It’s Not A Lark: An Interview with Michael Czyzniejewski

Michael Czyzniejewski, who is the interviews editor at the flash fiction magazine Smokelong Quarterly, has written four collections of short stories. His most recent is The Amnesiac in the Maze (Braddock Avenue Books, 2023), which writer Mark Polanzak describes as a collection of stories that “conjure the heady experiments of Kurt Vonnegut, Donald Barthelme, and Mark Leyner.” These are stories that make the reader think. On the surface, the stories appear to be thought puzzles, but underneath, they reveal deeper layers of human longing and desire.

Lori D’Angelo: You’ve written both flash fiction and more traditional short stories. How would you describe the stories in your most recent collection, The Amnesiac in the Maze?

Michael Czyzniejewski: There are some flash pieces in the book, but it’s more balanced with longer stories, or at least mid-length stories, often around 2,500-3,000 words. There are even a couple that are like novels for me, around 4,500 words. Those were difficult for a flash writer!

Lori D’Angelo: The stories in The Amnesiac in the Maze put your characters in a series of absurd scenarios. In one story, you have a pyromaniac who is stuck on an island surrounded by water. In another, you have a town filled with murdering monkeys. In another, you have a hemophiliac who falls in love with a glass eater. How did you come up with the ideas for these stories, and how did this collection, as a whole, come together?

Michael Czyzniejewski: This is a project I’d been working on for a while, since the late oughts, stories that came together by me writing one story, then writing another that seemed to follow the same pattern; all of a sudden, I had a project. I worked on it off and on for about ten years, finishing it and getting the manuscript out right before the pandemic—and there it froze for a couple-few years as small presses were holding back on their publication schedules.

As you point out, the stories follow a pattern, somewhat like the title of the book, The Amnesiac in the Maze. The stories all feature some stock character or archetype or trope or generality in a situation, often doing things. “The Amnesiac in the Maze.” “The Hemophiliac Engages the Glass Eater.” “The Daredevil Discovers His Doppelgänger.” “The Atheist Reconsiders.” It was a fun format to experiment in, to work with general and often nameless characters, to get into the core of who they were, how their identities shaped them. Or didn’t.

Not sure where the ideas come from, or really, how to answer that question, which I get a lot. My answer is always as straightforward as I can make it: I think a lot. Lots of things pop into my head and some of them are good ideas for stories, things that make me smile, things that excite me. It’s usually not intentional—whenever I try to start something and think, “Okay, what’s a good idea for a story?” I don’t get anything. I guess I can’t will myself to think of ideas, but they come when they come.

Lori D’Angelo: I feel like the titles such as “The Bigamist Gets Ambitious” are doing a lot of work for these stories. In a way, this collection kind of reminds me of Robert Olen Butler’s Tabloid Dreams. Can you tell me more about how the titles are working for these stories? 

Michael Czyzniejewski: The titles do a lot of the work in terms of setup, a lot like poems often do—if the title wasn’t there, the reader would have no idea what was going on. Or, at the very least, it would take a lot of the story’s length to figure it out. The title sets up the protagonist, the situation, the conflict. That way, I could hit the ground running, no need for set up or backstory. It’s a neat trick.

Lori D’Angelo: In a lot of the stories in this collection, the main characters are referred to by what they are (e.g., a nudist, an inventor, a hypochondriac) rather than their names (though occasionally, in some stories, their names are referenced). Can you talk about why that is?

Michael Czyzniejewski: I think it was more interesting to try to break down the trope or type or even stereotype than to use a real character, with a real name. That’s what the stories do, pose a certain type of person against their, perhaps, worst fear. I started that way by accident and just went from there—it seemed to be working.

Eventually, as I wrote more of the stories, I wanted to shake things up, add variety, so I did write more traditional stories with names, real characters, etc. “The Bigamist Gets Ambitious” is one that does that. The bigamist, who is also not the protagonist in the story, just has a name, as do his wives, including the original wife, the protagonist, and the narrator. It just made for a more well-balanced, less repetitive book that tries different things.

Lori D’Angelo: You’ve written four short story collections, including this one. How would you say that your work has evolved from the beginning of your career until now?

Michael Czyzniejewski: I remember just trying to write a good story. Then, for a long time, I wanted to publish one of them, and that took a couple-few years. Then I wanted to do it again. Eventually, I wanted to do it consistently. I’ve always wondered if I would “make it,” if I could sustain a career in writing stories, or at the very least, have a tiny space in the universe. Eventually, after a couple of books, a job as a professor teaching short stories, I kind of figured out that, at the very least, it wasn’t an accident or a fluke. That’s a good feeling, a relief … yet I suffer from stage 4 imposter’s syndrome still.

