Elizabeth Stix joins the Spotlight this week to chat about her short story collection
Author Name: Elizabeth Stix
Book Title: Things I Want Back from You
Book Genre: Literary fiction, short stories
Release Date: 6/14/24
Publisher: Black Lawrence Press
Welcome, Elizabeth! How would you describe Things I Want Back from You?
Things I Want Back from You is like Olive Kitteridge, but with more suburban angst.
Love it. What drew you to writing short fiction?
The author Peter Orner once wrote, “The difference between a short story and a novel is the difference between a pang in your heart compared to the tragedy of your whole life. It’s all a matter of how you feel the pain. Read a great story and there it is—right now—in your gut. A novel gives you some time between innings. A story is complete, remorseless.” I agree with that viewpoint wholeheartedly. Life is experienced in moments. It’s the small beats that we remember, that move us most deeply: a spark of recognition, a glimpse of compassion, an epiphany. Those moments are so exciting, both in life and in fiction, and the short story form is perfect to showcase them.
If you were speaking to someone who hasn’t read your writing before, why should they want to read Things I Want Back from You?
Someone should read Things I Want Back from You if they want something that’s relatable and funny, maybe a little askew, that might make them feel better in these stressful times. Once, a few years ago, I met a woman at a party and she said, “I heard you give a reading when I had just moved to the city. I didn’t know anyone and felt really insecure and lonely. Then I heard your story, and I thought, ‘I’m going to be okay here. Everything’s going to be all right.’ It was the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me about my writing. I’d love it if people had that reaction – that they felt seen or known or understood. That would be my ideal.
Fill in the blank: Readers who liked _____(Book Title)____will also like Things I Want Back from You.
Tenth of December… A Visit from the Goon Squad… The Girl’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing… The Safety of Objects… anything by Lorrie Moore.
What about the writing/editing/publishing process has been the most surprising to you so far?
I would say going with a small publisher has been a really delightful surprise. Black Lawrence Press is publishing my book. It’s making me spoiled, how easy it is to reach the publisher and be an integral part of the process. I’ve really enjoyed it.
What are your interests outside of writing and reading?
Crossword puzzles. Card games. Any game. Any dog or cat anywhere, any time. Coffee.
What was the last book you read? What did you think of it?
I’m about to interview the author Jason Roberts on his new nonfiction book, Every Living Thing, so right now I’m reading that and his last book, A Sense of the World, in preparation. They’re both terrific.
Where can readers find you?
Website: www.elizabethstix.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/elizabeth.stix.16/
Instagram: @elizabethstix
Twitter: @ElizabethStix
Book trailer: https://vimeo.com/915386539
Upcoming events: https://www.elizabethstix.com/events
Thank you, Elizabeth! Things I Want Back from You is out now.
Things I Want Back from You
Set in the fictional California town of San Encanto – a place where suburban angst coexists with the astonishing – a lonely wife finds her oppressive husband has become a dirigible who follows her from the sky, a neglected boy spends his summer unwinding a parasitic Guinea worm from his little sister’s belly, and an aspiring life coach attends a self-actualization seminar that goes wildly off the rails. In Things I Want Back from You, Elizabeth Stix’s hilarious and poignant debut of 20 linked stories, hopelessly flawed characters flail against their own insecurities, seeking one true moment of connection, and if they’re lucky, winning that rarest of gifts – a second chance.
“Funny and poignant, this collection will resonate with any reader who has felt trapped by something inexplicable, what Stix calls ‘the fishbowl of our circumstance.’ She takes on love, alienation, betrayal, and recriminations with wit and wisdom, and a generosity of spirit. Elizabeth Stix is a true bard of modern life.” —Elizabeth Gonzalez James, author of The Bullet Swallower and Mona at Sea
Author bio:
Bay Area native Elizabeth Stix writes, edits, and oversleeps in Berkeley, California. Her stories have appeared in McSweeney’s, Tin House, Boulevard, The Los Angeles Times Sunday magazine, and elsewhere. She has contributed to numerous anthologies, including Best Microfiction 2019, Drivel, and 642 Things About You (That I Love). Her work was performed live at the New Short Fiction Series in LA, and her story “Alice” was optioned by Sneaky Little Sister Films. In the early 2000s, she founded the vanguard lit zine The Big Ugly Review. Her stories have won the Katherine Manoogian Scholarship Prize, the Bay Guardian Fiction Prize, the Southampton Review Short-short Fiction Prize, and have been finalists or semi-finalists for the Disquiet Prize, Glimmer Train Fiction Open, Boulevard Emerging Writers Contest, Sherwood Anderson Prize, and others. Elizabeth has a BA from Brown University and an MA and MFA from San Francisco State. When she’s not writing, she can be found staying up way too late doing the NYT Spelling Bee.