Luke Rolfes: Whitney Collins is back with us again to discuss her stellar second collection of fiction entitled Ricky & Other Love Stories from Sarabande Books. We’ve been fans of Whitney since the early part of her career, and I am always excited to read her work. Thanks for talking with us again, Whitney! Can you tell us about where the idea for Ricky came from? Did you know you wanted to write another collection of short fiction to follow up Big Bad?
Whitney Collins: I wasn’t planning on writing a second collection after Big Bad. The plan was to write a novel, but the short stories just kept coming despite my concerted efforts to put a lid on them. Eventually, I just surrendered. To start, I had a few completed stories that my editor Kristen Miller and I had not included in Big Bad (notably, “North Colorado” and “The Yardstick”) because they were more relationship-oriented. Then, I wrote the title story “Ricky” for the American Short(er) Fiction Contest, and it was also a “relationship story.” Soon, a theme emerged with my new batch of work; the pieces all tackled love in some form: romantic, platonic, maternal, paternal. Once I had about five or six stories in this vein, I knew that what was materializing was a collection of non-traditional love stories. So basically, my second collection demanded I write it. The consensus from a lot of readers is that the stories are pretty bold and assertive. For better or worse, they have their way with the audience. I was also beholden. Some dark muse of troubled love had me by the ankle and saw to it I didn’t write a novel. At least not then.
LR: There are 23 pieces in this book—from flash fiction to traditional length short fiction. Can you tell us about your strategy in culling and organizing this collection? Did you have to make some tough decisions?
WC: Organizing a story collection is somewhat fun for me. I’m pretty ruthless about what gets to stay and what doesn’t and what order everything goes in. Again, with the subtitle of “love stories,” all the stories had to—in some way, shape, or form—be about love. On top of that, I felt like these stories were slightly more experimental than Big Bad, and I tried to include stories that took risks in form and voice. It’s not unlike making a mixtape. Unpredictability is welcome, but things should also be cohesive. I must admit 23 is a weird number of stories to have in a book. At first, I tried to make it a nice 25 or bring it down to 17, which is one of my favorite numbers, but 23 just stuck, especially after I read about the “23 enigma” and went down that rabbit hole.
LR: What sort of inspiration did you have for this book? Were there any books, movies, art pieces, albums you were into during the time of writing this that you think of as companion pieces to Ricky?
WC: I guess the biggest influence on Ricky was a general theme of 80’s and 90’s shopping mall culture. In the early stages of writing, I noticed that two or three of the stories referenced malls or took place in one, so I made a conscious effort to insert a fictional “Pinesap Plaza” into several of the stories, replete with weird kiosks and fried food. Juxtaposing mall culture with dark love stories created an interesting vibe for the book, I think. Plastic meets the profound in Ricky. I’ve always found malls to be nostalgic and fun until they’re completely superficial and depressing. That’s what most of my characters find themselves up against in Ricky: silly diversion ultimately usurped by harsh reality.
LR: I'm really glad you brought up malls. I find malls fascinating. They were so ingrained in my young life, and now they are pretty much dying out, one by one. In today's world, do you think there is anything that is taking the place of the social/cultural space that "the mall" used to provide? And why do you think malls make for such a good setting for fictional stories?
WC: I really don’t know if anything can take the place of the mall. And there’s something very sad about them dying out, even though they were bastions of superficiality and excess. Maybe they had their moment in the sun, and now it’s time for the next social gathering experiment. I suppose people could still meet at the park to wander and socialize, but something about malls was really singular and seasonless. I think it’s because a great majority of people flocked to them simply because they couldn’t think of anything else to do. They went there out of boredom and possibility and longing. They went there thinking they might be able to buy something or see something or meet someone who would change their life. Really, they were romantic places, places of reinvention and hope. As well as pretzels, debt, and spiritual vacuity. I can’t get too sentimental here; I’ll lose readers.
LR: One thing I like about your writing, Whitney, is that you name almost every single character in your stories, and they also seem singular and unique. What is your process of character creation?
