An Avid Conversation with Henry Hoke

Photo Credit: Myles Pettengill

Henry Hoke is an American writer and Professor from Virginia. He is the author of The Book of Endless Sleepovers the story collection Genevieves, and The Groundhog Forever. His work appears in The Offing, Triangle House, Electric Literature, Hobart, and the Catapult anthology Tiny Crimes. He co-created the performance series Enter>text in Los Angeles and teaches at the University of Virginia Young Writers Workshop. He has curated events at the &Now Festival, Machine Project, the Neutra VDL House, and the Poetic Research Bureau. His play At Sundown premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and his short film Taking Shape was screened on HBO.

UZOMAH: What made you decide to write a memoir? What was the process like in deciding what you wanted to put in the book and keep out?

HENRY: I always begin my work with constraints, to find a manageable focus. Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons have thrilled and delighted me since they began, and the exacting nature of the series inspired me on a formal level. Writing Sticker was the ideal catalyst for me to process my relationship to my hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia in a multi-faceted way. I chose 20 stickers, crafted a micro-essay around each, and their accumulated constellation became the book.

U: Can you explain the experience of Enter Text for both the writers and the audience?

H: The author Sam Cohen once described our events as a “living literary journal,” and I’ve always loved that. Audience members are let into a space, often a somewhat familiar space (a warehouse, a private residence, an art gallery), where writers have installed or are performing their work theatrically. Each audience member is then free to roam amongst the simultaneous happenings, encountering the pieces at an individual pace. That way every audience member’s experience of the night, their personal path and narrative, becomes unique. The space is often shifting and changing throughout, and no guest can experience it all. As producer and director, my co-creator Marco Franco DiDomenico and I curate pieces from writers and then work with the writer to excavate the performative heart of their work, figuring out a way for it to engage, involve, or implicate however many guests, sometimes only one at a time.

U: How is writing a form of art for you?

H:  For me, writing is about cultivating a constant environment for surprise and innovation since the textual palate we have to work with is at once limited and expansive. I’m fundamentally an experimental writer, even when working in more traditional modes, in that I set out to try something new with every story or book, to shift my own practice without certainty of what the finished product will be. I welcome hybridity at every step and try not to smooth out the rough edges.

U: How can the school system introduce more LGBTQIA authors, artists, and poets to the curriculum? As an educator can you explain how important that is?

H: I strive to incorporate contemporary work as much as possible, but also connect students with resources like Lambda Literary and independent presses that are run by or chiefly publish LGBTQ and BIPOC voices. The most important thing I remind myself as an educator is to stay open, to know that exposure to underrepresented voices is not a one-way street, so I strive to listen to students, to their queer experiences – which are drastically different and often more affirmed and intersectional than those of my youth – and find out what artists and presses they engage with, and be open to incorporating their touchstones into the curriculum as well.

U: How has writing been important for you in terms of exploring identity and sexuality?

H:  It means everything to me. As a queer/bisexual author, I feel as if my identity and sexuality will never codify into a singular mode, and that’s reflected in each new book I create.

U: What are the most important elements and parts of a story for you?

H: Rupture. I love it when a story shifts perspective, or bucks its previously-established form, or addresses the reader directly. I find this more and more necessary and refreshing in our moment of perpetual interruption. It feels like an acknowledgment of flux, a generosity.

U: How do you instruct your students on how to accept feedback in order to become better writers?

H:  I’ve had the privilege of discussing critique strategies with many wonderful fellow teachers over the years, and learning from them about various methods, including Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process, which I’ve drawn from in order to craft my own approach. It begins with the structure of my workshops, how constructive feedback is given, and how we create a space that transforms the typical “right way”/corrective mentality of schoolwork into something more inspiring and generative. We accomplish this with the simple act of limiting these responses to questions, to “I wonder” statements, instead of opinions or judgments. When students challenge themselves to craft questions about their peers’ work, the resulting feedback becomes part of the creative process. This approach opens doors for the writer instead of closing them, as they come away with a trove of questions to engage with once they sit down to revise, instead of problems to fix. This points the way forward and helps to dismantle the unhelpful binaries that freeze creativity and limit transformation.

For more information about Henry’s writing please visit his site. To find out more about Henry’s upcoming memoir please visit here. For his newest released novel please visit here. Also, follow him on Twitter and Instagram.