December 2008
Ben Blum is a New York Times teaching fellow from NYU, where he is an MFA candidate in fiction.

What is the most essential part of a story or poem that makes it worth writing?
The part that makes you go uhhhhhhh. The most important sounds a story or poem should elicit are:
1. uhhhhhhhh
2. unh?
3. crunching sounds
4. hoooononononono
5. yaiyiii
6. exploding sounds
7. huh

How much do you revise?
I grew up writing on computers so for me revision is a continual, fidgety process, inseparable from the writing. It’s like in the game Boggle: you shake it hard for a while and then the cubes settle down and you jitter it a little to get them all into the bins but a few cubes are still sticking up sideways so you reach in and tamp them down and then you can see what you’ve got. And if there’s nothing there, you shake it up all over again.

How do you know when a piece is done?
When it wins some kind of award.

How do you “practice” your craft?
By writing a lot of really detailed e-mails to people I’m hoping will fall in love with me.

In your work, are you more interested in the language or the message?
Used to be message. Now it seems dangerous to think too hard about this question.

What’s your favorite part of the writing process?
Climbing out of bed to write ideas in the dark.

What book have you read recently that you couldn’t put down?
Honored Guest, by Joy Williams.

Are there any aspects of writing that you feel can’t be taught?
Grammar.

How does teaching influence your work as a writer?
Working with kids has been great for my writing. They respond to the stuff I read them in a really natural, unfiltered way that is enormously instructive about what works and what doesn’t. For example, kids go crazy for a good noun. Indifferent to adjectives.

What’s your favorite in-class writing prompt?
“Guessing game” poems. Think of an object you know well, and a feeling you associate with that object. Now write a poem about the object, but every time you write the object’s name, write the name of the feeling instead. During sharing time, try to guess each other’s objects.

How do you create lessons to appeal to as many students as possible?
Stick to prompts that allow a lot of flexibility and personalization in the choice of topic. Write about your favorite food, a place you like to go to, something you’re really good at.

Do you stick to lesson plans or follow the class dynamic wherever it takes you?
Lesson plan, with minor adaptations along the way. With the kids I’ve worked with, following the class dynamic would be a one-way train to the adventures of Poo Poo and the Girl Kissers.

How much of yourself—your personal interests, your approach to writing—do you share in a classroom?
Quite a bit. I like an informal, personal vibe. They always tell me when my underwear is showing.

What are your grammatical pet peeves?
Use of “like” in place of “as if.” “We partied like we were writing teachers.” No, it’s, “We partied as if we were writing teachers.”