George Singleton:<\/strong> Hey, Frank, all is well here. If it got any better I\u2019d have to go on a diet of liver mush. Listen, I don\u2019t do Dark-and-Violent just because so many writers can do it better. I also don\u2019t write about sex because writers pull it off better. Plus, if I knew any Sex Scene Tricks I wouldn\u2019t be making them public.<\/p>\n I think that sure enough I did come from a comical family. My father was an old merchant seaman, so I grew up with all the stereotypical salty sailor jokes. My mom was a patient woman. On top of all this, my father kind of had a no-holds-barred sense of humor. He\u2019d suffered through cancer when I was two years old and survived a forty-five-foot fall into the empty hold of a ship when I was five. So every day on earth he figured was gravy. When we moved to South Carolina, more than once, I\u2019d be with him on the street and someone would say, \u201cWho are you with?\u201d meaning \u201cWhich mill do you work for?\u201d My father would look around, look down at me, say to the person, \u201cI\u2019m with my boy. Are you blind?\u201d He was a whiz at practical jokes, too.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n FR<\/strong>: Growing up which authors struck you? Who were the ones you read that made you want to try writing?<\/p>\n GS<\/strong>: I wasn\u2019t a big reader in high school or before. Every southern writer I know makes a big deal about reading Faulkner at age seven or whenever. I call bullshit on that, for the most part. I was more enthralled with his comedian\/poet named Henry Gibson from the old\u00a0Laugh-In\u00a0<\/em>TV show. I read\u00a0Sports Illustrated<\/em>. When I was about ten my father bought me all these Bobby Blake books\u2014these were kind of like Hardy Boys, but written in 1908 or whenever. Jesus. I hated those books. Bobby and his comrades would get all mischievous and take off for town on mules, things like that. When I was in high school\u2014I swear to God on this one\u2014my father thought it necessary that I read\u00a0Socialism<\/em>\u00a0by Emile Durkheim, and the\u00a0Communist Manifesto<\/em>. My father had a tenth-grade education, but he was big on unionizing workers. It was kind of a dead-end fight in the South back in the 1960s and 70s. And, well, today. Somewhere along the line, I should mention that Kurt Vonnegut came into my life right before I went to college, and I also got ahold of\u00a0Coney Island of the Mind<\/em>\u00a0by Ferlinghetti. I\u2019m not sure how I got either of those books in a town without a book store. Then, in college, man, it was all Ionesco, Beckett, Pinter, then Pynchon, and I was off.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n FR<\/strong>: After having a nice conversation with you on the phone (you are a fantastic story teller on the phone by the way), you mentioned how you don’t\u00a0often<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>like to talk about writing. I get that. You spend so many hours working on the stories, the last thing you want to do is talk about writing. However, for the sake of the interview I’d like to ask where do the stories come from? Are you in a grocery store picking out a pork roast? Maybe they are memories from the past? Maybe you are trapped in the DMV thinking \u201cJesus Christ! Get me out of here!\u201d Can you elaborate how they come to together? Do you have a process?<\/p>\n GS<\/strong>: My pat answer is \u201cWal-Mart\u201d or \u201cthe flea market.\u201d Kind of true. I might be the best eavesdropper of all time. My buddy Ron Rash claims that he \u201csees things,\u201d that he has visions of a character. I claim that I hear voices. Together, he and I are about ready for the asylum. But it\u2019s true. I\u2019d say that just about every story I\u2019ve written came from the first sentence. Today, for instance, for unknown reasons, came \u201cThis guy told me at the school district\u2019s warehouse auction he could get away with murder if he had enough hair collected from a dumpster behind any barbershop.\u201d No clue why I thought that. But now I have to figure out why they\u2019re at an auction, and why the antagonist is hell-bent on covering dead bodies with the hair and DNA of the recently-shorn.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n FR<\/strong>: As a guy originally from New England discovering Southern and Appalachian writers changed me. There’s something in the water down there that created a majority of my favorites, like yourself, Flannery, McCullers, Crews, Larry Brown, Tom Franklin, Mary Miller, William Gay, David Joy, Dorothy Allison, Hannah, etc. Is it the last bastion of original and unique culture? Or has the entire country been taken over by Olive Garden? Does the unique come from the person, or the place? Maybe both?<\/p>\n GS<\/strong>: Fucking Olive Garden. Hilarious. I hope\u00a0Bull<\/em>\u00a0doesn\u2019t take ads from Olive Garden. Listen, in the old days they said that the Army started to ruin southerners\u2019 ways of talking. Then it was TV and the homogenized dialects. I think that there\u2019s enough great fiction coming out of writers from other parts of the country\u2014I know there is\u2014but I think we\u2019re still living in the \u201cHey that old boy\u2019s from the South so let\u2019s watch him\u2026\u201d act nuts, implode, lose his temper, act fool, drink into oblivion. There\u2019s the theory that southerners still hurt from losing a big war. Me, I don\u2019t sit around brooding over the Civil War. The correct team won, if you ask me. But I\u2019m with you on Flannery, Harry, Barry, and the rest. Great writers with signature unmatched voices.