Casey Plett, "Hazel & Christopher"

It’s December 6. Casey Plett, author of Little Fish, successfully snuck an ampersand past the copy desk.

How would you describe your story?

CASEY PLETT: A newly sober trans girl begins to date a childhood friend.

When did you write it, and how did the writing process compare to your other work?

CP: I began it in the middle of 2015, right before I left Winnipeg for Toronto. I wrote the first half I think over about a year as I was working on my novel Little Fish. I couldn't figure out how to move forward afterwards until the answers starting flying at me last year. This happens, I guess. I've written some other stories that needed to sit in the drawer for a long time until I understood them.

What kind of research went into this story?

CP: Nothing. I guess I did eat at the Italian restaurant they go to in Winnipeg on Portage. It was delicious.

What, to you, makes the short story a special form? What can it do that other kinds of writing can’t?

CP: I think I've heard many versions of this: Let me just register another vote for it. With a short story you withhold more than you reveal. There's something about a short story that makes it a moment in time, that feels like wading in so much delicious mystery. As opposed to novels, where comprehensive-ness is more part of the genre and it always feels like obfuscations and the withholding of information is a more difficult and delicate task.

Now, in some ways that's probably willful suspension of disbelief, since you can have 2-page stories and 30-page stories, just like you can have 150-page novels and 1,000-page novels. But it still feels this way to me when I read them and I like that.

Where should people go to learn more about you and your work?

CP: caseyplett.com.

What's the best gift you've ever been given?

CP: In high school my ex made me a mix CD for Valentine's Day. She hand-painted the disc and wrote and illustrated and hand-sewed the cover booklet inside. I've often been around people who are too fucking nice to me.

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