WC: I think I’m always observing people in my own life and in the world around me and really taking note of how many different versions of human beings there are. I do believe that at our core, we are all grappling with the same struggles—meaning, shame, belonging, regret, passion, envy, etc.—but all of us pursue or avoid these things in drastically different ways. We humans are masters of delusion, and I love taking note of how people either get themselves into trouble or out of it. I’m always making a running list in my head of a cast of characters.
I also believe it’s helpful to realize humans do, indeed, contain multitudes. The more in touch writers are with their own complexities and contradictions, the more we can empathize with our characters and write them from a place of authenticity. I deeply feel for my characters, even the ones that are disgusting or ridiculous. I try to imagine where my characters started out, where the world originally failed them, and how they’ve been trying to recover ever since.
As for names, I really need to get my hands on an old phone book from a large city so I can just constantly find new and interesting names. I have depleted the baby-name websites online.
LR: Let’s talk about a few of the individual pieces. The title story, “Ricky,” is a wonderful flash fiction about a girl named Carla who works at a store that sells hams. The other workers liken selling ham to enticing a person to sleep with you. Carla, at the end, reveals that customers often will turn down a ham, only for her to bring it to the back room and then return with the same ham, and then the customer will buy it thinking it is a better ham. I love that last anecdote, how it resonates with all that came before it. What can you tell us about this story and how you wanted Carla’s job to shape the rest of her narrative?
WC: Life is full of weird metaphors, and if we really think about it, trying to enthusiastically sell someone a ham and have them be enthusiastic about buying it is not that far removed from the world of love and dating. Humans are always in the process of pitching unlikely proposals and hoping they get taken up. Of course, the more evolved of us will pitch to the right people at the right time, but the more desperate of us are often just throwing anything to the wall to see what sticks. A lot of my characters are looking for companionship or reassurance, and I think “Ricky” illustrates how the “mating game” is oftentimes no different than trying to convince a customer they need a shitty ham covered in corn syrup.
LR: I’ve always been drawn to the way you blend genres—realism and surrealism and speculative fiction, for instance. Some of these stories contain elements of horror. In fact, one of the pieces in here, “The Owner,” was published in a horror anthology. Are you a horror fan? Did you mean to set out to write a horror story in this instance or did it just happen?
WC: “The Owner” was a story that I wrote for a contest called “Tiny Nightmares,” which ended up being included in an anthology of the same name printed by Catapult. So, that was one of my first intentional forays into the world of horror. Still, I do think that most of my stories have elements of gore and suspense and darkness without being traditional horror stories. One of my early mentors in graduate school said my work had elements of “domestic horror,” in that everything was taking place in ordinary places with ordinary people, but the circumstances were often diabolical. I like that. I think that on a day-to-day basis, we are all managing tiny bits of horror, if not full-on scary situations. I think readers like to see characters come face-to-face with big trouble. There’s a voyeuristic quality that makes people feel less alone, but also better off.
LR: And to follow up on that—can you tell us about your knack for blending elements from different genres and/or styles of writing? Can you articulate that process?
WC: I like mixing styles in my writing, the same way someone might mix elements in interior design or food or fashion. It’s a form of fusion that makes a story interesting to write and interesting to read. If a story is lacking complexity, is too “real,” I’ll go back in and insert something that runs counter to the existing style, such as a dream sequence or a character’s internal breakdown or a stretch of delusional dialogue that feels detached from reality. It tends to give a story breadth and depth. I like to inject something existential or extraordinary into most stories, but I try to make sure this process is seamless. Otherwise, it feels gratuitous.
LR: Another favorite piece of mine is called “Lush.” The protagonist is Sawyer, a seven-year-old who is on vacation. In the next room, her half-brother Charles and his girlfriend Judith share a room. Charles turns out to be the worst boyfriend imaginable, though Sawyer has trouble interpreting what she sees and hears. Can you tell us why you wanted to funnel this narrative through the sister’s perspective?
