It's an understatement to say the stories of Elizabeth Crane are interesting. The Chicago writer has filled three short-story collections to date with tales that seem spun from the idea notebooks of dozens of writers. "What if a person took the back off their TV and found people living there?" one idea might read. "What if a woman who turned into a zombie was conflicted over the fact that she subsisted on human flesh?" might read another.

Hearing that such situations populate the stories in her new book, You Must Be This Happy to Enter, might turn off some, and with good reason. The world has more than enough "too-clever-by-half" stories to last until the end of time, with more produced daily. But these are not those. Crane's stories also have that other important ingredient: People you care about. Betty the zombie may seem like one of those too-clever characters until you actually read "Betty the Zombie," and then you see how Crane has skillfully grafted the woes of a flesh-eating zombie onto a real, three-dimensional character, and used that odd juxtaposition as a muscular vehicle to propel her fiction.

Crane debuted in 2003 with When the Messenger is Hot, then offered the linked story collection/novel in stories/insert new classification here All This Heavenly Glory, which offered episodes in the life of Charlotte Ann Byers. With You Must Be This Happy to Enter, Crane has moved from major publisher Little, Brown, to indie upstart Akashic (in a partnership, in this case, with Punk Planet Books). It's a move that might be seen on the surface as a step back careerwise, but as the pleasantly aggressive publicity push she's been getting would suggest, her reasons for making the leap are sound and already bearing out.

She took the time to answer a few questions about switching publishers, the way promotion has changed since her debut and the genesis and evolution of her stories.

TIRBD: You're with Akashic Books now after two books with a larger publisher. Was this a conscious decision to go with a smaller house? What can Akashic do that someone else maybe could not?

EC: It was of course, a very considered decision. Without going into long stories, I had been disappointed in the way a few things went with my second book (yet I always want to add the disclaimer that I adore my previous editor Reagan Arthur and always will), and at the same time, the people at Punk Planet/Akashic actually sought me out before they even knew I had anything in the works. I had known about the huge success they'd had with Joe Meno, who had nothing but good things to say about them and who had also been ultimately disappointed with larger publishing houses. Basically, what a smaller press potentially has to offer, which has completely been bearing itself out in terms of what I know Akashic has been doing to promote the book, is to give me a focused attention that you're just not guaranteed at a large house unless you're already a superstar.

It seems as if most short story writers place all of the stories in a collection with magazines and journals before collecting them in a book, but you always have a healthy dose that were not. What is behind that difference, and do you ever worry about the stories that weren't given that extra seal of approval?

Hm, I didn't worry about it until now! I'm not convinced that's universally true, anyway, and in my case, it's not anything that's super thought out; in fact, unlike when I was starting out, I don't submit stories too extensively these days. In fact, mostly I only send them to publications that request stories from me. So actually, I would have no problem publishing a book of stories where none of them had been previously published. We all want approval, but it's my own confidence that is what allows me to put them out into the world anywhere, whether in a collection or a journal.

In reading the bios in each of your three books, you went from being someone who "lives in Chicago," to someone who lives in Chicago, teaches at Northwestern and has won awards, to, with this new book, someone who does all that but now does so "with her husband, Ben." Just from this bit of information, it's clear your life has changed from book to book. Is that reflected in your writing in a way that is noticeable to you, and more to the point, in a way that you think could be noticed by close readers?

I think the changes in my life reflect in my writing, sure, just as surely as they would if circumstances had gotten worse instead of better. I have had a great deal of joy and sorrow in the last 10 years, and one of the things that really interests me in life is the way those things are not at all mutually exclusive. I'm pretty sure that folks will notice that many of these stories are way more out there than ever. I don't know that that has anything to do with anything, though.

Though your first book came out just five years ago, what we're able to glean about authors now, thanks to the Internet, is considerably different from what we could then. We're no longer limited to the brief bio in the back of the book. You blog and have a web presence. What affect does that have on you as a writer, if at all? Does having a greater public profile -- with the potential of greater interaction with your audience – affect you?

Ah, I don't think I have a super huge blog readership, and I've had less and less time to keep it up. I'm also much more guarded about what I put on there, personally speaking, being very aware of the nature of the Internet. I will say that it is fantastic to be able to be easily contacted by readers, whether it's via my blog, web site, MySpace, Facebook or Goodreads. But you know, even the most well-known writers, I suspect, walk down the street, as I do, unrecognized. So in more respects than not, my simple life (style) is not very different than it ever was.

Your stories read at times like experiments: "What would happen if..." situations brought to life. Do they start that way? At the same time, they end in surprising ways, not necessarily reaching the place the reader might expect. I found that exhilarating as a reader, but I wonder as a writer if it's difficult to rein yourself in, to not take things to what might seem their logical conclusion.

Yes, actually sometimes they do start that way! I'm glad to hear that they end in surprising ways; it's usually a surprise to me. I generally start with just a notion of what a story might be, or who a character is, and then see what happens. But as you say, yes, if I start with a zombie, I think, what if she was a remorseful zombie? Which is how she ended up on a reality show. (Because isn't that the next logical step?)

Religion is a common topic through these stories, something that a lot of other writers tend to shy away from. Was there something in particular you were trying to get at with regard to religion? Do you have any worries about losing readers who might not want to read about it one way or the other?

Oh, I'll try not to go on for too long on this because it's so interesting to me. I tend to think of “god” as being the theme more than religion, but yes, I think that there are a few things that interest me about the subject. One is that I think there's such a negative association with religion, among many people I know anyway, and yet, I think that it can be a misconception to think that completely defines a person. You hear “Christian” and if you're not a Christian yourself, chances are you think “right-wing.” But in fact, I don't think anyone is just one thing, and knowing some very politically liberal Christians, I think it's unfortunate that that is the general idea of that religion. And that's just one religion. Also, it's a subject that interests me on a personal level. I seem to have a history now of constant tweaking, if you will, of what seems reasonable to me on the subject of god, and I don't expect that will change anytime soon.

As for losing readers, I don't concern myself with that too much at all, whatever the subject – that's out of my hands. I just write what interests me and hope it'll interest someone else too.

Labels: books, Monday Interview