Lori D’Angelo: I’ve noticed that you’ve published a lot of flash fiction recently. Can you talk about what draws you to the form of flash fiction and what you think makes a work of flash fiction successful?

Michael Czyzniejewski: I like getting full ideas out in one sitting. Flash allows that, while novels and even traditionally sized short stories don’t. I can start and finish a draft of a flash piece in one sitting. Once I get an idea, I can usually write it to its end. That’s empowering, plus it fits with how my brain works, how it can be ultra-focused in short bursts but get sick of ideas—especially my own—very quickly. I’ve tried writing novels and got really far into one—25 pages!—but every time I went back to it after that, I couldn’t be less bored. And if I was bored, then the reader ….

Lori D’Angelo: Which writers would you say are doing interesting work right now in the form of flash fiction?

Michael Czyzniejewski: I’ve read so many people and could fill pages upon pages here with names. I look at Kathy Fish and Pamela Painter as real trailblazers, and they’re still doing consistently great work. Sherrie Flick could be the third person if we needed a trio there. I love a lot of the authors on my press, Moon City Press, even before they were on the press, so it’s no wonder they won our book contests: Kim Magowan, Michelle Ross. Andrew Bertaina. Sarah Freligh, and our forthcoming author, Avitus Carle. Other people are so prolific and do so much great work. Melissa Llanes Brownlee. Erin Vachon. Chelsea Stickle. Kelli Short Borges. Tara Isabel Zambrano. Sudha Balagopal. Tommy Dean. Francine Witte. Mikki Aronoff. Meg Tuite. Now I feel bad because there are so many, but I can’t list every author here.

Lori D’Angelo: It seems like flash fiction has become very popular recently. Why do you think that is? And when do you feel like flash fiction really took off as a form of writing?

Michael Czyzniejewski: Yes, very popular! My guess is that it gives fiction writers the opportunity to work like a poet: Shorter, more focused works that can be written (and submitted) in bunches. I suspect a lot of writers have the same issue with longer works as I do, that they just don’t have the patience. Speaking of, I think it also helps that a lot of online flash journals—and there are a lot of them—respond to submissions in less than a month, sometimes in less than a week; flash is moving and shaking at a faster rate than more traditional lit mag operations. And there are an abundance of great flash journals out there, and a lot of print magazines, mine included, have made special spaces in their pages, or on their websites, for flash.

When did it start? Wow, hard to pinpoint. SmokeLong Quarterly has been around for a long time now, over fifteen years, and I had an early story with them. Then I wrote my second book, Chicago Stories, all micros, and published those in 2011-2012. And then I didn’t pay particular attention for a while, but all of a sudden, in the late twenty-teens, all these journals popped up. I found out about it because these great authors on Moon City Press—like Kim and Michelle—had their work from their books in these journals, journals I hadn’t, at that point, heard of.

Lori D’Angelo: Which writers would you say have had the biggest influence on you?

Michael Czyzniejewski: There’s three that are easy to name. Firstly, I went to college in the early nineties and all my professors were still absolutely obsessed with Raymond Carver and minimalism at that point. They all went to school and got hired in the seventies and eighties, and that was just what writing was: Carver. Short, declarative sentences. Minimal exposition and emotion. That iceberg metaphor. I read all of Carver and his contemporaries—Ford, Wolff, Beattie, etc.—so I wrote, and still write, in that stylistic mode.

But times changed, and people got sick of that. Carver was dead for almost ten years. His editor, Gordon Lish, was no longer in charge at Knopf. Then I ran across two authors/books right when I was in grad school: The Girl in the Flammable Skirt by Aimee Bender and CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders. Absurdity! Humor! Magical realism! Creativity! Description and exposition! Both of these authors really spoke to me, especially with their stylized prose and their imaginations. So, Carver and Bender and Saunders.

Steve Gillis, the editor of my first book, Elephants in Our Bedoom, said my work was “magical minimalism.” That made perfect sense, Mike = Carver + (Bender + Saunders). I don’t think I’ve changed much since.

Lori D’Angelo: You’ve worked as an editor, both at Mid-American Review and now at Moon City Review and Moon City Press. Can you talk about how being an editor has shaped your writing?

