Thaddeus Rutkowski: An Interview
by Jackie Cassidy
Tell us a little about yourself.
I grew up in central Pennsylvania, in a small town called Hublersburg. The town had one street and was surrounded by dairy farms-but my family lived in a rented house, not on a farm. I went to Cornell as an undergrad, probably because my father, a visual artist, taught in a summer program there and I had the chance to experience Cornell as a high-school student. I majored in Fine Arts and then added an English Literature major. I could have gone either way-painting or writing-but I thought I was better at writing, so I applied to fiction-writing graduate programs. I got into only one program, at Johns Hopkins, so my choice was easy.
I moved to New York from Baltimore, and I've lived here ever since, working mostly as a copy editor for a trade magazine. That's my day job now, copy editing for a business weekly. I also teach fiction writing to adults. I've led writing workshops at various places over the past ten years, but I'd been teaching steadily at the West Side YMCA during that time.
Can you describe your writing process? When do you write?
I'm best in the mornings when I have the most energy. I have about an hour between dropping our eight-year-old daughter off at school and heading to my office. On weekends, I have longer spans of time, which I spend at the Writers' Room and the urban "Colony" in Greenwich Village in Manhattan. The Writers' Room is like a gym, with hundreds of members. Instead of exercise machines, you get a cubicle and a desk—and there is no talking. It's conducive to writing.
I take breaks often, unless I'm really involved in the work or have a deadline to meet.
So why do you write?
I write out of a desire to communicate, and writing is the best way I know how to do that. Maybe I was or am too shy to communicate comfortably through normal channels. I think the desire to create any kind of art—music, painting, dance—comes from the same desire to share a feeling, an experience or an insight with another person.
I didn't consider myself seriously interested in writing until I was in college and had tried both writing and painting. And I didn't consider myself a writer who was able to publish until I was in my 30s. It took me until then to develop some sort of writing and submitting routine, where it seemed that if I kept to the routine diligently enough I could get my work out to the world.
What authors influence your work?
I read Donald Barthelme and Richard Brautigan when I was in high school and college. I liked their humor, and I like the way they played with form. They wrote prose poetry, in many instances, and they stretched the idea of fiction.
Later I read short-story writers: Tobias Wolff, Raymond Carver, Ann Beattie. More recently, I've been reading Alice Munro and Annie Proulx. Maybe the short form appealed to me.
In your books Roughhouse and Tetched, the protagonists are marginalized outsiders, or underdogs. What is so appealing about this personality type?
Well, I write from my experience, and the underdog experience is what I know. Growing up as a biracial kid in Middle America, where there were no black kids, or other Asian kids, gave me a distinct feeling of otherness. I keep going back to that source for material, because it is a deep source.
I wouldn't say that this personality type "appeals" to me, but it is a type I'm familiar with. I can find humor in it, as well as pathos, if that's the word.
Why choose to work with vignettes?
I've always written shorter pieces, though it's not my conscious intention to do so. Usually, I think I have a lot to say, but when I put it all down, it comes out short.
What I do is I combine short pieces that connect to each other in theme and in tone. Then I collect the stories until I have a book. It's not that simple, of course, because I can't see the book until it's there. I always find that I have to add and subtract in order for it all to make sense.
You explore the nature of interpersonal relationships, sexuality, and dysfunctional families in your books. Are you comfortable writing about these subjects?
A lot of writers suggest that you should write what you're most afraid to say. Of course, you can't follow that rule to the letter, but it might be a useful idea. I go where I'm reluctant to go, look at things that are hard to face. That's the key area where insights are gained.
However, I realize the effect might be one of always hitting a peak, of using a literary pickax, without giving a moment's rest. That's something I'm conscious of, and I will give more thought to it.
What are you working on now?
I'm revising my third book. It's not so different from my first two books. It's an innovative "novel," based on my experience. But the incidents in it are new, and each section or chapter has to work on its own. I'm not sure how it'll shake out. I'm planning to spend this summer on the revision, with a fall deadline for delivery of the new draft to a small publisher.
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