by Colin Fitzpatrick

Brooklyn writer Edith Zimmerman was like a lot of young writers in that she didn’t have a publishing outlet for her work that she was passionate about and proud of.   As almost an afterthought she began sharing her short fiction on her blog at www.edithzimmerman.com, and since has developed a strong cult following and even started a column over at The Awl, the popular humor website run by Alex Balk and Choire Sicha.

Zimmerman’s work lies somewhere in the world between comedy and drama, often centered around the sort of everyday relationships and interactions between characters who almost function as satirical, modern-day every (wo)men.   My personal favorite, called “Office,”  can be found here and pokes fun at the common small talk people make at work.   To get a sense of her style, the story “Flirting With Guys” does a good job distilling her common structure and theme down to its essence:

“So, do you come here often?” he asked, leaning toward me with a twinkle in his eye.  We had been exchanging flirtatious glances across the bar all night—finally he was making a move.

“Yes,”  I said, with a playful smile.

“Oh really?”  he said.

“Yup, I come here every day, actually,”  I said.  “On weekdays they open at five, so I get here fifteen minutes before that to wait outside, and then on weekends they open at noon, so I get here a lot earlier.”

“Huh,”  he said, giving me a funny smile.  “You really do come here often, I guess.”

“Yup, there’s no one else who comes here as much as me—you can ask the manager. They even let me keep stuff in the bathroom.”

“Ah,”  he said, and looked around the room.

“One time I fell down over there and hit my head,”  I said, pointing to a corner in the bar, “but no one noticed so I even got to stay here overnight.”

Whether she knows it or not, a large part of her cult following has turned out to be queer.   I attribute this largely to the kind of camp and satire present in her stories.  This is purely speculation on my part, but what intelligent homo doesn’t appreciate stories detailing the cute,  smart perversions of straight life?  I sat down with Edith at The Falls café in the Carroll Gardens section of Brooklyn to talk about how she got her start, negative stereotypes of women comedians, the publishing industry, and her hopes for the future.

What got you to start writing?

I started as an intern at Esquire and I was sort of doing writing stuff. I knew I wanted to write for a magazine.   And then I had this job that was lame and when I was applying for new jobs, I would do this thing where I would send 8 different links – it was scrappy.   So I had a friend build edithzimmerman.com. He was putting in the sections like writing examples, bios, contact,  he was like  “Do you want me to put a blog in there?” and I said, “No blogs are lame,” and he was like “They’re really fun,” and I was like “Ok whatever” and then I just started writing.

What made you start to explore creative writing what made you start to explore creative writing instead of magazine journalism?

I guess it’s because I really don’t like regular journalism?   I don’t like interviewing people, I don’t like talking to people.   I guess I was sort of drawn to that?   It wasn’t really a conscious decision.   I wrote poetry in college, it was my main interest.  Although I didn’t pursue it afterward it kind of provided me with a base idea for creating my own stuff from scratch.

That makes some sense. The way you break up your lines seems pretty intentional and I can see that coming from a poetry background?

Maybe? [laughter on both our parts]

Do you think that there’s a certain freedom granted since you are able to self publish?

Well, yeah, I think that the stuff that I enjoy writing like the little short stories that I write – there’s really nowhere where I can imagine them being published where anyone would want to make money off of them.   They’re exactly what I want to do, but don’t fit into any rules or couldn’t be profitable for anybody.

But at the same time there is a history for that kind of [short form] writing. Like Amy Hemple, her short stories are can be like 2 sentences sometimes.

I guess I am at the point where maybe in some dream world if I had enough stuff I could put them all together and make a book, but I don’t know.   A lot of people have – well not a lot, like 3 people – have mentioned “oh you should write a kids book.”   I’m not really sure if that’s what I want to do but… I know there’s a kind of super child like quality to them [my stories].

Well they’re also really funny.

Well they’re supposed to be funny. [we both laugh]

What’s your interest in comedy?

