Interview by Jen Michalski
A CONVERSATION WITH CURTIS SMITH, AUTHOR OF DEAF HEAVEN (Running Wild Press)

In his seventh novel, Deaf Heaven (Running Wild Press, 2025), Curtis Smith returns to Central Pennsylvania to explore the loss of redemption within a maelstrom of grief, violence, infidelity, and even murder. How does one find salvation when the world has left one behind? Here, he discusses with writer Jen Michalski the challenges of creating fresh, original work at novel seven, the meaning of place in his work, the changing publishing landscape, and also working within multiple genres (and with multiple publishers).

Jen Michalski: I’ve enjoyed the darker turn of your most recent novels (The Magpie’s Return, The Lost and the Blind, and now Deaf Heaven). This one feels darker in a different, more cinematic way, like an early Coen Brothers movie. Can you talk a little bit about your inspiration, or access point, for Deaf Heaven?

Curtis Smith: Ha—thanks for the Coen Brothers reference. That’s much appreciated. It just so happens that we’ve been revisiting some of their movies this summer. What a great body of work they’ve put together.

The main inspiration for Deaf Heaven was to do something different than my recent books. In my mind, Magpie and Lost and Blind, although very different, are companion pieces. They use different lenses and situations, but they explore similar territories. And both of them had teen narrators—and I didn’t want to work with another teen again.

This is my fifteenth book and seventh novel, and in 2026, my next novel and story collection will be released simultaneously. All of that is great—and I’m thankful to have found my place in the indie-press landscape—but a challenge comes with that as well. And I don’t want to fall into a pattern of writing books in the same way. I find a lot of satisfaction and engagement in the process, and I want to honor that by keeping it fresh.

I talk to my students a lot about access points, and we play around with them in class. And for Deaf Heaven, I wanted to try something I hadn’t tried before, so I took a bit of inspiration from Flannery O’Connor and tried to get into my story via mood and tone. I love movies, and I imagined a kind of modern noir—something with undertones of murder and sex and betrayal. And to help the cause, I wrote a lot of this with a muted TV playing old movies in the background; something about that helped me get into the proper mindset.

Another access point I used was the structure of the chapters. I wanted to write moments rather than movements, and while some chapters are normal lengths, many are punchy and short, where I give the reader a glimpse of what I hope is a building emotional landscape before I cut away.

Jen: That’s quite a volume of work, and I totally understand the challenges of creating new situations and perspectives while trying to maintain and grow a loyal readership! I came into your work over a decade ago, when you were primarily (to me) a short story writer with Press 53. Yet, over the last few years or so, you’ve published three novels in a row. Are you focusing primarily on longer forms now, and if so, what precipitated the change?

Curtis: When I started, my only desire was to write short fiction. The short story brought me to writing, and I probably still enjoy reading stories more than novels. But recently I’ve been enjoying writing novels more. After I published my fourth novel, I came to better understand a novel’s structure and flow; and once I became aware of these tides, the process became easier. Those first few novels probably took three to four years each, but the last couple have been about half that. I appreciate a novel’s long-term engagement—the process of thinking it out and juggling the pieces and giving things the chance to grow and breathe.

I still write stories—mainly flash. My upcoming collection has twenty-some flash pieces and four or so stories of 3,000-5,000 words. Stories this length were once my go-to, but they’ve become increasingly difficult, and I really struggle with them now. Not sure why that is. I just feel a little lost when I try to wrangle an arc into that range.

And speaking of stories, I’ve dedicated my reading this year to revisiting the story collections that excited me when I was starting out—mainly work published in the 80s and early 90s. I’ve been posting these every other week or so on Facebook, and it’s been nice seeing the response of others who were also moved by those books.

Jen: I’ve seen those posts! I’m always surprised by work I read from the 80s and 90s. I don’t know if it was the luxury of reading printed out manuscripts or maybe less competition before the writing programs started churning out thousands of graduates every spring, but stories were so much longer. They developed slowly. They were quiet slices of life, often quirky. You could read them in magazines, so even the general public could be exposed to short fiction in Esquire or even Seventeen Magazine. Why do you think short stories have fallen out of favor in the nonliterary world? 

Curtis: That’s a good question—and to be honest, I’m not sure. I love flash, but I also love the immersion of a longer story, the time it takes to develop, and (if done properly), the chances it takes. As a reader, I enjoy taking twenty minutes or so to unplug, slip into a fictional world, and find some degree of resolution when I reach a story’s end. I don’t know why such stories have fallen out of favor with the general public. Perhaps it’s the time crunch most of us feel, or maybe it’s a lack of exposure, or the fact that screens are rewiring our brains and eroding our attention spans.

And I hope I’ll take a number of things from this year of revisiting the story collections. One is a kind of reconnection with my younger self, and I’m happy to report that all of the books/authors I’ve returned to have held up (not always the case when one goes back in time). Another is to try to reconnect with the mechanics of a longer story. I feel like I was once in tune with them, but now, after focusing on novels and flash, they feel somewhat mysterious. And the last is just to rediscover the joy and engagement of reading a well-crafted story.

Jen: These past three novels have also been with Running Wild Press, and it seems like a great relationship for you. How has your experience been working with publisher Lisa Kastner? Is she involved in the editorial process at all? Do you recommend the press for an emerging author or a more established, mid-career writer as yourself?

