Rachel Kushner’s approach to writing is simple: Write what interests you and appreciate art that intrigues you. As a novelist, a co-editor of the literary journal Soft Targets and a fine-arts enthusiast who contributes to Artforum International Magazine, Kushner has established not only a writing and arts career but also a place in the writing community.
Kushner’s first novel, the 2008 National Book Award in Fiction finalist “Telex from Cuba,” chronicles the perspectives of the children and wives of American executives stationed in Cuba in the last years before Fidel Castro’s reign.
The Daily Bruin’s Jenae Cohn spoke with Kushner about her research methods, her writing practices and her views on the world and future of the literary arts and independent publishing.
Daily Bruin: What interested you to write about Cuba in particular?
Rachel Kushner: I wouldn’t call it a regional book, probably because it’s about a time when most of the world’s former colonies were in the process of decolonizing through fairly turbulent means.
That moment in history is quite interesting, and it’s a rich and a potent time to make fiction out of. The end of the 1950s is the end of a certain illusion about what life consisted of, but there are also some personal connections to the place for me because my mother had lived there. I was interested in the role her parents had played and being outsiders.
DB: When you were researching information for the novel, did you travel?
RK: I spent a lot of time in Cuba. It was being there that I got the idea to write the book. I spent a lot of time in libraries there, but in libraries here, too. I spent about three months in Cuba in total. I got to talk to people, and it wasn’t that hard. If you learn to be a good listener, it turns out that people really want to talk.
DB: Was there anything particularly unexpected you learned from these conversations?
RK: It’s sort of odd and remarkable how nostalgic people are for earlier times. If they come from a certain political orientation, that wasn’t that surprising. I think I sort of had my ideas about who would say what and who would have what opinions because it’s a pretty divided place.
DB: What was most difficult about gathering information for this novel?
RK: Research is a lot easier than writing fiction on many levels because it’s a cut-and-dry path and involves a more analytical part of the mind. Making fiction is something else entirely, and even if you have all of the so-called perfect material for making fiction, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to be successful at doing it on any given day. In a way, the two almost counter-pose each other. The biggest challenge is constructing true fiction. The research didn’t pose any challenges just because it was kind of a pleasure and a good counterbalance from writing.
DB: Is there anything in particular you do to help yourself get “unstuck” if you’re not in the mood to write?
RK: Reading helps a lot sometimes. You can admire books in many different ways, but there are certain writers I know I can read, and it’ll get me excited and start letting tones flow through me and allow me to spark certain ideas from theirs. Watching movies helps a lot, too. Just being open to things and taking a notebook with you wherever you go, always having the means to take a note.
DB: Speaking of becoming inspired by other art, can you speak a little about your involvement as an editor with the literary journal, Soft Targets?
RK: It’s something that my husband, Jason Smith, who’s a philosopher, and a friend of ours, Dan Hoy, who is a poet in New York City, did together as a project.
We’ve done two issues, but I’m not sure if we’re going to do a third. It’s on hold right now because we’re all just so busy.
It came out of a common sensibility, and we wanted to publish poetry in translation and literature in translation, and my husband does the serious philosophy aspect and a lot of visual art. … When we got involved, we basically just called upon our favorite artists and writers, and people actually responded.
DB: As an editor, what do you look for when you receive submissions?
RK: The art of the journal has been pretty diverse, and what we pick goes with the general mood of the issue. A certain intensity and tone is what we’re looking for. Not sentimental. Slightly political but not dogmatic.
For example, we published these photographs in a shrimp factory in the Strait of Gibraltar. They are amazing-looking photos, and they do have a political context that runs through them, but they’re not about sending a particular message. It’s not polemical.
DB: How do you appeal to readers who have grown up in an era where art and writing is so easily accessible online?
RK: Art doesn’t look very good on the Internet, and I don’t even really know if people look at art on the Internet. We have a Web site and we post a bunch of the text on the Web site, and if we had more energy, the thing to do would really be to make the Web site a fluid counterpart to the journal and have it do things digitally that a handheld precious object can’t do. But we really like the object aspect of things. We wanted it to be an old-fashioned, handheld thing that somebody could find at some point at a library or hand out.
DB: What do you think the future of literary journals will be in a digital age?
RK: I don’t think print journals are necessarily dead. I don’t think there’s money for them right now, but I don’t think they’ve necessarily died in popularity.
I have yet to meet a single person who owns a Kindle. Maybe I’m just in the dark. I don’t even own a cell phone; I’m not a very technologically savvy person. If (journals) are going to become obsolete, it’s better to go online certainly than to not exist.
DB: What kinds of projects do you see yourself working on in the future?
RK: I’m writing another novel. … I’m not at the point where I really want to talk about it much, but it takes place in 1978. That’s the project I’m most interested in working on.
DB: Do you have any advice for students who want to become writers?
RK: Read for pleasure and write for pleasure. Taking on models is a decent way to do it. I don’t think it’s necessarily a good idea to go straight from undergrad to get an MFA. I think it helps to take some time and be a little more formed as an adult.
Patience is really important. I think it’s important to wait until you’re really happy with your writing before you put it into the world. Just wait and let it develop.