Interview: Sam Martone, Writer

Sam Martone is currently writing things between trying to stay hydrated in Tempe, Arizona.

His work has been published many places, including here, here and here.  

THE DAP

You are a writer and a musician, and “Hangman,” one of your stories, was turned into a short film (filmed and directed by David Merrell). What is your definition of storytelling? How do various forms of art tell stories in different ways?

SAM MARTONE

My definition? That's a tough one, though I think maybe your second question answers the first, in a way: various forms of art tell stories in different ways, and so "storytelling," in my mind, doesn't really have a static definition. Storytelling now is very different from the way we told stories a hundred years ago, and one hundred years in the future, I'm sure it will be different from storytelling now. Ten years ago, the idea of telling a story in tweets didn't exist; now it's a frequent occurrence. Twenty years ago, no one could tell a story via text message; now we do it daily. This all applies to telling stories across different mediums, too. It's why I tend to ignore the very common complaint of "The movie changed the book!" That's ultimately unimportant to me--I think some of the least successful adaptations actually fail because they try too hard to tell the story that was once told in a book. But film is a very different monster, and so the most successful adaptations know when to deviate from their source material in order to tell the same story more effectively with the resources available to them. 

THE DAP

Much of your writing has a fantastical quality to it, similar to the writing of Jorge Luis Borges or Gabriel Garcia Marquez. What writers do you admire and do their styles influence your work?

SAM MARTONE

Well, Marquez and Borges are two big ones. Italo Calvino, too, and some Nabokov, particularly Invitation to a Beheading. A contemporary writer I really admire is Kelly Link. I think her work is great: it's funny, bizarre, genre-defying and just plain beautiful. Their writing absolutely influences my work, but I think, as a writer, anything I read, or watch or listen to, for that matter, ends up coming through in my writing, in some way or another.

THE DAP

The nature of your stories (particularly the breathtaking “How to Make a List,” which was published in the Aquamarine Issue of Fairy Tale Review) make us wonder: what is your biggest fear?

SAM MARTONE

Funny you should ask this, as I was just talking about my four biggest fears to some of my friends. They are, in order of most severe to least severe: throwing up, cockroaches, unfamiliar machinery and unfamiliar bathrooms. I feel like that requires no further elaboration.

THE DAP

Your father, Michael Martone, is a writer. Two writers in your family: father and son. Tell us what that is like.

SAM MARTONE

Yes, I was born into the family business. In fact, my mother is also a writer. Our house had a lot of books and my parents always predicted the end of movies, but beyond that, I'm not really sure how to describe what it's like, because when I was younger, I was just like any other kid: I didn't think anything of my parents' work beyond "that's what my parents do." I also had little interest in reading my parents' work--I always assumed it would be boring, "grown-up" stuff. But as I got older, writing was really the only thing I ever thought I'd do, pretty much from middle school on, if not earlier.

THE DAP

How old are you?

SAM MARTONE

Twenty-two.

THE DAP

You are young, yet you have published an impressive number of works in many places, online and in print. For the aspiring writer, share some of your advice on the publishing industry.

SAM MARTONE

I don't know if "impressive" is the right word for it--I've published pieces a few places, but there are writers around my age, in some cases younger, who are publishing far more frequently than I am. The only advice I can give is what I've learned in the little bit of time I've spent trying to publish with journals: once you get your writing to the point where you want it out in the world, send it out, send it out and don't stop sending it out. There are so many markets out there, you can probably find a place for whatever it is you're writing, and then the trick is just not to give up when you get rejected. I have a folder of rejection letters in my email that is far more expansive than the amount of work I've published. It requires persistence and a constant willingness to keep working on your work.

THE DAP

Next year you will be at Arizona State working toward an MFA in Creative Writing. What made you choose this route, rather than say, scraping by a living as a writer in Greenwich Village?

SAM MARTONE

Well, I had a long winter break last year and figured I should try to apply to MFA programs, since I knew I wanted to do that eventually, if not now. I wasn't sure I would even get in anywhere, much less get such a nice offer from ASU, but I did and so I decided to go.

THE DAP

What are your current artistic endeavors?

SAM MARTONE

I have too many things I've just left alone for too long. I'll start a million things and then finish one or two. Right now, though, I'm excited about a series of short pieces based on the video game Dragon Quest V, so we'll see how that goes.