Read Will Kaufman’s Selling The Fall in our May issue, then join us while we become the perfect human platonically together.

 Interview by DeWitt Brinson

1. How was your childhood? One truth and one lie about it, please.

a) I grew up comfortably middle class in a San Francisco neighborhood with about five million Chinese restaurants and markets. I had a stable childhood, in that my family stuck it out in the same house for twelve years even though my parents probably should have been splitting up when they were getting pregnant.

b) I was a savvy kid, who definitely knew the difference between “Stussy” and Macy’s generic “Stylin'” brand. I watched MTV and My So Called Life and understood my peer’s frame of reference, and so fit in quite well.

2. What would you like to improve about your writing?

Everything. I want to tell stories that engage and enrapture with sentences that challenge and undermine. I want my writing to embody an emotional and ontological ambivalence. Obviously, I’m a long way off. Also, that shit sounds like it would be too irritatingly precious for anyone to ever actually read. Except for Moby Dick. Moby Dick was a nearly Platonic experience for me.

At this particular moment I’m trying to better understand the crafting of plot. I should probably also learn proper grammar and punctuation at some point. And then become a wholly better being so I can potentially produce work that would live up to my expectations. Continue reading →