On Monday, February 27th, the A+ Read a Fucking Book Club assembled to chat with author Mac Crane about their book, I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself. They shared about how writing is their sport, and their future plans.
Transcript has been edited, and some conversational threads re-organized for clarity.
Editor’s Note: Part of the transcript got deleted by accident, so we will begin shortly after everyone introduced themselves and started talking about the weather and such where they were joining in from! First up, there is a discussion about “whose” story is it. Is it Kris’? It it ‘the kid’s’?
Mac Crane (they/them) [the Author]: I think I view it as Kris and the kid’s story, separately and together
but Kris, we see the most…change? growth? Realizations?
the kid is like…who she is from the start, she’s this sort of foil in many ways, she’s so self assured from a young age
but it’s maybe the story of how an “I” becomes a “we” in some ways
Gen: I love that so much
You mentioned plot being a large part of your revision process – did these characters evolve a fair bit as well?
Mac Crane (they/them): yeah they certainly deepened, which I think is typical of my revision process. I was racing to get the skeleton of the book down that people were more like sketches…a lot of my revision process was deepening these characters as well as holding my dialogue and lines accountable …for humor reasons, characterization reasons, relational reasons, surprise and richness
🙂 (she/her): Did you always have the same ending in mind?
Mac Crane (they/them): definitely not but I don’t even remember the initial ending! lol
I think it was really tragic!
and my agent was like what the fuck?
maybe not tragic but like…not the hopeful note that these characters need and deserve
🙂 (she/her): It felt like it could definitely go that way
And I was grateful it didnt!
Mac Crane (they/them): I’ve never considered myself to be very good at writing toward hope but writing this book made me feel like that’s something I can do…that not everything has to be despairing and tragic
Gen (she/her): fully ready to sob in my apartment
Mac Crane (they/them): I’m grateful it didn’t too
Gen (she/her): very happy to get that hope
🙂 (she/her): Especially since everything except maybe the shadow logistics feels so real, possible, and maybe inevitable at times
Nico (they/them): I have been holding onto this question but now everyone is all hopeful! But…What has it been like writing a super carcerally-focused dystopian novel in this political environment? To what extent did contemporary events affect the book as it was being written?
🙂 (she/her): Yes! I had this same question
Gen (she/her): I was also wondering if you could talk a little bit about how you see body and mind connected in both your creative process and in the space of the book. It’s a connection that’s always really interested me as a runner and a writer and one you describe so beautiful in various pieces
Mac Crane (they/them): Great questions! I, like so many people, was introduced to abolition in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and started reading as many abolitionist books as I could get my hands on—work by Angela Davis, Mariame Kaba, Andrea J. Ritchie, and Derecka Purnell. And was like yes, a better, healthier, happier, safer world is possible! It made me feel so hopeful to think about alternatives to the PIC…But when I’d started writing this book in 2018, I wasn’t necessarily thinking of it through an abolitionist lens, though of course there are no prisons in it, but my disdain for prisons, our country’s obsession with punishment and shame, was at the heart of what I was trying to write about…at the same time, I was exploring shame and punishment on a very personal and psychological level, trying to udnerstand the relationship between my own desire to punish and shame myself and that of our white supremacist cisheteropatriarchal society…
I think one thing that will always stick with me is that abolition isn’t just the removal of prisons but the building of something else..abolition as creative
Mac Crane (they/them): ahhhh
hmmmmmmmm
Gen (she/her): sorry big life question
Mac Crane (they/them): hahahahaha
no it’s awesome
sometimes I feel like I am floundering lol
🙂 (she/her): That message definitely came through–prison abolition on its own was not enough if the replacement was also awful
Mac Crane (they/them): it’s so funny, for years, I kept writing and sports so separate in my head, like convinced they were unrelated
Mac Crane (they/them) [to 🙂she/her]: yes!
Gen (she/her): You were actually one of the main reasons I started to think of those two things together!
Mac Crane (they/them): but I’ve come to learn that playing sports is one of the times I am at my most creative
Nico (they/them): yes! because there are other ways! and part of the fight for abolition is being like “hey, no, there are actually other solutions and methods if you would just consider them” love this. i love this as a seriously anti-carceral novel.
Mac Crane (they/them): like…sports are so creative, so poetic
Mac Crane (they/them) [to Nico]: thank you so so much ❤️ my heart
Idk, so like once I realized that when I’m playing basketball or soccer or rugby, I’m constantly playing with space, I’m collaborating with other people, I’m innovating, I’m responding to my teammates innovating…it’s this collaborative artwork that can never really be replicated again?
