Nicole Haroutunian is the author of the new short story collection Speed Dreaming. She is the coeditor of the journal Underwater New York, and she works as a museum educator. She lives in Woodside, Queens.
Q: How did you come up with the title "Speed
Dreaming" for one of your stories and for the collection overall, and what
does it signify to you?
A: I wrote the title story last, because my editor thought
that the linked stories "Pilgrims" and "The Last Unicorn"
needed a third story to feel complete.
In order to come up with an arc for the story, I tried to
combine three disparate elements: a coyote at a child's birthday party, a death
on the subway, and the sleepover game "speed dreaming." Once the game
was in the story, the title seemed evocative. My editor is the one who
suggested it as the title for the whole collection--it can have so many
meanings.
Q: As you mentioned, several of the stories are linked, and
there seem to be some slight connections among the characters in other stories
too. Did you write all the stories with certain themes and links in mind, or
did the collection evolve in a more unplanned way?
A: Besides those three stories I just mentioned, the
collection did not start off as linked. But, during the editing process, my
editor encouraged me to make the world of the book smaller.
The teenage protagonist of one story became the younger
version of Meg, from those three linked stories. Stories set in or featuring
Pittsburgh, Poughkeepsie and an unnamed upstate location all moved to
Poughkeepsie.
A band mentioned in one story became the same band mentioned
in another. A teaching artist in one story became the same teaching artist in
another story; even though she's the protagonist of both, I think people miss
that link because one story is in the first person and one is in the third.
So, for the most part I wrote the stories with only the
logic of that particular story in mind, but eventually, I tried to unite them
so they all existed in the same space.
Q: Many of your stories take place in or somewhat near New
York. How important is the setting in your writing?
A: It's very important in that I mostly write from
observation rather than imagination. In general, I need to know a place in
order to write it, so that limits where I can set my stories.
New York City, Poughkeepsie, suburban New Jersey, a park in
the Catskills and rural Wales--I've lived in or been to all of those places,
hence the settings for the stories in Speed Dreaming.
Q: Which authors have influenced you?
A: I look to Lorrie Moore and Jo Ann Beard for dialogue and
tone, to Laurie Colwin for character and to remember to be particular and
strange, to Alice Munro for everything. I also love Jennifer Egan, Junot Diaz,
Justin Torres... the list goes on!
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I am working on what I am thinking of as a novella. I
love writing about teenage girls and their mothers, I think because I am right
in between them in age (taking my family as an example)--I can identify, in
some ways, with both, and in some ways with neither.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I'm about to head out to read on the West Coast--your
readers should come, if they're in the area!
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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