Sitting Down in a Virtual Swamp With Andrew Furman
Andrew Furman's short story, "Bum Farto is Here," is featured in Saw Palm 11.
What’s your connection to Florida? What most compels you about America’s Australia?
I’ve lived in south Florida for 20 years now, longer than I’ve lived in any other place. I’ve learned to avoid or overlook the stuff that drives me crazy (traffic, over-development, political shenanigans)—perhaps the secret to long marriages—and have fallen in love with the diversity of our people, our strange and randy subtropical plants, and our teeming wildlife (which often finds its way indoors). I’ve even learned to love that bully sun in August, which is what truly makes one a Floridian.
Tell us a little about your piece in Saw Palm. What inspired it?
Believe it or not, Bum Farto was a real person who lived in Key West and many of the events described by the narrator of the story more or less happened. A colleague of mine who grew up in the Keys in the 70s and 80s first told me about the mystery of the Fire Chief’s disappearance and it seemed just too strange to be true. When I decided that I wanted to write a series of stories set in the Keys (this story will hopefully be part of a larger collection someday), I think I knew that I’d have to write one story that featured Farto. But the story isn’t really about Farto at all (as much as I just love typing that name!).
What do you hope people come away from your work thinking or feeling?
To pick up where my previous answer leaves off, what attracted me to the story was the notion of a narrator and all his neighbors (many of whom will be featured in future stories) weighing in on the fate of their former Fire Chief, which ultimately reveals more about their own singular selves than about Farto. I found myself drawn into sympathy with the various characters, who tap their own anxieties, preoccupations, regrets, and even their secrets through what they think and feel about the mystery of Farto’s disappearance. So I suppose that I hope readers come away more interested in what might be going on with these more “ordinary” characters, given their curious theories, than in Farto’s fate, per se.
Do you have a writing routine? Describe your writing process.
I have a wife and three school-age kids, a day-job, a garden, and a few other (mostly healthful) hobbies. By which I mean to say that I don’t write every day, nor do I write during any set time of any day, although I prefer mornings. My “process,” such as it is, is to always be working on something—I get anxious when I’m between projects—and to try to carve out as much time as I can during any given week, anyway, to work on that story or essay, to keep my head in that world for enough minutes and hours that I’m able to see the work through, eventually. I typically don’t write very much in any given day or week, but somehow work does get done.
What writing advice has stayed with you?
One of my kids swims on a team in our area and sometimes when there’s room in the pool us parents swim laps (slower) in the neighboring lanes. In between laps the other day I struck up a conversation with one of the other parents sharing my lane and she asked me what I did for a living. I mentioned that I was an English prof and a writer and when she started to tell me how lucky I was (as people tend to do), I suppose I started to complain (as I tend to do) about how tough the writing part actually was. She shrugged her wet shoulders above the waterline, said, “Just don’t give up then,” threw her goggles back on and continued her laps. Not bad advice.
What is the most surprising piece of writing you’ve come across recently?
Donald J. Trump Elected President of the United States.
Is there a certain piece of writing you find yourself turning to again and again?
I dip into Thoreau’s Walden, his Journal, and his various essays often. There’s something earnest and simple and true about his voice and concerns that cuts through the chaos and noise that defines too much of my daily life, and daily reading. I often post various Thoreau passages on my creative writing syllabi: “Say the thing with which you labor—it is a waste of time for the writer to use his talents merely. Be faithful to your genius—write in the strain that interests you most—Consult not the popular taste. The red oak leaves are even more fresh & glossy than the white.” Yeah, when in doubt just study the trees. You can do worse.
The “Florida Man” Twitter account curates news headlines of bizarre domestic incidents involving state residents, such as “Florida Man Fights to Keep Pizza-Loving Alligator.” If you had to write a Florida Man-style headline about yourself, what would it be?
“Florida Man Makes Stink at HOA Meeting over Maintaining His Compost Pile”
What’s your connection to Florida? What most compels you about America’s Australia?
