Fresh and Real Original - Talking Smack with Nick Ostdick

By Ben Tanzer, September 14, 2007

If you know Nick Ostdick, you probably love him – his energy and drive, his appreciation of books and writers, his brooding, Clooney-like good looks – he’s something else. If you don’t know Nick, here’s what you should know: he is the publisher of RAGAD, a columnist for 63 Channels, a blogger, and the author of the novel Sunbeams and Cigarettes, which he wrote and got published while still in his teens. I recently had the chance to give Nick a shout and talk writing with him. As expected, he was the most interesting person I connected with that day. 

Tanzer: What prompted you to start RAGAD and what is the guiding vision behind what you choose to publish?

Ostdick: RAGAD was just a concept for about a year before it came to fruition. Then last summer I formed a small writer's group with a couple of friends, a little outfit that would get together weekly at my friend's apartment where we would read our own work aloud and give critiques of it. I noticed that a lot of the people who came to those meetings were writing really good stories, stuff that was offbeat and unconventional, yes, but fresh and real original. And very few of them were getting their stories published – lack of interest in publishing, lack of time and energy, etc – and I thought that was a real shame. So I started RAGAD as a venue to get my friend's stories out there, to help them gain some readership. And very quickly it turned into, “well, if my friends have stories that are good but that aren't getting published, maybe then somebody else has friends like that too.” And then those friends have friends.

I try not to dictate what I publish according to any kind of code or idea – I think then you end up with a boring, stagnant, publication. Honestly, as bare bones as I can make it, I publish good stories. That sounds so vague and unhelpful to those reading this, but it's true. I'm just looking for good, solid, stories, obviously, that employ good craft such as dialogue, plot, characterization, strong narrative, and so on, but other than that I don't want to limit myself by saying I only publish this kind of stuff or I only publish that. To be fair, we don't publish genre fiction like horror or romance or anything like that, but subject matter is pretty wide open. I guess you could say we want to publish stories that matter, stories that are real and have some substance to them.

Tanzer: In an age when so many magazines/journals are going fully electronic you continue to put out an actual hard copy broadside – why is that?

Ostdick: Many literary publications are online only, and I really value and put a lot of time into editing and promoting RAGAD's online site. I really love online lit-mags, and try to publish in them regularly. But I think the decision to have a print edition as well stemmed from the idea and the need to have readings. It can be hard sometimes to get people out for readings with just having an online issue. But with the broadside, people are more inclined to come out because they can pick up something that they can't get on the web, stories they can only get from our broadsides. I mean, it's hard to have a release party with nothing to release, if that makes sense. I love performing at readings. It's so bare-bones storytelling, so stripped down and basic. It harkens back to ancient Rome or Greece or something where storytellers and soothsayers would stand on corners and tell stories or something. I find that so fantastic, and as such, we wanted to have the broadside as a mode to get people together to hear stories. It's worked out well, much better than we thought. Our broadsides have national distribution in places like Chicago, NYC, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Portland and such, so I'm really glad we did it.

Tanzer: Tell me about the "Intersections" reading you're organizing later this month (Saturday, September 23rd) at Quimby's?

Ostdick:  The “Intersections” reading was an idea I had a while ago for a reading series that I was thinking about doing where each month different Chicago writers would take the stage somewhere and read stories written about different Chicago street intersections or locales. Depending on how this one goes, it still might happen some day. But this is just a single reading serving as a release party for RAGAD #4 called “The Landing,” carrying a story by Paul Silverman of the same name. Each reader was given the task of choosing an intersection and then writing a story about it, as directly or obliquely based as they wanted. We've got a real kick-ass lineup of readers. Pete Coco and Scott Stealy of the forthcoming webzine Please Don't. And ‘zinester CT Ballentine. It should be really fun. We're also having a raffle for those who would like to attend, first and second place prizes that include free books and lifetime subscriptions to RAGAD. I mean, free books? How can that shit miss?

Tanzer: So, you published the novel Sunbeams and Cigarettes at what, 18? What the fuck!? I know that's not a question, but please respond anyway.

Ostdick: Ha, ha. What the fuck? That's a good fucking question, maybe the best question I have ever been asked. It's so direct and asked with such vigor. But yes, I did publish a novel when I was 18, and it is called Sunbeams and Cigarettes and can be ordered on amazon.com or any major chain, this now ends the shameless promotional segment. It came out in 2005, and at first I did a lot of local events and such, and then about a year later I got the chance to go on a bigger tour with writers Mike Smith and Jason Jordan, which was really fun and informative. It's done pretty well, something like 400 or so, I think, which for what it is, I am pretty satisfied with.

Tanzer: Now please tell me about the book itself; what it's about, the process of writing it, what you were hoping to accomplish, you know the usual, but please say it in an unusual way.

Ostdick: The novel is about growing up. That's it, condensed down into its simplest form. The story arc focuses on how a teenager deals with the death of his brother in a car accident and his possible culpability; living in a small town and having everyone in your business and finding out what that elusive first love is like and so on. The main character, Spencer, is pretty messed up throughout the whole book – horrible nightmares and hallucinations and so forth, which was fun to write. It actually made me sad a few times though, writing that character, because at times he was just so pitiful, and I felt awful imposing more misery on this guy that I had created.