WC: I think children are wonderful characters to have in literature, because, just like in real life, children see the unvarnished truth and aren’t afraid to explore it further or inquire about it or call it out. In this particular story, Sawyer isn’t completely sure what is going on between her brother and Judith, but she is the only one clued into the gravity of things. She’s a detective, so to speak, and I think that she probably feels like an ally to the reader who is also concerned and trying to decipher what is afoot.
LR: I also love “I’m Your Venus.” This first-person narrative follows a man named Dave who drunkenly stumbles through middle age. He is entranced by Minerva, a strange woman who cuddles with him at night and disappears for days at a time—trips to Venus, she claims. What inspired this story?
WC: Well, sadly or interestingly, the main character in the story is loosely based on my college landlord, who shared many of the same characteristics as Dave. Like Dave, my landlord was eternally looking for meaning and answers, and I instinctively felt like the only person that could save someone in his terrible predicament was an actual witch. This story is me toying with that odd coupling. At heart, this is really a tale about opposites: the blizzards of upstate New York with the infernal heat Venus, a confused middle-aged man and a decisive witch. Youth and age, comfort and discomfort, lost and found.
LR: I have to ask about the piece you published in Laurel Review! The piece is called “Rocks 4 Sale,” and it involves a woman who sits out every day, trying to sell rocks, and the neighbor who loves her from afar. How did you come up with this one?
WC: I think it came from an experience I had at a garage sale, where the things being sold were so basic and bizarre that I couldn’t possibly imagine someone spending money on them, but then I stuck around and watched exactly that happen! I’m talking Tupperware lids that didn’t have bottoms being bought for cash! So, I thought that would be a really interesting idea for a story. What if a woman sets up a stand in her front yard and tries to sell common gravel at a high price and succeeds? What would that look like? And what would it look like if it was also a love story? I feel like this is hearkening back to the shitty ham.
LR: What’s next for you and your writing? Any new projects in the works?
WC: I am currently halfway through a third collection that I’m really excited about. It feels different than Big Bad and Ricky in that, dare I say, it’s slightly more hopeful? I don’t know. Don’t hold me to that, people will probably end up reading it if it gets published and go: “This is far from optimistic!” But I’m absolutely loving writing it. I keep trying to break away from short stories and do only a novel, but I’ve come to realize that I will always have stories going. That said, I am working on a novel in fits and starts. And also something that is either a YA novel or short film. I have no idea where that one is heading.
LR: Thanks again, Whitney! We look forward to reading more of your stories in the future! Check out Ricky & Other Love Stories here.
Luke Rolfes: Whitney Collins is the author of the award-winning collection of stories called Big Bad from Sarabande books---one of my favorite books released in the last year. Thank you so much for talking with us, Whitney! I’d love to hear about the genesis of this book. Can you share how you got the idea for Big Bad, and when you felt like you had a full collection of stories?
Whitney Collins: Well, first off, I’m thrilled to answer questions for one of my all-time favorite literary magazines, so thank you for having me. I remember being so excited when one of my original Big Bad stories (“The Horse Lamp”) was accepted for publication at The Laurel Review. I was hoping that story would find a special home with an enthusiastic team of editors and readers who “got” it, and I lucked out with you guys. And interestingly, all this brings me to a nice transition for the first question: the genesis of Big Bad. I started working on the collection in 2016, when I began my MFA program at Spalding University, but I didn’t originally set out to write short stories. At the time, I was actually attempting to write a novel about a babysitter who “accidentally-on-purpose” drowns a baby. It was a dark, twisted idea that never made it into a novel, but it became a story. And guess what the story was called? “The Horse Lamp.”
Thankfully, during that first semester of my MFA program, my inaugural mentor at Spalding, Leslie Daniels, urged me to pursue short stories instead of a novel. She took a hard look at a bunch of my odd stuff and insisted I go read Kelly Link’s Get in Trouble. That was a turning point for me. Link’s collection basically gave me permission to do all kinds of experimental stuff with horror and magic realism that I am resisting. After I read Get in Trouble, Leslie assigned Ramona Ausubel’s A Guide to Being Born. My mind was blown, again. By Thanksgiving of that first year, I was like: BYE NOVEL, HELLO WEIRD STORIES.
