Writing in your face: an interview with Peter Mangiaracina

Peter Mangiaracina is a writer from New York City, now living in Spain. He spent years in improvisational theater and played guitar in a jazz fusion band before turning to teaching English and writing fiction. People tell him that someone, somewhere, has read his work—he just hasn't met them yet. I, Jhazzy, had the pleasure of interviewing Peter about his piece that was featured in our magazine, his writing process, and more.

Q: You've submitted to the magazine before. Can you tell us the story behind the piece you submitted to Three Panels Press? (What inspired it, or what moment sparked the words?)

A: The story Facing the Music came out of reading Rollo May’s The Meaning of Anxiety. In it, he says it’s better for a child to be openly scorned by his mother than to be embraced by one whose love is performative. The story is the relationship consequences of that latter dynamic.

Q: What draws you to writing as a form of art and expression? Why not art, music, etc., or do you do those too?

A: Yup. I do them all except art and dance. I’m colorblind and I move like a marionette on crack. Writing allows me to avoid making real friends, and no one complains about the cigar smoke.

Q: How does a written piece usually begin for you, image, phrase, feeling, rhythm?

A: A piece usually begins with lateral thinking. I’ll put two things that don’t belong together—a teddy bear and a tombstone, a toaster and a psychopath, a Victorian home with a biometric lock—and force them into the same sentence. On good days, a voice bullies me out of the way and I'm off to the races. On bad days, I’ll steal a random line from a Hamburger Helper commercial or listen to an odd rhythm—and play with words. Automatic writing. Like a medium or a French surrealist. I don’t chase meaning; I let strangers argue until one drops the mic. 

Q: Is there a word, sound, or theme you keep returning to in your work? Why do you think that is?

A: I write about people coping with trauma, and how they either conquer or cave when an outside force presses them. I think it’s because I’m a psychologist, and I figure we gain a soul.

Q: Who are the writers (living or dead) that shaped your writing voice? Why?

A: Bob Dylan, Franz Kafka, Thomas Ligotti, Frank Zappa, and Monty Python shaped my writing, perhaps even warped it. Why? Because they’re dreadful or quirky or both, and they spoke louder than Charles Dickens or Barbara Cartland. They practically screamed.

Q: Do you write for the page, the ear, or something else entirely?

A: I write for the page, since carving words into stone tablets is both expensive and frowned upon in apartment buildings. And I keep writing until the voices in my head stop talking.

No, you don’t.

There it goes again.

Q: What was the last written piece you read that made you stop and reread it immediately? Why?

A: The Denial of Death by Ernst Becker because suddenly Freud made sense. I’ve read that book at least five times. It recasts psychoanalytic theory in existential terms. 

Q: What do you want readers to carry with them after reading your work?

A: Something that will put little green slips of paper in my wallet. Failing that, maybe a sense that life is a carnivore, and we’re the unsuspecting finger sandwiches.

Q: Where and when do you write best? (Tell us your setup: coffee, silence, chaos?)

A: I write best with a cigar in my mouth, my cocker spaniel asleep on my feet, and polyrhythmic music rattling around my skull. Preferably on a Friday, because every other day of the week is an audition.

Q: What’s next for you creatively? Any projects, publications, or dreams you’d like to share? 

A: I’ve been published eight times in the past eight months, and most of my work can be found by checking out my bibliography at peterinyourface.com, my author site. Right now, I’ve got several stories out for consideration and I’m hammering away at new ones. My thriller novel, The Canary Killer, is hunting for an agent, so if you know one, I’ll gladly scrape the barnacles off your father’s fishing vessel in exchange for an introduction.