Writing What You Know: An Interview with Kristopher Jansma

By Mesha Rain Fogel

Kristopher Jansma is the author of The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards, Why We Came to the City, The Idealists, and the upcoming In Times to Come (Ecco 2024). He is an Associate Professor and Director of Creative Writing at SUNY New Paltz. Kris graduated with an MFA from Columbia in 2006 and his career since begs the question: can you take the workshop out of the writer? Kristopher Jansma’s work isn’t just about the lives of writers; we all tell stories, published or unpublished. We don’t all have to be idealists, but we can all have ideals. I sat down with my former professor to discuss the perils of trusting people with your stories, truth in fiction, and the ramifications of writing what you know.

What makes the private lives of writers and their effect on others, the locus of your work?

I have met many writers who are interested in other things. They are activists for climate change or volunteers or are deeply involved in studying weird pockets of history. I have never quite had that other passion for something else to write about. I have always loved it for its own sake and telling stories for their own sake. The saying is “write what you know.” What I know is writing. Storytelling helps me survive in life. One thing people do is look for something analogous to writing- they use a painter or an architect, to come at it sideways. The idea for The Idealists came from thinking about friends who work on political campaigns. If I were going to do something other than write, it might be speech writing or working in politics more directly, so I started writing from there.

Often you are being told that to be successful you should write other things, and yet you write what you care about. It made me think of a “writer’s writer” because you interject these lovely moments that are very meta for anyone who is a writer, and I think creating change just by enlightening others with stories does make a difference. What do you think makes a story genuine?

I think this is the bottom of objections to writers writing about writers. It can feel insular and navel gaze-y. We want stories to mean something, to create a poetic truth in the world. I started this when a lot of people in love with words and storytelling were motivated to think about what good our work does to the world in a direct way. Whereas before, I was happier to think that telling a good story and getting people to think about beauty in the world makes them better people and, therefore, better citizens and has some abstract diffuse good in the world. But now more writers like me are asking, “couldn’t we do something a little more direct?” at a time where it seems we can’t wait for people to come around to ideals of empathy.

So, good intentions make a story genuine?

A writer has to have something they are trying to say. That sounds so cliché. I don’t wake up every morning thinking everyone needs to listen to me as soon as possible (he laughs). I teach my classes, and I give my advice- but I am always willing to listen to someone who disagrees with my take. But you also have to get in touch with what you think other people need to hear.

The Idealists is about American politics but it has not been published here in the U.S. yet. Why do you think that is? Do you think we don’t want to take a guess at what’s behind the curtain of our political system?

I started this in 2019, and I was inspired by other writers who were, for the first time, becoming more political to meet the moment. A lot of times that has worked out well. A lot of books coming out are far more direct about their politics than books I read in college twenty years ago and different from the way I was taught to think about hiding all of that behind the narrative. In fiction our interest in more politics with a “small p” has changed. That doesn’t necessarily mean people are interested in more books about “capital P” politics–the actual governing part of it. It’s doing well in France. My editor said people there are dealing with the same social issues people in the US are–fears of rising authoritarianism and defending their democracy. So, it seems readers in France are happy to follow along, and while it isn’t about their political system, they can make comparisons. Maybe I should have written a book about French politics if I was looking to reach Americans?

Yes, I was going to say that. It’s easier to look at problems from the outside than it is from the inside. What do you think is more important, the story we tell ourselves or the stories we tell other people?

I think–the stories we tell ourselves. I find it unimaginable that people get up and go to work at jobs, and in administrations they don’t believe in.

Can a book save the world?

I do still think that. The biggest challenge to that, in my mind, is not that the books to save the world aren't being written, but that enough people aren’t reading them anymore. We're struggling to find a way to communicate to a mass audience through literature in a way that used to be possible. Many writers are doing a really good job, but ultimately it has to become something that people everywhere are engaging with, or the impact is diffuse.