Ask the Author, Kevin Griffith, Time Traveler

In Yearlight Savings Time, Kevin Griffith shows us what it might be like if we had to do it all over again. Today we talk to him about the end of the world, his story, and what’s in a name.

1.      Your story, Yearlight Savings Time, has a very interesting premise. How did this story come about?

Well, I am also a poet, and I realized that many of my poems were just premises for longer things that I was simply too lazy to deal with deeply.   So the story probably started out as an idea for a poem.   Also, I am really annoyed by the whole Daylight Savings Time thing.   I wish it would just go away.   Do you know why we “spring forward” so early now?   The government said it was a way to save energy, but it was really to appease golf lobbyists.   Children go to school in the dark in March so that business executives can get an extra hour of sun on the golf course later.

2. Is the world coming to an end? If so, when?

The world is always coming to an end, just as we are always dying.   Wittgenstein said that the future is a tautological proposition.   That is, we only know what the future is because we have developed devices to record a future (calendars), yet those devices are based upon a presupposition that there is such a thing as a future.   Tautology, a go go.

3. Is it more difficult to be who one was or who one is?

Again, good old Wittgenstein: “The only eternity is the present.”

4. There are so many wonderful lines throughout this story that are intriguing and often heartbreaking. Does your way with language come easily or is it something that is brought about through a process?

Well, I don’t mean to sound like a self-congratulatory, pompous jerk, but writing fiction is really really hard word, like making a pair of tweezers by them out of a block of granite. Fiction to me is much harder than poetry, but my experiences writing poetry did indeed teach me how to come up with a good line occasionally. I had been writing poetry for over fifteen years before I tried fiction, so I had a bit of practice with zingers.

5. In the last paragraph you are kind enough to offer us a somewhat happy ending and a sense of closure. Did the story always end this way?

Yes.   I wanted to make sure I had a happy ending.   I like Ron Carlson’s work a lot, and he is one of the few writers I know who can write about happy people and keep it interesting.

6. In this story, people go along with a year old script (as best they can) even though they know the world is coming to an end. Why are these people sticking to the script when hysteria would not be inappropriate?

Well, I tried to create the subtle impression throughout the story that there would be dire consequences for those who did not try to stick to the script.   And I hope the story makes us think about how futile hysteria would be anyway.

7. If you had to go back to a year ago and live your life over, what would you remember?

It would be impossible for me to live a year over, as I would become too obsessed with fixing mistakes I made the first time around.   Plus, I would have to visit my in-laws again, which is a thought too horrible to imagine.

8. We are particularly intrigued by the son’s name, Samson. How do you come up with names for your characters?

I don’t know. I just wait for something to trip off the tongue.   People might say that “Samson” equals “strength,” and so he is kind of the glue that holds the relationship together.   But I really wasn’t thinking of that when I came up with the name.   I was just thinking about how couples like to come up with funky names for kids.