What was weird about it was that the novel is a first-person fictional memoir, in a sense, but as I was writing it I would find more and more situations or people that I knew while I was writing that made their way into the book. I think most of the time when writing a book like Sunbeams you recollect, contemplate what has happened to you, and then write from those experiences. I think that most of the time you don’t find new material and new issues to tackle while writing — the stuff you’re writing has happened already. So, I guess it was like I was writing something about small town life and such while that same small town life was happening all around me, which I think now really helped.

Tanzer: People seem to like to read about the writer's process, so maybe you could talk about your process in general, what it looks like, what you like to wear and drink, how you decide what to focus on, and all that good stuff.

Ostdick: My process for writing I think is lack of a process really. I mean, there isn’t a whole lot of rhyme or reason to it. I write whenever I have time; day, night, early, later, whenever. I try to write everyday no matter what. I hate the idea that some people just sit around and wait for inspiration. That’s like waiting for a bus or something. I mean I have done it, sat at a blank screen or page, gone out for a little while to some place for inspiration or listened to some music or done something to help get things going. For the most part though, I think the best way to write is just write. There was this time when I was sitting in traffic and these road workers were going back to work, and I was watching them trudge down the street, and that was so, well for lack of a better word, inspiring for me. I thought that if these guys can exhibit that level of dedication for their job, then I should be able to do the same for writing, you know? Those guys didn’t want to go back to work after lunch, but they went because that was their job. You just trudge your ass in.

As far as how I approach a story, that’s always the same. Normally I start with an idea or a sentence or a character, and I just start writing and building on that one thing. I really believe that when you’re drafting or first diving into a story, you don’t really know what it’s about even though you might think you do. You discover what the story is and what it’s going to be while writing through those first drafts. After a few drafts I normally let someone read it — friends, other writers, my girlfriend, and so forth. Then I rewrite and rewrite some more, and then just for kicks rewrite some more. Writing is revising. I mean, that’s the most freeing part of the whole process; creating something and then tearing it down and seeing if there isn’t some more exciting way to approach it.

Tanzer: Which writers or books have had the most impact on you? Feel free to reference films/filmmakers and music as well if you are so inspired.

Ostdick: Ah, books. A wonderful thing. Raymond Carver’s books; his entire catalog has had a huge influence on me. He really had the gift for minimalism with his writing; in his narrative and in the way he constructed sentences. He managed to create these little worlds for his characters that oddly resembled the real world but felt totally foreign at the same time.  I really admire him. Donald Barthelme’s work has had a huge influence on me too. I don’t really think my writings are much like his, but his courage to experiment with the form of the short story and the novel really wows me. Other more local/contemporary writers have moved me as well. Folks like Joe Meno and Elizabeth Crane especially. They really can write the fuck out of a short story and Meno’s novels are tops as well.

Music hugely influences me as well. There are so many bands that I listen to that when I listen to their songs, I think, “man, I wish I could write something that rockin’, or something that beautiful.” And that makes me want to do that, to get up and go and write something that is that awesome. I try to write with, for lack of a better term, a punk rock kind of vibe, meaning that I’m going write what I want and fuck everyone else and what they think. Jeff Tweedy, of the Chicago band Wilco, is a giant influence on me. I mean, there’s a guy who sticks up for his art, for what he believes in. And his relentless effort to never make the same record again just strikes me, and I try to do that with each of my stories; to never tell the same story over again, whether that means with plot, narrative-angle, and so forth. Keep moving forward.

Tanzer: You're not quite living in Chicago, but are clearly part of the Chicago writing scene, what's your take on it?

Ostdick: The Chicago scene is alive and well and I’m thankful. I think it’s wonderful, lovely, rockin’, fresh and utterly beautiful. The thing about it is it’s so grassroots. I mean, we all know New York City is where it’s happening in the book world, and NYC does have its share of independent media, but Chicago is something so home-grown, you know? There aren’t very many corporate hands in the pot. There’s great presses like Featherproof Books and Punk Planet Books — I’m still bemoaning the loss of Punk Planet magazine, by the way, how horrible — and great underground lit-mags like THE2NDHAND and MAKE Magazine and so on. It’s very accessible too, very welcoming. And the best part is it’s always active. There is always something going on, somebody having a book launch or zine reading. I also really respect a lot of the writers working in the city — the aforementioned Meno and Crane, but also more underground folk like Spencer Dew, Jonathan Messinger, the now southernized Todd Dills and many, many more. For anyone in the area looking to get into writing and publishing, Chicago is your first stop.

Tanzer: You seem incredibly networked with other writers and publishers, how do you approach that, and what's the goal?

Ostdick: I think the goal with being networked with other writers and publishers is just to meet people who are cool and who are doing what you’re doing. It’s just to find someone who is as jazzed about writing as you are. Obviously, there are some perks that come with knowing certain people  but for me it’s just about meeting people who are doing what you’re doing and who love it as much as you do. It’s about learning too. A lot of the people I have met in Chicago and elsewhere are just better writers than me, and it’s nice to be able to observe what they’re doing from a more personal angle and to learn from them — every writer can learn from another.

Tanzer: Where do you think books, literary journals, and the literary universe in general are heading?

Ostdick: It’s hard to say where books and lit-mags and journals are going, and honestly, I don’t want to try. I mean, with the loss of Punk Planet and the near-loss of McSweeney’s, I think it shows that independent media has to work that much harder to stay afloat. Hell, the Chicago Reader was just sold recently to some corporation from Florida after being owned by those in Chicago for years. I just think that as long as there are people and publications who go against the grain, who try to expose people to good works that might never have made it in the corporate money, homogenized mess, I’ll be just fine.