Contributor Spotlight: Janis Hubschman

Janis Hubschman’s story “Escape Artist” was the 2017 recipient of the Tobias Wolff Award for Fiction and is part of Issue 76 of Bellingham Review. Subscribe or purchase a single issue through our Submittable page here.

What would you like to share with our readers about the work you contributed to the Bellingham Review?

I like to approach a new story with a question in mind, one that I don’t have an easy answer to. With “Escape Artist,” I asked: what if someone close to me had very different—or even objectionable—beliefs? I’d like to think that I’d be open-minded, that I’d respect the person’s integrity and autonomy, but I know it wouldn’t be that easy or uncomplicated (that has become painfully apparent a number of times in the current divided political climate).

Tell us about your writing life.

In high school and college, I wrote (bad) poetry. Soon after the birth of my second daughter, I made the leap to novel writing without really knowing what I was getting myself into. Ten years and two unpublished novels later, someone suggested that I shape a few of my novel chapters into stories. It was such an enjoyable process, which came with the bonus of publication. That was a little over a decade ago, and I’ve been writing and publishing stories ever since.

Which non-writing aspect(s) of your life most influences your writing?

Running is an integral part of my writing process. I never set out on a run thinking about a particular problem in my work, but inevitably, at some point, a solution will float into my consciousness. I’m also dependent on my readers (writers I met in workshops and in graduate school, my two sisters) for insight and advice and especially for encouragement. And, teaching fiction writing—breaking down techniques for students and critiquing their early story drafts—has helped me to look at my own work more critically.

What writing advice has stayed with you?

First drafts are difficult for me, so I often remind myself about William Stafford’s advice for how to approach so-called writer’s block: lower your standards and keep going. In the early drafts of a story, I have to silence my inner censor and get comfortable with the mess.

What is your favorite book (or essay, poem, short story)? Favorite writer(s)?

My shortlist of favorite story writers: Tessa Hadley, Alice Munro, Edith Pearlman, Elizabeth McCracken, Joan Silber, Deborah Eisenberg, Lori Ostlund, Charles Baxter, Lorrie Moore, Jennifer Haigh, Rebecca Lee, Antonya Nelson, John Cheever, Mavis Gallant, and Charles Baxter.

What are you reading right now?

I’m currently reading Jennifer Egan’s Manhattan Beach. Before that, I read Alice Munro’s Something I’ve Been Meaning To Tell You.

What project(s) are you working on now, or next?

For the last few years, I’ve been working on a story collection, adding and subtracting stories and rearranging their order. Now that it finally feels finished, I’m thinking about the next collection, or more precisely about the set of obsessions and preoccupations that might be the glue that holds it together.

Anything else our readers might want to know about you?

To counteract the long hours I spend at my desk, I like to be physically active. To date, I’ve completed eight marathons, too many half marathons, three triathlons, and a bike race in the Dolomites. Lately, though, as I slow down with age, I’m satisfied with a six-mile run.

Where can our readers connect with you online?

My website is Janishubschman.com. I can be found on Facebook (Janis Newman Hubschman).

JANIS HUBSCHMAN has been awarded first place in Glimmer Train’s Fiction Open Contest, the Rona Jaffe-Bread Loaf Fiction Scholarship, and a Virginia Center for the Creative Arts fellowship. Her stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Colorado Review, Glimmer Train, Michigan Quarterly Review, Southern Humanities Review, StoryQuarterly, Pleiades, Green Mountains Review, upstreet, Ascent, and elsewhere. She teaches fiction writing at Montclair State University in New Jersey.

Featured Image: “Life’s Pathway” by Mariyan Dimitrov