Charlene Luck is a fiction writer from the Greater Detroit Area and a graduate of the University of Michigan’s MFA in prose program, where she completed a collection of short stories titled “In Your Houses.” Her story, "Grey Herons," was a finalist in the Glimmer Train Stories Summer Short-Short Fiction Contest 2007, and her short story "Warnings" was published by the literary journal 94 Creations, where she now works as an Editor in their Fiction Department. She lives in Louisville, Kentucky with her husband, Jeff, and their three cats: Manny, Mike, and Cheszwyck.
As an Editor, what kinds of stories do you consider to be successful submissions, and what have those authors done with those stories that distinguish their submission from a submission that isn't as successful?
The kinds of stories I consider to be successful tend to be those that do not make me wait--I need a first sentence to grab me and the first paragraph to prepare me for what's to come. If a writer sees her character(s) as a complete person(s) with her own set of rules in life, then that character could tell me anything, and I'll want to hear (read) it. As far as those submissions which are less successful, for me this is usually a matter of word-choice. Even if the character and plot are all cool, if the prose doesn't make me gasp or shout or get watery-eyed, if the verbs are dull and the descriptions too many or too lengthy without proving necessary to the building of character, I lose faith. But, of course, there are all sort of things that can go wrong in the process of writing a poem or story, most of them more obvious than word-choice. These hardly need mentioning
At 94 Creations, is there anyone you work with that inspires you to write? If so, how?
The diplomatic answer, here, is actually also true: Everyone I work with at the journal inspires me to write, either by their own fantastic writing, or by their drive to get new work finished, or by their interest in my completing my own works-in-progress, or simply by the way we all support and talk openly with one another, telling our stories, getting at what moves us and makes us want to share, sharing excitement over the pieces we're reading from the submissions.
That's so special to be surrounded by people who push you to do what you love. I know that your journal just had a call for submissions for a contest. Have there been any submissions that made you want to drop what you were doing and just write?
I know what you mean--and I know that feeling, but when I'm ready to get to the "slush pile" (what a disparaging way to talk about people's work! Sorry, but I haven't made up a new phrase for it yet) I am able to wall off the other parts of my brain that say "Write something based on that word you've just read!" or "Do dishes and THEN see how you feel about this essay..." etc. I get into critical-reading mode, and I stash the inspiration for later, when I wall off my expressive/writing mind and tend to what's sprouting up there. There are pieces, though, that really stay with me after reading, that I marvel over for a long time. Those gems tend to make me, rather than dropping everything to write, want to quit the writing game altogether and join a circus because who am I, trying to write something when there are pieces like THIS out there?? I can't be the only writer & editor who's felt this way. Right?
Don't I know it. But when I've seen you read your work, I get the same sensation. I wish I could listen to that reading you did at U of M again. The story you read made me glad I stopped writing fiction because you just did it so well.
Anyway, let's get back to it. I've always been a Raymond Carver fan purely because his endings are so brutal, but so perfect. The ending of your story "Warnings" effected me in a similar way. How did you come to write that story, and how did you know where to end it?
I, too, am a Carver fan, so thanks for mentioning him in the same breath as my work. My story "Warnings" came out of my own experience of having a creepy uncle, and the fact that just about EVERYONE has had some experience with a creepy uncle (I look to biological/natural history for answers as to why this is so prevalent...). My first drafts of this story simply followed a young person who was duly warned about how dangerous the world can be for a girl who doesn't pay attention to a place where she was in a danger that was unforeseen, even by her hyper-vigilant mother. But everything about that story seemed too expected, and I kept failing to get at what the *experience* of the protagonist felt like to her. With this version, I came to write it after I had started doing dishes, not even thinking about the story, and I suddenly heard it in present tense, in the voice I felt sure was the right voice. So, I rinsed off my suds and hit the keyboard. It ends as it does now because the truth about warnings is, you can be told all day that there's danger, but until you've navigated danger, you don't recognize it for what it really is. This girl was confused about her own level of maturity and understanding, and she was also out in the world on her own for the first time, feeling confident and capable. She made a terrible choice--which doesn't take the responsibility away from the actual criminal. I hope that is clear. And I hope this ending leaves the reader with more questions than my previous drafts, which had only one trajectory for the characters involved.
When I got to the end, I was disturbed, but it was in a good way. The story hit the notes in just the right way so that it moved me and left me wanting to know more, but I knew that that knowledge would take away from the power in the story.
I noticed that "Warnings" was heavily grounded in the details of life in Dearborn, Michigan during what I thought were the late 70s or mid 80s, and I wondered how much does location or place influence your stories? Do you draw a lot of details from Louisville into the work you've been producing recently?
I often start my stories seeing characters of a certain stripe/attitude dealing with characters or situations unlike themselves. Once I've established who they are and what they are wanting, I usually get a feel for where they might be--and it's almost always somewhere I've spent enough time to get a feel for the place. I have a hard time placing stories in a city where I presently live because I feel like my view of the place is too narrow. I need time and distance to assimilate a place into my consciousness. So I've got certain feelings about places like Detroit, Cincinnati, Tucson that translate easily into characteristics of characters, but Louisville is still open to discovery at this point.
Well, I for one can't wait to see a story from you with Louisville as the setting. There was a Travel Channel show about the place, and it looks like a place ripe with details that would make a story or novel really pop, especially in your hands. That brings me to my next question: Are you currently working on any writing projects?
No. (Haha, just kidding. Who would admit that?). I'm working on some stories about people who are close to one another but have opposite beliefs about some thing or other. The end of the world comes up often. And I've outlined a novel about people who are dependent on prescription drugs for their survival banding together in a suicide-commune. Long story, of course.
I love both of those ideas. If you land a publisher for either of them, let me know - I want to order an advance copy. And, finally, any shout-outs or thanks?
Shout out to the Helen Zell writer's program at U Michigan, of course. And thanks to Adrienna Dame for publishing "Warnings," which turned into an opening for a great working-relationship at 94 Creations on top of a rewarding, loving friendship. And thank you, Alex, for caring about literature and literary pursuits, including mine.
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