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Small Press Spotlight: FC2

Introduction to FC2
Interview with Brenda Mills
Selected Publications
Links

Introduction

For over thirty years, FC2 has been publishing award-winning works of experimental fiction. Founded in Brooklyn in 1973 by Ronald Sukenick, Jonathan Baumbach, Raymond Federman, and several other writers, “Fiction Collective” was conceived as a not-for-profit project intended to “make serious novels and story collections available” and “keep them in print permanently.”
Although its name and location have changed, today’s Fiction Collective Two is still devoted to the same goals. Working outside the publishing mainstream – which is perhaps more than ever devoted to “the bottom line” – FC2 retains its not-for-profit status receives support from Florida State University and Illinois State University. Publishing six titles a year, the works are selected by a panel of writers and editors, and represent some of the best avant garde writing in America today.
In July 2004, Allen B. Ruch of The Modern Word interviewed Brenda Mills, managing editor of FC2. During that month, FC2 founder and advisor Ronald Sukenick passed away. His final book, Last Fall, will be published in the Spring of 2005.

Interview

The Modern Word: First of all, my condolences on the recent death of Ronald Sukenick.

Brenda Mills: Thank you. Ron was our spiritual leader, our touchstone and guru. Working with him has been a pleasure, and he will be greatly missed.

The Modern Word: I’m sure that Ron was very pleased to see FC2 mark its thirtieth anniversary. That’s quite an accomplishment, and congratulations are in order. What sort of celebration plans have been underway?

The mandate of FC2 is to publish “artistically adventurous, non-traditional fiction.” Has this mandate changed over the past 30 years? After all, some things that were considered “adventurous” in 1974 are virtually mainstream now.

The mandate hasn’t changed, but the criteria readers use have changed. I think that’s a mark of our success. Over the years much of what would have been considered risky or weird has been folded into the mainstream, so we’re always having to reinvent ourselves, find the new frontiers.

When your panel of authors decides whether to publish or pass on a manuscript, what are some of the things they are looking for?

Probably the most important question we ask ourselves – after we’ve established that the submission is well-written, of course – is, “Would a more mainstream publisher be willing to publish this manuscript?” If so, we pass. Sometimes it hurts our feelings to have to say no to really great manuscripts, but we’re looking to give voice to writers doing things too scary for profit-based publishers. We’re excited by new forms, new ways of using language, unusual voices.

In the 1970s, FC was founded by a group of male writers. Currently, you seem to publish a lot of fiction by women, as well as minorities, including several works by Native Americans. Additionally, you recently offered the Mildred Nilon Award for Excellence in Minority Fiction. Do you see this as part of your “non-traditional” mandate, or do you feel that these groups have a greater potential for avant garde and experimental writing?

Thanks for noticing. Yes, we are publishing more work by women and minorities. Of course marginalized voices are an important part of our “nontraditional” mission, but I think we’ve also become better-known to a wider group of writers, so we’re getting more submissions from all over the known (and unknown) writing world. Cris Mazza has done a lot bring in new women writers, both by being an example and by actively seeking to recruit women for FC2.

Both the Mildred Nilon Award and your National Fiction Competition have been “temporarily suspended.” Why were they suspended, and do you see any hopes for revival in the near future?

Oh, I hope we can revive them. It’s simply a matter of finances and manpower. There’s only so much we can do with a limited budget and small staff. The past few years we’ve been concentrating on publishing high quality books that look good and we’ve also put a lot of effort into author relations. We don’t feel we can run a contest without sacrificing in these other areas, at least not at the moment.

Twice the Republican right has tried to cut off your NEA funding. Although “decency” was the excuse for the 1996 attempt, do you think anything else underlies these attacks? And how are you doing now, given the current Bush administration?

If we’re doing our job, we’re culturally and politically subversive. The Republican right should find us threatening. We’re trying to shatter tired paradigms and examine many of the underlying themes in our culture that either go unnoticed or are actively ignored. But really, that 1996 attack wasn’t an attack on FC2 as much as it was an attack on the NEA. We were an example of “misspent” NEA funds. Fortunately for everyone, the NEA survived and has continued to support us and our ilk. Surprisingly, we haven’t had trouble with the current administration, except that funding for the arts has been evaporating at an alarming rate.

