Elizabeth Crane, "Training Module"
It’s December 10. Elizabeth Crane, author of The History of Great Things, forgot to study but aced the test anyway.
How would you describe your story?
ELIZABETH CRANE: A relentless exercise in understanding sexual harassment! Sorry! ;)
When did you write it, and how did the writing process compare to your other work?
EC: I wrote it after the Weinstein story broke, and I began thinking about my own lifetime history of dealing with harassment. My process is probably always a little different, in that I often play with form and this was no exception, and each time I try a new form it brings new challenges that wouldn't come up in another form. So in this case, with what's essentially a quiz form, based on a sexual harassment training module required by my employer (I assume other workplaces have similar trainings), I had to consider the ways these questions were framed, and how to spin both the questions and the answers to work for the content of the story but be relatively true to that form.
What kind of research went into this story?
EC: Pretty minimal this time. I relied on my memory!
What, to you, makes the short story a special form? What can it do that other kinds of writing can’t?
EC: Oh, what can't it do?! One of the reasons I love stories is that you can play with form and style, and there's less risk that your reader will grow weary of it in the space of a story, vs. trying to sustain something super experimental in a novel, though greater minds than mine have succeeded at that as well.
Where should people go to learn more about you and your work?
What's the best gift you've ever been given?
EC: My dad gave me my first typewriter when I was six.
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