Kelp Journal Interviews Elizabeth Crane

Elizabeth Crane, or “Betsy,” among friends, was the childhood sidekick you dreamed of having, the one who could get away with all kinds of crazy shit because she was so damned cute.  Today, her petite frame is most often draped in stone washed, ragged jeans with sneakers or sandals, a cotton t- or floral blouse, and almost always, a vintage cashmere sweater.  Top that with Crane’s luscious blonde curls which are forever trimmed in her signature bangs (isn’t that the benchmark of cuteness?) a perpetual “no makeup look” (or maybe it’s really no makeup?) with a lightly lip-glossed smile, eyeglasses rimmed around mischievous hazel eyes, and you’ve got a package that can pack a punch before you can blink. 

Translate the physical persona of Elizabeth Crane into her work and what emerges is an unassuming literary assailant of any and all people obsessed with self-importance and disregard of others, societal convention and pomp, social media, internet and influencer demigods, and, while we’re mentioning her targets, let’s not forget child molesters, sex predators, and misogynists who unwittingly find themselves in her path of daily life and literary meanderings. 

Imagine this: Elizabeth Crane is holding the prettiest classic pen you’ve ever seen, delicately but unwaveringly, in her small, steady hand. Does it delight you to learn she’s embellishing her words with venomous ink?  If the answer is “yes,” she’s not only winking at you, she’s writing for you. 

Like a few of her characters, Crane “knows a thing or two,” and, as demonstrated by the eight books she’s got under her belt and the work we imagine hiding in her hand-embroidered jeans’ back pocket, she’s not afraid to tell the world about it. 

Betty-Jo Tilley chatted with Crane for Kelp about Kelp about her new short story collection, That May Not Mean What You Think, her recently re-released anthology, When The Messenger is Hot, and her writing career, plus her extraordinary dog Pearl, the dating scene in upstate New York after years of living in LA, Chicago and New York City, and other diversions.

(KELP JOURNAL): With all the short story collections available to an editor or publisher, isn’t a re-issue after 22 years of When the Messenger is Hot the ultimate compliment?  Notwithstanding, of course, the fact that the title itself maintains a contemporary ring.

(ELIZABETH CRANE):  It may be very specific to my particular publisher, who has been not just a fan of that book since it came out, but also in her very long teaching career, though she’s moved primarily to editing now, she always found the stories interesting, and outside the box, and used them for teaching creative writing and story writing forever. She probably knows the collection better than I do!    And Northwestern Press is really dedicated to keeping these things out there in perpetuity, because things do go out of print, and they’re also printing some of Gina Frangello’s work. (KJ): We’ll be talking to Gina here in Kelp soon, so stay tuned!(EC): Oh good!  And yes, it is a huge compliment.(KJ): How are book tours different than they used to be, and how does a second book impact a tour, and publicity?  (EC): There isn’t as much print coverage for tours as there was, and a lot depends on social media, which I’m not as good at.  Of course, the tours are pretty much self-funded these days, but I don’t have to go on two separate book tours.  The second book feels more like a bonus to me.  Tours are a way to connect to readers.  Hearing their visceral response is nice, especially if they’re laughing, although I’ve heard people sniffling and crying, and that’s nice also.(KJ): You co-wrote the screen adaptation of your novel, We Only Know So Much, and you even had two cameos in the film, as, quite aptly, a book club participant. That was just so cool. Some novelists have turned into screenwriters of their work, and others won’t have anything to do with it.  Would you do it again? 

(EC): Very much.  When I was in college, I really thought that was going to be the direction I was going in. My early writing years post-college, I was primarily trying to write screenplays and sitcoms.  Then I worked in the business for about five minutes, and I thought, no, this is awful, oh, this is not what I want to be doing.  When you turn out screenplays, it's getting multiple people for approval, and one person is not the same as trying to get X number of people to cooperate.  So, I was like, I’m getting out of here, I’m moving to Chicago, and I’m gonna write short stories.  But I was very very lucky to have that experience.  It was a very low budget film, my co-writer had everything to do with getting it made, and not a lot of people get that opportunity.  So yeah, I’d love to do that again.