I’d like to return to Ronald Sukenick – one of the principal creative forces behind the foundation and evolution of FC2. What was his role in FC2 over the last few years?

Although his health had been failing him, Ron still served on our board of directors, maintained an important advisory role in the organization, and helped to recruit writers. And we have continued to publish his work. Last year we released a reprint of his early book The Death of the Novel and Other Stories, which Dial Press published in 1969; it had been out of print for some years. Next spring we’ll publish Last Fall, sadly Ron’s last book.

In many ways, Sukenick’s debut novel, Up (1967), prefigured the later work of Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, and to a lesser degree, even Philip Roth. His 98.6 is a small masterpiece of American fiction. And yet, his name is rarely mentioned when people list the “Great American Postmodernists.” Do you feel that he’s been critically slighted?

Well, the American Academy of Arts and Letters did recognize him recently with the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award, which is specifically for “writers of progressive, original and experimental tendencies.” They said about him that, “For nearly four decades, Ronald Sukenick has methodically pushed the formal possibilities of American fiction to its limits and in the process has discovered illuminating, new pathways to the center of the human psyche.” They also said, “He has been an explorer, a courageous adventurer, and an absolutely necessary component of American literature.” And he won an American Book Award for lifetime achievement in 2000. So he hasn’t been entirely ignored.

Additionally, the November/December issue of American Book Review will be dedicated to Ron and will contain statements from his many friends. Selected statements will be published in the special memorial section of the issue, and all of the statements will be posted on ABR’s Web site.

Is there anything Sukenick’s readers may do to honor him?

One of Ron’s final requests was that, in lieu of flowers, contributions to support his work and memory should be made to American Book Review and/or FC2. For ABR, please make checks payable to American Book Review, identified as a memorial to Ronald Sukenick. Send to American Book Review, Campus Box 4241, Illinois State University, Normal IL, 61790-4241. For FC2, please make checks payable to Fiction Collective Two and identify as a memorial to Ronald Sukenick. Send to Fiction Collective Two, Department of English, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-1580.

One of your goals at FC2 is to keep the bulk of your works in print. Realistically, how difficult has that been? And have you looked into Print 0n Demand as an option?

Our goal has been to keep every title in print. And we’ve been quite successful. Occasionally a title will sell out and there will be a lag before we can produce new copies, but we are dedicated to keeping our full list in print and that’s a selling point for many prospective authors. Print on Demand is still in its infancy and it isn’t as cost effective as I believe it will become in the near future, but we do work with POD companies to do short runs of titles we’re low on. Perhaps, one day, our “warehouse” will be electronic and books really will be printed on demand. In the meantime, we have a warehouse full of FC2 books up in Chicago, and we keep a monthly eye on our inventory.

Another early goal of FC2 was to achieve a “uniform format” for your books. As a bibliophile, I must say, your current releases have accomplished that quite nicely; and even more, they all look and feel great. Who is responsible for this, and what’s your book design process?

R. M. Berry, our current publisher, gets the credit for our more consistent and attractive format. When he took over five years ago, that was one of his first priorities, and he’s done a great job. We try to use one cover designer for all our books in any given season, and preferably longer than that, which helps with consistency of appearance. We’ve had a string of wonderful designers – Polly Kanevsky, Todd Bushman, Victor Mingovits and now Lou Robinson – who have understood our vision and been able to bring it to our covers. Our interiors are designed by Tara Reeser, our production manager up at Illinois State University. She uses our books to train students and she maintains very rigorous standards.

Jonathan Baumbach, one of the original founders of FC2, remarked that a major publisher once told him, “There isn’t any worthy fiction not getting published.” Setting aside the many obvious (and woeful) things wrong with that statement, is it an attitude you still see today among large publishers?

The competition in the publishing industry has become so extreme, publishers can no longer afford to look for “worthy” fiction because they’re too concerned with publishing books that will sell, blockbusters, bottom-line boosters. Now the big publishers will encourage the authors of unusual books to submit to us because they admit they just can’t take the chance on a book that isn’t likely to garner mass market sales.

