J.M. Patrick lives in Connecticut where she works for an engineering company. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in NOÖ Journal, The Summerset Review, Pequin, Juked, Night Train, SmokeLong Quarterly, and other places. Visit her online at www.jmpatrick.org.

You’re a young lass. How long have you been writing with an aim toward publication?

I am a young lass, I’m 22. I used to be petrified that people would discredit my work if they knew how old I was. I thought it might be held against me, but I really underestimated the writing community. It still worries me, sometimes, when I know I’ll be meeting editors or other writers in person, but I’m growing more comfortable with it.

I’ve always had an aim toward publication. I distinctly remember telling my first grade teacher that I wanted to be the youngest published writer in the world. She was nice enough to let me believe that was possible. My first publication was a poem in one of the Chicken Soup for the Souls when I was 13 or 14.

Now, I read it and I’m humiliated, but at the time it was really exciting. Seeing that book for sale in the grocery store really solidified my desire to do write for publication. Now, I’m just chasing that feeling.

It’s interesting you thought your young age would be held against you. It seems like we’re living in such a youth oriented culture (here in the United States anyway).

I didn’t know what to expect. I suppose it was my own insecurities – looking up at all of these fantastic writers and thinking “Oh boy…” I live in Connecticut, not quite a metropolis of art and culture, so it was a little difficult to gauge what the reaction might be.

Most of your published work is flash fiction. Is this the form you started out in? What do you like about flash?

It’s the first form I’ve taken seriously. I thought I was a poet when I was younger (like most teenaged girls), but I’m pretty terrible at poetry. I went to an arts high school for creative writing, so I was lucky enough to have been exposed to a number of different forms pretty young. Screenwriting, memoir, humor, poetry. I tried all of them, but the only one I was any good at was flash.

There’s something so raw about really good flash fiction. Something almost primal. The more restrictions you have, the more creative you are forced to be, I think. When you’re working with less than 1,000 words it’s a challenge to fit as much as you can into that space and still have room to move around.

Flash is also a bit of a Rorschach test, for me anyway. It leaves enough room for the reader to breathe their own life into it, which is what I appreciate most about art in general.

I’m trying my damndest to write short stories, but I’m having a hard time. It feels like walking on solid ground after jumping on a trampoline – I’m trying to change rhythm and it’s difficult.

I love hearing about these types of schools. Was it private? Charter? How do you think the education you received compared to the standard high school experience? Tell us more!!

ECA was a magnet school – students apply for one of the five departments (visual arts, dance, writing, theater or music). We took core classes in the morning at our regular schools and study at ECA in the afternoon.

It was a life-changing experience for me. I grew up in a suburban, all-American town and my high school was very sports-oriented with very little interest in the arts. If it hadn’t been for ECA, I wonder if I would have pursued writing at all. We had wonderful teachers, all working artists, who really showed us that it was possible to make a living in art; something I really wasn’t aware of until then.

I took Circus Arts as an elective one semester. I learned to ride a unicycle and juggle. Our teacher was a hippie clown, one of the greatest people I’ve ever met. During the first class he told us “everything can be funny.” It’s quite a bold statement, but I’ve learned it to be true, and it’s a lesson I never forgot.

The writing department was located in an old temple – a beautiful building that was flooded with bright colored lights from the stained glass windows. It was a small department, maybe 30 of us in all, separated into two “classrooms” where we sat at big round tables and work-shopped. It seems that in most public schools the “art kids” are kind of outcasts. My first day at ECA felt like a homecoming. I kept thinking “all of these people are just like me!” I can’t say that of my public high school experience.

You’ve talked about compiling your stories into a collection. What elements must you take into consideration when organizing your work?

Readability. My flashes are great on their own, but sometimes together they’re too much.

Since I put them all together and read them one after the other, I’m much more aware of myself as a writer. I write about sex a lot, and religion, and horribly dysfunctional families. I hadn’t realized that. I use the second person more than I care to admit. It’s fascinating how a flash can work so well on its own, but sandwiched between others it doesn’t read the same.

It’s quite a trick trying to make it all work, and I’m definitely not there yet. I’m not sure if anyone would buy it as it is now. It’s missing something. When I figure out what it is, I’ll let you know.

Will your collection have a unifying theme?

I hope so. Right now it looks like “coming of age.” Most of the protagonists are young girls dealing with some gravely serious issues – death of a parent or sibling, abuse, addiction, abandonment. That sounds quite uplifting doesn’t it? I’d like to say that most of my characters are, at the very least, hopeful.

