Former Flame Fridays - Jason Graff
6/13/25
You were featured in volume 666, what has happened since?
I've had a piece beautifully published and read at The Razor. Sensations/Situations for Which There Should Be a Six to Seven Syllable German Word But Inexplicably None Exist - The Razor — Literary Magazine — Gotham Writers Workshop
What/who inspired Help You Find Someone? How does it fit into your style/body of work?
It was generated out of a prompt for a contest in which you were given the first and last line. I believe the last one still survives from that prompt in mine but I can't remember. I think I have a lot of tragic characters in my work so he's another one. They never get what they want, these characters. I might be a bit of a sadist.
Help You Find Someone A message from you has burned itself into the pixels of my phone. We still on? It asked. We met way back in school; when, we still had the energy to mix our ambitions with other emotions if only to taste the elixir they created. How I envied your beard, your bearing, your sense of your place in the world being already assured! You didn’t seem as intent on being someone you weren’t as the rest of us. Professors either clung to you, turning to you for every discussion point to make sure each issue was examined in depth or avoided you completely in order to hide their own ignorance. From my eyrie atop the building that bears my name, I watch humanity scurry like insects below. How many of those land-bound aphids work for me, I couldn’t say. They are but members of the teeming mass for whom I feel only disinterest bordering on disgust. There is only you for me, only you and you complete. At first, you seemed to not know who I was but smiled at my fervent ‘hellos’ when we passed each other in the halls of that once august institution, who granted us our degrees and entrée into adulthood. Then Elliot, (remember that slob?), took me to his father’s club for some racquetball and a swim. The building, a soot-stained block of carved granite, was so venerated, so respectable that it felt almost rude to notice the ripe smell in the halls or the water stains on the ceiling. The lockers were lacquered a bright cherry; the changing room well-lit. Buy Volume 666 for the rest of the story.
Why Troublemaker Firestarter? What compels you to submit your work? Why be a writer at the end of the world?
I think my piece fit well with the magazine's aesthetic, the idea of beauty and pain being sometimes occurring at the same time. I think sharing one's work is one of the best ways to strengthen and keep connected to the community of writers and artists. Writing is the only thing I do even moderately well.
Who are your current favorite writers?
Alan Hollinghurst, Edward P. Jones, Elizabeth Strout, Michel Houllebecq, Colm Toibin just to name a few off the top of my head who also have had or will have books coming out this fall.
Are you a troublemaker, a firestarter, a heartbreaker, a lucky duck, a devil, a terror, or sad and horny?
A lucky duck
Where can people find you?
Twitter: JasonGraff1
What would you want the lovely readers of Substack to do?
Read more often and more widely