Aaron Burch

Aaron Burch is the editor of Hobart. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Quick Fiction, elimae, Smokelong Quarterly, and other publications. He recently placed second in Shya Scanlon’s Seven Line Contest, and his entry will appear in Opium 4.

As the founder of Hobart, tell us about your vision for the magazine and each of its three divisions—the web, the print, and the minibooks.

I think my vision is just to publish stuff that I get excited about – excited about as a reader, as someone who gets to publish it, as someone who can’t wait to show it off and get it out there. It started as a website, mainly because it didn’t cost me any money and didn’t take much know-how. And it gave me an excuse to do some amateur design stuff — playing around with Photoshop and HTML, which I love doing. Then, after doing that for about a year, I set myself a goal to do a print issue. Now, suddenly, the 7th issue is out and I’m not sure how we’ve got here and I still don’t know what the vision is, but it is a lot of fun and a couple people seem to like it too, which is awesome.

Almost a year ago now, I handed the reigns for the website over to a team of web editors, all writers I really admire and who I had previously published (Savannah Guz, Claudia Smith, and Jensen Whelan, as well as Sean Carman as the photo editor). They have done an amazing job, as evidenced by the quality of the website just getting better and better every time I turn around.

With the minibooks, it was again an example of thinking it would be cool to do something so… just doing it. We wanted to do some kind of “minibook” — something that you could fit in your pocket and read here and there while traveling, for example. We were probably inspired a little by Bullfight’s Little Book contest, as well as Cloverfield Press, as well as an endless number of other great presses doing cool stuff. We wanted to put out a book that was small, looked really great, almost a little art piece or something, and that was different than what we, or really most other people, were doing. So we held a contest looking for something specifically in diary format, something that would almost read like a found object on a bus, the result being Michelle Orange’s The Sicily Papers, a series of letters she wrote while traveling around Italy that includes stuff from the original letters like margin notes, crossed out words, and doodles.

How have your goals changed since the journal’s inception?

I don’t really think they have. Mostly, my goals are just to have fun. When I started the journal, I really had no idea at all what I was doing. I still feel like I’m not that sure what I am doing, though I’ve obviously learned a lot along the way, it has grown beyond what I ever really expected, become more legitimate and I think the focus has maybe narrowed a little. Or, maybe not narrowed, but my idea of what I want to do has at least become a little focused. My goals have maybe gotten bigger – to start with, my first goal was just to get an issue out. Now… well… I am always hoping that more people will pick it up, that maybe some of the stories will get some kind of attention, all because I love all the stories so much, that the more Hobart gets out there, the more people read it, the more people are seeing these stories that I think deserve as much attention as possible.

In your submission guidelines, you say you like “quirky stories with subjects like truck driving and mathematics and vagabonding but not really stories that rely too heavily on their quirkiness.” How would you define the stories you write?

Oh, I don’t know. Boring. Pointless. Lacking substance. Clumsily written. I’m maybe too self-deprecating to answer this beyond self-mockery. I think, ultimately, I’d like to write “quirky stories that don’t rely on their quirkiness” though I’m not there now.

Your stories “There, There” and “Projection” in elimae, and “Untitled (Gum) in Smokelong Quarterly, share a common bond—gum plays a significant role in the psyche of the narrator. Consider the following passages:

It’s unusual, and, to me, exciting, to see a simple reoccurring object in lieu of a larger theme (say death). So. Why gum?

Ha. I hadn’t realized I mentioned gum so often. I know I do it with a number of other things as well – Legos, SCRABBLE, chess, math and multiplication problems… these all pop up here and there. I don’t ever even really chew gum, so I’m not sure about it popping up so often. I like recurring themes though and I’m just not a “big theme” writer. This observance probably is a pretty good relation about my writing and me in general. I’m just not a “big theme” person. I love these little things, playing board games with people, the small everyday little stuff. I don’t think I really have anything to say about death. Or, if I do, it is probably via its relation to, I don’t know, not being able to play SCRABBLE ever again. Or chew gum. Or the concrete and inevitableness of it as similar to math. I like how you can pick a much much smaller topic and people can relate to the everydayness of it. Everyone has probably heard some variation of that fact that if you swallow gum it doesn’t digest for seven years, or however long, so you can connect with people – it is a childhood memory probably, and an example of something you’ve heard and, whether or not it is true, whether or not you believe it, the “fact” stuck with you. Plus, it just amuses me while sitting by myself in front of the computer writing.

If Aaron Burch was a type of gum, what would he be: a stick of Wrigley’s, a soft-centered square, a gumball dispensed from a vending machine, a piece of colorful Fruit Stripe, a dark and spicy Blackjack, or a pack of Big League Chew?

