cardboard boxes. That’s a weirdly relaxing and repetitive activity that lets my hands and body work on autopilot while my mind can wander and explore story ideas.

As far as dealing with other people, I try to maintain as low a profile as possible. I try to be as nice as possible, and talk as infrequently as I can haha. And I never tell anyone about any of my writing. The last thing on earth I’d ever want to do is talk about my writing at work haha.