Kimberly King Parsons, whose sparkling debut novel We Were the Universe is a USA Today national bestseller, is serving as our guest judge for the CRAFT 2024 First Chapters Contest. From the outset, Associate Editor Rowena Leong Singer was…
Deesha Philyaw, acclaimed author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, is graciously serving as our guest judge for the CRAFT 2024 Short Fiction Prize. In this interview conducted over email, Editor in Chief Courtney Harler asks Deesha to…
In The Hunger Book: A Memoir from Communist Poland, Agata Izabela Brewer probes potent memories and delicacies from her Polish childhood in a home of maternal neglect and alcohol abuse. Expertly written and researched, with historical threads of Communism…
Debra Spark’s new novel, Discipline, spans decades and a diverse cast of characters, from art-world insiders to houseless teenagers. While, on the surface, the novel is a literary mystery about a missing trio of valuable paintings, Spark also compels…
In celebration of the inaugural Novelette Print Prize, Editor in Chief Courtney Harler corresponded via email with Guest Judge Hanna Pylväinen, author of The End of Drum-Time. In the resulting interview below, they discuss choosing point of view, honoring…
At her Berkeley kitchen table, Janet Goldberg runs her finger over mapped roads in the Sierras that lead to a region she has hiked for decades, terrain that forms the backdrop of her debut novel, The Proprietor’s Song. The…
CRAFT @ AWP24 in MCI Headed to Kansas City in February for AWP? Many friends of CRAFT will be presenting and participating. Be sure to add the events below to your calendar! Email contact@craftliterary.com with inquiries! PocketMFA, Partner Table #T1718…
I have been a fan of Sarah Fawn Montgomery’s writing for a long time—first as a reader and a teacher, then as a writer drawn to formal innovation and passionate about Sarah Fawn’s subjects, then as an editor. Long…
In this new interview, Editor in Chief Courtney Harler corresponds with Laura Spence-Ash, author of one of this year’s most-anticipated debut novels, Beyond That, the Sea. Spence-Ash is also a former editor and cofounder of CRAFT, and we’re thrilled…
Content Warnings—alcohol overdose, death Welcome to the Grocery Supreme Aptitude Test™. This test is divided into the following five sections: Commuting and Tardiness, Opening Duties, Product Management, Customer Service, and Long Answer Questions. A few important notes: You…
For several years I have been interested in taking everyday forms—grocery lists, posters, tests—and making stories out of them. In part, the inspiration for “The Ghost of Amy Winehouse” came from helping a student study for and take job aptitude tests for entry-level service industry jobs. The questions were absurd and seemed deeply unrelated to the work. I wondered about the people who wrote these tests and who, if anyone, reviewed them.
I am not someone who makes outlines. I have to muddle my way through. Over the course of a few drafts, the point of view, the format of the test, and the way the characters related to each other changed. Amid all these changes, the ghost was always the ghost of Amy Winehouse. I can’t put my finger on why—it just seemed right.
I wanted the structure of this story to mirror the claustrophobia I had felt while working as a server. In public-facing jobs, you always have to be “on”—no matter what is happening around you. Sometimes I look back on the years I spent working in restaurants and am amazed I held out for so long. Of all the fields I have worked in—publishing, teaching, and development—customer service was the most challenging. However, I didn’t want to solely focus on the misery and hardship of the characters in this story. I wanted to include moments of humour and tenderness because when I was a server my life was just as complex as it is now—with just as many joys and heartbreaks. The only difference is now when I tell people what I do for work they don’t ask me when I’ll get “a real job.”
CLARA OTTO is a queer writer living on the unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. She is an MFA candidate at the University of British Columbia. Her work has been published in The Ex-Puritan, just femme and dandy, and elsewhere. When not writing, you can find her scouring thrift stores for pottery and drinking bubble tea. Find her on Twitter or Instagram at @claraotto411.
