Conversation with Jay Caselberg

Jay Caselberg is an Australian author and poet whose work has appeared around the world and been translated into several languages. From time to time, it gets shortlisted for awards. He currently resides in Germany.

Jay is the author of “Maelstrom” from Radon Issue 8.

Q: Travel has been central to your life—how have your travels impacted your approach to writing?

I started traveling pretty young. My first major international jaunt was solo as an eleven-year-old from Sydney to Rome with several stops. I had to travel separately because I was unable to get the vaccinations. Meant I spent time in quarantine as well. Anyway, having worked and/or lived in around seventy-two countries over the years, it has provided much in terms of grist. Landscapes, cultures, customs, people, they all get thrown into the mix. Can’t really avoid it.

Q: You write both poetry and prose—can you discuss how your process for writing the two differs, and how your experience in poetry informs your prose writing?

I began with writing poetry. I was lucky enough to have an English teacher who from time to time allowed me to hand in poetry instead of standard class essays. That got me started. I think somehow they are different muscles, poetry and fiction, though poetic turns of phrase sometimes slip into my prose, I would guess. I have normally played with free verse, though recently I have started looking at the more disciplined forms. I need to think more about poems. Fiction tends to flow automatically, the next word coming without thinking on it in the same way I do when I construct a poem. Maybe that’s it. Maybe you construct poems but write short stories and novels. I don’t know.

Q: As a writer with expansive publishing experience, what advice do you have for writers who are beginning their journeys?

First off, there are no rules. People like to make livings off selling rules. There’s advice. Listen to it, absorb it, play with it and then take what works. Second, beware. The industry is full of grifters and scammers trying to make money from your hunger. Don’t let them. Be very clear about your reasons before paying for anything. Money flows to the writer. And the third and final is, read your work out loud, read it backwards, have someone else read it for you. I’m really bad at proofing. All those things help.

Q: What is the process of having your work translated been like?

Mostly, there’s no control, no insight. A piece gets accepted, then it appears and the process remains opaque. I can read a couple of languages, or get by in them, so I know that they are more or less what I wrote. But for instance, German, which I almost speak now, I know that there are things that are simply untranslatable from one to the other. That always fills me with a little doubt.

Q: Have you changed how you approach writing in the time since 1996 when you began publishing your work?

I think when you start you have yet to develop your own voice, and you cast around looking for things that impress you and you want to emulate. You spend so much time trying to be someone rather than just learning how they do things. By now, I believe I have a voice. More than the writing process, it has certainly changed the reading process. Once upon a time, I wanted to be other people. Now I just want to be myself. I think that changes how you approach the blank page.

Q: What led you to adopting and changing various pen names throughout your career?

Well, in the first instance, it was down to the publisher. I had just signed a two-book deal with Roc (Penguin) and they had two weeks prior signed another author named James A. Hetley. I was writing at the time as James A. Hartley. The publisher thought that was too difficult for the marketing guys and asked if I had another name. That’s where Caselberg came about. It was the name I was born under. Legally documented and everything. So, James A. Hartley, J.A. Caselberg, Jay Caselberg. I did a horror experiment with Jackson Creed. (Note the JC) but that didn’t work so well. The marketplace is so segmented. Readers identify with and have expectations within genre for certain authors. I have always written across genres, so it’s all about finding the right persona, I guess.

Q: Have you noticed any publishing industry trends through the decades in short fiction?

For me, it’s the tl:dr phenomenon that is subsuming fiction. Once upon a time, you could not sell a story under four and a half thousand words. These days, you’re lucky to sell something over three. My natural length (and I believe people have natural lengths to which they write) has always been around three and a half thousand, so a lot of my pieces were just too short for the markets. I learned to write longer. These days I am back to my natural length, but they’re too long!

Q: How do you approach your novels and collections differently compared to your other work?

I am more hands on these days with novels and collections. I have more control. Short stuff and poems, it’s all about the grind. Send ‘em out, keep sending ‘em out, rinse, repeat. I spend an hour or so nearly every morning doing story admin. I keep spreadsheets. The amount of actual effort that goes into selling a piece of short fiction probably amounts to more than writing a novel. Well, no, not really, but maybe . . .

Q: What led to your realization that academia was not going to be your home?

Oh, that was easy. I was in process of my PhD in History and Philosophy of Science. I went for a limited term tutorship at Sydney University. One year contract, no possibility of renewal. There were sixteen applicants and half of them had two doctorates. Also, I was a little tired of being poor (and now I’m a writer—ha ha), so I just basically stepped sideways into a job in the IT industry. I’d freelanced anyway throughout my academic career, but the writing was clearly on the wall for academia.