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PL: If you were forced to give back your own body and personality and receive all the traits of just one of your heroes/villains instead, who would that be?

DHW: Dr. Identity.  In addition to irreal superpowers and a quick, dry wit, he’s not a bad looking fella.  And I’d rather be an android than a human.

PL: Can you remember your first written short story, poem or maybe a booklet, and did it contain any handlebar mustachioed men, detailed bowler hat descriptions or bodybuilding tips?

DHW: I didn’t write my first story until I started graduate school in 1995 at the University of Massachusetts-Boston.  I took my first fiction writing course there.  Previously I had written lots of poetry.  Nothing worth remembering.  The story was a kind of dreamy modernization of A Clockwork Orange.  It’s been a long time since I looked at it.  I don’t think I even have it anymore.  But I’m pretty sure the story lacks mustaches, bowler hats and bodybuilding references.  Those fetishes of mine were mainly inspired by Magritte paintings and Stallone and Schwarzenegger films and didn’t’ emerge until later.

PL: When exactly do you make a decision to put that last ellipsis/period on your short-story, or expand it to something more than a flash fiction?  Do you collect or sort such ideas (shorter form/flash fiction, full-blown short story, novel/chapter-worthy, Playboy story candidate, The Horseshit Herald obituary, etc.)?  Or is it a matter of pure coincidence?

DHW: Nowadays I write at opposite ends of the spectrum.  That is, I write flash fiction and novels.  I used to write longer stories, but I don’t like reading them anymore, and I have always written what I like to read in terms of length as well as content, structure, style, etc.  I publish a lot of work online, a venue that beckons flash fiction, since people’s attention spans are increasingly shorter and reading for long periods of time on a computer screen strains the eyes.  My flash fiction can also reach a much wider audience online than in print (although my fiction appears in print venues, too).  So publishing flash fiction online is an effective way to promote my novels; if people like what they see, they might be inclined to pick up a copy of my longer works.

Flash fiction suits me for its brevity and sense of finality.  If I write a shitty flash fiction, no problem, I can move on to something else without expending too much creative energy or writing time.  Don’t get me wrong.  When I write something I don’t like, it bugs me, and I feel inadequate.  But it’s much easier to move on from a 250 word flash fiction than a 5,000 word short story.  As for the novelistic form, I do it for the challenge of imagining, representing and developing different characters, worlds and technologies on a large spatial and narrative scale.  You can’t do that in flash or short fiction.  And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like seeing my name on the covers of books.  It’s a great thrill, and I’m continually thankful for the people who read and publish my stuff.

PL: If Franz Kafka were living and wishing to answer your question, what would you ask him about?

DHW: I don’t know if I’d have much to say to Kafka.  I always worry about meeting authors, filmmakers, actors, or other artists whose work I admire—in real life, they usually aren’t how I imagine them.  I expect too much from people.  But that’s my problem.  I think I’d find Kafka annoying.  Too shy.  Too delicate and self-conscious.  Maybe that’s what I’d ask him: Why are you so shy, delicate, self-conscious and ultimately annoying?  Helluva writer, though.

PL: In one of your interviews, I have read you have a friend who is a haberdasher.  Do you visit his shop frequently, and ask him for spicy details on haberdashery, or maybe you have a collection of hats from his shop to inspire you during those writers block days?

Actually I don’t wear hats unless it’s snowing outside or I have bed head before going to the gym.  I used to teach writing at Mott Community College in Flint, Michigan, where there are a surprising number of haberdasheries.  Every now and then I’d pop in, look around and chat with the salesmen.  If only we lived in an era where fedora and bowler hats were back in style, I always tell myself.

DHW:

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