An Interview with Shannon Perri

Shannon Perri’s story, “The Resurrection Act” was published in Joyland Magazine and the journals 2016 Publisher’s Picks.

Shannon Perri is an MFA candidate at Texas State University and holds a Master’s degree in Social Work from the University of Texas. Her stories have appeared in literary journals such as Buffalo Almanack, Fiddleblack, and Queen Mob’s Teahouse. She lives in Austin with her husband and menagerie of pets.

To read Perri’s story “The Resurrection Act” and an exercise on setting up endings, click here.

In this interview, Perri discusses adding a POV to her story, foreshadowing without losing believability, and avoiding thematic commentary.

Michael Noll

The story is called “The Resurrection Act” and, appropriately enough, it’s structured around a single performance of a magician’s act. But there’s also a lot of backstory about Earl, and so it’s probably possible that the story could have expanded beyond the tight frame of the one performance. How did you decide on the story’s frame? Did it ever threaten to spill out of it?

Shannon Perri

I never considered allowing the present narrative to span more than a day. I wrote this story while on a Roald Dahl kick. In his short stories, I love how closely Dahl thrusts humor and horror against each other and was inspired to attempt a similar tonal feat. Beyond that vague impulse, I had nothing. I combed through the Internet for inspiration and stumbled upon an article about a real-life magician who died while performing a burial act. I was immediately drawn to his story and decided to use it as a skeleton for my own. The first draft of my story was told only from Earl’s point of view and did not feature the wife’s prominent role in his demise. This version fell flat. The tension grew from adding Cornella’s perspective. I do not always write this way—backwards—but I think starting from the end helped contain the story’s focus.

Michael Noll

The story begins with two sentences that focus on Earl’s keys, and the first time I read it, I thought this was strange—until, of course, I got to the end. Were those keys always present in the opening paragraph, or were they added after you’d written the ending?

Shannon Perri

The keys were not always present. In the first draft, the story opened with Earl alone in the motel room. I received feedback in a workshop that it would be valuable to see Earl and Cornella together before the performance, which made sense to me. When adding this scene, the key detail came out organically. I didn’t realize how well it connected thematically, at least not consciously, until I returned to it. My initial concern was to ensure that the writing was deeply rooted in Earl’s point-of-view. That said, part of the fun of crafting this story was considering how to foreshadow in ways that (hopefully) enhance the reader’s satisfaction, yet without sacrificing believability and surprise.

Michael Noll

The title lends itself to a lot of thematic readings, but the religion in the story is connected to character: Earl almost dies and begins to question his beliefs, and his wife is content with accepting the things she’s been taught. After the story’s climax, it moves to a church. A bad version of this story would beat the reader over the head with some message, but that doesn’t happen here. I don’t really know what the message would be. Were you ever tempted to give the story a clearer “message”?

Shannon Perri

I personally don’t think fiction’s job is to provide clear answers or “messages.” I’m much more interested in reading and writing about the nuances of the human experience, and if I ever feel an agenda lurking in my own work, I do everything I can to complicate it, though perhaps that in itself is an agenda. Yes, religion plays into this story, but I would hate for a reader to walk away thinking it either promotes or condemns Christianity. Not every small-town Christian would respond to Earl’s act the way Cornella does. I’m more interested in exploring why this particular religious woman feels as she does rather than making any sort of blanket commentary.

Michael Noll

Next week, I’ll be at AWP, moderating a panel on writing about class. I couldn’t help reading this story with that panel in mind. It’s a story that takes place in a small, rural town, a place where people say things like “That ain’t no way to go.” Other ways of being and seeing the world are hinted at when reporters from Houston show up. Did you think about class at all as you wrote this story—about class distinctions and the ways they color the characters’ actions and ideas?

Shannon Perri

I thought a lot about place. In 8th grade, my family moved from Austin to the small town of Burnet, Texas. Perhaps because I was an outsider as the new kid, the sharp contrasts of these two worlds leapt out at me, much more than their similarities, which looking back, I can see, too. If I grew up from birth in a rural place, who knows if I’d be as interested in exploring this setting, but when you’re a middle schooler in a new world order, you pay attention. I find that again and again small town life appears in my writing. All that said, when considering influences such as class, gender, religion, region, etc., I try to make sure their impacts derive from relational experiences. For this story, I tried to consider the various relationships and daily interactions that Cornella and Earl each have in their family life and community—both what readers learn about on the page and not. And of course class, gender, religion, and region inherently affect those relationships. My hope is that using relational experiences as a lens helps to capture character specifics and the intersection of so many of these “macro” influences.

February 2017

Michael Noll is the Editor of Read to Write Stories.

Tags: Joyland, POV, Shannon Perri, The Resurrectino Act, writing exercises