Contributor’s Note: Once again, Andrew here. Last week, I wondered whether or not other cities would follow the uprising in Los Angeles, and they did almost immediately, standing in solidarity with Los Angeles as they also worked nonstop to protect their own communities. The militant resistance taking place across the country right now is powerful and, frankly, beautiful to see. It’s vital that we continue to stand strong and resist ICE and the US regime by any means necessary. Only we can keep each other safe. I hope we all take this to heart and continue to do whatever we are capable of in order to serve and protect the people, especially vulnerable communities. Stay safe out there. Protect your comrades. And give ICE hell.
This week’s interview features Caleb Wilson, a fantastic writer and friend. He’s always one of my favorite people to kick it with at conventions like BizarroCon, and I can’t wait to share his thoughts with you all. From unionizing to resisting unfair technology, when it comes to fighting the ways in which capitalism strips human rights in order to increase profits, Caleb has got you covered.
Andrew: Caleb, first, would you please tell me a little about your background and how that has influenced your own writing?
Caleb: I am a Vermonter, Midwesterner, Quaker-adjacent, library & bookstore worker, and aspiring Luddite. Each of those things has marked me a little. Vermont for the community found in small towns, but also its tradition of eccentrics and weirdos. The Midwest for its unassuming attitude. The Quakers for being an antiauthoritarian religion dedicated to non-violence and social justice. Libraries and bookstores for being the places where you can get books — the book being obviously the best invention in history. (The worst is the smartphone.)
Politically, I’m a pessimistic socialist. Some form of socialism is clearly ideal, but I’m not very hopeful that the forces of greed won’t be able to always ruin it on a large scale.
A: I resisted getting a smartphone for a while at first. But now I struggle to imagine surviving without it. I hate it so fucking much (and think it’s so rad you live your life without one)… Now that I better understand where you are coming from, can you tell me what political resistance means to you?
C: I’m pessimistic about the large scale, so I try to turn to a smaller scale. Right now, I’m getting into unions. Last year, I helped get my workplace (a public library) unionized, which you might not think would be necessary, but unions are forming in lots of libraries right now. Unionizing is a long process, with ups and downs that occupy a lot of time and energy. We started organizing last year, and now, as I write this, we’ve had our first two bargaining sessions. Find something small I might be able to affect and start trying to affect it: that’s the kind of resistance I can wrap my head around. I am in awe of people doing things on a larger scale, but I believe the small scale is important, too. Community is vital to resistance. We resist because there is community worth saving, and community helps resistance.
A: Small-scale resistance on the community level is absolutely essential. We are also currently seeing brave and borderline heroic examples of this in communities all across the USA in response to the kidnappings of community members perpetuated by ICE. Additionally, you mentioned above that you’re an aspiring Luddite. Do you see any connection between the Luddites and small-scale, community resistance?
C: Absolutely. Luddite is not an insult! Brief history lesson: The historical Luddites were not frightened of technology. They were opposed to unfair technology for reasons of survival. They were professional weavers. As always happens, people started developing automated factory looms, which meant more cloth could be created with the same amount of labor. Great, right? Except, the extra profits from the extra cloth weren’t going to go to the weavers but to the factory owners. The Luddites decided to fight back by smashing the factory looms with giant sledgehammers. How inspiring is that? That’s the kind of Luddite I aspire to be.
A: Hell yeah! Do you see your own writing as a form of political resistance, or do you view your work as an author and your work as an activist as separate endeavors?
C: It’s mostly been separate. Until now. But there is a very exciting opportunity for us all to be Luddites, right now. Have you guessed what it is yet? I’m not going to give it the cool-sounding name of A.I. I’m going to call it Fancy Autocorrect. (I think there are also strong arguments that it could be called fascist autocorrect.) Whatever you call it, I implore you: smash it with the biggest sledgehammer you can find. I’m going to let alone all questions of whether or not something interesting could be created with fancy autocorrect; perhaps it could, if not now, then soon. But no matter how interesting it is, it will be written with a pen owned by the creepiest of billionaires, whose ink is drawn, without permission, from everyone’s veins. When you use F.A., you are letting the most amazing thing about yourself — your originality and your creativity — fade away, and you are voluntarily submitting to a coercive technology. You think F.A. exists to help you? Why would it? It’s working for someone else. And yeah, it’s sort of murky at the moment what exactly F.A. is doing for its masters, but I guarantee it does not exist to help you write a novel, or even an email. It deserves the biggest sledgehammer you can find. For a nice substitute, feel free to mock anyone you see using F.A. We can resist by making F.A. toxically lame, and by reminding everyone of its association with fascism. (Not joking: you know who wants to make the universities fail? Fascists. For a while, I was confused about that: don’t even fascists like stuff like… airport novels? movies? Television shows? And who do they think is going to make all those things? But then I realized that they have their answer online and ready to churn: Fancy Autocorrect.)