I guess part of my relationship between sports and writing is then that writing feels so lonely at times
as someone who always wants teammates around me
Gen (she/her): okay this question of writing in isolation is exactly what I’ve been thinking about
Mac Crane (they/them): and I crave that community and collaboration with writers, and I do feel fortunate enough to be in community with so many lovely writers but at the end of the day, they aren’t sitting at my computer with me
Nico (they/them): lmao thank you for clarifying that (former cross country runner here)
I do think that is something that is hard about writing.
Like my partner is a musician and she gets a great deal of motivation and validation from collaborating. But then…writing it’s just. Here you are. Just you. Enjoy.
Type type now.
(Or it can be.)
Mac Crane (they/them): yepppp
and really the only collaboration available if you aren’t literally co-writing is with editors, agents, etc
which can feel nice but I do think there’s nothing that really replicates that teamwork!
re writing
Nico (they/them): correct!
Carmen (she/her): Oh absolutely, I agree with all of this so much.
Gen (she/her): I think that’s a huge question for me that I also see in this book – like what does it mean to have your own work that you can only really do on your own but also be in community (which takes a lot of work)
🙂 (she/her): I’m going to use the transcript of this to explain to my partner why I still play team sports even though she worries about injuries
Mac Crane (they/them): lmaooooo yes
Gen (she/her): would you mind talking a little bit about how you’ve built your writing community?
Mac Crane (they/them): no not at all but honestly I haven’t done as much as I’d like to actively build community! I’ve met some wonderful people at Tin House, Bread Loaf, and Lighthouse workshops…which, really, is one of the reasons I was so eager to go. like, of course I want to learn from amazing teachers! but I also was really interested in meeting new people and forming meaningful relationships
I was fortunate enough to be invited into this memoir crit group that’s actually on discord by a writer who does an extraordinary job of building community on there…better than I could ever dream of
otherwise, it’s sort of just like…Dming people on Twitter!
Lol
putting myself out there, being like “will you be my friend” kindergarten style
Nico (they/them): Those were the days.
I literally remember doing that in kindergarten. Cannot imagine having the confidence to do so now.
Mac Crane (they/them): i don’t mean to make this an overly sport heavy convo BUT that is something that I struggled with when I graduated college and lost competitive basketball…i hadn’t realized that for my entire life, I’d been thrown on teams and those teams were my community, like they were just given to me
for better for worse
i didn’t have to do anything to form them, all i had to do was work to strengthen them
Nico (they/them): I apologize if this has been covered elsewhere, but how did you get started in writing and what role has it played in your life? How did you come to it?
Mac Crane (they/them): omg don’t apologize
it’s sort of weird because I always wrote as a kid
like sad bright eyes poetry in my notebook
about loving girls and being depressed and stuff
Nico (they/them): omg yes
Mac Crane (they/them): lololol
Nico (they/them): who among us
Mac Crane (they/them): but i didn’t take it seriously or even think that someone could BE a writer
i was also so focused on basketball, convinced I was gonna be a WNBA star
(like that’s more plausible)
Nico (they/them): ❤️
Gen (she/her): Love the queer energy of all of this
Mac Crane (they/them): lolol
basketball was basically my life growing up so I did that and writing was just a way to work out my chaotic adolescent emotions and in college, I majored in health sciences and thought I was gonna go to physical therapy school…still didn’t thikn anyone could be a writer, but I wrote like a sad weird, Less Than Zero inspired novel about a queer love triangle I was in which was THE WORST NOVEL EVER
and I wrote pining shit on tumblr
idk idk haha
Gen (she/her): that’s where it all starts
Nico (they/them): that’s important
Mac Crane (they/them): when I was like 25 or something, I discovered lit journals and was like oh
wow these exist and I can read them and send stuff to them
Nico (they/them): !!
Gen (she/her): queer love and tumblr
Mac Crane (they/them): and was like well i’m gonna write short stories and see what happens
i lost track of the thread already lmaooooo
but I guess that’s hwen I started taking it more seriously
it quickly sort of replaced sports
in the like
very myopic obsessive way
which I guess is just how I am, but I always need something that is overtaking my every thought and feeling and effort
so writing is my sport, and though writing can be competitive, I don’t…want it to be? so I’m trying to figure out how to wrestle with those feelings of jealousy and competitiveness that I think plague so many of us!
idk I think i’m gonna stop talking now lmao
🙂 (she/her): I noticed you still refer to “the kid” as Kris did in most of the novel. What was your thinking around that choice and the eventual name reveal?
