Interview with Julie Jones

Meet NUNUM's Contributor: Julie Jones

2/4/2025

NUNUM

Blending Flash Fiction & Art

Interview with Julie Jones

What was the first book you remember picking and reading by yourself?

I don't remember the first book that I selected myself, but my first favorite book was Mandy by Julie Andrews Edwards. I still want to live in that little cottage in the woods, or at least borrow it for a writing retreat.

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

Margaret Atwood and George Orwell always inspire. Beyond their classic novels, which I love, they have written so prolifically in so many genres. They seem like brains without borders. Heros, in other words.

Is there a writing craft book that you would recommend to new writers?

Attack of the Copula Spiders by Douglas Glover. Doug is brilliant and I was lucky

to study with him for a semester. The chapter on how to write a short story is intentionally prescriptive and quite helpful for learning about story structure (from a Western perspective).

Is there a writer who has influenced your current writing style?

Italo Calvino was and remains a revelation.

Why write flash fiction?

So many answers to this question. Here are three. One, it's fun, and I believe writing should be fun. Two, it's a terrific exercise to cut a story down to the bones then tug at the tendons. Three, some stories are best told small, though I don’t always realize that until I’ve tortured the 20-page version for a few years.

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

It takes a lot of patience, trial and error, and serendipity to find the readers and editors that connect with your work, even when you're doing your due diligence in researching journals that might be a good fit. If you're serious, keep plodding along. Submitting groups can offer camaraderie, good cheer, tips, and reality

checks. Don’t give up. Continue to take action toward your goal no matter your mood.

What is the most challenging aspect of the writing process for you?

I’m an abstract thinker, so accessing the emotional lives of my characters can be quite difficult (even populating a story with characters can be difficult). A delightful idea might take a long time to find a narrative that fits.

Solutions vary. One is to start by describing the situation and see who walks on stage. Or let the story percolate in my subconscious without trying to force it. Or try Bradbury’s pensée exercise: make a list of nouns, then start riffing on each noun and see what bubbles up. Or all of the above. Or take a hike.

Where do you get your story ideas?

I love science and am often inspired by this astounding planet we live on. When I learn something new that startles me, my next thought is often, what if…? Then I have the beginning of a story. The news is also full of absurdity, which can be an excellent source for satire. Then there’s mythology. Fantastic fodder.

What was the best advice that you ever received as a writer?

Hands down, the best advice I ever got was not to write what I know or write what I love, but to write from who I truly am. I am weird. I was trying to write normal literary fiction with normal human characters. It was awful. Once I got permission to be me, to be weird, my writing began to improve.

Julie Jones has been nominated for Best Microfiction and Best of the Net, and honored as a contest finalist by River Styx and f(r)iction. Her stories have been published in Cincinnati Review: miCRo, Chicago Quarterly Review, and Atticus Review, among others. She earned her MFA in Writing from VCFA.