Ask the Author: Andrea Kneeland

Two fictions from Andrea Kneeland are part of the April issue, one of which has the longest title we’ve ever published. She talks with us about the length of attention spans to titles, hate collections and more.

Is your attention span as long as your titles?

Like my titles, my attention span runs the gamut. It really all depends on context. What am I supposed to be paying attention to? Sports? Sex? Calculus? Attention span, like everything else in life, is 100% situational.

How much exactly is too much use of hands in any situation?

Like I said before: situational, right? No such thing as too many hands if you’re trying to break some sort of hippie-dippy Hands Aross America Guinness World Record, but if you’re trying to win the World Cup, then, you know–

What would collecting hate be like? What would its value be on the free market?

I think it would be a lot like being Pat Robertson. I think he makes a pretty good living. I mean, really, in a true free capital market, hate is probably the way to go if you want to make a lot of money.

Where else do your ghosts live? How would they give us a guided tour?

My ghosts mostly live inside of my head. If you don’t mind being totally creepy, maybe you could sit next to me while I’m sleeping sometime and cross your fingers that I’ll start talking.

What cardboard instrument would you play? What would the songs be like?

I would play a cardboard concertina in a band with a thumb piano and a ukelele. We’d do covers of Hall & Oates songs.