(KJ): As a prolific short story writer, and also a novelist, what is it about the short story that you keep coming back to?

(EC): I think the form allows me to have the most fun. You can use a sort of experimental form for sure, in longer fiction, which is what I did in both my novels, but some of these techniques can be harder to sustain over the course of a longer work, and make a reader want to stick with it. 

(KJ): Taylor Swift’s lyrics have pointed a finger at exes, and of course, we love Lily Allen’s “Pussy Palace.”  What would you say if someone called your memoir -- This Story will Change: After the Happily Ever After, about your husband leaving you for another woman -- revenge writing?

(EC): I love the Lily Allen record.  If I’d been through what she went through, I might have been inclined to write a fictional version of it.  But if people think my memoir is revenge writing, they probably didn't read my book. I was trying to share my thinking about it without laying out that my ex was the cause of all the problems. I really wrote it because I was in it, and I couldn't think about anything else. And I was like, if I write this, I'll be able to think of something that's actually much more fictional.

I want to be in perspective.  It’s not my way, or I’m not sure what the purpose of writing a book would be, that would have the intent of hurting someone.  I have written a lot about my mom, but I loved my mom.  I try to portray her in a realistic way, but in a loving way.  And I was trying to do that with my ex, as well.(KJ): What gave you the idea for “Nemesis,” which appears in your new collection, That May Not Mean What You Think?

(EC): That happened at the LA TIMES Festival of Books with Tod (Goldberg, the director of UCR’s Low Residency MFA Program). I don’t remember why the topic came up, and there were different people hanging around, and I was thinking about one particular nemesis, but I wasn’t really naming names.  I kept thinking of more people who fall into this category of what I define as nemesis, which is different from an enemy, when actually, the dictionary definition of nemesis and enemy are pretty close.  But in the story nemesis is a different thing.(KJ): Another of our favorites from the recent collection is, “The Long Trial.”  How did that one come into being?

(EC): That story was inspired by someone I was harassed by, a very public figure named James Toback, a film director, whom I also wrote another short story about years ago – more of a straightforward version of what happened. But in this particular story, just after Harvey Weinstein, I very impulsively posted on Twitter, “Now do James Toback,” which was almost immediately seen by a reporter for the LA TIMES who was looking for people who had been harassed by Toback.  I was one of the 40 women who came forward.  And by the time he was finishing his research, there were 400 women.

Toback went to trial, and my idea was this endless trial, because I knew he was known for harassing women for 50 years, and I did this calculation of the number of victims over the number of years, and that was the basis for the story.

(KJ): That story is brilliant, and haunting.  And there are two more that are at the top of our very long favorites list. “Depressed Baby,” contains maybe the most poignant line we’ve read in literature, in like forever.  (EC): Really?(KJ): Yes, when the baby gets older and asks a question, the parental response is, “That's not my place to say.”  And the baby responds, “Take me to your place to say.”

(EC): Aww, thank you. I like that line, too.  Yeah, I mean, I heard that term “the depressed baby,” and it was really about a lack of communication and how that affects young children, and how they interpret things.(KJ): “Depressed Baby” makes us laugh, and it makes us cry. A friend recently said she wouldn’t send it to her daughter, who is a new mother. And I thought, really, I would have loved to have read that story as a new mother.(EC): Right!  Because then maybe you’d try harder to communicate openly.(KJ): Absolutely. And another top favorite from this collection is also about communication, “Language Police Empath Division.” I love it when the protagonist says she’s near orgasm, “just from having him call me Officer Jane.”   (EC): Laughs.  (KJ): This is also a love story for language and freedom of expression, with a protagonist who questions preconceived conventions and rules.   It’s really fun, but it’s also deeply meaningful. What inspired this one?

