10 Questions with Christine Sneed

- By Amal Zaman

Before the end of his second month at the Gazette, Connor was told that he wore his misery too openly. "You need to hide it better," said Sandra Cramer, the staff writer who did most of the movie, concert, and theater reviews and was also the paper's primary fact checker, "Or else, like Woody Allen, learn to make a joke out of it. - from "Dear Kelly Bloom" which appears in our Fall 2016 Issue (Vol. 57 Issue 3).

Tell us about one of the first pieces you’ve written

I used to write terrible love poems about boys I had crushes on in junior high. Those old spiral-bound notebooks have all been lost, I believe, in one move or another – thank God!

What writer(s) or works have influenced the way you write now?

Scott Spencer – he’s someone who writes so beautifully and sensually about love and sex.  He also is very funny at times.  His precision and ways of seeing the world have had a profound effect on me.  I don’t have anything near his fluency but I think about his novels (Endless Love and Willing, in particular) all the time.

What other professions have you worked in?

Well, I’ve been a college writing professor, a receptionist in a dean of library’s office, and long ago, a secretary in a highway safety products company.

What did you want to be when you were young?

Oh, I wanted to be important, in whatever way I could manage.

What inspired you to write this piece?

I have a good friend who worked for many, many years at the Chicago Tribune.  Visiting him in his office – with its flickering fluorescent lights was probably where “Dear Kelly Bloom” began.

Is there a city or place, real or imagined, that influences your writing?

Paris, for sure.  Los Angeles, New Orleans, and New York too.

Who typically gets the first read of your work?

My partner, Adam.  He almost always gets to the heart of it – e.g. “This character isn’t working for me.”  Or, “this feels forced.  Or, my favorite: “That’s good”  - which is high praise from him

If you could work in another art form what would it be?

I’d love to make films—as a director or actor, not as a screenwriter (though I’d like to try that too).

What are you working on currently?

A couple of short stories.  I finished a new novel recently and am taking a break for the moment from long-form fiction. I love reading and writing short stories.

What are you reading right now?

Rachel Cusk!  I love her work and just finished two of her novels: The Lucky Ones and Arlington Park.  She’s brilliant.  Before them, I read Outline and The Country Life, which are marvelous.

Christine Sneed's stories have appeared in the Massachusetts Review, Best American Short Stories, O. Henry Prize Stories, Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, and a number of other publications. SHe is the author of the novels Paris, He Said and Little Known Facts, and the story collections Portraits of a Few of the People I've Made Cry and The Virginity of Famous Men. She lives in Evanston, IL.