Author Interview - Sidney Thompson

The following is an interview with Sidney Thompson, author of the short story collection, Sideshow (2006, River City Publishing).  He lives in Alabama with his wife, Jennifer Paddock.

Dan:

Hello, Sidney.  Thank you very much for taking some time out of your busy schedule to answer some questions.

Sidney:

Happy to, Dan.  Thanks for your interest.

Dan:

When exactly do you remember getting the reading and writing bug.

Sidney:

I first became obsessed with writing the summer after my sophomore year in high school.  My brother gave me a collection of poetry by Richard Brautigan for my birthday, and I remember it was quite an epiphany for me to learn that verses didn't have to end in rhymes.  I thought, that I can do.

Dan:

You received your MFA from University of Arkansas - Fayetteville.  Who did you study under while there?

Sidney:

I studied primarily under Donald Hays, Bill Harrison, and Jim Whitehead, a trio of great teachers.

Dan:

Sideshow has ten stories in it, how many of them did you write while you were in your MFA program?

Sidney:

Six of these ten were my thesis, but two of those six were first written while I was an undergraduate at the University of Mississippi, studying under Barry Hannah, who was actually the first person to graduate from Arkansas' MFA program.  Essentially, and thankfully, I went where Barry told me to go.

Dan:

How did you end up with your collection being published by River City Publishing?

Sidney:

I was fortunate to be included in an anthology of Southern writings (Stories From the Blue Moon Cafe, by MacAdam/Cage), and in the process of touring for the book, I got to know some of the other contributors quite well --- especially Jim Gilbert, a fiction writer who worked at the local bookstore.  There was mutual respect.  So when he was hired away from the bookstore and became River City Publishing's fiction editor, he called me.  I was his first acquisition.

Dan:

I tend to believe that being part of a literary community is a great thing - what is it like living in Fairhope, AL?

Sidney:

Fairhope is a small, friendly community that supports the arts like few places I've ever seen.  My hometown of Memphis, TN, unfortunately can't do what this little place does.  A few of the writers who call Fairhope home are Winston Groom, Fannie Flagg, W.E.B. Griffin, Sonny Brewer, Frank Turner Hollon, and Jennifer Paddock.

Dan:

Looking at Sideshow, 9 of the 10 stories have titles that begin with the word The.  The 10th is titled "Ernest, The Bicyclist."  What is it about this particular story that caused you to put the protagonist's name in the title?

Sidney:

Of all the freaks in my collection, I find Ernest the freakiest, perhaps because he's completely oblivious to his freakish nature.  He's not made sad or lonely by it.  He's unapologetically himself, and I admire that about him, despite everything else about him that's ridiculous or awful.  "Ernest" (the original title to the story) was my first story worth keeping and revising.  I wrote the first draft for Barry Hannah in 1987.  The character taught me a lot and gave me a lot.  He's my first freak.  So he would be the headliner in my carnival.  People would know him by name.

Dan:

I'm sure you're on the verge of being sick and tired of this question, but can you give some details on the publishing turned non-publishing story of "The Romantacist and the Classicist?"

Sidney:

On the recommendation of one of my professors at the Universit of Arkansas, I submitted the story to The Atlantic Monthly (this was in 1992).  A couple of weeks later, as the story is told to me, C. Michael Curtis, the fiction editor, called my professor and said that he liked my story but before he could accept it for publication, he had to ask one question:  "Is Sidney Thompson black, or is he white?"  My teacher says that after he reluctantly answered, Mr. Curtis then confessed that if I had been black, since the characters in the story are black, he would have accepted the story for publication.

Dan:

Do you think that there is anything that should be considered out of bounds for a writer to take on?

Sidney:

That's a curious question really.  I doubt painters and musicians are asked the boundary question as often as writers are.  What does that say about our audience?  Or about our effectiveness as writers?  Anyway, no, of course not.  Boundaries are lies to keep life appearing simpler than it is.

Dan:

Many of the stories in the collection had been previously published.  What was your first published effort and how did you celebrate once you found out it was accepted?

Sidney:

"The Romantacist and the Classicist," though it was called "A Classical Education" at the time.  The Carolina Quarterly took it.  How I celebrated...I called Barry Hannah, aware of the whole Atlantic saga and still miffed, and shared the news.

Dan:

Your stories have been described as both Southern, and as that of "freaks, curiosities, and oddities."  Do you take particular pleasure in reading one of those over the other?

Sidney:

I guess of these two choices, I would choose the latter.  My first introduction to freaks in literature came not from Southern writers, but European ones:  Sarte, Kafka, Camus, Beckett.  Although I would later be heavily influenced by O'Connor, Faulkner, Gilchrist, and Hannah, my work, I claim, is more philosophical than down home.  Sure, the setting is Southern, or the "accent" is, but the substance is almost always rooted in existentialism.

Dan:

More and more these days, especially with small publishers, authors are being relied on to help out in the promotional efforts.  I know you've done readings, and have set up your own MySpace page.  What do you think you've done that has done the most in terms of promoting Sideshow?

Sidney:

I have a stack of my books sitting on my desk at work for all of my customers and co-workers to see, and I'm not shy about selling them.  Like the car business, bookselling is a numbers game.  The more people know your book exists, the more people will buy it.  If you want to be humble, I recommend that you not be a writer.  You won't survive.

Dan:

You are maried to another author, Jennifer Paddock.  How do you think having another creative force in the household helps you with your own writing (assuming that you think it does)?

Sidney:

It's tremendous having a live-in editor, and someone I don't have to explain myself to.  She knows why I'm obsessed.  And I know why she's obsessed.  In fact, we get obsessed together in each other's work.  We're always, literally, on the same page.  We're more productive if we focus on one book at a time, hers, then mine, hers, then mine.  We've learned we're really no good for each oher if we spread ourselves thin and try to write simultaneously.

Dan:

Is it true the two of you share a single computer for your writing projects?

Sidney.

Yep.  No need for two.

Dan:

Can you shed some light on what you're working on now?

Sidney:

I'm working on a novel, titled The Car Salesman.  After teaching English for thirteen years at both the high school and college level, I decided to do to myself what I do to my characters - throw myself into a foreign environment and see how I react, what I learn, who I am.  And I can say that a car lot is a microcosm of all that is American.  It is quite a daily sideshow itself.

Dan:

Lastly, if you were a character in "Fahrenheit 451," what work(s) would you memorize for posterity?

Sidney:

The Rig Veda.  Or the Mahabharata.  It's amazing to me that Hindu priests were able to preserve their very difficult literature in the oral tradition alone, without any written records, for thousand of years.  I guess what I'm saying is that the success of their own actions convinces me that the work deserves being remembered, perhaps more than anything else.

Dan:

Thank you very much, Sidney.  I appreciate your taking so much time from your day.

Sidney:

Thank you, Dan.

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