Interview with John Chrostek

Boxcutters and more

I recently had the privilege of reading John Chrostek’s upcoming story collection Boxcutters, set for release on May 2025 with Malarkey Books, and I loved it!! John is the editor of the great new lit mag COLD SiGNAL, and he’s been featured in magazines like Little Engines, Coffin Bell, X-R-A-Y, HAD, Cease Cows, Hex Literary, Maudlin House, Scrawl Place, Deep Overstock, River Heron Review, Taco Bell Quarterly and more. In addition to Boxcutters, his first novel Feast of the Pale Leviathan is set for release in August with Deep Overstock Books, AND he and his partner Amanda have started an indie bookstore called Evening House. Books abound in his life!

We all have lots of questions. And so:

1. One of your characters in Boxcutters mentions feeling like she's fallen through the cracks. A lot of these characters struggle with this feeling. I saw many of these stories as explorations of alienation, and whether it's possible to overcome. It makes me wonder, do you also see these characters as outsiders? Or do you think they actually experience a relatively common plight? What's eating us all? What's alienating us? Do you think there are any solutions to this alienation, whether temporary or permanent?

I’d say no, I don’t see them as outsiders personally (though some more so than others) but I’d bet that the general impression for most well-adjusted people would be that they are. I love writing about freaks, fools and criminals, anybody but a soul at peace. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being comfortable, but I find fiction to be fun and cathartic when it dwells on the chaotic side of life. Some of these characters respond to their experiences by growing angry at the world and other people, and other characters instead adapt to that pressure and let it transform them into strange beasts. As someone who often has a naturally angry response to things, I aspire to follow the Path of the Strange Beast. It’s healthier.

As to where it comes from, I definitely think that the ‘social contract’ has been ripped to pieces. A lot of us feel like we didn’t sign up for the world we’re inhabiting, and so much of our agency and potential has been chipped away. The new millennium was supposed to be an evolutionary step forward, a step towards utopia, but that seems pretty out of reach. Too many people today actively want a worse world for others. How do you build consensus with that?

But even outside of the political inequalities, I think it’s just human nature for us to bristle against each other. To feel completely misunderstood by people who say they love you and especially people who don’t. Even in a just and fair society, we’d probably still have hurt souls, false selves and brothers turning against brother.

That’s not to say we should accept the hurt as a given. I think it’s also human nature to want to fix pain and reach out to each other and make something real and lasting between us all. Most of us want to do the right thing most of the time. I think it’s just our fate, maybe, to fail and break down and build ourselves back up again.

2. What writers/artists helped inspire some of these stories? Historical events? Philosophers?

This is such a fun question! I’m sure there’s inspirations I’ll forget, but I’ll try and run through some of the bigger ones. “Man and His Kin” was definitely inspired by Saunders, mixed with my memories of weirdo local amusement parks. “Glass Spectacle” was built around a weird blend of performance artists like Marina Abramovic and Houdini/The Prestige escape artists. I wrote it for the Structures themed issue of Deep Overstock. Something about glass boxes filled with water just feels so interesting! “Honey” was inspired by an offhand idea that came out of a conversation with A.A. De Levine online that turned out to have a ton of meat on the bone for me.

“The Rib and the Clay” was something I made purposely for the great Evan Fleischer’s The New Thing. It was a blast inventing a fake artist inspired by Polish romantics like Caspar David Friedrich, one of my favorite painters. “Vice and Virtue” is a Hercules tale. I do not enjoy how often Hercules is portrayed as a heroic figure, a hypermasculine icon with a squeaky clean heart, when in many of the original stories he’s a tragic monster trapped in a tormented life of his own making. There’s a parable called Hercules at the Crossroads about a young Hercules being given the choice between a relaxed and simple life or a harsh but glorious one. I decided to retell that moment, blended with the story of him killing his tutor and being banished to the sheep hills, another underexplored moment. I think a lot about doing a book about Hercules. Like twelve minor key short stories in-between the Labors and as he gets closer to dying. It’d be fun.

Finally, “His Ghostly Portion in the World of Dark” was based on an idea I came up with my friend Alexis way back when we were kids about a memory drug taken as eye drops. As the years went on, the story ended up becoming flavored by my love for PKD, LeGuin, Vonnegut and also the Aeneid, where it gets its namesake from. There’s a passage in the Aeneid that goes,

“Each man receives

His ghostly portion in the world of dark;

But thence to realms Elysian we go free,

Where for a few these seats of bliss abide,

Till time's long lapse a perfect orb fulfils,

And takes all taint away, restoring so

The pure, ethereal soul's first virgin fire.

At last, when the millennial aeon strikes,

God calls them forth to yon Lethaean stream,

In numerous host, that thence, oblivious all,

They may behold once more the vaulted sky,

And willingly to shapes of flesh return.”

Which I felt like said everything I wanted to say with the story and more.

3. Where did you grow up? How did it inform these stories?

I grew up in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, right outside of Philadelphia. As I grew up, it changed a ton, becoming more developed and getting a big gaudy casino in the center of town next to the race track where Smarty Jones is from. I think a lot of my sense of humor comes from living in that area, and growing up lower middle class with a construction worker dad who suffered a stroke and went on disability also shaped me a ton. Around the same time, my grandfather on my mother’s side developed severe Alzheimer’s and so my mother had to spend a few years taking care of him every day at his home to maintain his dignity and way of life. I saw people I love lose the ability to talk and think like they used to. I saw how broken systems betray us, how people can slip through the cracks. I think that shows up in everything I write.

During college, I moved to Savannah where I met my partner Amanda. After college, we tried living in a few different places, most of the time selling almost everything we own and building ourselves back up again. Canada (Amanda got their Masters in Vancouver BC), Portland (until the pandemic lay-offs), Philly (to move closer to home) and Richmond (to try to find the right place for us to settle down) before finally landing here in Buffalo with the intention of staying put. I’ve loved everywhere I’ve lived. Moving around can be lonely and hard but it’s given us so much. Best of all, great memories and friends from all over the world.

