SPRINGSPRING 2015 2015 Interview with Visiting Assistant Professor Sara Jaffe by Sam Axelrod, MFA FicƟon ‘18 Sara Jaffe joined the program’s faculty for the 2016 academic year as a visiting profes- sor of fiction. Her first novel, Dryland, was published by Tin House Books in Septem- ber 2015. Her short fiction and criticism have appeared in Fence, BOMB, NOON, Paul Revere’s Horse, matchbook, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. Drawing on her experience as guitarist for post-punk band Erase Errata, she also co-edited The Art of Touring (Yeti, 2009), an anthology of writ- Sara Jaffe (SJ): So, to speak first about ing and visual art by musicians. the publishing experience, and the recep- Sara holds a BA from Wesleyan tion of having a book out in the world—I University and an MFA from the Universi- think it certainly felt very vulnerable at ty of Massachusetts Amherst, and has re- first to open myself up to readers I don’t ceived fellowships from the Virginia Cen- know, and to being reviewed and stuff, ter for the Creative Arts, RADAR Produc- but I think almost across the board when I tions, and the Regional Arts and Culture received unfavorable reviews, it seemed Council. She is also a co-founding editor of pretty clear to me that they were not my New Herring Press, a publisher of prose readers. That what they felt I had failed to chapbooks. do was not something I was trying to do anyway. So that was reassuring in a way, — — — — — — and sort of helped to clarify my intent. During Spring term, Sara met with Sam That was one thing that was useful. Now Axelrod, a first-year MFA candidate in fic- strangers read my book. That’s a reality, tion, to talk about her writing. but I also have con- tinued to feel Sam Axelrod (SA): Now that it’s a bit buoyed by the writ- behind you, what would you say you ing community that learned from writing and publishing Dry- I’ve built up over the land? Jaffe Interview — Cont’d page 2 crwr.uoregon.eduLiterary Reference CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAM 1 Literary Jaffe Interview years, and a lot of the most valuable more about making experiments in Reference feedback I’ve gotten has been from various ways that I can sustain more _______________________ writers I’ve been in conversation effectively over shorter work. Obvi- FACULTY with for a long time, and I think that ously, there are the questions and much of the press or blurbs or read- stylistic tics that continue through- ings happened through people that I out all of one’s work, but to me it made connections with, through feels pretty different. Poetry building community, for the last SA: Would you say you think of Garrett Hongo however many years. And that felt yourself as a novelist, or a short sto- Daniel Anderson really gratifying to me. Of course ry writer, or neither, or both? Is that Geri Doran there was work that Tin House did something that you think about? as my publisher, but I also was able SJ: My ideal is to write three pages to activate these networks that I’ve or 250 pages. Fiction cultivated—not in order to have SA: So “both” would be the easy Jason Brown them help me in a publicity sense— answer. Marjorie Celona but just having those connections SJ: Both. But I’ve never been a sol- and becomes really grounding and use- id fifteen-page short story writer. Sara Jaffe, ful. That’s never been my thing. Visiting Writer SA: It’s as if you’d been working SA: Right. So, let’s go back a little. up to this for a while. I know you’re Before writing, your main artistic Instructors working on a collection of stories outlet was music. Do you feel you Cai Emmons now, Hurricane Envy, but did pub- were once a “music person” and Brian Trapp lishing a novel affect your novel- now you’re a “writing person,” or do writing-life in terms of wanting to you still feel like you’re both? Can start writing another one? Or per- you talk a little about how you made _______________________ haps the opposite.? that transition, and what your trajec- SJ: When I was really ready to sit tory was like going from music to ADMINSTRATIVE down and start the next project, I’d writing? Was writing always there? STAFF been saying it was going to be a col- And do you miss playing music? lection, and then I felt like, “I don’t SJ: I always identified as a writer George E. Rowe want to write a collection of stories. I from the time I was really young. Program Director want to write another novel. I want And I also played music from a pret- Julia A. Schewanick to dive back into writing something ty young age, but the difference, I Business Manager longer-form.” Which surprised me, think, when I got really into music— because while I was writing the nov- both listening and playing, as a teen- _______________________ el, I wanted to write stories in order ager—it defined my social world. So to be able to work on that smaller I’d really say that the major shift that Creative Writing Program scale. But since then I really have happened is that now my social 5243 University of Oregon gotten back into story-mode. I have world, and my artistic community, is Eugene, OR 97403-5243 some ideas for longer-form stuff that more writing-oriented, as opposed to T: (541) 346-3944 I’m really excited to get back to—but music-oriented. But also, I have not F: (541) 346-0537 it’s also been the right time for me to been playing music very much for E: [email protected] be trying out different things in a the last few years. I just haven’t http://crwr.uoregon.edu shorter-mode. I’d say [the stories] are quite different from Dryland; it’s Jaffe Interview — Cont’d page 13 2 UNIVERSITY OF OREGON COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES Spring 2017 Faculty News & Excerpts from Recent Work Jason Brown “The grand one or the regular one?” John asked. Associate Professor of Fiction He heard his wife, Sarah, clucking in the air around him. She didn’t need to tell him to leave the boy be. Jason Brown won the Jeffrey E. His great-grandson frowned and pursed his lips. The Smith Editor’s Prize from the smallness of his mouth reminded John of Caroline, the Missouri Review ($5,000) for his boy’s mother, who measured her words like a butcher adding slices of roast beef on the scale. The more she story “Instructions to the Living spoke the more he would have to pay. She’d actually from the Condition of the Dead.” He also optioned been born in Maine, not California, but she was a Yan- his book Why the Devil Chose New England for His kee in name only. ■ Work to filmmaker Lance Edmands, who is the writer and director of the film Bluebird and has worked for Marjorie Celona Lena Dunham. Jason will be a co-writer of the script. Assistant Professor of Fiction Jason also submitted his two new books, the novel Outermark and the story collection The Wreck of the Marjorie Celona published a story, Ipswich Sparrow, to his agent. “Counterblast,” in the Spring 2017 issue of The Southern Review. She From: “Instructions to the Living From the was also a recipient of research Condition of the Dead” grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the University of Oregon, and will be in residence at the The door hinges creaked, and the thudding footfalls Mineral School during the summer of 2017. of his family shook the beams. What were they doing here today, the day before Thanksgiving? Voices, the crackling of grocery bags, firewood clunking in front of From: “Counterblast” the hearth (because they thought he was too old now to carry it from the barn himself). They swarmed into every I found a beer in the fridge and watched my husband corner of the parlor and the kitchen with no thought to wash Lou. He filled a glass and tipped it over her head. the most important question, the same this year as eve- He had found the bottle of baby shampoo I’d packed ry year: who had brought the goddamned cheddar? In- with our toiletries and was soaping her with it. He deed. Two years ago he’d put his foot down and said he shaped her hair into a tiny mohawk. I wanted to tell him would no longer provide! So this year would be the to protect her from the hard faucet by wrapping a dish- same as last year: crackers and hummus from Califor- cloth around it. I wanted to tell him that she was getting nia. cold. He tipped too much water over her head, and she “Dad? Where are you?” called Caroline, his mealy- began to cry. I pretended that my feet were glued to the mouthed granddaughter-in-law, a lawyer from California floor and that I couldn’t rescue her from my husband’s who always talked about the importance in old age of rough grasp. She looked at me with her sweet, helpless regular bowel movements. A sharp slap on the stair- face, and I watched her little tongue quiver while she case, hen another and another.