Ummmm?  I like it?  It’s great?  A lot of my friends are comedians so that definitely rubs off a lot.  I think it’s probably my favorite thing to write – things that are funny.   I just think that I like that goal – to make people laugh.

What do you think about the stereotype that women aren’t funny?

I think it’s a really frustrating thing to talk about and have to defend because it’s like, “Think about all the funny ladies,” and then you list them in a row. That somehow backfires.   I think it’s ridiculous, there’s a huge amount of incredibly funny women.   I think that a lot of people who think women aren’t funny – I think it’s very short sited.   There’s a kind of humor that women maybe aren’t so inclined to do and people don’t see that when they say women aren’t funny and they like to believe that and pursue that opinion.  I dunno – there’s that shitty dude-ly stuff that people think is hilarious. A lot of women aren’t necessarily going to do that kind of stuff.

Do you think it might have to do with the intended audience also? Is there a different voice between male and female comedy because of different audiences?

Yes and no. Sure, there are certain aspects of it that are definitely masculine or feminine, you know there’s that divide. Like I have been told I am very female in my writing, and I totally understand that. I think it’s just as funny as a super masculine voice could be.   It’s approaching the same goal from two different directions.   There’s definitely different audiences.   I think the kind of guys who would say that women aren’t funny are the kind of guys who are tuned into what I don’t even think is funny to begin with.   It’s a frustrating argument.

Who do you think are the people that get your humor? And what differentiates them from someone who would say “women aren’t funny”?

I guess my humor requires a little bit of patience.  That sounds so lame.   I don’t know.

When I read your stories I see this…It’s almost like a feminist perspective in some kind of way? Because even when the women are acting like babies they are always in control – there’s something about the power dynamics in your stories.

Sure! A lot of the stories do take a very, very stereotypical situation between men and women, or women and women, or men and men and put a surprising twist on it.   I guess that could be construed as feminist for sure.

I think it kind of ties into a lot of the relationship between queer theory and camp.   You take something that’s supposed to be interpreted in one way and you pervert it.   Do you think there’s a certain level of intelligence required for your work or a gendering of your audience?

I’d be hesitant to say, “You have to be really smart to get it,” because then if someone says that I’m not funny, I am calling them stupid.  I got a hate mail, literally my first ever, which is pretty nice that no one sends me hate mail yet.   But this guy, he left a really really long rant on one of my stories. It was really well thought out.   I could tell he thought he was really saying what everyone was thinking.   It was frustrating.   It took me a long time to write back.   He said “Reading all your short stories in a row gives me such a foul taste in my mouth.   And yeah, they’re funny at first but it’s just the same joke. Are you happy to settle for cheap laughs?”   Part of that was absolutely my fear.   They’re not designed to be read a million in a row.   I write them once every two weeks.   So I was like  “Oh, God, he’s probably right.”   And then all these commenters responded to him,  “No no no, you’re so dumb.”   Then I almost felt guilty that they responded to him.   They [my stories] weren’t started to be anything besides stupid little amusing things I wrote on my blog.   I never had a grander notion for them.   I don’t think people have to get them, it’s just been really nice that people get them at all.

How has user generated feedback through self publishing, like comments, affected the way that you write?

Tremendously to an embarrassing extent.  For instance, yesterday or last week I guess,  I wrote this story that I didn’t really like but I sort of feel like it is valuable to just keep putting up content even if it’s not your absolute favorite.  I dunno, I could go more into that, but I won’t.   I am sure it’s pretty obvious.  If you have an audience you don’t want to lose them by not doing anything.   I put up this one I wasn’t crazy about, the one called “The Job Interview.”   So in the 48 hours after I post a story I super obsessively click refresh on my Google Reader to see how many people have “liked it.”   You know how you can click the like button?

