Our featured author for Winter 2024 is Jon Swihart, who is our first repeat author in Weird Lit. As many of you know, we read blind, so it was a fun surprise to discover we'd selected Jon's story, "The Scan." Senior Editor Dina Dwyer interviewed Jon to pick his brain about his futuristic settings that handle modern problems as well as his philosophies on humor, travel, and memory.
DD: Hi Jon. “The Scan” is the second story of yours that we’ve accepted for publication, making you the first author in our short history to achieve such a feat. After we’d all rated your story, we looked at who wrote it and laughed. Swihart strikes again! This story is also set in a believable near-future with dystopian elements, almost as if “It’s Not His Place to Scream” and “The Scan” inhabit the same alternate world. Can you talk a little about this kind of setting your brain likes to describe?
JS: I think it’s a world where technology and cynicism collide. I get a lot of inspiration from ideas and technologies that humanity is just playing with right now in the present, and then I extrapolate some kind of unintended consequence. So, this near-future world is a pretty cynical place—but that’s also because I’m trying to draw humor out of it most of the time, which often requires people to behave poorly or selfishly. But in a way, there’s also hope in it as well because most of my characters are muddling through, managing to survive, even though they’re not the ones in charge.
DD: I recall a time when I was teaching high school and some Very Serious Thing appeared in an educational video we were watching. I don’t remember what it was, but one of the kids burst out laughing. A few of the others snapped at him, but for some reason I didn’t reprimand him. His laughter felt like a natural response to the horrors of life. It’s an attitude I share and I'll admit it’s gotten me in hot water a few times. What’s your theory on why people are drawn to humor when dealing with dark or uncomfortable topics?
JS: I think it might have something to do with trying to take control of a situation via your response to it, which is kind of ironic because humor is first and foremost an involuntary reaction. You can’t help but laugh at things. But to approach the darkness of life from a humorous lens is to reverse the power dynamic of reality—you might not be able to control what’s happening to or around you, but you can control the way you approach it. I think it also helps you analyze a situation better. If you can see all the ironies of life colliding together, you might be able to find a path through them.
DD: That must explain why I’m always laughing at everything. Life around us keeps getting weirder and weirder so I guess we need to keep finding the humor in it. In “The Scan,” Emma appears both mildly excited about and simultaneously dreading the next step in a modern relationship in the story’s world. These feelings strike me as a natural response (much like our laughter) to a distorted reality, similar to how our ancestors might look at our contemporary relationships. Do you see the social mores in “The Scan” as inevitable, our future doomed by pornography addiction and/or AI? Or is the setting in the story ideal for everyone and simply a natural progression of humanity?
JS: I don’t think the mores of “The Scan” are inevitable, but I’d give something like them an above-average chance of becoming acceptable. Honestly, I think it depends on how good the sex bots are. Your second question is something I grappled with a lot while writing the story, and I don’t know if I have the answer. I think one can leave room for a little techno-optimism where sex is concerned, since sex has driven so many other technological advancements (such as media forms).
DD: I enjoyed the moral ambiguity, though a part of me was saying “y’all need Jesus.” It’s good to be thrown off balance while reading a story, but when it happens in real life it hits different. In perusing your Instagram, I noticed you are a fan of The X-Files. Recently, we got a new television, something we do every fifteen years around here, apparently, and I tuned in to find reruns of it on a terrestrial TV station. I was startled to see it in high definition and was unnerved by how bright the dark scenes, which is nearly all of them, are. I was seeing things I was not meant to. Have you revisited something from your youth that unnerved you?
JS: Before I answer, that visual effect you’re talking about is a specific setting on new TVs. I think it’s designed to make live sports look better. You can turn it off and all your favorite old TV/movies look mostly the way you remember.
DD: Hmm … maybe I don’t want to remember.
JS: What is memory anyway? Anywayyyyyy … actually, memory is the answer here. I have an endless bank of Simpsons and Seinfeld quotes stuck in my head, but recently I’ve been going back and re-watching some clips and I find that my memory is wrong. I’ll be so sure of an inflection on some word or the delivery of a certain line but when I roll back the tape, it doesn’t match as completely as I thought. It’s unnerving to be so sure of something that’s just slightly off.
