Fictionaut Five: Stephanie Johnson

“There is, in Stephanie Johnson’s stories, a profound, unflashy magic of seeing. She puts you right up to the beating hearts of her people—from which vantage, you see how they miss one another, and you understand as odd, perfect miracles their moments of connection and knowledge.” That’s Wigleaf editor Scott Garson on Stephanie Johnson‘s debut collection One of These Things Is Not Like the Others, now out from Keyhole Press. For more on the book and audio of Stephanie reading her work, see the official site.

If you weren’t a writer, how would you spend your time?

I’d probably drive more people even crazier. I don’t sleep a lot, so if I weren’t working, I’d probably make other people stay up all night talking and listening to music with me. Or, I’d have to get a third shift job where I could read while I performed my job functions. Writing is a healthy outlet for energy that otherwise becomes a bit overwhelming.

Which book do you wish you’d written?

This could spiral to an extremely long list—I wish I could take credit for a lot of books. Forced to choose one, I’d go with Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson. It’s concise, clear-eyed, and honest. Brutal and beautiful simultaneously.

What are the websites you couldn’t live without?

I spend a lot more time on the web than I probably should. I probably couldn’t live without Google Reader because it delivers all the things I love in one convenient location. I have a short attention span and I’m lazy—in Reader, I can scan everything quickly, read things other people have shared, and keep track of more sites than I’d ever remember to visit.

What are you working on now?

I’m starting a second fiction collection under the working title C’mon, Get Happy.

Do you listen to music while you write? What?

I mentally absorb whatever is playing, so I usually listen to music that I’m not terribly familiar with or music I know so well that I don’t think about it. I’m susceptible to mood and lyrics, so if it’s music that’s somewhere between the two–music that I’m developing a listening-crush on–I’m more likely to inadvertently incorporate it in whatever I’m working on. But I always need a lot of white noise when I’m working—music, TV, city traffic. Silence makes me feel too self-conscious.