Our little team here at American Short Fiction has just grown by one: this month we’re welcoming the wonderful Amanda Faraone on board as our new development and communications director. As a fiction writer, literary programmer, and seasoned communications and development professional, Faraone brings valuable experience to the table, and we’re so grateful and excited to have her on our team. I recently emailed Faraone a few questions so that you, too, can get to know her.
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Nate Brown: First, welcome to the team, Amanda! Instead of diving right into your previous work with literary organizations and other non-profits, I was hoping you could tell me a bit about your own writing. Like so many of us here at American Short Fiction (and at so many other literary organizations), you’re also a fiction writer. What’s your work like, and what are you working on now?
Amanda Faraone: Thanks, Nate. Thrilled to be working with y’all! My work was once described by a classmate in graduate school as “atmospheric, voice-driven fiction” and I’ve happily co-opted that label ever since. Right now, I’m revising a novel about a teenage girl searching for her father, the practice of Ancient Greek love magic, and the poisonous nature of family secrets, all set in the early aughts on the South Side of Chicago.
NB: That sounds great! What drew you to that material, and what kinds of research have you been doing?
AF: I grew up on the South Side of Chicago and my father studies Ancient Greek love magic as a professor at the University of Chicago. So, I suppose I’ve been researching my whole life.
NB: One thing that our editors talk about all the time is our disparate taste. Instead of being a burden, though, we’ve found some good and productive ways of finding what’s good in work, even work we’re not initially or immediately drawn to. What novels and stories interest you the most? Are you drawn to any particular kind of story, or are there specific topics or themes that really grab you?
AF: For me, it’s the voice, first and foremost, that grabs me and pulls me along. I am not the most patient reader—I want to be drawn in and delighted and devastated from the get-go. In a story, you have such limited space that you have to do all those things at once, and that’s what makes it such an incredible (and, for the writer, often maddening) art form. I’d describe my taste in stories as minimalist but with big feelings: think Amy Hempel, Miranda July, Yiyun Li, Laura van den Berg—and perhaps my most favorite of all—Maile Meloy.
NB: I love those writers, too. But you know what’s funny? Any time I’m ask (or am asked) about favorite writers, I think about the contemporary conversations about who cites whom as an influence, who plugs whose books, and who gets access to publications and publicity. Twitter, for all of its faults, has been a place for good, robust debate about this, and it puts me in mind of one of ASF‘s abiding goals: to publish the work of established writers alongside brand new work by emerging writers. In recent years, we’ve gotten to publish such great work by early career writers like Brandon Taylor, Cara Blue Adams, David E. Yee, and Chantal Aida Gordon.
Putting any issue together is a tricky balancing act, of course, but I’ve been so proud of our magazine for focusing on writers who readers may not yet have read elsewhere. You’ve been working in the literary arts for a long time, and I’m curious to know what your take is on the state of things? What is literary publishing doing well, and what does it need to do better?
AF: Oh Nate. This is such an important question. I had a mentor who used to say that every writer can remember the first person who said “yes” to them. I know that I do. And it’s something I’ve heard from writers who are just starting out to legends like Richard Russo—that first “yes” was the one that mattered most. That’s why I think literary magazines are still such a vital platform.
NB: Is it that vitality that’s kept you working in the literary arts? I mean, you’ve got a wide range of experience in the literary world. You worked at One Story, ran a reading series in Brooklyn, and have volunteered with ASF, helping us pull off our Stars at Night Celebration each fall. So many writers also work, in some capacity, in the literary arts; some teach, some work for non-profits, some run reading series or work at journals, some are booksellers or publishers. So many practitioners are also involved in the broader business of publishing. Why do you think that is? And, more to the point, what’s the appeal for you?
AF: I love that question. And yet, it was never really a question for me. I just wanted to be close to books and around writers and people who cared about fiction and I kept working on projects and saying yes to things—mostly, for free—until I didn’t have to do other jobs to pay the rent. Mostly, I count myself as lucky to have found so many friends and champions along the way who’ve welcomed me into this weird and wonderful literary world.
NB: It is a weird and wonderful literary world, and Austin’s local literary scene is incredible. It’s funny: Austin’s known for music, for film, for media, and it has a robust theatre and dance scene. It’s an incredibly engaged and engaging arts ecosystem. Outside of the world of literature, what’ve you been up to since your move to Austin? What sorts of things do you like getting up to in town?
AF: When I showed up in Austin, I knew a total of three people in the literary community (Adeena was one of them) and my first week here, I went to a reading at Malvern Books and they were all there and they introduced me to all their friends and said, “We’re so excited you’re here!” In a few days in Austin I’d done what had taken me years and years in New York—found a place where I felt I was not only accepted but celebrated. It’s a magical city in that way.
NB: In addition to working at One Story (one of my all-time favorite mags), you were recently at KMFA, a great classical music station based here in Austin. What was that experience like, and what drew you back to the lucrative world of literary magazines?
AF: I believe in the power of the arts to change people’s lives, and music in particular is such an essential human experience. Working at a classical music radio station felt like a natural progression for me. And I learned so much about two mediums—music and radio—that I didn’t have a background in. My favorite part of the job was meeting musicians and composers, and thinking about the creative parallels between music and writing—pacing, tone, repetition, structure—and seeing the joy they found in their work.
As for literary fiction, I’d been heavily involved in volunteering for American Short Fiction from the day I arrived in Austin, so to me it felt (blissfully) like I never really left.
NB: After two weeks on the job, what’re your impressions of the place? What are your hopes and dreams (and fears?) for the magazine? Where do you see us in another year? How about five or ten years?
AF: I think American Short Fiction is at an exciting juncture in its organizational development. As we begin the process of long-term strategic planning, I’m thrilled to see where we’ll end up. And I know, regardless of the path or the platform, the magazine will continue to do what it’s done for over 25 years—publishing fiction that transforms the way we see ourselves, our world, and our place in it.
Amanda Faraone is a fiction writer. Her work has appeared in Curbside Splendor, Ghost Ocean Magazine, and red lightbulbs, among others. She received a BA with High Honors in Sociology from Wesleyan University and an MFA in Fiction from Brooklyn College. For several years, she worked at One Story and ran the reading series Flint Fiction in Brooklyn. A native of Chicago’s South Side, she now lives in Austin, where she serves as the development & communications director at American Short Fiction and edits her debut novel about teenage girls and love magic.
Nate Brown is the managing editor of American Short Fiction.