Catherine Lacey
July 23rd, 2010 / 3:10 pm
Author Spotlight

10 Sentences: John Jodzio

Bored of the same old interviews, I’ve decided to start something new. It’s pretty self-explanatory.

1. A sentence using three or more words you consider ‘personal favorites.’ She was a college girl, waylaid by a bad fan belt – he had tried using the word “morass” in his pickup line, but she’d slapped him just like the townie girls always did.

2. One sentence about your grandmother: Nana rubbed my gums with ice cold gin, unless she’d already drunk it all.

3. A sentence using a really bad metaphor and too much punctuation: I realized, suddenly, that Misty and me, we were like that tetherball there on that school playground – spinning violently around that cold steel pole and that the cold steel pole was like OUR DEAD FATHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

4. A sentence spoken by the thirteen-year-old you once were: “Hey fuckstick — watch this!”

5. A command using the word ‘tidy.’ There were a few half-digested Jolly Ranchers in the frat boy’s puke, something that Gary knew there was no way to just “tidy” up.

6. A one-sentence description of a person who would use the word ‘tidy’ as a verb. Gary had once beat a man into a coma with a push broom: that man had been talking about his smart sister, not the pretty one.

7. One sentence with eight commas in it that mentions one or more animals. He bought most of the zoo animals for their meat — the zebra, the hippo, the tapir, that bird that looked like a peacock but was not a peacock, the regular lemur, the reticulated wood nymph lemur, the goat from the petting zoo, but the giraffe was not for eating, the giraffe was for riding into battle!

8. The worst possible sentence you can think of right now.  The Grants Management Specialist is responsible for the negotiation, award and administration of this project and the interpretation of Grants Administration policies and provisions. (Sadly, I just got done typing this sentence at my day job).

9. A sentence about the last book that forced you to react in an audible way, preferably if you were in public while reading it. I was on the ferry, reading “Await Your Reply” by Dan Chaon — “No Way!” I yelled.

10. A sentence that is lie and uses a semi-colon. I told Jacob his sleeping wife’s face smelled salty; that was why I’d licked her forehead, that there was no other reason.

Expect more of these in the not so distant future.


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21 Comments

  1. darby
  2. Joseph Riippi

      Looking forward to more.

      reply

  3. mike young

      badass / good work lacey / let me be the stooge to say again how good jodzio’s book is!

      reply

  4. Blake Butler

      yess. #8 is my fav.

      reply

  5. Janey Smith
  6. d

      I like asking people questions and requesting that they answer using only adverbs.

      reply

      mimi

        really

        reply

        d

          truly
          madly

          reply

          mimi

            indeed

  7. alexis
  8. brittany wallace

      “Hey fuckstick — watch this!”

      good 1

      reply

  9. Roxane
  10. Sean

      Seems to have worked. I am wondering if he works in Forms in the novel, Firework.

      reply

  11. Christopher Higgs

      This is a cool idea, Catherine. I liked reading the answers. Looking forward to others.

      reply

  12. drew kalbach

      riding a giraffe into battle

      reply

  13. Michael Filippone

      This is great. Can’t wait for more.

      reply

  14. Daniel Romo

      #3 is actually a simile.

      reply

  15. mimi

      4. Apple juice! Tight! My favorite!

      reply

  16. Nathan Goldman

      Cannot stop laughing from #3.

      Catherine, I love this idea. Can’t wait for the next one.

      reply

  17. King Kong Bundy
  18. HTMLGIANT / Question For You

      [...] question: What writer would you want to see another edition of 10 sentences [...]

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