4. Many of these stories first appeared in independent magazines. You're the editor of a magazine (COLD SiGNAL), too! What do indie lit mags have to offer in the literary ecosystem? What are they doing that no one else is doing?

Literary magazines are easy to start, hard to make and impossible to sustain, but the value they give us is so worth the effort. They make the world feel massive and intimate at the same time. It’s a beautiful, democratic way of engaging with art and giving the writing life more energy and community. You get editors who want to push your work to higher levels, readers who are curious and engaged, inspiring you to push on, and peers to learn from and cheer on who become real friends in time. What a fucking gift.

I think the independent literary scene, from literary magazines up to small presses, are the future of literature. There’s a lot of great work published by the big leagues, sure, but there are billions of people in this world. Art needs a hundred thousand ways in. It needs collectives, scenes, freakshows, symposiums, laboratories. It keeps us going, makes us better.

5. Lots of religious allusions here, especially as the collection goes on! Can you talk a bit about why you went there?

I grew up Catholic, but like many people who grew up Catholic, I’m not Catholic anymore, lol. It still shaped me in many ways. I couldn’t easily define what I believe anymore, but I care a lot about the deeper questions. Writing is definitely a spiritual act for me as much as it is entertainment and expression. It’s talking to the universe in the hopes the rest of the universe might listen in and answer back. Even when it’s fiction, it’s a confession.

6. What projects do you have on the horizon?

This year for me, writing-wise, is all about Boxcutters, Cold Signal and Feast of the Pale Leviathan! (FotPL is my first novel. Basic premise is man drifts out to sea, gets eaten by a kaiju Hobbes’ Leviathan, finds people living inside the guts of the creature and gets roped into a brewing civil war. It’s gonna be fun to try and sell this one, lol!) Cold Signal’s Issue Three will be out this spring, then the rest of the year I’ll be focusing on novelette calls, with Issue Four planned towards fall + winter.

Amanda and I are also opening a very small, I mean incredibly small, bookstore in a maker’s space here in Buffalo in a few weeks! It’s called Evening House. Amanda’s put in so much work on the site and building up from the ground floor, and we really hope we can get to the point where the bookstore is both of our full-time jobs. If I can get to the point where all my labor is in the world of books and stories, I’ll be a happy dude!

In terms of stories I’m working on, I’ve got a few I’m hopeful for. I’d love to put out a few novelette to novella-length stories for the next year or so. I’m working on a horror story about mosquitoes I think has great potential, and there’s a character I’ve had in my heart for ages I think might finally have a good story for, but we’ll see! I’m always surprised by what ideas I ditch and what stories end up finished and out in the world. It’s a mystery to me every time.

7. What would you like to be asked?

What I would like to be asked is “Do you have any questions for me about Glass Stories?”

Which is a great question, thank you for asking. I have a few. I also want to take a quick minute to rant about the book before I get to my questions, because I think it’s an absolutely incredible collection.

I tried to build Boxcutters around thematics, to a degree, but I also wanted it to be a bit like a toy box with a bunch of strange figurines side by side. Weird juxtapositions to inspire play, which suits me, I think. With Glass Stories, you’ve got this really tight bundle of stories that feels so linked and coherent but also expansive and rich and varied. It comes across as pure confidence of vision.

My first question for you is “when you decided on the throughline for Glass Stories, did the first collection-exclusive stories come easier to you, or was it the latter entries?” Eight stories in the collection are specific to Glass Stories, which blows me away. I can imagine being hit with a bevy of great ideas in that first moment, or after trying out a few, settling into a groove, but I’m itching to learn about your process.

My second question is this: Which story would you point people to as the quintessential “Glass Story”? I would absolutely accept an evasive answer here, as it’s maybe a favorite child kind of violence, haha. I mean it more in the sense of “which story do you think most summarizes the collective energy of the book?” if that helps. I know common wisdom is to put the poster child front and center, and Glass Tower is a very assured introduction, but I’d love to hear your take on this if it’s another one. Reading at the end that Glass Cabbage is a family story made me wonder!

My last question: What do you love best about the fairy tale?

MY (IVY’S) ANSWERS TO THE INNOCENT QUESTIONS OF ONE JOHN CHROSTEK:

1. Once I got the idea to write these so-called “glass stories,” I wrote one every week or two until I felt it was time to wrap it up. I’ve found I work better with systems and rituals and routines than without, which is very sad for me as someone who saw myself as a bohemian type. I’d say most of those stories came fairly easily, which certainly isn’t true of all the stories I write. The theme propelled me! Until it didn’t anymore. I could have kept going, I guess, but I got a sense it was time to stop, at least temporarily. Two stories that I added months later were “Glass House” and “Glass Turtle.” Maybe my log will have more to say about glass later.

2. The quintessential glass story, you say? Hmm. In a couple of contexts, I’ve pointed to “Glass Piano,” which is one inspired by history rather than fairy tale. For a quintessential fairy tale story…perhaps “Glass Pet” fits the bill. I loved turning the cabbage story my grandfather told and adding the glass element. His version of the story (his had no title!) was scarier than my “Glass Cabbage.” I wish I’d recorded him telling it.

3. What I love best about the folk fairy tale is that it’s collective storytelling, full of unconscious wisdom and uncanny symbolism from the past. Fairy tales are bewildering in a lovely way, forcing us underground to see what past people buried, what they wouldn’t or couldn’t tell us directly.

THANK YOU FOR THE INSPIRING OBSERVATIONS AND RETALIATORY QUESTIONS, JOHN CHROSTEK!