Interview with Author Christian Fuller

Christian Fuller's story "Party Trick" swept us up in into an absurd, sharp embrace, making us laugh while leading us to the edge of the abyss—our favorite view. Read the following interview with the author to learn his advice on creating, his favorite underappreciated short story, and his personal relationship with ghosts.

What makes you keep writing, even when it's hard?

I remind myself how I tried to learn guitar one time but was really bad at it, so this is really the only option I’ve got. Also, probably more importantly, it’s my reminder that I am human. Creating is one of the few forms of self-actualization I have to hold onto in a world that seems more alienating to creative expression by the moment. 

What's your favorite underappreciated novel or short story (a work you never hear anyone else talking about)?

I’ve thought about the brutally heartbreaking flash piece “Good Boys” by Tamara Schuyler almost every day since I read it back in 2017. Please only proceed if you would rather be a tear puddle than a person. 

If you were a cryptid, what would your name be and where would you dwell?

I would be the sentient molecules of spilled beer that has calcified into the concrete floor of Baltimore punk venue Ottobar, nameless and older than time. 

One sentence soapbox: 

The Oxford comma is what separates us from the animals. 

What is your writing strategy? Do you write every day with a rigid schedule, or are you more flexible with your practice?

I’m very free-form when it comes to schedule. I’ll sometimes go a few days without doing anything, others I’ll spend hours each day for several days in a row. Pretty much my only rule I try to maintain is to read for at least an hour before I start writing. That helps me get into the proper headspace to get words on the page. 

Have you seen a ghost before?

No, but sometimes I get the feeling that they’ve seen me but they find me unapproachable because I don’t believe enough in them, which does make me sad in a sort of inexpressible, existential way. 

When did you realize you were weird?

I struggled learning to read when I was young, and the only thing that worked was my sister writing choose-your-own adventure stories for me where I could decide if the protagonists lived or died at the end, and that incentive to choose the characters’ fate was the only thing that allowed me to grasp the sentences. So yeah, probably around then. 

Do you have an internal monologue? 

Absolutely, and I’m very fascinated by people who don’t. What happens in their brain all day? There is not a little you constantly screaming from within your skull? What do you do with all of that peace and quiet??

Do you have a New Year's resolution this year?

1. Write more. Write unrestrained. Write without worrying about what to do with a story once it’s done. Getting to the finish line on anything is a remarkable feat in and of itself. 

2. Give my friends back the love they give me twice as hard. 

3. Have a cold beer on a nice beach or in a quiet wood somewhere. 

Advice on creating that you’ve learned by trial and error.

You are not an unrecognized savant waiting for the powers that be to recognize you. For every lucky genius there’s a million people every day learning, and trying again and again until it half-kills them. Learn to find the joy in the work. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Christian Fuller is a writer from Baltimore. His fiction has been featured or is forthcoming in HAD, BRUISER, and Variant Lit, among other publications he loves dearly. Please send all inquiries to him in the form of Midwest emo song titles to @cfullerwrites on Twitter.