#CopingWith is CCM’s interview series run by managing editor Joanna C. Valente
Henry Hoke’s book, “The Book of Endless Sleepovers” came out on October 31, 2016 from CCM. Of the book, Maggie Nelson has said, “I love how Henry Hoke plays fast and loose with autobiography and genre. The Book of Endless Sleepovers is wry and finely-wrought, a philosophical fever dream studded with the pleasure of proper names and surprising turns of phrase, a lyric page-turner.”
As such, we interviewed him about his book, although instead of asking boring lit questions, our managing editor Joanna C. Valente asked Hoke about everything else instead, like what his favorite meal and apocalypse plans are.
Here’s what he had to say:
Describe your favorite meal.
Tortellini. I saw a Reading Rainbow about how it’s made and was hooked for life.
What music do you often write to, if at all?
Night Bus.
How would you describe your gender?
Southern expat gothic.
What are three books that you’ve always identified with?
365 Days, 365 Plays by Suzan-Lori Parks
Music for Chameleons by Truman Capote
The Indispensible Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson
Choose one painting that describes who you are. What is it?
A painting I saw at the Palazzo Ducale in Venice called Still Life with Lobster, a cartoonish still life where the lobster was hulking and alive and seemed to be flailing its claws at the viewer. I thought it was by Botero but I can’t find any evidence of its existence. Maybe that’s for the best.
Choose a gif that encompasses mornings for you.
My gif, like my mornings, is set to music:
What do you imagine the apocalypse is like? How would you want to die?
Pass.
If you could only watch three films for the rest of your life, what would they be?
Paris is Burning
Rear Window
Eyes Wide Shut
How would you describe your social media persona/role?
Idiosyncratic. Restrained. I save my favorite stuff for the books.
What’s your favorite animal and why?
Tapirs. They’re singular!
What do you carry with you at all times?
I keep a foot-shaped blue gem in my wallet. I’m pretty sure I know where I got it. It’s been with me a long time.
Henry Hoke was a child in the South and an adult in New York and California. He authored The Book of Endless Sleepovers (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2016) and Genevieves(winner of the Subito Press prose contest, forthcoming 2017). Some of his stories appear in The Collagist, PANK, Gigantic and Carve. He co-created and directs Enter>text, a living literary journal.
Joanna C. Valente is a human who lives in Brooklyn, New York. She is the author of Sirs & Madams (Aldrich Press, 2014), The Gods Are Dead (Deadly Chaps Press, 2015), Marys of the Sea (ELJ Publications, 2016), & Xenos (2016, Agape Editions). She received her MFA in writing at Sarah Lawrence College. She is also the founder of Yes, Poetry, as well as the managing editor for Luna Luna Magazine and CCM. Some of her writing has appeared in Prelude, The Atlas Review, The Feminist Wire, BUST, Pouch, and elsewhere. She also teaches workshops at Brooklyn Poets.
