1. Why is the book called Special Election?

The short answer the book is called Special Election because there is a story in the collection called Special Election. The longer answer is that I wanted the book to have that title as opposed to another title because I thought the story was the center of the book, the place where its various aesthetic and political and temperamental and emotional concerns found its best home. And because I thought, and still think, that we’d rather have a Special Election than an Election.

2. How long did it take to write Special Election vs your other books?

Story collections tend to come together over several years, accumulating, accumulating, until I realize that I’m writing a book as opposed to just random stories. Special Election took, oh, six years to write—probably no shorter or longer amount of time than my other collections.

3. Do you have a favorite story from the collection?

The title story, probably. Or “Reckonings.” Or “Customs and Alterations.” Maybe “One Goes Where One is Needed.” Or wait, possibly “The Big Book of Useless Saturdays.” “Big Velcro” is pretty great. “Memphis” means an awful lot to me. I guess they’re all my favorites.

4. The humor of Special Election differs from your other books, seems darker. Can you reflect on that subtle shift?

Well, my books are all pretty dark. Although I guess this one ends on an especially dark note. But it also begins on a sunnier note. It’s not something I think about while writing. It’s true that much of the book was written during the pandemic, and during some serious, and ongoing, political grimness. No doubt that leached into the writing. There is, for instance, a pretty high body count in the book. But it’s not all bad news—in one story, a choking man manages to save himself with a Slim Jim. There’s always hope.

5. How did you approach the publisher, Acre Books?

Acre published my previous book—a collection of essays called I, Grape. Collections of any kind are hard, and they did such a good job with it, I was happy—and I hope they were happy—to have them give this one a shot, too.

6. Do you have any good stories about writing Special Election?

No. My life is dull. The only good stories about writing Special Election are the stories in Special Election.

7. What’s your writing process? How do you optimize your production?

How do I optimize my production? That’s an awfully personal question. In my family I was raised to never ask a stranger how they optimize their production.

8. Can you give us some writing advice? When writing stories that have absurd elements, how do you know when you’ve gone too far?

You have someone on hand to tell that you’ve gone too far. But in general, I do not worry about going too far. My experience is that once you start worrying that you’ve gone too far, that means it’s too late and you’ve already gone too far.