Interview with Brett Biebel

meet NUNUM's Winter Contributor: Brett Biebel

4/17/2021

NUNUM

Blending Flash Fiction & Art

Interview with Brett Biebel

Winter last year was strange for everyone, that might be one of the reasons why Brett Biebel's story of self-discovery hit home with us here so hard or it just might have been because it is an amazing example of just what can be done with the flash form. Either way, Hook, Line, and Sinker is stellar and luckily for us we were able to get a touch of Brett's time and find out a little more about his process.

Naturally, you know how things got started. Brett, what is the first book you remember sitting down and reading by yourself?

The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar. I still think about it every time I hear the expression “saving face.”

Hook, Line, and Sinker words by Brett Biebel

I say this all the time, but thank you, one more for the reading list. Alright, what about a little more recently, what was the last book you read that made you say damn that was a good book?

Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellman. It hangs with you. A cathartic book for me.

What about when you are on vacation, do you have any go-to vacation writers?

Michael Lewis. Maybe Chuck Klostermann. I really enjoy nonfiction and thoughtful essays, often about sports or economics or culture.

What writer(s) or which book(s) influenced your decision to become a writer?

Thomas Pynchon’s V. was the book that broke every rule I thought existed and made me think writing was possible. It’s got this ability to alternate between wild humor and really pointed critique, and I particularly love the overall sense of depth, of making connections, and all with a heavy dose of playfulness. Barthelme’s Sixty Stories does that too.

Those special books, they do have a way of changing just about everything don't they. And these days, is there a contemporary writer you admire?

Hook, Line, and Sinker words by Brett Biebel

Lydia Davis, Maggie Nelson. I think both of them have so much range and are so willing to try something new while also still giving readers character and plot and great, vivid details.

Hook, Line, and Sinker words by Brett Biebel

Ah nice, Lydia Davis was part of reading list I got during my MFA, haven't stopped thinking about her work since. And speaking of craft, is there a writing craft book that you would recommend to new writers?

I think my favorite craft books are actually flash anthologies. I learn so much from reading collected, very short stories.

Well said, so if you read to learn craft is there anyone out there who has influenced your style?

David Foster Wallace had this ability to really alternate between experimentation and psychological minimalism, and that’s something I think I do a lot. Jennifer Egan’s A Visit From the Goon Squad also has a style and an ability to draw connections I rely on a lot when I’m thinking about putting together a short fiction manuscript.

Brett, why write flash fiction?

Practically, I love that I can focus and do it in tiny bites. We’ve got a young daughter, so flash allows me to write for 20 minutes and make some progress. I also like being able to focus in detail on one thing at a time.

More broadly, I think flash moves the world into place for me. You can’t do artifice in really short fiction, and that makes it feel more immediate, like it can really capture something true because it isn’t worried about sustaining momentum for pages and pages.

Hook, Line, and Sinker words by Brett Biebel

I think a lot about that Borges quote about why write long books when you can just pretend they already exist and then offer a summary. I relate to that because, even though I love novels, the density of the short form provides a ton of magic and power for me.

What advice would you give someone who is just starting to send their work out to journals?

Two things: 1) Fit is underrated. We talk about it all the time, and it’s still underrated. If a journal publishes stuff you really like and that speaks to your sensibilities, that’s the best place to send work. 2) It’s like baseball. It takes a long time to get hits. You fail to get accepted way more than you succeed. Sometimes, you hit the ball right on the screws, and it ends up an out. I’m always forgetting to appreciate process over results, but that’s the most important thing about writing for me.

Favorite flash piece:

“The Vending Machine at the End of the World” by Josephine Rowe or “The Hawk” by Brian Doyle.

Movie whose script you wish you’d written:

Network (1976). It’s prescient, and the concepts and set pieces are dark in the right way for me.

What would you do if you weren’t writing and teaching writing?

I used to want to call baseball games on the radio. I think now I wish I knew I how to code so I could work in a team’s front office.

Brett Biebel

Brett Biebel teaches writing and literature at Augustana College in Rock Island, IL. His (mostly very) short fiction has appeared in SmokeLong Quarterly, the minnesota review, The Masters Review, Emrys Journal, and elsewhere. 48 Blitz, his debut story collection, is available from Split/Lip Press.