Brad Listi of Attention. Deficit. Disorder. gives fiery interview - By N.L. Belardes

It's never over with Brad Listi I've quickly found out. We've just begun to interact. We share a literary vision. Read on to find out what that vision is in this fiery interview with the author of Attention. Deficit. Disorder. ... oh yeah, and if you missed my review, read it.

INTERVIEW:

N.L.: Brad, it’s looking like people who like Nick Hornby might just like you as well. I know I’m a fan of both. I think it’s because your novel has some dark angst related to women and living day-to-day; how do you see the connection between you and Hornby in fans’ minds?

Brad: I’ve gotta be honest: I’ve never read Nick Hornby. But I’m familiar with his work, and based on what little I know about it, I’m flattered by the comparison. Sounds like good company.

N.L.: OK, let’s face it, Attention. Deficit. Disorder. is a controversial name for a novel. Are you pissing more people off than you’re impressing with your Prozac generation title?

Brad: Controversial? Really? That’s the first time I’ve ever heard that. To my mind, the title is far from controversial. It just seems relevant to me. It seems to fit the book, particularly when you consider the period at the end of each word, as each word in the title on its own is thematically relevant to what happens in the novel.

N.L.: I’ve been on two lit collective sites now where it looks like you and a few authors are trying to take over a section of the blogosphere as well as myspace.com: thenervousbreakdown.com and riotlit.com. Are you running both sites? Will the content vary much between the two? I noticed my comments were taken off riotlit.com. What’s the deelio? And I hear there’s going to be a contest?


At the grocery store...

Brad: This is the way things are going these days. Writers are building an audience online and interacting directly with their readers. It’s a matter of necessity, and it’s a natural application of the technology. The Internet permits levels of autonomy and interactivity that weren’t available ten years ago. The playing field is changing. Publishing is changing. And I like to think that we’re somewhere at the forefront of that.

I launched thenervousbreakdown.com this summer, but the real truth at the end of the day is that it’s a collaboration. The site exists because of the writers who provide its content. We’ve got some extraordinarily talented people working for the site, delivering new stories on a daily basis from all over the world. I like to call it an experiment in peripheral news and commentary, an experiment in entertainment. The thing is still mutating, still deciding what it’s going to become. Our audience has a tendency to be trapped in cubicles, or stoned, or suffering from insomnia, or all of the above. So I guess you could say we’re throwing them a lifeline. We’re juggling fire.

RiotLit was started by N. Frank Daniels, who wrote a book called Futureproof. He’s getting ready to go on a huge book tour up and down the east coast. LitPark was started by Susan Henderson, who contributes to thenervousbreakdown and the Huffington Post, and sites of that nature. She’s also an award-winning poet and one of the sweetest people around.

At present, RiotLit is a collective consisting of about nine authors, myself included. The site and the writers themselves tend to have a certain “indie rock” appeal, or so I’m told. It’s a similar spirit, anyway...a D.I.Y. ethos. We’re not going to sit on our hands and wait for somebody to wave some kind of magic wand. And at the end of the day, it’s basically a strength in numbers thing—writers working together, trying to stir things up a little bit and make some noise in concert. We operate on the premise that the readers are out there in droves, and they’re hungry for what we’re serving. It’s just a matter of fighting through the static and letting them know that we exist.

As to your comments being taken down at RiotLit—I have no idea why that would happen, but I imagine it’s a technical issue, a simple mistake. The site is built around the notion of interactivity, and we want people to show up and speak their minds. That’s the whole point. That’s what it’s all about.

To that end, we just held our first official author chat last night, which was a big success, and there will be more of those as time goes on. There are also message boards for people to play around on at the site, and those are taking off as well, as is the site’s official blog. It’s pretty good place to go get lost for awhile.

As to the contest rumors: I’m pretty sure that’s in the works, a writing contest of some sort, but I don’t have the exact details yet. It’s something that Frank and I discussed very briefly last week, but for now I think we’re still in the process of hammering that one out. So stay tuned.

