Age: According to my hairline, 45. In reality I’ll be turning 30 this November.
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Education: I have a BA in English lit (2008), and an M.Ed in Secondary Education (2012) from Chestnut Hill College, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Arcadia University (2015).
The Writer
How long have you been writing?
I can remember writing stories about Power Rangers and/or giant squid when I was eightish. So, 22 years, I suppose.
Do you have a specific writing style?
I orbit literary fiction with minimalist execution.
Do you see writing as a career?
It’s more a compulsion than a career. Until I start getting paid. But who knows if that’ll ever happen.
Do you write full-time?
I write full-time outside of the confines of my full-time job. Also, I don’t much care for sleep.
What do you consider to be your greatest accomplishment as a writer?
Every publication I’ve ever gotten. Each one is as great as the last.
What is your ultimate goal as a writer?
I’d like to sell a book. And then maybe another. Then another. So on and so forth.
The Work
Tell us about your work in Crack the Spine.
My piece is called “Embracing Skeletons.” It was an exercise in restraint, to see how much I could hold back as a writer in order to sort of mirror the protagonist’s efforts to hold back his lies, shame, pain, and disease during one of his closest friend’s wedding.
What inspired “Embracing Skeletons?”
Two things, actually. The first was a wedding I attended last summer on a beautiful lake in Rhode Island. Nothing horrible happened there, of course, but off in the distance was a power plant. It was a pretty fantastic juxtaposition: A beautiful wedding, a reactor splitting atoms not far away. And then, because of that power plant, the image of Embracing Skeletons, an archaeological oddity of ancient bones spooning one another, popped into my mind. I started with those ideas and widened the lens.
How long did it take you to complete this piece?
The better part of a year, I think. I started workshopping it last fall. It went through five rewrites and a chronological realignment—for whatever reason I wanted to play with time with this one. Which, after a couple revisions, proved to be pretty ridiculous.
Tell us about another project you have published or are currently working on.
I am currently shopping my fifth started, first completed novel, Good Grief. In it, Tony D’Angelo’s brother Nate is dead. His family is devastated, his life is thrown into upheaval, and Tony doesn’t want to deal with any of it. Not with his brother’s death, not with his distraught parents, not with his floundering career, and not with the consequences of his erratic behavior involving his ex-high school sweetheart, Karen. But when he meets Mikey, a hallucination of his nine-year-old self dressed as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, Tony is forced to face everything he has been avoiding and unwittingly dismantling.
What inspired “Good Grief?”
Death and sadness. And Ninja Turtles…and punk rock.
Where/When can we find this work?
Nowhere…yet…I hope…
The Methods
How often do you write?
Pretty much every day.
Where do you write?
At work, at home, on vacation, in parking lots. But mostly on my couch in front of a muted television playing Seinfeld reruns.
What time of day or night makes you most productive as a writer?
I’m typically a morning guy. Much past noon my brain is pretty shot. But everybody’s got to push through something.
What are your thoughts on self-publishing vs. traditional publishing?
I think folks self-publishing is fine. I don’t want to go down that road, myself, to be truthful. Traditional publishing offers a peer review process, a more intensive and comprehensive editorial process, and, ultimately, a different sort of personal satisfaction for me as the writer.
How many drafts do you generally go through before you consider a piece to be complete?
That depends, really. Some pieces, like “Embracing Skeletons,” need a lot of work. But recently I wrote a piece of flash in an hour and got it accepted for publication later that day. I know these examples are at the far ends of the bell curve, but I think they prove that there is no easy way to quantify the process.
What are your thoughts on writing at a computer vs. writing longhand?
The brain-to-fingertips-to-keyboard synapses fire much faster for me. I’ve done hardwritten drafts. They never fully get to where I need them to go.
How do you react to editorial rejections of your work?
Badly. Rejection’s part of the process, sure, but it still sucks. I think having other publications under my belt makes it sting less. They give me a reason to think, okay, maybe this next journal will take my stuff. But I always have the thought in the back of my head that suggests that I’ll never publish again. Isn’t that nice?
How do you react when one of your submissions is accepted for publication?
Typically I buy a beer for whoever I’m with when I get notice. My friends encourage my writing mightily as a result.
The Madness
What is your favorite book?
Fight Club changed my whole life. Weird, right?
Who is your favorite author?
At the moment, Tom Spanbauer’s got my heart.
If you could have dinner with one fictional character, who would it be and why?
Cory Matthews. I modeled myself after him when I was a kid. Also weird.
Who would play you in the film of your life?
Satler or Waldorf
What makes you laugh?
Puppy Instagram accounts.
What makes you cry?
The scene in Thor when Mjolnir deems him worthy of its power. I’m not kidding.
What’s in that cup on your desk?
Coffee.
“No Thanks” or “I’ll have another”?
I’ll have another.
Cats or Dogs?
Dogs.
Beer or Wine?
Beer.
Additional Reading on Nick
Personal website/blog: www.nickgregorio.com