(EC): You know, many times the idea for a story is just so kind of almost over simplified, like with “Nemesis,” oh, I have 10 nemeses, that’s weird, let me think about that… So similarly, in “Empath Police,” it started, like, okay, the word, “empath” when some people use that word so much, or say they’re an empath, it kind of drives me nuts.  So, I did some internet research, and it really isn’t a thing.  Undoubtedly there are some people who are more sensitive to people’s vibes or whatever, but it’s not the same to say, “I’m an empath,” vs that you’re an empathetic person, and part of what bothers me so much is, what is it about you that makes it important to you to point it out?  When I get these ideas, it’s an opportunity for me to explore my gripe, but I also don’t ever want to limit it only to my personal perspective.  So that’s where other characters come in, to question, and to get something even more interesting than my point of view happening in the story.(KJ): We love your writing, kind of in a similar way to why we love Kevin Wilson, and maybe, Maria Semple. What writers would you recommend for readers who just can't get enough of your work?

(EC): Well if eight books is not enough from me (laughs)… I love Ali Smith.  And George Sanders.  I'm reading some of the people who were on the panel with me this last LA Times Festival of Books, a book of short stories, Where Are You Really From, by Elaine Hsieh Chou, which is good and weird, and another that is weird and hilariously funny and over-the top, Rejection, about a self-proclaimed feminist man who becomes increasingly agitated when he can’t get any interest from women, by Tony Tulhimutte.

(KJ): You lived in New York City, and in Los Angeles, and Chicago.  What are the pros and cons to quieter Upstate living, from a writerly perspective, and also from a personal and single experience?(EC): From a writer perspective, I can kind of write anywhere. And I guess I've written a couple of books up here already. It just requires some sort of scheduling. All this to say, I can make that work professionally, and for social things, because I have friends here and I can commute, but in dating, it's a little more challenging.

(KJ): We’re hoping you're going to write something extensive like a collection of short stories or a novel about the dating scene.

(EC): I mean, I have, obviously there's a couple of stories in this book that sort of deal with a little bit of that. But I mean,  you know, it's all too real, like unfortunately, the profiles are consistently so bad. A lot of times it really is just this thing of like, do you not know one woman, or one friend, who could guide you to make yourself even remotely appealing?Yeah, so I’ve been trying to write about some of the horrendous dates I’ve been on via the aps, but I’m not thrilled with the way it’s turning out. (Laughs).  And I have written long drafts of two or three other novels, two or three complete memoires before I wrote this one, and sometimes that’s the way it shakes out.  If I feel it’s not right, I don’t want to put it out in the world.  But usually it just helps me clear the deck for what is going to come next. 

(KJ): It doesn’t seem you could ever have no ideas, but are there things you do to step away from your writing, and to regenerate your creativity?

(EC): I do always have a lot of ideas. Whether or not they work out, you find out by writing.  But yeah, I do a lot of crafts. I don’t work summers, but I’ve taken summers off just to read books and do crafts.  One of my story collections has a lot of crafts in it because I was doing a lot of crafts at the time.  A few summers ago, I did a lot of watercolors, and last summer I did a lot of collage.  I also do needle crafts of all kinds, so yeah, I don’t really fancy myself calling it art, but I do a lot of crafts.

(KJ): Do you write every day? And are you a schedule person?

(EC): It's pretty loose. When I’m in a group, I write every day. I like to write every day. I don't necessarily, always.  I am a morning writer, but I can write at any time, especially if I’m getting going on something and I really want to keep the momentum.  I’m a big napper.  I take a lot of naps.  I watch a lot of reality TV. Well, I mean, “Vanderpump” is the show that inspired that short story.  And I’m currently on Season 8 of “Summer House.” I watch a lot of real house shows, but I tend to watch the ones that have to do with groups of friends, because they’re so unlike any groups of friends I’ve ever had.  And with, “Summer House,” that’s a thing, like on Fire Island and in The Hamptons, that people do.  

(KJ): If there was ever a phrase that sums up your work, it could be the title, That May Not Mean What You Think.

