Matt Ruff

Hugo House: In a couple of months you will debut a brand-new piece at Hugo House; have you started working on it yet?

Matt Ruff: I've started it. My hope is to have a first draft done soon, so I'll have plenty of time to fine tune it before the reading. But, as usual, I'm writing very slowly.
 
HH: What were your first thoughts on receiving an invitation to write on an assigned theme? Any regrets on having said yes?

MR: I've always got plenty of spare ideas, so finding something that fits a specific theme isn't that hard. Writing to an assigned length is more of a challenge. All of my published work is novel-length fiction, and while I can write short stories, I think the last time I did may have been back in college in the late '80s. No regrets yet, but we'll see how I feel by October.
 
HH: Could you tell us a little bit about your process—how you approach writing something new?
 
MR: With a novel, I start with a very clear idea of what the first few chapters are going to be like, and I know how the story is going to end. In between is a foggier area that gets filled in as I go along.

With a shorter piece—fiction or nonfiction—I like to have the whole thing mapped out in my head before I start. The tricky part is that paragraphs that sound great when I'm just thinking about them don't always translate that well onto the page. Also, having fewer words to work with amplifies my perfectionist tendencies.

HH: What road trip would you most like to take?

MR: A tour of the Skeleton Coast in Namibia.
 
HH: Jack Kerouac spent nearly a decade on the road with not much more than a notebook. If you were on the road for that long, what three things would you be sure to pack?
 
MR: I never learned to drive, and while I enjoy being a passenger for short distances, for a journey of that epic a length I would expect to be on foot most of the time. So: a decent pair of hiking shoes, a walking stick, and a well balanced pack.