Are there any books or authors you would have liked to have published, but were unable to? (They were published by someone else, legal issues, tragic circumstances, etc.)

I wish we had published Steve Tomasula’s Vas. He submitted it to us and our editorial board rejected it. Occasionally our editorial board doesn’t see fit to publish manuscripts that I personally would have chosen. That’s always hard. I wish we could publish books by Carole Maso, Jaime Gordon, and Debra DiBlasi. Debra has submitted to us, twice, I think, and we keep rejecting her, but she’s our kind of girl. Same for Carole and Jaime (not that we’ve gotten a chance to reject them yet).

FC2 is the oldest press we’ve yet featured in our “spotlight.” If you could pick a few FC/FC2 “classics,” what would they be?

Sukenick’s 98.6, of course. Marianne Hauser’s The Talking Room. She’s in her 90s and we’re still publishing her work. Talking Room isn’t her most famous book but I think it’s a classic. Reruns by Jonathan Baumbach, which we just reprinted last year. Take It or Leave It by Raymond Federman. Is It Sexual Harassment Yet? by Cris Mazza. We’re also reprinting classics that have gone out of print, originally published by other presses. I already mentioned Sukenick’s book. We’ve also reprinted Why I Don’t Write Like Franz Kafka by William S. Wilson. You know, we also like to think we helped launch the careers of some great authors like Gerald Vizenor, Mark Leyner, and Russell Banks, who went on to bigger and richer presses.

And what recent titles are you particularly proud of, and why?

Where to start? How about Brian Evenson’s The Wavering Knife? Evenson is a stellar talent and we’re honored he allowed us to publish that collection. The same for Susan Steinberg, who is less well known, but not for long. We published her first collection, The End of Free Love, last spring. It’s unlike anything else and very impressive. We just published a first novel by Lucy Corin, Everyday Psychokillers: A History for Girls. Great title, great book. The Bird is Gone: A Manifesto by Stephen Graham Jones is another of my recent favorites. He’s a young Blackfeet author who writes like a dream. We’ve also been honored to have the opportunity to publish books by already-established geniuses like Toby Olson and Leslie Scalapino. These books are all just from the last year. Going back even one or two years, there are: Girl Imagined by Chance (Lance Olsen), Wakenight Emporium (A. B. West), The Blue Guide to Indiana (Michael Martone), and The Complete Tales of Ketzia Gold (Kate Bernheimer). I’m sure I’m forgetting favorites. I love the books we’re publishing. I couldn’t be doing this work if I didn’t.

About Brian Evenson. Earlier, you mentioned, “If we’re doing our job, we’re culturally and politically subversive.” Do you mind talking about his unusual history, and how he came to FC2?

Brian was raised a Mormon and was teaching at Brigham Young, the Mormon University. In 1995 he received an NEA Fellowship; that same year he was told by Brigham Young that if he continued to write fiction in the same vein as his first book (Altmann’s Tongue), he would be fired. Instead, Evenson chose to leave of his own free will to teach at Oklahoma State University where he taught for four years. From there he went to Brown, where he teaches in the creative writing program. We were aware of his work and invited him to submit something. Because he was also aware of and favorably disposed toward FC2, he obliged.

FC2 does not publish traditional nonfiction or poetry; but works like Mark Axelrod’s Borges’ Travel, Hemingway’s Garage, Leslie’ Scalapino’s Dahlia’s Iris, and A. B. West’s Wakenight Emporium all reveal essayistic impulses, while Raymond Federman’s Double or Nothing is virtually unclassifiable. Where do you draw the line between what’s experimental fiction and what’s experimental writing?

Well, I wouldn’t say there’s a clear line there – the DMZ between fiction and nonfiction is interesting, isn’t it? We’re publishing books that are addressing the questions that short stories and novels address. Sometimes these books (you left Michael Martone off that list) do that while also covering some of the territory nonfiction usually claims. That’s fine. The Blue Guide to Indiana is unarguably fiction, though it tries to “pass” as nonfiction. Dahlia’s Iris can lay claim to pretty much any genre you can come up with, but again, at heart, it deals with the issues fiction deals with, and it’s experimental. I think the books that are straddling categories are some of the most interesting we’re publishing and may be pointing to a new way of categorizing writing down the road.

