Quickie Interview # 25: Pia Z. Ehrhardt

Pia Z. Ehrhardt's debut story collection, Famous Fathers, was published by MacAdam/Cage this year. The title story won the Narrative Prize, and her work has been presented at Symphony Space in New York City and been awarded a fellowship from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. Her fiction has been published in Norton’s 2006 Sudden Fiction anthology, McSweeney’s, Mississippi Review, and Narrative Magazine, among others. Pia also is a contributing editor at Narrative.

How long did it take you to complete Famous Fathers?

Five years and heavy change.

What’s the book tour been like?

When people show up, it’s pretty great. When they don’t, it’s sad. The reading series’ have built-in audiences, and they’re usually held in bars, so they’re relaxed, fun, and people listen. Same with libraries. And it’s great to get out and meet the independent bookstores–-bless them--because the people who work in there often have read your book! It’s also tiring, and I get homesick, but, hey, this is what I asked for: To write in public.

You’ve published a lot of fiction in online magazines. What are the particular benefits of publishing in online journals?

The gratification’s quick. You submit, they accept, and the piece is up. You’re linkable and readers write you. Your father’s new wife finds your veiled stories when she’s Googling her own name. Not a bad thing. It’s a community of readers and writers that’s bolstered my courage. And the links that don’t ever go away, well, I published it then and I claim it still.

What are your favorite online journals at the moment?

The list is long, so I’ll stick to lit mags that only publish online. Elimae--exquisite short fiction; Failbetter and Mississippi Review-always smart and brilliantly edited; Narrative Magazine--a trove of established and emerging writers.

What was your favorite book and band in high school?

Book? To Kill A Mockingbird, even moreso after I moved from Canada to Mississippi for the last two years of high school and came face to face with racism. Band? Oh, man . . . not, like, Dan Fogelberg or Gordon Lightfoot or James Taylor or Cat Stevens, because they’re just men. Band . . . Allman Brothers?

Which crowd did you hang out with in high school?

The alienated-by-the-Southern-belle-cheerleader-perfect-skin-and-hair-virgins-who-fuck crowd.

Favorite book now?

Why Did I Ever? by Mary Robison

What's new on your iPod or CD player?

The National. I can’t stop listening to that deep-voiced guy. The song Fake Empire woke me out of a sound sleep (they were on Letterman), and they’ve been my crush ever since.

What's the best DVD you've rented of late?

City of God, which I watched with my 17-year-old Adam-Sandler-loving son. He was stunned in the best ways by it.

What are you working on these days?

An after-Katrina story that’s growing into a short (I hope) novel. I’m supposed to be finishing another novel I started pre-Katrina that’s set in New Orleans, but it has me uncomfortable because the city’s hurting. To re-set it after August 2005 is going to change everything.

What are you reading that’s fun?

Gary Lutz’s new chapbook from Future Tense Books. I’d need a compass if I wasn’t so enjoying getting tangled up in his sentences.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever gotten?

Tell us what’s wrong. Stop protecting your characters and yourself. Open your coat.

What are some of your guilty pleasures?

Cheez-Its, fashion magazines, macaroni & cheese of any kind, tanned feet, Cool Whip on red jello, kids meals from McDonald’s, Sting. Lots of Sting.

Favorite recipe? (the more specificity the better, so someone could make it if they wanted)

Chicken cacciatore. Brown boneless thighs (or breasts or both) in olive oil with onion and chopped garlic. Dump in one or two giant cans of plum tomatoes. Cut the tomatoes with a sharp knife so the juice squirts out. Add potatoes if you want. Cover and simmer until everything’s cooked through. Serve with bread. Lots of crusty buttered Italian bread.

What's on your desk at the moment?

Austin Powers action figure ("Do I Make You Horny, Baby, Do I?”); Narrative mug that says “Tell me a story;” a potion that makes your lips bigger by burning them with clove; stack of CDs--Brahms, Mahler, Strauss (Richard); a pen that looks like a loaf of bread; photo of my nephew, Stephen in his soccer uniform; calendar; Rhodia orange notepad; fleur de lis glass paperweight; portable hard drive with my iPod music backed up; reading glasses; a stack of books--A Complicated Kindness, Miriam Toews, Don’t Make Me Stop Now, Michael Parker, Robero Bolano, Wise Blood, Flannery O’Connor, The Sleeping Father, Matthew Sharpe, The Difference Between Women and Men, Bret Lott, Carrying the Torch, Brock Clarke, The Girl in the Fall Away Dress, Michelle Richmond, Bad News Of the Heart, Douglas Glover; coupon for a massage; fava bean; silver cast pea pod; ring-sizer thingies; speakers for my laptop; Gel pens (pink and orange); a stack of Gail Godwin novels; Halls cough drops.

Stones or Beatles?

Beatles. Beatles.

Hemingway or Fitzgerald?

Fitzgerald.

Porn name (first pet's name + first street you lived on)?
Orpheus Orchard.