DD: I’d go so far as to say that the truthiness of your memory is more important than the actual media because a part of yourself has become embedded in it. Do you ever start a story with a capital-P Purpose in mind, be it a cautionary tale or exacting symbolic revenge upon someone, or are those nascent stages something else entirely?
JS: I often start with a Purpose in mind. The story doesn’t always go towards that Purpose, however. Sometimes I think I want it to be about something but it turns out to be something else, either because my original opinion was faulty or because a more interesting story evolved out of the exploration. When writing, I usually try to come up with the ending as soon as possible so that I can get a good sense of the pace, so often that means I have to know what the purpose of the story is. I try not to be too heavy-handed. I usually don’t like it when other stories tell me what I’m supposed to take away from something.
DD: Heavy-handedness is one of our top five reasons we reject stories at WLM. If I wanted a sermon I’d go to church.
JS: Amen.
DD: You’ve done a fair bit of traveling in your life, both domestic and abroad. When I go on long trips I’m always searching for the “true” bits of my identity. What would you say you are searching for inside yourself when you venture from home?
JS: Clarity and courage. When I’m away from the routines of home, I have to truly ask myself, “what do you want?” because I don’t know how to automatically get it the way I do at home. And then I’m also searching for the courage to go get whatever it is once I figure it out. Sometimes, I’ll be on a relaxing beach vacation, and someone will ask what I want to do that day, and I’ll be like, “Who even am I?” and fall into a vortex of thought, and then they’ll be like, “okay, we’re heading out, are you coming?”
DD: I love when basic things like “where am I going to find a bathroom” and “where am I going to get food?” demand thought and effort. It strips one down to one's true nature, I believe.
Insider sources have told me you are big into philosophy. Do you have a favorite philosopher or philosophical work that you revisit from time to time? For me, it’s Krishnamurti, though after reading him I always feel like I’m not doing enough, like, as a person in the world. I suppose that’s not such a bad thing.
JS: Well, I wouldn’t consider myself a philosophy buff. Most of what I know about philosophy (the subject) I got through other writers or speakers, and also some astrophysics. If somebody out there thinks I’m a whiz at this kind of stuff, it’s probably thanks to a few strategic handouts I got in school at some point and just sort of synthesized into a conversation. I wish I could cite philosophers more readily. I’m frequently discovering thoughts other people have already had. As for my personal philosophy, I’d say there’s certainly a call to action. I feel an urge to at least try to live out my inner values. I’m sure somebody knows what the appropriate label for that is.
DD: Being true to yourself?
JS: Who is yourself?
DD: Whoever has those inner values.
JS: Sometimes I wish that guy was more of a sociopath. It’d be a lot easier to get things done without having to worry about others’ feelings.
DD: Can relate. In order to create anything, one must be at once porous and obdurate, curious and confident. But if you had to pick one, which are you on a normal day?
JS: Curious.
DD: A good default. We’re just about done here, so I’ll finish with my current favorite question: what is your favorite thing to clean?
JS: Damn, that’s a good one. Let’s see … probably the kitchen counters and stovetop. It’s not that I enjoy the activity but rather the return on investment. You can transform your home from a disaster into a respectable space with this ONE SIMPLE TRICK. You didn’t ask, but what I don’t like to clean are my favorite objects, like my guitars and drum kit because I just want to play them.
DD: Jon, thank you so much for your time this evening and also for your two wonderfully weird and haunting stories, and for trusting them with Weird Lit Magazine.
JS: Thanks for liking my stories and creating this awesome magazine. I greatly enjoy thinking up stories to submit. It’s a real pleasure (also to see what others have written as well). Can’t wait to read this next round of weirdness.
Jon Swihart is a writer and musician from Seattle. He typically writes dark humor, near-future dystopian satire, and absurdist stories. You can find his work at jonswihartwrites.substack.com.
Come read our full Winter 2024 issue here!