Name Robert Glück Contact Info rgluck@sfsu.edu | 415-338-3078 Office hours (Spring 2003) Wednesdays, 4:45 to 6:15 PM

Courses (Spring 2003)	Advanced Novel Workshop CW 824-01 Tuesdays, 4:10 to 9:45 PM
Writer Advice	Directed Writing CW 809-04 Arrange with professor

Where did you grow up?
In the suburbs of Cleveland and Los Angeles (West Valley)

Where did you go to school?
UCLA, U. of Edinburgh, UC Berkeley for B.A. | San Francisco State for M.A.

How’d you end up in San Francisco?nc
Disastrous love affair in New York.

What books have you written?
There are a lot of chapbooks. Books that are still around:
Elements of a Coffee Service, stories pub by Four Seasons Foundation [Buy this book] | Jack the Modernist, a novel pub by High Risk/Serpent’s Tail [Buy this book] | Reader, poems and short prose published by Lapis [Buy this book] | Margery Kempe, a novel pub by High Risk Serpent’s Tail [Buy this book] | La Fontaine, translations by myself and Bruce Boone, Black Star Series. | And next spring, Denny Smith, stories pub by Clear Cut.

I wrote a long preface for a book of Frank Moore’s paintings published by Twin Palms. | I’ve done quite a bit of art writing and critical/theory writing. Nest and artforum are two places I work quite a bit.

Why do you write?
Too many reasons to answer in a short space! To exercise my faculties at large, to make an offering that seems almost sacrificial, to engage with the world, to make a beautiful object, to wake up.

Is there a genre or sub-genre that you specialize in?
Well, my books are usually experiments. So, experimental. I write fiction and poetry, criticism. I had a garden column in a paper in San Diego, Mr. Plantier. And I do a fair amount of art writing.

How would you describe your teaching style?
Tender.

How are your classes structured?
Depends on the class. I have been known to ask for critical writing. In a process class, often I start with a mini-lecture. The MFA classes are more straightforward workshops, though I often give assignments.

What do you expect of your students?
I expect my students to be good citizens of the class or workshop and wonderful writers.

What do you hope your students come away with after taking a class from you?
I hope I have enlarged their ability to read as well as their ability to write.

What are your favorite reads?
Right now, or in the past? In the past, Frank O’Hara, Proust and Georges Bataille were important to me. Presently, I am always thinking about Maurice Blanchot. My contemporaries too: Kathy Acker, Lydia Davis, Kevin Killian, Dodie Bellamy, Camille Roy, Dennis Cooper, and numberless poets.

What are you working on now?
A novel called Everyman—my version of an AIDS memoir.

What are your extra-literary interests?
Could a child be called an interest. I have one and he is extremely interesting. Beyond that, the usual kind of thing you might find in any personals ad: cooking, gardening, travel, the local art scene—oh I collect ceramics from two obscure local potteries from the teens, twenties and thirties: California Faience and Jalan.

What’s the best advice you’ve received/have given regarding starting a literary “career”?
I don’t think anyone gave me career advice, because back in the hippie days that I come from we thought writing and career were opposites. But I would say that making writer friends in and out of school is important—there you will find your first community of readers, colleagues, and sometimes even your first publishers.

What are the biggest concerns you hear from graduate students at SFSU?
I can think of two. First, there are not enough classes. Second, there is not enough emphasis on the professional side of writing. •