Curtis: It has been a very nice relationship. Lisa gets things done; and she’s constantly out there pushing for her press and her authors, and I really appreciate that. They’ve been great about getting books reviewed (not always easy for indie presses) and allowing me to design my covers. (Well, I provide crude sketches and their artists make them look nice.) As far as the editing process goes, I work with Peter Wright, who’s one of the editors at RW and who will soon be running a new imprint for the press. And sure, I’d recommend them to folks both new and established. Finding someone who believes in your work is important—and I don’t take that for granted. 

Jen: I feel like we all have a distinct voice, even if we try to change it from novel to novel or project to project. For instance, I feel that I would know that a book was written by Curtis Smith just by reading it—the words you tend to favor, the cadences and rhythms of sentences. Are there any writers you credit with helping to find your voice? 

Curtis: I’m glad you feel that with my work. I love writing on the sentence level—the rhythms and music of it. As far as influences on that level, I’d have to go with folks like Annie Proulx and Cormac McCarthy and, perhaps most of all, James Salter.

However, I think the biggest influence on my style was more internal—one I discovered when I started writing nonfiction. I didn’t attempt nonfiction until 2005 or so, and when I did, I discovered a new voice. I was trying to write in a way similar to how I think and speak, and I liked how it translated to the page. The language was simpler, more direct, more fragmented, and since, I’ve adopted the same style—at least to some extent—to my fiction.

Jen: That’s a great journey about your voice. And really, an interesting journey through several genres. I know many writers who do it, and do it well (Lee Upton comes to mind), but how do you feel about jumping genres when one is trying to build an audience or brand as a writer? What do you tell students or folks who are just beginning publishing stories? Do you feel the landscape has evolved since when you first started?

Curtis: The only advice I can offer is to go with what’s speaking to you. In the end, I believe the only thing that matters is one’s engagement. If I’m not excited about a project, I can’t sit down and give it the attention it deserves. Sometimes, after working on a novel for six or seven months, I’ll lose focus/motivation. When that happens, I’ll box it up and then switch gears and write some stories or essays. Then, when I’m feeling the novel again, I’ll dig it out and get back to work. I’ve never really thought much about building an audience per se; I am keen on building a stronger community, and I do that by reaching out to others to help promote their work. Perhaps this indirectly builds my audience, but that’s more of a welcomed byproduct.

If I were to offer new writers some advice, it would be to be patient with both themselves and the system. Things take time. I know that’s not what many folks want to hear (it’s sure not what the younger me wanted to hear), but I think it’s the truth. It takes time to understand one’s voice, and it takes time to understand and appreciate the literary landscape. Another bit of advice I might offer would be to have a thick skin and understand that rejection is rarely a personal thing.

And, has the landscape changed since I first started? For sure. On the book-level, the big publishers have only gotten bigger, and as such, the content for the general public has no doubt been homogenized with a greater focus given to the market than to the art. Or maybe that’s just the jaded take of someone who’s never broken into the majors. But I think the indie world is alive and well, and what it might lack in clout, it makes up for in heart. On the journal level, my first dozen or so years of writing and submitting were the times of mailings and SASEs. Now, I can’t remember the last time I mailed off a manuscript. It’s more convenient, for sure. I don’t know how editors feel about it—I wouldn’t like reading stories on a screen all day—but from my end, I’ll take it. And while I was snobbish about online journals back when they were first starting, I’ve changed my mind, and now I appreciate the accessibility of online journals. I guess in that way, I’ve also evolved.

Jen: Place plays a prominent theme in your work, with many of your novels taking place near where you live in Central Pennsylvania. Do you feel your novels could take place somewhere else? Is there a certain character or mindset or vibe that might not translate to, say, the Upper Peninsula or Anchorage or Santa Clara? How important is place when you are plotting out a novel or story?

Curtis: Place is pretty important, especially in terms of establishing tone and understanding character. It’s also important to me because I enjoy writing about and incorporating the natural world. You’re right, my go-to place is where I live now (although my upcoming novel in 2026 is set in Philly, a territory I know from my youth), and I think for many of my pieces, that kind of setting, the semi-rural, a little down-on-its-luck, foothills of Appalachia, provides an important backdrop for understanding both story and character.

That said, the setting for Deaf Heaven, at least in the first two acts, is less integral to the story. More important are the socioeconomic levels of the affluent and not. And in this light, this part of the story could be almost anywhere. The last act takes place in a little shore town, so that—and all it entails—is pretty specific.

Jen: What about your novel coming out next year? Is it also set in a familiar place? Can you give us a tease of what it’s about?

Curtis: The novel is (step)sisters, and it’s about two stepsisters (!) who are involved in the fringes of the Philadelphia drug trade. Their fates take them in different directions as they navigate both their legal and illegal lives. In the background, the city is struggling with a months-long trash strike (there was just such a strike in Philly—thankfully it didn’t last long), and with it, an explosion in the rat population. In response, a local strongman/populist rises, and he and his group first focus on hunting rats; but then their targets change to addicts and prostitutes and street people. The movement grows, and the atmosphere in the city turns tense and ugly. And in the end, there’s a random, public clash between one of the stepsisters and the movement’s leader that alters both of their trajectories. And there’s also a little bit of love and more than a few stuffed birds. And lots and lots of rats.

Curtis Smith has worked with indie publishers to put out five story collections, two essay collections, and one book of creative nonfiction. Deaf Heaven is his seventh novel, and in 2026, his next two books, a novel and a story collection, will be released. He teaches creative writing at Elizabethtown College.

Jen Michalski‘s fourth novel, All This Can Be True, was published by Turner Publishing/Key Light in June 2025. She is also the author of a couplet of novellas and three collections of fiction. She is editor in chief of the literary weekly jmww.