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n FR<\/strong>: Let’s get into Staff Picks<\/em>. Again, I loved it. There’s nothing more exciting than a new book from one of your favorites. You have some off-the-wall, fantastic lines, like this one from \u201cEclipse\u201d: \u201cWhat the fuck did mental health have to do with Cinco de Mayo?\u201d And these ones from \u201cColumbus Day\u201d: \u201cOne the second lap I notice a man sitting on a bench across from a place called Brows ‘n’ More\u2014a joint where people sit in public to have their eyebrows waxed. Who does that? There’s another place called the Relaxation Station where people get chair massages and sea-salt foot baths right in front of everyone. Listen, I don’t consider myself a prude. I had a cocaine problem. I’ve drunk at least fifty liters of every bourbon ever bottled. Sitting in my home office I crank\u00a0H\u00fcsker D\u00fc, the Ramones, even Joy Division. But Jesus Christ, there are some things that mall-walkers shouldn’t have to encounter daily.\u201d<\/p>\n You have a wonderful way with putting two things that don’t belong together in the same deadpan ball park. That’s talent! Where do you come up with this stuff? Have you just gone completely mad?<\/p>\n GS<\/strong>: Ha ha ha. Those lines about mall walkers, waxers, and\u00a0H\u00fcsker D\u00fc don\u2019t belong in the same paragraph? Damn, Frank. Seriously, I do have a certain love for trying to gather varying absurdities into the same room, make them sit on a couch and talk to one another.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n FR<\/strong>: How long did it take to put Staff Picks<\/em> together? Did you just say \u201cfuck it\u201d and collect a bunch of stories you published recently? Or did you sit down and bang them all out one after the other?<\/p>\n GS<\/strong>: Originally, I wanted to sit down and write a series of holiday stories, just so later\u2014like if I got asked to do a reading somewhere\u2014I could go, \u201cHey, it\u2019s almost Labor Day, and I just so happen to have a Labor Day story.\u201d Well, I didn\u2019t realize that there\u2019s a whole fuck-load of holidays out there. And it got to the point where I would write a story, forget about the holiday, then try to shove it in inorganically: \u201cAnd then Frank went out to the sidewalk and projectile vomited. It was St. Patrick\u2019s Day!\u201d So that little game went by the wayside\u2014though there\u2019s still a Halloween story, a Flag Day story, a Columbus Day story, a Cinco de Mayo story in there. Kind of. The title story just came around with that woman named Staffordshire, named after a dinner plate, and then how she had to keep her hand on an RV, and then I thought\u2014because I ain\u2019t got anything else to do in South Carolina but think up scams\u2014hey, maybe if I call a collection\u00a0Staff Picks<\/em>, unsuspecting bookstore browsers will see the title and say, \u201cIt must be good! The staff picked it,\u201d et cetera. For the most part, I imagine it took me two or three years to write these. Of course there were another dozen or so that just didn\u2019t work out. Maybe more.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n FR<\/strong>: Young and\/or new writers are always looking to learn about the publishing side of the business. With Staff Picks<\/em> you published with LSU Press. How was it working with them?<\/p>\n GS<\/strong>: I wanted my very first book to be with LSU Press only because they published\u00a0A Confederacy of Dunces<\/em>, and\u00a0I Am One of You Forever<\/em>\u00a0by my professor Fred Chappell. Other publishers somehow got in the way. Now I\u2019m at a point where hardly anyone will touch a short story writer who won\u2019t say, \u201cOh, yes, I promise, promise, promise to write a novel next, yes yes yes.\u201d Almost a decade ago I had a big-old collection that ended up being divided into\u00a0Stray Decorum<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Between Wrecks<\/em>, and a few NYC publishers said they\u2019d publish it if I wrote a novel that they liked first. I said No. I always say that it\u2019s like I\u2019m a plumber, and I love being a plumber, and someone comes up and says, You should be an electrician. That ain\u2019t going to happen if I love what I\u2019m doing. Back to LSU\u2014I worked with the great writer and editor Michael Griffith. He was relentlessly keen-eyed and made\u00a0Staff Picks\u00a0<\/em>about 100% better.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n FR<\/strong>: Most writers published or not have to have a 9-5 job to survive. I’d say less than 3% live comfortably off their work. I think Harry Crews once said, \u201cYou have a better chance becoming a world class brain surgeon than you do a successful writer.\u201d I find that to be somewhat true. Thoughts on the Crews quote? Also, you are one of the best short fiction writers in America. You are also a teacher, but it wasn’t always that way. What were the worst three jobs you ever had in your life and why?<\/p>\n GS<\/strong>: Crews is correct. And the ones who are making a living off writing\u2014this is a vast generalization, I know\u2014kind of depend on formulaic plot lines. One time I had a woman say to me, \u201cDon\u2019t you just love Nicholas Sparks?