The Paris Review

gratitude, 2014

Matthew Jakubowski 4 Comments

I’d like to say thanks for following the blog this year and reading a few of my posts. I’m looking forward to checking out more of everyone’s work in 2015.

As for the rest of this post, I’ve been incredibly fortunate this year. I got to work with dozens of people who challenged and supported me and, perhaps most importantly, contrary to the past five years or so, no one close to me died. (Raps knuckles to temple.)

To gear up for the work ahead I took a little time to record good things from 2014 in the hope of building on them. And that goes for everything from writing/art projects to more social activism. Here’s a recap in a link-heavy chunk of text. Thanks again for reading truce in 2014!

January: after 30+ subs I sold my first short story, “Killing Off Ray Apada,” to gorse (thanks to editor Susan Tomaselli); was featured in The Guardian’s story, “Year of Reading Women Declared” (thanks to Joanna Walsh and Alison Flood); edited interviews with Anne Carson and Yoshitomo Nara for Asymptote.  February: Continue reading →

Microinterview with Nell Zink

Matthew Jakubowski 1 Comment

Photo credit: Fred Filkorn

I interviewed Nell Zink, author of The Wallcreeper, for The Paris Review’s blog. It’s one short question from me, one long lovely answer from her. (That’s not the whole story, of course, but it makes for a good one.)

What kind of jobs have you had? Do you write full-time now, “living the dream”?

I was always a bit concerned about purity of essence. I never wanted a job that might affect the way I wrote or thought. I remember how in college I was very proud of having finagled a job in the English department, where I spent most of my time collating and stapling. I didn’t major in English, obviously, because I preferred being challenged in courses where I might get bad grades. Once, Gordon Lish came to speak there and warned us explicitly against going to work in publishing, because it forces wallcreeperyou to read bad prose all day every day and spoils your style. After his talk, all the other student writers jumped up to beg him for jobs in publishing while I wandered off strengthened in my resolve to do manual labor.

Read the whole thing at The Paris Review: Purity of Essence: One Question for Nell Zink.