Gen (she/her): I felt this – very obsessively goal orientated as a person and don’t always love how it plays out in my relationship with writing
Mac Crane (they/them): aha! it’s become such a habit
when I began writing this book, right out of the gate, that’s how Kris was referring to her, obv based on the first line, but I had to sit with why and interrogate that, why that was my instinct for her and what it was doing for her on a coping level…ultimately, it became this distancing for
Kris…if she just calls Bear “the kid” then she’s this sort of separate entity from her, the distance is safe
the eventual name reveal was meant to represent the closing of that distance
Kris’ fully giving herself over to Bear
🙂 (she/her): It definitely felt like it was a distancing technique in the beginning…and then the actual name plus Michelle’s whole story was both wild and so very gay
Mac Crane (they/them): hahah so very gay
in a way, not a twist at all!
🙂 (she/her): Do you imagine Kris ever addressed Zig Zag’s whole story with Bear? Do you think it would be pretty similar to how Kris described the origin of her own shadow–that the details arent as important
Mac Crane (they/them): omg what a lovely question
Gen (she/her): I was also really curious about how you imagine those conversations as Bear grows up and how their connection will change
Mac Crane (they/them): yeah I do think Kris told Bear Zig Zag’s whole story…especially as she gets older like a teenager, I think there’s more space for transparency and details there than when she’s really young
I like to imagine that Kris could show Bear that there is no such thing as a good person and bad person
that we are all just people floating around, hurting each other, figuring out how to do better next time, how to fix ourselves, how to treat each other with more compassion and forgiveness and empathy
AND maybe most importantly, that Siegfried’s story isn’t a story of personal responsibility so much as the story of a system that is designed to fail everyone
and then blame those people for failing
the overdose thread is so important to me and close to my heart
I’ve had many people close to me die of an OD and I’ve seen a lot of people react by trying to blame the dealers
and i get it, I really do
we all just want an outlet for all our pain
Nico (they/them): Yes ❤️
And, with 10-ish minutes left, @Mac Crane they/them do you have any questions for the group?
We have used this, often, as a chance for you to ask about things you wish people would touch on in reviews or interviews, or to get a read on something in the book — or whatever you want!
(also you all can still ask q’s if you want)
🙂 (she/her): Just wanted to say thank you. The book really made me rethink community building. And also my role in the system–since I work for a state agency that calls itself The Department 😶
Mac Crane (they/them): oh man, honestly I don’t know if I have any questions, people have asked me so many smart things in interviews and i’m so grateful for all that. i maybe have a sort of weird career question that I’ve been rattling around in my head for a while now, just in the sense of…thinking about future books of mine—if you read and liked Exoskeletons, would you assume I’d always be writing that type of book? basically speculative, social commentary? or like…if you heard my next book was completely different, would it turn you off or would you be invested enough, I guess, in my writing to take a chance on a vastly diff book?
I don’t think I really worded that clearly at all
but as you can, I’ve just been mulling over my next steps as far as being an author and audience expectation!
Mac Crane (they/them): ahhh!
Nico (they/them): No, I get it! I would be invested.
I can think of several authors who jump genres.
Gen (she/her): I’m so invested in your voice and what you have to say – would follow your next book to any genre
Carmen (she/her): I always think one of the best parts of being a writer is also the ability to write all kinds of things! So I don’t usually expect writers to keep writing the same things.
Nico (they/them): And it’s always more about the thoughtfulness I come to expect than anything else. But then, I’m a really multi-genre reader / consumer.
🙂 (she/her): I read everything Kacen Callender writes, and there have been all kinds of tones and genres!
Also, I was expecting basketball
m0lly (she/her): Agree with this
Mac Crane (they/them): that’s great to hear
thank you everyone
Nico (they/them): Yeah! I hope you won’t limit yourself ❤️
Gen (she/her): thank you so much for writing this book and sharing with us! Excited for whatever you choose to write next ❤️
Nico (they/them): And I hope that like, achieving something people really enjoyed with this book won’t be something that makes you feel restricted.
Gen (she/her): ^^^^^
Nico (they/them): Thank you so much @Mac Crane they/them for being here and for chatting with all of us!
Mac Crane (they/them): ugh thank you so much for reading it
and thank you everyone for sharing this space with me and for being the absolute best to chat with
I’m so grateful for you all
and thank you @Nico (they/them) for inviting me and facilitating this
this has been a really sweet start to my week
Gen (she/her): So grateful to you and also to Nico for all their work putting these together ❤️
Mac Crane (they/them): I’m excited to come to the next one!
Thanks for posting these transcripts! I didn’t get my act together in time for this but devoured the book in two evenings earlier this week and have been recommending it to other writer friends. I was struck by what a strong, clear, specific voice Kris has, that really grounds the book. Thanks for organizing this Nico!
Thank you so much for letting me know that the transcript was helpful to you!! :) Next couple of book club announcements will have more lead time, too :)