Tiny Interview #7 - Quinn Gancedo
Here we ask authors we admire to share their musings on art and writing, spill their current reading obsessions, and give us a tiny wedge into their creative life. In this Tiny Interview, meet Quinn Gancedo, whose book The Nouns was selected by Isle McElroy as the winner of The Cupboard Pamphlet's 2021 Annual Contest. McElroy says of The Nouns: "You’ll never look at your vacuum the same way again."
(Interviewed by Cameron Finch)
‘J. S. Wooley studio,’ Jesse Sumner Wooley, 1903
Q: What book(s) are you reading right now?
A: Right now I’m reading Kick the Latch by Kathryn Scanlan and Night Train by A.L. Snijders (Trans. Lydia Davis). Also shuffling back and forth between different writer’s notebooks–Kafka’s Blue Octavo Notebooks, Aaron Kunin’s Grace Period, a collection of Wittgenstein’s notes.
Q: What are your current writing projects?
A: Right now I’m spending most of my time working on a project, maybe it’s a long poem, which appropriates language from the Erowid experience vaults, an online “repository for the long-term collection of people's experiences with both psychoactive substances and techniques”. I’m slow to finish projects and always have a lot of different things I’m working on simultaneously. I have a collection of very short stories that has been “almost done” for many years and sometimes I think I’ll never finish it. Also writings about film, a collection of sentences about comedy, notes and notes and notes towards a book about going to the gym. I tend to work on whatever excites me at a given time, which changes frequently.
A: Absolutely. I’m not sure I would say that writers are the primary influence on my writing, although they are the most tangible. My first and deepest love is for the movies. I think a lot about John Cassavetes, although I think my own writing might look like the opposite of Cassavetes. Recently, watching Claire Denis has taught me a lot about poetry. Sometimes I put cartoons on while I write in the hope that they will rub off on me. Music also. I think Stephen Malkmus is a great poet. Young Thug and the band Black Dice are hugely inspiring. In my day job I work with a lot of really talented neurodivergent artists, many of whom have taught me new ways to approach language. That is a constant influence.
Q: Do any other art forms influence your writing? If so, how?
Q: Where is your favorite place to write, and do you have any writing rituals?
A: I take a lot of notes throughout the day. I’ve always kept notebooks but recently a lot of it has moved to my phone. My notes are where a lot of the exciting stuff happens for me. More focused writing tends to happen at night in insomniac spurts. It feels a little unhinged. I have a little office in my house that I sometimes write in and I sometimes avoid. I would love someday to have a more ritual/routine based practice. The thing I’m working on right now requires me to sift through a lot of text and copy and paste bits of language. I can do it nightly on the couch in front of Star Trek. I’ve been getting a lot done.
Q: Who is a writer you wish more people were reading?
A: I don’t have a good sense of what other people read or don’t read. I hope that people are able to find the books that make them feel less alone. I do wish more of my conversations were about Kathleen Stewart and her incredible, uncategorizable book Ordinary Affects.