\u201d I said, \u201cNo. He might be one of the worst writers, sentence by sentence, in the English language.\u201d She said, \u201cBut he\u2019s a millionaire!\u201d I can\u2019t believe that, for once, I had a comeback immediately. I said, \u201cPeople in America spend a lot more money on baloney than they do filet mignon. That doesn\u2019t make baloney good for them.\u201d<\/p>\n Worst three jobs were all, in their own ways, great: garbage truck driver one summer in college; house painter from 18, off and on up until age thirty; scam artist for a \u201cmarketing\u201d outfit called Consumer Pulse of Washington. All three had their weird drawbacks, but also deep wells to drop my bucket later as a writer. Hell, that Consumer Pulse gig showed up in the story \u201cColumbus Day.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n FR<\/strong>: On social media you’ve been posting photos of all your book signings\/readings for the new book. Judging by the pictures seems you are having a nice turn out at some of them. You like giving readings? What’s the oddest\/funniest things that’s ever happened to you at one of your readings?<\/p>\n GS<\/strong>: They\u2019ve actually been pretty great this time around. I think it might be because people think, Singleton\u2019s getting old and might die at any point\u2014hey, maybe we can witness his death in the middle of a reading\u2026<\/p>\n As for odd and funny, well, I got thrown in jail one time, back in Mississippi, right after a book signing\/reading. That wasn\u2019t exactly a highlight of my life. One time I had ZERO people show up in 2004, in Lexington, Kentucky. It was October. The Red Sox and Yankees played post-season, and there might\u2019ve been a presidential debate, or something to do with politics\u2014both being aired on TV. This little guy working the book store said to me, \u201cWill you read a story just to me?\u201d It kind of creeped me out. I said, \u201cI\u2019ll sign stock, but I want to watch the baseball game, too.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n FR<\/strong>: Okay, I lied, I’m going to ask you to put on your Nostradamus hat. What’s the future hold for George Singleton? Any more stuff in the works beyond Staff Picks<\/em> for George Singleton? Yes, feel free to speak of yourself in the third person.<\/p>\n GS<\/strong>: George just signed a contract for a Selected Stories. It\u2019ll come out, I think, in early 2021. Right now I have it whittled down to thirty stories, from all eight collections. Meanwhile\u2014again, because I\u2019m always setting up little tricks for myself\u2014I\u2019m writing stories with an overall title of The Venturesome Lives of Non-Profit Martyrs, but different kinds of non-profits. For example, I\u2019ve already finished one about a couple old-timers in a group called VAGINA: Veterans Against Guns in North America. We\u2019ll see how that all works out.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n BONUS QUESTION:<\/strong> The cover of the new book has bowling pins, so I have a bowling question for you. If you could have an endless supply of pitchers full of beer; free and endless bourbon, and a 24 hours free pass to the local lanes, and you could drunk bowl with any three people from your history, or world history, who would you bowl with and why? Think you could beat them?<\/p>\n GS<\/strong>: Oh, man, Frank, you set them up and I\u2019ll knock them down:<\/p>\n Stephen Hawking\u2014and I\u2019d beat him. (I totally understand that this answer is probably politically-incorrect, but what the hell. I would\u2019ve liked to hang out around Hawking.)<\/p>\n Harry Crews\u2014I never got the chance to meet him. If I were winning in about the sixth frame I\u2019d start throwing gutter balls, just because I know how he might react.<\/p>\n John Lee Hooker\u2014you said there\u2019d be bourbon and beer, so we\u2019d have 2\/3ds of one of his great songs complete. And he\u2019d beat the crap out of me, more than likely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One time I had a woman say to me, \u201cDon\u2019t you just love Nicholas Sparks?\u201d I said, \u201cHe might be one of the worst writers in the English language.\u201d She said, \u201cBut he\u2019s a millionaire!\u201d I said, \u201cPeople in America spend a lot more money on baloney than they do filet mignon. That doesn\u2019t make baloney good for them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":15250,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[232],"tags":[1925,1923,1935,1936,1937,1928,1551,1570,1938,1929,1931,1924,1933,1579,1558,1934,1930,1926,1927,1922,1932,1577,1641,1685,1567],"class_list":["post-15249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bull-interview","tag-beckett","tag-communist-manifesto","tag-crews","tag-david-joy","tag-dorothy-allison","tag-ferlinghetti","tag-flannery","tag-george-singleton","tag-hannah","tag-henry-gibson","tag-husker-du","tag-ionesco","tag-joy-division","tag-larry-brown","tag-mary-miller","tag-mccullers","tag-olive-garden","tag-pinter","tag-pynchon","tag-staff-picks","tag-the-ramones","tag-tom-franklin","tag-vonnegut","tag-walmart","tag-william-gay","writer-frank-reardon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15249"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15259,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15249\/revisions\/15259"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/staff-picks.jpg\")
<\/p>\n