Michael Czyzniejewski: I’ve learned a lot. Every time you read something, you get smarter. And reading submissions for a journal is different from reading a published work, a book or a story in a lit mag. Sometimes, you learn what to do. Sometimes, you learn what not to do. Sometimes, you get inspired. Working on a journal, as part of my job, has been a gift—any time you can say you’re going to work, and part of that is reading and discussing stories, which is time well spent. This has been true for my entire career. It’s just great to be spending time on these pursuits, as opposed to welding, lawyering, leathernecking, whatever.

Lori D’Angelo: You’re also a professor of creative writing at Missouri State University. Can you talk about how being a teacher informs your writing?

Michael Czyzniejewski: Kind of the same thing: It’s just great to be able to go to work and read and discuss stories. Students inspire me but in a different way than lit mag submissions. Your brain is in a different mode: Help/Fix, as opposed to the editing/choosing submission mode, which is Yes/No. I’m lucky to be able to earn money by talking about short stories, about writing in general. They don’t let you do that in most other jobs. And being around writing all day fuels me, inspires me.

I have writer friends who are happy to go and do ­­_____ all day, then write when their workday is done. I don’t think it would be like that for me.

Lori D’Angelo: You’ve had a fairly successful career as a short story writer, which is a difficult thing to do. What advice do you have for newer writers who are hoping to write flash fiction and short stories?

Michael Czyzniejewski: Work on it, and don’t stop. I’m convinced the only reason—or most of the reason—I’ve had success is because I was persistent. I read, wrote, revised, and submitted my work without letting up for years—more than half my life at this point. This thing we do, it’s not a lark, not a passing hobby, not something you stumble into. Nobody is looking to publish anyone’s hobby/side hustle, or anyone’s rough drafts. There are so many talented people writing and submitting and pushing the genre of short fiction forward. To be one of those people, you have to work just as hard or harder to break in.

But if you love this, have talent, and were meant to write and publish stories and flash, this shouldn’t be a problem. Even when I was getting everything rejected—and that happened for years—I was never like, “I hate this. Writing stories is so tedious.” I was doing what I wanted to be doing, so working hard at it wasn’t an issue. What else was I going to do?

Lori D’Angelo: What are you reading now, or what have you read recently that you have particularly enjoyed?

Michael Czyzniejewski: I bought a huge stack of books at AWP that I haven’t touched yet, ten weeks later. I have gotten into the practice of seeing friends advertise their new books on social media and then writing them, asking to buy a signed copy—I’ve done that at least ten times in the last month. I am teaching the Contemporary Fiction course in the fall here at MSU and I haven’t read six of the nine books on my syllabus yet. What I’m reading now is student stories and final portfolios: As soon as that’s done, in a few weeks, I hit all that other stuff!

Lori D’Angelo: What are you currently writing, or what are you thinking of doing in terms of your next writing project?

Michael Czyzniejewski: I have two books done, pretty much. One is a mixed collection—flash and longer stories—about dads, dad-child relationships. I was really on that kick as soon as I finished Amnesiac. I finished this dad book, comparatively, pretty quickly, in less than three years, while Amnesiac took about ten. I have been writing flash exclusively for the last few years now. I’m at the point where that might be a book—I should probably count those pages up soon!

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Michael Czyzniejewski is the author of four short story collections: The Amnesiac in the Maze (Braddock Avenue Books, 2023); I Will Love You for the Rest of My Life: Breakup Stories (Curbside Splendor, 2015); Chicago Stories: 40 Dramatic Vignettes (Curbside Splendor, 2012); and Elephants in Our Bedroom (Dzanc Books, 2009). He is the editor-in-chief of Moon City Press and Moon City Review and the interviews editor for Smokelong Quarterly. He coordinates the creative writing program at Missouri State University, where he also serves as a professor. He is a two-time Pushcart Prize winner and a 2009 recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.

Lori D’Angelo’s debut collection of stories, The Monsters Are Here, is being published by ELJ Editions in 2024. She is an alumna of the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley and a fellow at the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts. Her fiction, non-fiction, and poetry has appeared in various literary journals including BULL, Drunken Boat, Gargoyle, Hawaii Pacific Review, Heavy Feather Review, North Dakota Quarterly, ONE ART, Potomac Review, Reed Magazine, and Rejection Letters. She is a 2012 recipient of a grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation. Find her on Twitter @sclly21 or Instagram at lori.dangelo1.