LR: “The Nest” is the opening story in this collection. It’s a delightful and heartbreaking piece. I am always fascinated with opening stories. They seem to be responsible for setting the tone for the entire book, as well as establishing ground rules for what can and cannot happen in this imagined space. Big Bad seems to wander back and forth between the surreal and the real, but this piece is much more grounded than the title story or “Lonelyhearts.”The relationship between the characters of Frankie and Uncle Eric is so refreshingly raw and real in its imperfection. I’d love to hear about this story. What inspired these characters and relationship, and why did you choose to lead off this collection with this piece?
WC: I wanted to start the collection with a reality-based story, because out of the thirteen stories, I think only four are truly speculative fiction. The other nine may have bizarre dreams within them, or tangential imaginings that are fantasy- or horror-based, but most of the stories actually take place in reality. So, I began with “The Nest,” because I didn’t want to scare off readers out of the starting gate with something too “out there.” Of course, pretty quickly after “The Nest” I just yank the rug out from under the reader with an amputation story and some unexpected self-birthing, but things start off somewhat “normal.”
But back to “The Nest.” This was a story that I didn’t really outline. I knew I was going to open with an emergency premature birth—and I also had the peculiar Thanksgiving scene laid out in my head—but other than that, I was writing blind. I let this story lead me for the most part. The more I wrote, the more I saw the theme of sibling rivalry. And then the making of the actual nest in the story just happened organically. It doesn’t always work out when I don’t have a plan or an outline, but I enjoy when a story reveals itself to me, instead of me manhandling it. “The Nest” was one of those stories that took the lead.
LR: There’s a scene in “The Entertainer” that has stuck with me where two rich sisters, Devlin and Davenport, beg Rachel to eat a full meal in front of them at a restaurant. Rachel obliges, but the whole scenario feels voyeuristic and dirty. That scene always gets me---entrancing and disturbing at the same time. Did you set out to write a piece about people’s problematic relationship to food, or did that sort of evolve naturally from the story itself?
WC: It’s weird. That story was originally just going to deal with the theme of money: elite versus middle class. I was angling to write a story about two spoiled sisters and how wealth had rendered them clueless and useless and utterly unentertained. Rachel, the middle-class guest, is brought along on this vacation to inspire the rich sisters, who have absolutely everything they want, except meaning. Rachel is like a court jester, really. She’s been “imported,” in a way, to show them how to live, how to experience joy. Then, halfway through the story, that creepy food scene just cropped up while I was writing, and I was like: Okay, maybe people are going to think this whole story is now about food, but I’m just going with it. To me, overall, it’s less a story about eating disorders and body image, and more a story about privilege. And how when people are spoon-fed every luxury and get to bypass discomfort, they will ultimately engage in some form of self-destruction or self-hatred because they are so uninspired, so STARVED (in this case, literally and figuratively) for genuine entertainment, for feeling.
LR: Another favorite of mine is the title story “Big Bad,” about a character named Helen who gives birth to herself repeatedly. It’s deliciously weird and imaginative. I’ve noticed that sometimes folks describe some of your stories (especially this one) as speculative or surreal fiction. I’m curious: How would you label yourself? Are you one who leans into a specific writerly identity, or one who leans away from having one?
WC: Hmmm. I think I might write “Real-ish Fiction”? I really love incorporating elements from genre fiction into literary fiction any way I can. Literary fiction can sometimes feel serious or dry to me, like it needs something absurd or experimental to keep the reader’s (or maybe the writer’s?) interest, so I try to inject the far-fetched whenever possible. I also think that because I tend to write about difficult topics—untimely death, gruesome accidents, abandonment, compulsive liars, addiction—the injection of fantasy helps these tough subjects to feel less scary, less plausible. In my forthcoming second collection, once again about three-quarters of the stories are real, and a quarter are fantastical in some way. I guess you could say I can’t quite commit either way, but I lean literary.
LR: A follow up on “Big Bad” (and I suppose some of your other surreal pieces): How do you know when is the right time to go realistic and when to go surreal? Is that a decision that comes to you right away or does it emerge more organically when you are working on a draft of a story?