I’ve lived in south Florida for 20 years now, longer than I’ve lived in any other place. I’ve learned to avoid or overlook the stuff that drives me crazy (traffic, over-development, political shenanigans)—perhaps the secret to long marriages—and have fallen in love with the diversity of our people, our strange and randy subtropical plants, and our teeming wildlife (which often finds its way indoors). I’ve even learned to love that bully sun in August, which is what truly makes one a Floridian.
Tell us a little about your piece in Saw Palm. What inspired it?
Believe it or not, Bum Farto was a real person who lived in Key West and many of the events described by the narrator of the story more or less happened. A colleague of mine who grew up in the Keys in the 70s and 80s first told me about the mystery of the Fire Chief’s disappearance and it seemed just too strange to be true. When I decided that I wanted to write a series of stories set in the Keys (this story will hopefully be part of a larger collection someday), I think I knew that I’d have to write one story that featured Farto. But the story isn’t really about Farto at all (as much as I just love typing that name!).
What do you hope people come away from your work thinking or feeling?
To pick up where my previous answer leaves off, what attracted me to the story was the notion of a narrator and all his neighbors (many of whom will be featured in future stories) weighing in on the fate of their former Fire Chief, which ultimately reveals more about their own singular selves than about Farto. I found myself drawn into sympathy with the various characters, who tap their own anxieties, preoccupations, regrets, and even their secrets through what they think and feel about the mystery of Farto’s disappearance. So I suppose that I hope readers come away more interested in what might be going on with these more “ordinary” characters, given their curious theories, than in Farto’s fate, per se.
Do you have a writing routine? Describe your writing process.
I have a wife and three school-age kids, a day-job, a garden, and a few other (mostly healthful) hobbies. By which I mean to say that I don’t write every day, nor do I write during any set time of any day, although I prefer mornings. My “process,” such as it is, is to always be working on something—I get anxious when I’m between projects—and to try to carve out as much time as I can during any given week, anyway, to work on that story or essay, to keep my head in that world for enough minutes and hours that I’m able to see the work through, eventually. I typically don’t write very much in any given day or week, but somehow work does get done.
What writing advice has stayed with you?
One of my kids swims on a team in our area and sometimes when there’s room in the pool us parents swim laps (slower) in the neighboring lanes. In between laps the other day I struck up a conversation with one of the other parents sharing my lane and she asked me what I did for a living. I mentioned that I was an English prof and a writer and when she started to tell me how lucky I was (as people tend to do), I suppose I started to complain (as I tend to do) about how tough the writing part actually was. She shrugged her wet shoulders above the waterline, said, “Just don’t give up then,” threw her goggles back on and continued her laps. Not bad advice.
What is the most surprising piece of writing you’ve come across recently?
Donald J. Trump Elected President of the United States.
Is there a certain piece of writing you find yourself turning to again and again?
I dip into Thoreau’s Walden, his Journal, and his various essays often. There’s something earnest and simple and true about his voice and concerns that cuts through the chaos and noise that defines too much of my daily life, and daily reading. I often post various Thoreau passages on my creative writing syllabi: “Say the thing with which you labor—it is a waste of time for the writer to use his talents merely. Be faithful to your genius—write in the strain that interests you most—Consult not the popular taste. The red oak leaves are even more fresh & glossy than the white.” Yeah, when in doubt just study the trees. You can do worse.
The “Florida Man” Twitter account curates news headlines of bizarre domestic incidents involving state residents, such as “Florida Man Fights to Keep Pizza-Loving Alligator.” If you had to write a Florida Man-style headline about yourself, what would it be?
“Florida Man Makes Stink at HOA Meeting over Maintaining His Compost Pile”
Andrew Furman is a professor at Florida Atlantic University and teaches in its MFA program in Creative Writing. He is the author, most recently, of an environmental memoir, Bitten: My Unexpected Love Affair with Florida (University Press of Florida, 2014). The book was named a finalist for the 2015 ASLE Book Prize. His essays and stories have appeared in such publications as Ecotone, The Southern Review, Oxford American, The Chronicle of Higher Education, AGNI Online, Poets & Writers, Terrain.org, and The Florida Review.