Quantum Convention

THE BOOK: Quantum Convention.

PUBLISHED IN: 2018.

THE AUTHOR: Eric Schlich.

THE EDITOR: Karen DeVinney.

THE PUBLISHER: University of North Texas Press (Volume 17 in the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction, Judged by Dolan Morgan)

SUMMARY: A collection of eight genre-bending stories that balance precariously between reality and fantasy, the suburban and the magical, the quotidian and the strange. In the title story, a high school teacher, unhappy in his career and marriage, attends a parallel universe convention, where he meets his multiple selves and explores the alternate paths of life’s what-ifs.

The story of Margaret Hamilton, the actress who played the Wicked Witch of the West, parallels the coming of age of a cross-dressing boy whose crisis of identity is tied to The Wizard of Oz. Other stories feature characters labeled as “outcasts” by society—whether physically, morally, or fantastically: an alcoholic lucid dreamer, a closeted bisexual, a bachelor time-epileptic, orphans-turned-keeners, a vengeful banshee, a nerdy cyclops, and more. Many struggle to find what Dorothy and her entourage searched for: the wisdom to trust or discount their faith; the ability of the emotionally detached to love; the courage to speak up for oneself; a place to belong.

THE BACK STORY: The collection began as my MFA thesis at Bowling Green State University. Most of the stories came out of fiction workshops in that program. I’ve always struggled with balancing “literary” (serious, realist) and “genre” fiction (fantastical, weird). Fortunately, the border between these have been increasingly eroded and by far greater writers than me.

The book was revised while I was studying for my Ph.D at Florida State. I took a class called “Crafting the Debut Short Story Collection,” taught by the talented writer Jennine Capó Crucet, author of Make Your Home Among Strangers and How to Leave Hialeah. Unlike workshops that were focused on feedback for new stories, this class examined published story collections for insight into the structuring of book-length works.

WHY THIS TITLE: The original title for the collection was after the Oz story, “Not Nobody, Not Nohow.” I changed it after adding “Quantum Convention,” because I thought it had a nice sci-fi-sounding ring to it. It announces the book as a collection interested in genre. It might be a bit misleading, because it’s not hard sci-fi, but I like to “frontload weirdness,” so readers know what they’re in for. Karen Russell has a great craft essay in which she calls this “the fish-slap-to-the-face” technique. Plus, with the new title, I got to dedicate the book to not just my wife, but also her parallel selves.

WHY SOMEONE WOULD WANT TO READ IT: Quantum Convention is “literary” fiction in a Sci-Fi/Fantasy wig. It’s in the vein of my favorite magical realist writers—George Saunders, Karen Russell, Aimee Bender, Kelly Link. If you’re into that kind of thing, check it out.

REVIEW COMMENTS:

“Schlich’s first solo short story collection showcases a formidable ability to walk the emotional tightrope between uncanny setups and deeply relatable characters. . . . [T]he stories are consistently enjoyable and thought-provoking. They share an aesthetic, but they’re different enough that the book seems almost too short, leaving the reader hungry for more.” —Publishers Weekly

“[E]ight richly imagined, humanity-affirming tales lay new turf for short stories. . . . Eric Schlich’s Quantum Convention is that rare collection that delights, expands horizons, and leaves a mark.” —Foreword Reviews

“The strength of this book lies not only in its real, quirky, relatable characters and their credible, unique voices, but also in the powerful settings the author establishes and uses to his advantage.” —Mid-American Review

“Quantum Convention is a collection that deserves to be read alongside the work of writers such as Etgar Keret or Aimee Bender, who use the fantastic and even farcical to illuminate the universal and ordinary. Like their works, this collection bends traditional storytelling forms to perform a story, and while the stories’ premises seem almost laughable, in their execution, Schlich makes them exquisitely beautiful and painful.” —Colorado Review

AUTHOR PROFILE: Eric Schlich is the author of Quantum Convention (University of North Texas Press), winner of the 2018 Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction and the GLCA 2020 New Writers Award in Fiction. His stories have appeared in Crazyhorse, Gulf Coast, Mississippi Review, The Massachusetts Review, and Electric Literature, among other journals. He lives in Memphis, Tennessee where he teaches in the MFA program at the University of Memphis.

AUTHOR COMMENTS: Quantum Convention was rejected by 31 book contests and a finalist in 4 before winning the Katherine Anne Porter Prize. I like to pay it forward by giving advice to aspiring story writers out there, so here are a few things I learned in putting this collection together and submitting to contests:

1. Order defensively. Put your best story first. Put your second-best last. Put your third-best second. You might be tempted to order thematically. Don’t. The judges of these contests will be reading strategically. They will pay the most attention to the opening stories and the final one. Which begs the question: how do you know which are your “best” stories? By learning to…

2. Trust your readers. I’m consistently shocked by my blindness to my own work. One of the stories I believed to be strongest was disliked by my workshop and was ultimately cut. Another that I perceived to be weaker (“The Keener”) was a favorite and was promoted to one of the “sweet spots” in the final ordering.

3. Shorter is better than longer. When given the choice between trying to fix a weaker story or hide it in a defensive ordering, do neither—instead, cut it. I cut 4 stories from the manuscript that workshop read, dropping the collection from 11 to 7 stories. A story I wrote and added later ended up becoming my new title story, bringing the final manuscript up to 8 stories, but keeping it under 200 pages.

4. Breadth vs. Cohesion. The eternal struggle. You want your collection to have variety so readers don’t feel they keep reading the same story in different clothing, but also be unified enough that the stories belong together. I strategically spaced out stories featuring men with intimacy issues (“Not Nobody, Not Nohow,” “Merlin Lives Next Door,” and “Lipless”) with coming-of-age stories of childhood (“The Keener,” “Night Thieves,” and “Journal of a Cyclops”). These were the two predominant threads of the collection and I didn’t want stories that were too similar next to each other.

5. Branding. I get squeamish when it comes to thinking of my writing as a “brand,” but it’s inevitable once you begin publishing. (See above: literary fiction in SFF wig, magical realism, etc.) The sooner you can start thinking about your collection as a whole (and not just individual stories), the better.

6. Persevere. Some writers like to collect rejections, but this seems a bit masochistic to me, so I collect submissions. Those 31 rejections don’t really stack up when you submit as much as I do. So keep revising, but also keep submitting. You never know when the right judge will read your work.

SAMPLE CHAPTER: Crazyhorse has a link to the title story here: https://crazyhorse.cofc.edu/featured/quantum-convention/

LOCAL OUTLETS: Purchase directly from UNT press (Texas A&M University Press Consortium) here: https://untpress.unt.edu/catalog/3817

WHERE ELSE TO BUY IT: IndieBound, Barnes & Noble, Amazon.

PRICE: $14.95

CONTACT THE AUTHOR: ebschlich@gmail.co