WC: I’m just now realizing this as I answer your question, but it occurs to me that when I sit down to write a realistic story, I often have no real outline. And when I sit down and write a magical realism story, it has almost always revealed itself to me, in full, beforehand. I’m thinking back on my surrealistic stories, and I do think they all kind of appeared to me like a complete dream before I wrote them down. The realistic stories aren’t quite as fully imagined when I begin to write. Still, there are elements of the absurd in the “real” stories. Usually when a “real” story feels dry, I try to jazz it up with an otherworldly dream or daydream.
LR: I was flipping through your book, and I bunch of pop culture artifacts jumped out to me. Wheat Thins, Wal-Mart, Doritos, Zest soap. TV shows: The Young and the Restless, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Jeopardy. I love that stuff appearing in here, though I can’t quite put my finger on why. Can you talk a little bit about your choice to embed popular culture into these narratives? How does something familiar help your shape the worlds you’ve created that are familiar but entirely unique?
WC: I like to include pop culture, but only if it is something widely popular. It’s distracting to read a story where something is referenced that you don’t understand but feel you should be familiar with. I know I’ve left stories to Google something, and I would prefer a reader not put down a story I have written to Google something. So, when I do include pop culture, I want it to be something really well-known. And the reason I include pop culture is, in many ways, the same reason I will add a surreal element: for comfort. A popular item or reference can feel like a friend to the reader. A surreal element can feel like a welcome distraction. These are both necessary tools with heavy subject matter, I think, so I sprinkle them around like little oxygen masks and life preservers.
LR: I’d love to hear about your inspiration. Where do Whitney Collins stories come from? Are they entirely in your head, or do they come from things around you that you’ve observed?
WC: I need to pay more attention to this, because I always have to stop and consider where my stories actually come from. Most, I think, come from observation. I see something odd or hear about something peculiar, and then I just riff with it. But sometimes a story is really a gift. I’ll be driving along or shampooing my hair, and an opening sentence will just glide into my brain: a gift from the literary gods, if you will. Those unexpected sentences happen about once or twice a year, and I get really excited, because I know it’s going to be a story that comes out like a sneeze. With those sudden stories, the whole experience is inexplicable. It’s magical and spiritual and I’m basically just there to type it out.
LR: What’s next for you and your writing?
WC: WC: Well, I hope a novel. I just had my second collection of stories, RICKY & OTHER LOVE STORIES, accepted by Sarabande Books for publication in January 2024, so I want my next project to be a larger undertaking. I already have the opening scenes to a novel typed up, but they keep getting jumbled around. I keep doubting myself and the order. I know I’m overthinking everything. But overthinking, at heart, is just procrastination. I need to suck it up and move forward. I’m assuming a novel is harder than a story, but I won’t know until I do it. So, that’s what’s next: actually doing it. Worst case scenario, it’s another novel that becomes a story that tries to sneak into The Laurel Review!
Bio: Whitney is the author of the short story collection, BIG BAD (Sarabande Books), which won the 2019 Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction, the 2021 Bronze Medal INDIES Award for Short Stories, and the 2022 Gold Medal IPPY Award for Short Story/Fiction. Her second collection, RICKY & OTHER LOVE STORIES (Sarabande Books), is forthcoming January 2024.
Whitney received a 2020 Pushcart Prize for her story “The Entertainer,” a 2020 Pushcart Special Mention for her story “The Pupil,” the 2020 American Short(er) Fiction Prize for her story “Ricky,” and won the 2021 ProForma Contest for her story “Cray.”
Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in American Short Fiction, AGNI, Gulf Coast, The Pinch, Ninth Letter, Grist, The Best Small Fictions 2022, and Tiny Nightmares: Very Short Stories of Horror, among others.
Previously, Whitney was a contributing editor for The Weeklings, a book reviewer for Barnes & Noble, and an editorial board member of The Big Jewel. Her nonfiction has appeared on various sites, including: McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Salon, and Huffington Post.
She received her MFA from The Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing and is an Author Academy mentor at The Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning.