Q/A w/ Nick Martinez

Posted by Jacey Ellis in Creative Writing

As a part of an ongoing Q&A session with the Creative Writing and Literature Department’s Senior Reading class, Jackalope Magazine guest writer Jacey Ellis sat down with Nick Martinez. Martinez discussed landing at SFUAD, discovering fiction and played a special “Mad Men” edition of MFK.

Nick Martinez ends his senior year at SFUAD with some sass. Photo by Ash Haywood

Martinez will be part of the second Senior Reading, “The Young Professionals,” with Zoe Baillargeon, Brandon Brown and Jacey Ellis at 7 p.m., Tuesday, April 14 in the O’Shaughnessy Performance Space. 

Jackalope Magazine: How dare you?

Nick Martinez: No comment.

JM: How did you get into writing?

NM: I was on my high school newspaper, and uhh, I don’t know. I was good at that. I eventually became editor-in-chief and applied to SFUAD after several other schools rejected me. I came here and did well! I’m in fiction and nonfiction, work Jackalope, all that jazz. Yeah.

JM: So you kind of already mentioned this, but what genre do you work in and why?

NM: I originally came here for screenwriting. I wanted to be a screenwriter. But, I took those foundation classes, and really fell in love with some of the short stories there. I took a modernist class with [James] Reich. Got into Hemingway and Paul Bowles and all that. So that’s how I got into fiction. Nonfiction just comes natural to me. I’ve always been a storyteller, so I can just spin things out of shit that’s happened to me.

JM: What three words would you use to describe your writing?

NM: Raunchy. (laughs) Honest. I feel like my work is honest. Humorous. I try to be funny. No matter how dark [the piece] is I hope that it’s funny.

JM: What’s the worst thing you’ve ever written?

NM: Probably the first thing I wrote at SFUAD. It was a foundations class with Liz Tidrick. It was basically like—the entire piece was floating dialogue. There were barely any signifiers that a scene had changed, that we’re in a new place. You really couldn’t tell the characters apart. I mean, it was funny and dark. It had the seedlings of everything I’m trying to do now, but stripped of any literary merit.

JM: Would you ever go back to that piece?

NM: I feel like in a way, I’ve been going back to that, well, with everything.

JM: How do you balance work and family?

NM: What are you, my psychiatrist?

JM: Marry, Fuck, Kill: “Mad Men Edition.” Peggy Olson, Megan Draper, Joan Harris.

NM: (without hesitation) Kill Megan. That’s easy. Shit, I have to explain why. Kill Megan, because she’s annoying. I think in fandom she gets too much hate. [Jessica Pare] is a good actress and her character is interesting, but she’s definitely the least interesting when you put her up against Peggy and Joan. Marry Joan.

JM: Of course.

NM: She’s strong, independent, fierce, drop-dead gorgeous. Part of the reason you don’t want to marry Peggy is because she’s just a fucking train wreck. (laughs) I feel like me and Peggy are just too much alike. We would just piss each other off all the time and then never apologize. That would be a beautiful disaster between us.