I’ve noticed that many of your stories are about family, and familial relationships.

Yes, family does seem to be a recurring theme. I should take this opportunity to say, on record, that my family is nothing like the people I write about. I feel bad for them sometimes, all these stories about extremely dysfunctional families.

My mother called just this weekend to tell me she’d read “Sail On, Silver Girl” at Between the Cracks. My sister was in the background saying, “Yeah! The first line is ‘My sister is finally dying and I am fucking her boyfriend.’ What the hell is that?!”

I have the habit, as I think all writers do, of taking parts of the people I love and writing them into characters. For this reason, my family, especially, has a hard time distinguishing between my fiction and non-fiction. They are terrified of my writing. Sometimes my father will actually stop himself from telling a story and say “I’m not going to finish this, she’s going to publish it somewhere.”

I’m not sure what it is that draws me to these familial themes over and over again. Children fascinate me, and family is really a child’s entire world. Maybe that’s what it is.

In the current issue of Tom’s Voice, you have a non-fiction piece titled “One of Us.” I’m impressed by your honesty, and the courage it must have taken to own this experience. Tell us about writing this very personal essay.

Oof yes, that was a tough one. That piece took a lot out of me. It was the only thing I wrote that month. I didn’t workshop it; I didn’t show anyone. I closed my eyes when I hit the “send” button.

Thank you for your kind words, but I have to say that my honesty and courage pales in comparison to the honesty and courage of someone who is struggling to overcome an addiction. Tom’s Voice is a blessing and I am indebted to Vanessa Gebbie for creating a magazine that says so, so much.

When I started dating the “you” in “One of Us,” I had no idea. I didn’t know that addiction reaches into all the tiny crevices in your life and destroys them, one by one. It’s terrifying to watch someone go through that, and it’s easy to be swept up in it.

I have great neighbors, I am lucky to live flanked by the two of the most patient and understanding men in the world, and if it weren’t for them I don’t think I would have been able to write that piece. They’re like living with therapists. They gave me the perspective I needed to step outside of the situation and realize that it was time to move on. I’m grateful that I finally reached a place where I could write something like “One of Us.” I never thought I’d see that day.

It was my finale, I guess. It was the last time I let myself worry about it, think about, or let it consume me.

You re-read The God of Small Things almost monthly? I love this book, too, but what about it compels you to sit down with it so often?

I read that book quite a bit, yes. I’m not sure if it’s monthly anymore, but it was at one point. God, Arundhati Roy amazes me. It just never gets old. I can pick it up and flip to any page and find something that just blows me away. Her characters, her prose. It’s just a beautiful book.

In the introduction to Best American Short Stories 2007 Stephen King said that all of the stories he selected made him want to grab the person next to him and say “Read this!” That’s what The God of Small Things does to me – every single time.

I read that growing up you wanted to become a famous writer, then you realized there was no such thing, and focused instead on “becoming a successful writer.” Have you come to any conclusions about what “success” means to you?

It’s funny – I think we’re all raised to believe that success and money go hand in hand. It doesn’t, for me. It never has (which is a good thing, because I’m not making any!).

Success is finding the right word, it’s an acceptance letter from a magazine I really wanted to be published in, or it’s an email that says “I loved that piece!”

The meaning of ‘success’ is always changing for me. My sister recently had a baby, and it completely shifted my definition of that word. She’s young, my sister, and he was a surprise. She manages the stress of everything that comes with being a young, working mom with such grace. That’s success. Doing all of that and not losing yourself in the process… Man, if I had an ounce of that motivation and determination…

If I can do what she does, I will consider myself successful.

You love children, and currently volunteer for Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Connecticut. What have you learned during your time there?

Self-awareness. I learned a lot about self-awareness. Being a Big Sister in the program is a huge responsibility in that you’re an assigned role model. That can be scary.

In the beginning I was so conscious of everything I said and did and wore and played in the car and brought along with me, but as time went on I learned to relax a little and enjoy myself. My “littles” have taught me more than I’ve taught them, I think.

What fictional character do you most identify with?

This is tough. It’s always changing. Right now I think I’m a lot like Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany’s (minus, of course, the prostituting). I’m in the process of learning about myself, as she was. We’re roughly the same age. I’m a scatterbrain, always relying on my neighbors to unlock doors or remind me to eat. I’m a little naïve and a lot dreamy. If I knew how to play the guitar, I’d certainly sit outside and sing “Moon River.”