The Lightning Room With Chris Speckman

Interview by DeWitt Brinson

Consider the gnat as large as a relationship and a clue as pleasurable as it is rich. It is in the bondage of form we find Chris Speckman unrestrained. Check out Last Words for Larissa in our May issue.

 1. How difficult was it to make the actual crossword puzzle?

 It was extremely difficult. I almost gave up several times. I started out working with a few free crossword puzzle design programs that were really glitchy and not at all intuitive. I eventually just made a blank template and did the rest by hand.

 2. Did you start with the words or clues?

The words. I can’t imagine starting with the clues. I had some ideas for puzzle words that seemed emotionally resonant, and a basic idea of what the clues might be for those words. But that process got abandoned quickly when I figured out how hard it was to make real words fit on the grid. It never occurred to me that filling in the blanks for a crossword puzzle would be even more difficult without any clues to follow. As soon as I managed to fill in the puzzle, it was set in stone—I didn’t have the patience to tweak it. Changing one word forces you to alter eight other ones.

What was cool about having the puzzle set first was how it impacted my storytelling. It was sort of like working with a fixed poetic form. I knew the first line of the story needed to use the word “gnat.” So that forced me to consider all the possible permutations of the word and all associations I had with the word prior. I ended up stretching language in ways I never would have considered without the self-imposed restrictions.

 3. In the delay between reading the clue and the answer, what do you hope happens to the reader?

That’s an interesting question. I guess I hope the reader ventures a guess at what the answer might be before checking the puzzle. That seems to be consistent with how a well-crafted story would be read—you’re invited as a reader to speculate about what comes next. There seems to be a storytelling metaphor in crossword terms, talking about “clues” and “answers.” You want the clues to keep readers feeling involved, as if they are active participants the story. And you want the answers to subvert these expectations in surprising ways that make readers rethink their preconceptions about where the story should go. For me, that subversion is what makes certain works particularly rich and pleasurable.   

4. Do you own any plants?

 No, I believe that plants should be free.

 5. Who filled out the crossword? Larissa or her ex? (we know the ex wrote it, but did he give it to her or just make it for himself?)

 My idea was that Larissa would be the one who filled out the crossword puzzle answers. Maybe the ex snuck it into her Sunday paper so he could reach her after she stopped returning his calls. Though I’m willing to let that aspect of the story remain open to creative interpretation. 

 6. Tell us about an influence people may not know of, be it a writer or a rabbit?

Not that I’m naming anyone obscure, but one of my main influences at the time this was written was Italo Calvino (I had him written into the clue for #64 across originally). I wrote the first draft of this in a False Forms class taught by Mike Dahlie during my time in the Butler University MFA program. We read Invisible Cities for the course, and I immediately fell in love with Calvino’s writing. During my spring break that semester, I flew down to Florida to stay with family. I took If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler with me to read on the plane. I think that book, and the notion of making the reader a part of the story, inspired “Last Words for Larissa.” The moment I tucked that book into my seatback pouch and opened up the airline magazine to the crossword puzzle, I knew what false form I wanted to work with.