Your print runs are generally around 2000. What titles have sold the best, or have gone into multiple printings?

The titles that come to mind from the last decade or so are Mosaic Man by Ronald Sukenick, Leonardo’s Horse by R. M. Berry, Alphabet Man by Richard Grossman, Straight Outta Compton by Richard Cortez Cruz and Is It Sexual Harassment Yet? by Cris Mazza.

As an expert in non-traditional fiction, can you recommend any noteworthy new books or authors not published by FC2?

Are you kidding? I’m too busy reading submissions and FC2 books to keep up with the rest of the world anymore. But okay, how about Vas, which I already mentioned, and Jeff VanderMeer’s City of Saints and Madmen. There’s Donald Breckenridge’s 6/2/95 and Heather McGowan’s Schooling.

Let’s close on a pleasant “what if” question. What would you do if FC2 were granted unlimited funding?

Oh boy, I’d even settle for adequate funding. We’d hire more staff, so we could concentrate more on the promotional and business end of things. It’s pretty much just me and a series of interns barely holding things together down here in Tallahassee, and Tara and her string of students producing the books up in Illinois. I don’t think we could make our books any prettier, but with more money and manpower, we could make ourselves better known to a larger segment of readers out there who are starved for something new and just don’t know we exist. I’m going to more book fairs and conferences each year, just so I can personally introduce our books to new readers, one by one, readers who can’t stay away once they’ve found us. But I’m stretched as thin as possible, maybe thinner. And of course we’d bring back the contests, maybe even publish more titles! One can dream…

Selected Publications

Commentary by Allen B. Ruch (ABR) and Bob Williams (BW)

Soul Resin by C. W. Cannon FC2, 2002, ISBN 1-57366-099-X; Paperback $13.95. [Browse/Purchase]

“Soul Resin” is what’s left behind after blood is violently spilled; a concentrated residue of anger, horror, and suffering, it is explosive stuff that can potentially destroy the barrier between the living and the dead. Or so believes Mills Loomis Mills – this strange young man who claims he can “hear” blood. His goal is to penetrate the swamps of New Orleans, find a particularly noisy patch of Soul Resin, and bring about a supernatural collision of worlds. He is surrounded by a group that often works at cross-purposes, a group that includes the spirit of his recently murdered girlfriend, a lady ghost from the nineteenth-century, a tripped-out hippie disciple, and his former history professor, a complicated man who questions his own fascination with Loomis’ dubious mission.
Soul Resin is a dark book, dark in subject and dark in feel – Cannon tells the story through damaged and emotionally limited characters, his shifting first-person narrative confining the reader to nearly claustrophobic perspectives. More than just a ghost story, Soul Resin explores New Orleans’ bloody history of betrayals, race riots, and lynchings. When at his most effective, Cannon plays upon this feeling of damp, exotic horror to create a truly remarkable reading experience: one can almost hear the constant humming of ancient blood. But unfortunately, his unique vision suffers from flaws in execution, and his characters lack the depth required to support their intriguing ambitions. Loomis and his professor come across as the most realized characters, but Loomis’ girlfriend seems carelessly simple, and the sections written from the perspective of the lady ghost are unneccessarily stilted and awkward. Nor is the narrative as “experimental” as proclaimed on the cover – after all, Dracula was told in much the same way, through a “blending first-person narratives with newspaper accounts, textbook lectures and personal correspondence.” But still, its unique atmosphere and deliciously weird story make Soul Resin worth the occasional frustration. (ABR)

FC2 30th Anniversary Page – Details special events and offers.

The Modern Word

Ronald Sukenick Page – A page of Sukenick links on the Scriptorium.

98.6 – Bob Williams reviews Ronald Sukenick’s dystopian novel.

Wakenight Emporium – Bob Williams reviews A.B. West’s meditations on time, flight, and perception.