What’s your name?
Sammi Skolmoski
What have you written?
Currently I write for The Onion. Recently I translated a set of screenplays by Luc Dardenne from French (“On the Back of Our Images,” Featherproof Books, 2019), and I have written many pieces of music journalism and jokes for various outlets, including Bandcamp, Reductress, The Hard Times, and others. I am the managing editor of Featherproof Books.
Describe your writing routine.
The majority of my writing routine is taken up by not-writing. I do all the things I need to do in order to write until I cannot do them anymore and the impulse to write finally decides to make an appearance. It is like telling someone that a stranger will be coming over to photograph their home without any advance notice. The someone you tell that to will likely make sure their home is ready to be photographed at any moment. This will drive the person to obsession, perhaps insanity, but they will not risk being caught off guard, as their home is very dear to them and they’d like it to be photographed in its best possible form. I hope this is clear: I am the someone and the writing is the stranger-photographer and the home is all of the stuff I gather in the not-writing.
What are your tools?
Coffee and binaural beats. And a computer and a notebook. I don’t write by hand, but I do take notes by hand. The notes cannot be taken on the computer and the writing cannot be written in the notebook–just like the coffee can’t be slurped through my ears, and so on. (I haven’t tried the latter, to be fair.)
What do you do when you get stuck?
There is no “stuck” there is only transitory rotation to another open project.
Do you do pre-writing or pre-planning?
I walk and I walk and I walk and I run a little bit and then I walk.
Any rituals or superstitions?
It is all ritual and it is between me and the moon, I’m ‘fraid.
What is the best book you’ve read lately?
The best book I’ve ever read is “The Spud” by Brielle Brilliant and the best book I’ve read recently is “Dept. of Speculation” by Jenny Offill.
What is one book you think everyone should read?
“Breakfast of Champions” by Kurt Vonnegut.
What are you looking forward to?
I dunno where else to look but forward so whatever’s there is fine.
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