Local college professor, San Antonio Current columnist and editor, and employee at the public library, Lyle Rosdahl manages to juggle each vocation and still find time to put pen to paper for his personal writing. Additionally, Rosdahl journals, communicates, and encourages other writers via his website. Incorporating both Oulipo, a literary technique that advocates constraints in writing, and flash fiction, Rosdahl continues to produce innovative and inspiring pieces for the writing community.
Rosdahl will conduct the class, Structural Biomimicry in Short Prose, during Gemini Ink’s Summer Literary Festival. The class will be held the week of July 12 through July 15. Class participants will examine some of nature’s processes and models and use those insights to create similar structures within their writing.
Gemini Ink intern Megan Peak interviewed Rosdahl and discussed his writing process, fascination with Oulipo, and what inspires him to write.
Megan Peak: Can you tell us more about your interest in Oulipo and how you use those techniques in your own writing?
Lyle Rosdahl: Oulipo is a literary movement that, generally, uses constraints. We all use constraints, though they are often overlooked. I find that when I am conscious of the constraints I use, my writing opens up and I am surprised and pleased by what it produces. I’m partial to visual constraints, but love the idea of patterns (in structure or in ideas) and series. Some constraints that I’ve used recently are using tarot cards to push a story in mysterious directions. I let the cultural subconscious understanding of tarot cards (and the images more literally) affect the direction of the story. Recently I’ve used structures informed by nature to write stories (the path of a slug or the lines on a snail’s shell). I find this challenging and liberating.
How does photography influence and connect to your writing?
Imagery is very important in my work. Not only do I love to use senses in my work, but I love the interconnectedness of image/language (what is language, but image?). I created and have been facilitating a collaborative (Postcard Fiction Collaborative) for almost a year now in which I and other writer friends respond to an image (usually a photograph of some kind). They are short fictional (mostly) responses and it’s interesting to see where our ideas intersect and diverge. Photography is such a powerful art form (and one that I enjoy pursuing) and my interest in cross genre and cross form work naturally moves toward it.
You have a blog, “dead rats press,” how is it the “ultimate workout” and is there any significance behind the rat?
I change the “description” every so often and I liked the pun on this considering I had originally started a website by that name (the address is different now: lylerosdahl.com) with the intent to self-publish, maybe even start a small press of some kind. The pun is in using “press” as an action — both mental and physical. The idea of using a dead rat to exercise with is rather ridiculously funny. I also hope that people will take something away from the site, that it will challenge the reader. I did do a little self-publishing, but I’m not very good at promoting myself. I kept the name for no real reason other than it being something I had picked originally. I do like the rather morbid idea of a dead rat. They’re tough buggers (I mean they can eat through metal) and somehow their mortality is poignant to me in that Buddhist sort of way of staring at a human skull for days as a way to enlightenment. I guess I think of writing like that.
What does your revision process look like?
I tend to be a pretty erratic writer as it is. That is I get up and walk around and wash the dishes or do laundry as I’m writing. I find that breaking up the experience lets my mind breath a little bit. That also means that I’m constantly revising because I’m thinking about what I wrote and how to continue. I believe that writers shouldn’t just bull their way ahead (though, of course, everyone is different), but should stop and think about where the story is taking them. That said, it’s very important to sit down and write and then put the work away (sometimes for weeks or even months) and then come back to it with a fresh eye. I probably don’t do this often enough, but whenever I do I find that there are changes I can make to create a stronger story (typos, of course, but larger issues and questions often crop up).
What, or who, inspires you to continue writing?
It sounds a little corny and overused, but I feel compelled to write. Or rather I feel awful if I don’t. That impulse is really a horrible feeling of guilt. Sure I can bask in the glow of a story or prose poem or what have you (the wonderful way that words play into each other, the ideas they create, language), but that feeling is temporary. It’s the lack of sleep and frayed nerves that really get me going. I suppose when it comes down to it, that means writing is an integral part of my psyche. And a fairly cruel part at that.