Because people started doing that a while ago, and I was like “Oh my god!”  So I totally would refresh and refresh and refresh it and nobody had “liked” either of the stories.  I thought “Of course, I know because they’re stupid, I know, I know” so I took down the most recent one which to me was the stupidest one and like I got in a fight with my boyfriend over it and was like “Why didn’t you tell me they were stupid.   I asked you to read them!” and he was like “Jesus Christ, I liked it!  What do you want me to say?”  Anyways so the next day I was Googling myself as I do regularly.  I saw that someone had posted the first half of the story that I took down on their Tumblr, in a positive way, and I was like “Oh they did like it. I should put it up.”   But then I noticed they only posted the first half.   That’s a good edit,  so I changed it. Then someone in the comments was like “What happened?   What happened to the end and why did you take it down and then put it back up?”

Long story short, it used to be this thing I did for the 3 people that read my blog, and then when I got people that I didn’t know and other people writing in – getting fan emails, which was super surreal and very nice – it felt like, “I’m doing this thing now that I have to keep doing or I am going to disappoint people,” and it sort of became restricting.   It just makes me really nervous, because I just want people to like them [my stories].

So you and I know Gabe Liedman in common. My impression is that you hang out in a very creative community.  Do you feel a lot of support from your real life community the way you do from user comments?  What’s the difference in the kind of feedback and interaction and how does it affect your creative process?

Well, I really value my regular friends’ opinions, because like I said a lot of them are comedians – people I think are way funnier than me – so it’s really nice when they’ll link to my stuff on Twitter or tell me “You’re so funny!” They’re all super nice people.  We’re all big fans of each other which is nice. For people who work towards the same goals, I think it’s really nice to not be competitive or secretly catty.  Everyone just really enjoys one another’s work and wants us all to be successful in however we are trying to do that.

Who are your favorite writers?

My favorite writers are John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway… Those are my two favorites.   And then I really like John Updike’s short stories.  For humor writing, Tom Oatmeal and Eric Feezell.   I basically imitate Jack Handy.   I think Patricia Marx who writes the style column for the New Yorker is a genius.

So could something like Jack Handy ever be given the same amount of clout as something like Hemingway or Steinbeck?

Probably not.  I mean, realistically no.   I think he’s just as much of a genius as anybody.   But you can’t spend hours getting lost in it, like you have a special trip with your secret favorite author.   It’s more like “This is just so funny, it made me laugh, it’s so smart, and so perfect.”   I don’t know.   It’s a different kind of appreciation.

Do you think it is possible for comedy to be taken as serious literature?

Yeah! I suppose it depends on your definition of serious literature and your definition of comedy.  I mean there’s lots of novels that when you read the back of them it’s like “Oh, it’s heartbreaking and hilarious and just amazing!” and there’s plenty of novels that have made me laugh out loud.   It’s just… How many L-O-Ls in a book until it’s a “comedy” novel?  But I guess if you’re talking about short humorous essays being considered serious literature… yeah.   Because I think they require tremendous skill and are valuable and enjoyable.

Ideally if you could be writing anything what would it be?

I would like to be writing humorous essays.   Everyone maligns the Shouts and Murmurs section of the New Yorker because it’s like, “Oh it’s not funny, it’s not funny,” but it really actually is very funny sometimes and I idealize that magazine.   So I would like to be in there once.

Have a life with a famous by-line? [laughter]

It’s weird that I feel embarrassed saying that’s my dream right now.  But the amount of words spent badmouthing them – “They never publish women” and “It’s not funny.”    It’s edited by a woman.  I don’t get the men vs. women thing in terms of comedy.   If you’re doing something funny then that’s great.  The breakdown just seems kind of arbitrary, annoying.

Is there anything else I should ask?

I probably sound super boring.

-Colin Fitzpatrick reads a lot of blogs and has allegedly read the entire Internet. As well as contributing to Mary, he edits web sites for PBS and New York public television and writes a gay humor blog at socialcrisis.net.

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