(EC): Well that’s cool. Yeah, I mean, that phrase is the title of one story and then it comes up in another story and both of them refer to tattoos, actually, but in totally different ways. But it did broadly speak to a lot of things that I think about in my writing, that we can look more closely at things.  I think the one story in this particular collection that I’m probably the proudest of is, “Training Module.” It’s one of those that kind of wrote itself, but it’s kind of heavy hitting, and so that one might be up there among my favorites.

(KJ): Oh wow!  Pearl is joining us!  Hello, Pearl. 

At this point in the interview, Pearl licks Betsy’s face, repeatedly.(KJ and EC):  laugh(EC): She doesn’t really love when I zoom or talk on the phone.

(KJ): Does she have the same reaction when you're with people in person?

No, because she can glom onto them directly.  She loves all people.

(KJ): We’re obsessed with her. She's so soulful, it slays us. And she knows she's being talked about.  We kind of expect her to put on a cashmere sweater.(EC): Well, you know Ivy Pochoda.(KJ): Of course!  We interviewed Ivy about her amazing novel, Ecstasy in Kelp!  (EC): Well, Ivy’s mom had a dog who had a red sweater with pearls all over it.  And that sweater now belongs to Pearl.

(KJ): Oh, that is so sweet. So, this is a crazy dog lover's question, but living with a dog like Pearl -- since not all dogs are the same, and we know Pearl is very special -- does she make you feel you're more in touch with your best self?

At this point in the interview, Pearl goes a little wild, and just about smothers Betsy with licks and kisses.(KJ and EC):  laugh (KJ): Okay, so tell us about your cashmere sweaters and how that became a thing for you.

(EC): I wish they were all cashmere. They definitely are not; they're very random.  The collection started in the early 90’s, and a lot of them are vintage.  (KJ): They are such a luxurious accessory, and yet, they're so practical.

(EC): Well, you can take them on and off as needed.  I pack them for our UCR residencies in Palm Desert where it’s so hot, but we have air conditioning inside.  Stylistically and practically, they’re kind of a uniform.

(KJ): We love that you use the word “collection.” Do people give you sweaters a lot?  And have you ever been given one you wouldn’t let see the light of day?(EC): I have been given many of them, but nothing quite that bad.  They don’t always hit.  Some are my favorites, and it would be heartbreaking to lose the ones I love the most, or that I’m the most sentimental about.  I’m guessing there’s a 100.At this point in the interview, Betsy asks us if we want to see her collection, “off record,” and of course, we jump at the chance.  Suffice it to say, Kelp readers will be the first to know if there’s ever a reality TV episode called, “Betsy Crane’s Closet.”

Elizabeth Crane has written two novels: We Only Know So Much, which was adapted into a feature film by the same name in 2016 and streams today on a number of platforms, and The History of Great Things. She has also written five short story collections: the newly released That May Not Mean What You Think, and the recently re-released When the Messenger Is Hot, as well as All This Heavenly Glory, You Must Be This Happy to Enter, and Turf.  Her memoir, This Story Will Change; After the Happily Ever After, was published in 2022, and other work has been performed at Steppenwolf Theater Company, Chicago, and featured on NPR’s selected shorts.  She teaches at UCR’s Low Residency Palm Desert MFA Program in Creative Writing, where she is the only instructor in three genres: fiction, nonfiction, and screenwriting.

Betty-Jo Tilley is a Los Angeles-based writer and 38-year real estate veteran living in Atwater Village after losing her home in January 2024’s Pacific Palisades Wildfires.  Her related essays were published in The Keepthings and Opposite of Nihilism. A graduate of UCR’s Palm Desert Low Residency MFA Program, her creative nonfiction has appeared in Eclectica Magazine, and her fiction in Scavengers Literary Magazine and Lit Angels. The Coachella Review has featured her critical work and author interviews, and she is a regular contributor of interviews to Kelp, including of Flynn Berry, Alex Espinoza, Ivy Pochoda, Nicholas Belardes and Barbara DeMarco-Barrett.