A: Give Fancy Autocorrect the goddamn sledgehammer treatment already! Have you done it yet? Really? Excellent! And now that we all know how to destroy fascist things like F.A. with a sledgehammer, right? We can move on. Since its inception, the bizarro genre has always been viewed as underground, outsider literature. How do you think its counterculture nature (where just about anything goes) can inspire the genre into being an outlet where books of resistance flourish?
C: The large publishers are corrupted by money. Maybe fatally! Bizarro, which overwhelmingly lives in small presses, micropresses, print-on-demand, and in handmade books you produced yourself, is the perfect genre to answer the smug creep of F.A. in every aspect of our culture.
We are the genre of weird and wild ideas! We are perfectly suited to evade the big presses. (Want to learn something horrifying? Go read about the history of Bertelsmann, the massive company which owns Penguin Random House — they were Nazi collaborators who managed to hide that fact by claiming to be part of the Nazi resistance, and they didn’t admit this until 2002.) Because we pride ourselves on our minds, our creativity, and our originality, we are the perfect warriors to crush the rise of Fancy Autocorrect slop. Be weirder. Be messier. Be more yourself!
A: I love that. Creativity is key. And the only thing we have that separates our storytelling, our creative voice, from other artists and Fancy Autocorrect is simply ourselves. Thank you for that. And thank you so much for your time and your insights. With that in mind, which bizarro books are your favorite examples of resistance literature?
C: Have you heard of Andrew J. Stone’s All Hail the House Gods? It’s great! To me, it’s about the bravery required to resist an overwhelming enemy. Lately, I’ve just reread Steve Aylett’s Fain the Sorcerer.
A: God I fucking hate that Andrew J. Stone guy. Have you ever met him? You’ll instantly know what I mean. Though I will say, the message you got from his book you mentioned does sound increasingly relevant! But, since we don’t discuss Andrew J. Stone’s work here, why Aylett’s Fain the Sorcerer? How does Fain the Sorcerer act as a book of resistance?
C: I mention Fain the Sorcerer because I think it’s the perfect antidote to the deadly uncreativity that Fancy Autocorrect spawns. Reading any book by Steve Aylett is like dunking your head into a vat of bubbling word acid, in the most pleasant way. I call it a work of resistance not only because its surface story makes such antiauthoritarian points as “kings are stupid” and “chasing power is pointless,” but because it is so wild and funny with such a surprise on every page that I hope it’s shocking. Remember, a person imagined this, not a billionaire-owned plagiarism machine. You can write this, too!
A: Thank you again, Caleb. It’s always a pleasure hearing your perspective. Go check out his book Polymer, which is itself an intense blast of creativity. I can proclaim with 100% confidence that this book was produced by a unionizing, HUMAN librarian. Not some billionaire, tech-bro creep. You’ll thank me later!
That’s it for today. Come back next week to hear from another radical weirdo! And, as always, if you’d like to suggest an author to be featured in a future interview, feel free to comment below. Until then, do what you can to keep resisting state repression. It’s long overdue that we, the masses, the people, take our power back!
If Andrew J. Stone were a dinosaur, he’d be an Apatosaurus. If he were a superhero, he’d be Marx. If he were to have a cat, her name would be Alice, and he’d be living in a residence that allowed pets. He is the author of the novellas The Mortuary Monster (2016), All Hail the House Gods (2018), and The Ultimate Dinosaur Dance-Off (2020). His short stories have appeared in Hobart, New Dead Families, and DOGZPLOT, among other places. His work has been translated into Spanish by the Colombian publisher Ediciones Vestigio. He lives in Los Angeles, surrounded by beauty and dread.
This post may contain affiliate links. Further details, including how this supports the bizarro community, may be found on our disclosure page.