A stick of Wrigley’s maybe? Or Trident? Nothing as exciting as Big League Chew, though I remember how cool that stuff used to make me feel, acting like I was a big ballplayer, grabbing a handful of chaw. That was awesome.

You live in Ann Arbor, Michigan, home of the Domino’s Pizza chain. Is this just a random fact, or does it, and its founder, Tom Monaghan, play a prominent role in the city?

I think it is just a random fact. Sometimes I drive down the freeway, past Domino Farms, but that is about the extent of its involvement in my life. I guess I don’t even really know that much about Ann Arbor… it might play a bigger role in the city? I know how to get to the couple cool bookstores and bars and that’s about it. Also, last week, I went to this cool, small little wine and beer place in Steilacoom, WA and when the guy carded me and saw my Ann Arbor address, he asked if I drink a lot of Bell’s. He said people ask him for it all the time, but he can’t get it out there. And, a few nights before that, at a bar in Tacoma, the girl checking my id said, “Ann Arbor? You smoke a lot of pot out there?” So I’d say maybe its reputation is built more on beer and weed than pizza. Or maybe it’s just me…

Where have you been lately, and where are you going next?

I’m in Washington State now, but it is where I grew up, so coming back doesn’t really feel like travel. I got here though via a train ride from Michigan to California, a few nights in Sacramento, then another train ride up the coast. So, that’s something, plus I have a couple cool train stories now. I met this one guy who was heading back to SF, from Colorado. He doesn’t have a full time job, never really has, just works part time, travels, stays with friends, backpacks, camps, hitchhikes, takes the train. He hasn’t had a driver’s license in like 15 years. He was awesome, and I was totally jealous. It sounded rad, and made my little travels sound hermit-like. Next week, I’m heading back to Michigan, then roadtripping down to Atlanta for AWP. I’m looking forward to that.

How do you balance between Aaron the editor and Aaron the writer? Do you find one ultimately trumps the other?

For the last few years, I don’t know that I really was balancing; I was mostly just working on Hobart and it became kind of easy to let my own writing slip. Especially as I wasn’t always that enthusiastic about how it was going (see above: boring, not that great, etc.) whereas Hobart seemed to be growing and growing, getting more accolades, etc. I’ve been writing a lot more lately though and it feels good; I’m realizing I missed it more than I thought I did. I think each has definitely benefited from the other, but I kind of have to forget about editor Aaron while writing sometimes, otherwise I give up pretty easily. I start noticing all the clichés and lazy metaphors and lazy writing in general and all these other things that I reject stories for, and I quit. Or, the stories I write aren’t always the stories I would publish, I don’t think, for one reason or another, and if I start thinking about that too much it can be a little crippling.

If you look up Hobart in dictionary.com, you get the following definitions: 1. Garret Augustus: 1844-99, U.S. lawyer and politician; Vice President from 1897-99; 2. a seaport and the capital of Tasmania; 3. a city in NW Indiana; 4. a male given name. Where did the name of your journal come from?

There is a company that makes industrial size dishwashers, and other restaurant kitchenware, and the name always stuck, ever since I used one of those dishwashers back in youth camp. After naming the journal that, I found out about all kinds of other Hobarts. There is a Hobart, WA that is only a couple of miles away from a town a lived in for a year or two growing up. There is a Hobart, OK that a good friend was stationed near. A Hobart street in LA that I’ve driven down a few times. When I go to book fairs, AWP, and the like, I always get a few people asking if I am associated with Hobart College in NY. I think I have a few Myspace friends who are named Hobart and found me via that. They seem to typically go by Hobie. Wasn’t that the name of the kid on Baywatch? He was probably named after the surf company, or something, but maybe…

What’s in your CD player right now?

I just got an iPod for Christmas so, officially, nothing is in my CD player right now! I’ve been listening to the new Ghostface Killah a lot lately, as well as These Arms Are Snakes. Thom Yorke, Silversun Pickups, TV on the Radio, my old Botch CDs and all of the post-Botch Seattle Bands (These Arms, Minus the Bear, Roy), The Black Keys, hmmm…. All my classic rock stuff – The Who, The Band, The Rolling Stones, The Doors (all the The bands apparently), Hendrix… Actually, I usually listen to it on shuffle, so pretty much all my CDs are in my player right now. All that and I’ve been watching the new season of the Office, which I subscribed to via iTunes because I don’t have a TV.

Contact Aaron

Read

There
published in elimae

Projection
published in elimae

Untitled (Gum)
published in Smokelong Quarterly

At the Swimming Pool
published by Quick Fiction