N.L.: Is Santa Monica College the same as Santa Monica City College? Are you getting any shining star students in your classes that you feel comfortable with mentioning? Oh and I noticed you had a decent rating on ratemyprofessor.com, a site that originated out of
Bakersfield, Ca.


Brad and his sister's butt...

Brad: Santa Monica College is the new name. It used to be Santa Monica City College, but I think they eliminated the “City” because they felt that it carried a negative connotation. A stigma of sorts.

I teach an introductory creative writing course, and I’ve had the pleasure of working with a lot of talented people through the years. It’s tough to say who will wind up doing what, because writing is such a personal endeavor, and most of the time it takes several years of hard work to make substantial headway in the direction of publication. My students are usually just starting out, getting a feel for what they’re up to, and my role as their instructor is incredibly temporary. I’m serving as a tour guide for a few weeks—that’s the way I look at it. I’m less of a “professor,” and more of the guy who’s pointing things out along the way. Pitfalls. Stones. Landmarks. Wild animals.

I don’t think you ever really stop learning about this kind of thing, and furthermore I don’t think that you can actually teach people how to write. I think you can teach them how much hard work it takes to become a good writer, and I think that you can pass along a few tricks of the trade here and there in that respect, and I think you can teach them a bit about how to rewrite, and so on. But ultimately it’s up to the individual to do the work on his or her own. With a thing like writing, it comes down to taking your own education. It comes down to will. You have to actually want to do the work. Nobody can make you do it, and nobody can do it for you. You have to be diseased enough to want to sit there at the keyboard everyday and stare at a flashing cursor. That’s the number one prerequisite.

N.L.: What do you emphasize the most in your creative writing classes? And what books do you use? Or do you only teach composition as an adjunct professor? Any outside of class creative writing moonlighting sessions?

Brad: The number one thing I emphasize as a creative writing instructor is what I just mentioned about taking one’s own education. I try to give my students the confidence that they can—and must—teach themselves how to write fiction, if that’s what they really want to do. I encourage them to be aggressively autodidactic in their approach, and not to rely on me or anyone else to do it for them. To my mind, it’s the only way.

As to what textbook I use: I use a book published by the Gotham Writers Workshop, A Guide to Creative Writing, or something along those lines. It’s very good on the basics, and it only deals in practical advice. It doesn’t try to get abstract or philosophical, and it’s very efficient in its use of language. It gives you a few pointers, and then it has the decency to get out of your way.


Juggling in his boxers...

As for moonlighting: no, I don’t do anything like that. Don’t have the time. My schedule is crazy enough as it is. Just the classes at SMC, and for now I’m only teaching creative writing.

N.L.: What’s your next big novel about?

Brad: My next novel is called City of Champions, and we’re hoping to have it on the shelf sometime in 2007 or 2008. It’s an adolescent epic and a pretty expansive satire, a send-up of Middle America. It’s about children acting like adults and adults acting like children. It’s about adolescence—and not necessarily in the chronological sense. And it’s about American Values and how they often get turned on their heads by people holding weed-whackers. It’s got some pretty serious themes on its mind, much like Attention. Deficit. Disorder., but I think it’s a bit broader in its comedy. The goal is to make people laugh out loud while wincing. I want my readers to cough up beverage. I want liquid to shoot out of their noses. If that happens, I will have done my job.

N.L.: We want you to talk to us at Paperback Writer. We’re all about interaction. Please review the comments from the book review and answer one or more of them.

Brad: Big thanks to everybody at Paperback Writer for taking an interest in my work. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it, and I’ll look forward to running into you here in cyberspace somewhere down the road.


Hey!

Buy Attention. Deficit. Disorder. through Bakersfield's Independent Bookstore: Russo’s online…

This entry was posted by N.L. Belardes, on Friday, September 22, 2006. You can leave your response.