In the summer of last year, Featherproof released The Awful Possibilities, the fourth book by Philadelphia’s Christian TeBordo. It is an assemblage of extreme range in sound and direction, as TeBordo’s work manages to funnel a kind of well-orchestrated, rising mania across a range of perspectives and situations, including teenage suburban thug rappers planning a school shooting, a logic-fucked woman involved in shady black market business in a hotel, a dude trying to buy a new wallet, deathbed advice minds, and several other hybrid enactments than in other hands would lack the flair of TeBordo’s ability to funnel livelanguage and feeling into seemingly any kind of body. As says George Saunders: “Christian TeBordo shows that it is possible to be, simultaneously, a wise old soul and a crazed young terror.”

Last month, Christian and I took some time emailing about the book, Christian’s experience of influence by Brian Evenson and others, the process of assembling a text, getting along in sound and structure, approach, revision, and nudie pics.

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BB: The Awful Possibilities is your first collection of short fiction after having published three novels. Do you see yourself more as a novelist, and is there a difference in your approach? Were these stories written over a long period of time?

CT: Let me answer these backwards, because that way it goes from easy to really hard. The stories in The Awful Possibilities were written over a little more than 10 years. One of the stories in there is the first I ever made that I considered a story. The most recent (the postcards), I sent to featherproof after they’d accepted the manuscript. Actually just before the book got laid out. I wrote and published my three novels during the same time. I don’t approach the forms differently when I sit down to write. For me it’s just the sentences and the persona that generates the sentences telling the larger work where to go. On the other hand, I try to do something different each time. People who read my last novel might recognize a sensibility or tendencies in The Awful Possibilities, but I hope nobody would be able to predict what one would be like having read only the other. The question of how I see myself is a little tougher. As a writer, I’m happy doing both. Stories are fun because sometimes you can just bulldoze through a draft in a sitting or two. Or you can spend weeks being really meticulous and crafty with a few paragraphs without getting disgusted by what you’re up to. Novels are fun because you have some sense of what you’re going back to each night and there’s more room to surprise yourself. The truth is, though, I feel more comfortable with short stories because I do want to be read, but I want my stuff to be an all-out assault, too, for now at least. I think people are more willing to put up with that for 10 pages than 200.

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Michael Earl Craig’s third book, Thin Kimono, was recently published by Wave Books. He is one of my favorite poets. I asked him some questions when he was traveling in Michigan, but normally he is in Montana. -ZS

ZS: What brings you to Michigan? And what do you think about Michigan’s fudge?

MEC: The Michigan trip is for my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary.  We’re in Leland, Michigan. In addition to my parents, my brother and his wife and their daughter are here, as well as my sister, her husband, and their three kids. Susan and I brought our Chia Pet, Nancy.  When we were kids we’d vacation for a week (sometimes two) in this part of Michigan, so we have a lot of family history here.

And the fudge is big time in Michigan.  My favorite is Murdick’s Fudge—the store in Traverse City, specifically.  There are a few other Murdick’s stores but the Traverse City one is the best.  I normally don’t eat fudge.  Fudge is usually gritty and makes me want to knock my front teeth out on a banister.  But this fudge is different.  It’s creamy.  It melts in your mouth (or wherever you put it).  My favorite flavor is Black Cherry.  Also Vanilla Chocolate Chip.  And the Maple is very good.  And the Chocolate/Peanut Butter.   I know I sound like some sort of candy hillbilly here but it’s all true.  When you eat this fudge it changes you.

ZS: What else do you eat that changes you?

MEC:  Fudge is the only thing.

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