Poetry Spotlight: Jessa Crispin on the Bookslut Reading Series

April 19, 11:04 AMChicago Poetry Scene ExaminerLarry Sawyer

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Jessa Crispin in her natural habitat.

I recently attended a poetry reading in the much-lauded (deservedly so) Bookslut Reading Series, which primarily features fiction, and enjoyed hearing two local poets, Kristy Odelius and Kristy Bowen, and also visiting New Yorker Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz. The upstairs at the ever populated Hopleaf thankfully has a second bar and this is where Jessa Crispin stages events for the live version of her successful site Bookslut in an atmosphere that has a comfortable vibe that seems half Parisian cafe and half rock 'n roll, which put the full house in a good mood for listening to that night's reading. (More on the reading to come.) I was glad that Jessa agreed to an interview, because I wanted to hear more about her exciting role regarding her phenomenal Web site Bookslut and her popular Chicago reading series.

LS: Your perspective on books is astute yet entertaining, which is no small feat—you’re in the loop on what’s going on with publishing contemporary fiction and poetry, well, how did you start? Was there one book in particular that was the impetus for your love of a good read?

JC: I guess if there was one book, it was Frank Herbert's Dune, which my father read to me when I was 4. Vastly superior to that Dr. Suess nonsense we had been reading before that. This one had giant, killer sand worms and secret spice. But I started the website because I was bored at my day job, and as long as I did something at my computer, it looked like I was working. I started a blog about books because I'm not the type to do an online diary or anything personal. I was a heavy reader, so why not just choose books?

LS: What are you reading currently that you think my readers should know about?

JC: I recently finished Towards Another Summer by Janet Frame, which is so lovely and true. But I'm also reading three books of quantum physics, and I'm not sure I would recommend them. I am enjoying them, but it's also making blood come out of my ears. I'm not sure I would want that for others.

LS: You’re more of a fiction fan it seems. Are there any Chicago poets that you find exciting?

JC: This is going to sound terrible, but I should be honest: not really. Most of the contemporary poetry to take the top of my head off lately has been from Europe or Russia. I was having a conversation about this the other day... a friend of mine and I are both really bored by American poets right now. Neither of us are completely sure why, but I get very excited when I see a package from Ugly Duckling Presse, and not so much when I get one from, say, Fence.

LS: Hey, I recently caught the three Kristys reading at Hopleaf. Could you tell us a bit about the history of your reading series there, i.e., when you started, what’s coming up, what’s been the response?

JC: We've been doing it for about four years now, I think. The whole thing started because I wanted to meet Shalom Auslander. I had just read Beware of God, his collection of short stories, and decided I wanted to meet him. He wasn't coming to Chicago on his book tour, so I thought I would have to start a reading series to get him here. He read at our first event, and has read on his second tour as well, and I don't think he knows this. Maybe I shouldn't make this public, he'll stop answering my e-mails.

But we've always had great crowds at our events, occasionally it'll be standing room only, and we have reached capacity before and had to turn people away. We have another event on April 28 with James Kennedy and Christian Moerk, and then we're in the final stages of confirming a slew of writers through August.

LS: You primarily are scheduling fiction there, no?

JC: Fiction and nonfiction. There are plenty of poetry related reading series in Chicago, but not that many prose.

LS: I’m intrigued by your business sense. At what point did you know that Bookslut was more than just a novel idea and how did you take it to the next level with advertising, guest reviewers, marketing and so forth?

JC: I really painted myself into a corner with Bookslut. It was much bigger than I had ever planned on it being, and much more public. I have a very Google-able name, too, so when I moved from Austin to Chicago, I had a very hard time finding employment. Any prospective boss could Google up my name and know in two seconds that my attention and energy would be elsewhere. This was about two years into it.

Then I got an interview for a book review editor position, and was offered the job with the attached string that I would have to end my involvement with Bookslut. At that point I realized I would have to either make Bookslut my day job or starve, basically. I started taking advertising and it immediately worked. Within the first month, I was able to scrape together a very bare bones existence.

LS: Which living authors do you believe are the “best” at the art of fiction? Why?

JC: I think Kathryn Davis is incredible. She writes books that I feel down to the tips of my toes, just beautiful novels that are like sitting in a sunny room with all the windows open. I like Alasdair Gray a great deal, who looks at common, everyday things and sees monsters, and then makes you see them, too. I've only read one book by Gail Hareven, because there is only one translated into English, but the Confessions of Noa Weber was a total surprise. It's dirty and gritty but reaching up for the divine, and she manages to write the word "feminist" without relying on a stereotype.

This is hard for me, because for the past year I have mostly been reading the dead: Ferenc Karinthy, Marghanita Laski, W. Somerset Maugham, Graham Greene, Elizabeth Bowen, Julio Cortazar. The living are easier to be disappointed with, I think.

LS: Do you have any other day job besides managing Bookslut?

JC: I am the books columnist for the Smart Set, and a regular contributor to NPR.org.

LS: What do you like about Chicago? Any dislikes?

JC: I like the food. I like Midwesterners. I like the botanic gardens and feeding the goats at the zoo, and feeling safe walking home at 3am. I don't even mind the winter that much, because it lets me have a hermit phase for a couple of months, and I love that. But as far as cities go, you never know when I'm going to pack up my belongings and move on to the next one. I never stay in one place that long.

LS: Do you feel that Chicago has a welcoming attitude toward writers?

JC: Who knows? Every writer needs something different. Some need constant contact with other writers and a sense of community, some need to hoard up in a room with a teapot and a view of some trees. But Chicago? is a very livable city, so you don't have to kill yourself at a day job to be able to make rent, and it doesn't demand your constant? attention like New York.

LS: How do you feel about trends in the industry? Self-publishing and print on demand, for example? Has that had a negative/positive effect from your perspective?

JC: None of that is big enough yet to make a difference. We'll see. Right now it's hard to make any statements about trends as everything is in chaos, and no one knows how it's going to work.

LS: What are your future plans for the site? Should we expect any changes?

JC: Always. But those are secret.