Q&A with the publisher. . .
Q: How did Wisefool Press come into being?
A: Jed wrote this up as a chapter we never published. The short version is that it was in 1999, in the parking lot of a gas station in Quincy, Illinois. We were both exhausted and hungry after a skydiving event where we’d been introduced and where he realized I was the publishing solution he’d asked the universe for. We spoke for an hour over soda and microwave burritos and came to a vague sort of agreement. I never really expected anything to come of it. When I received a first draft I responded that it was great but unreadable and unsalable. I thought it would end there but it didn’t and here we are.
Q: What was wrong with it?
A: It was basically a barebones version of Damnedest. Forty pages, single-spaced, very dry. I doubt he meant that to be the actual book, more like a proposal or a proof.
Q: Why after a decade of involvement with Jed’s books did you decide to put up a site like this?
A: As an unintended consequence of protecting Jed’s privacy we created a bit too much mystery around the books. There are reasonable privacy concerns, but beyond that it’s just a fairly normal publishing project. But more importantly this site lets us provide a sense of community by sharing reader response. Clearly there are a lot of people struggling with the books, and although I don’t think this site can provide any real answers, I do think people will be comforted to know others are wrestling with these matters and to see some examples of what that can look like.
Q: You suggested that I “just grab a bunch of emails and put them up”.
A: It seems best to just post a sampling of recent reader material as it was received, without a lot of selectivity or cleaning up. We have no way to judge the merit of one person’s experience over another’s, all we can do is a small, indiscriminate file dump.
Q: Why no Q&A with Jed for the third book like the first two?
A: We tried. We went back and forth during the editing of book three, but we just couldn’t come up with anything of substance, which really underscored for us Jed’s assertion that he was done, that there were no questions left unanswered.
Q: Are the books fiction or non-fiction?
A: I asked him, but he couldn’t decide between both and neither.
Q: You had plenty of author endorsements for the first book and none for the third. What changed?
A: As a startup micropublisher with a no-name author, no experience and no resources, we thought that getting blurbs from other authors was the best way to get things rolling. I know there was some criticism of using a dozen or so pages of the first book for blurbs, but I look back on that as a good beginning strategy. Yes, it was a little tacky and I was relieved to remove them from the second edition. We didn’t pursue blurbs or reviews later because Jed is very critical of his genre and, frankly, I think he clearly transcends it, so author praise would be inappropriate.
Q: In going through the email archives, I’ve seen a lot of questions for Jed and a lot of frustration about not getting a response.
A: I can’t speak for Jed, but I can let him speak for himself. He says at the end of Warfare, “I’d be doing you a disservice by staying available to you… It’s a solo thing. If a drowning person grabs onto me, I do them the kindness of kicking them in the face.” I know people think they need more from him, but Jed says the books are a complete expression and that there’s nothing else to say. And maybe he does respond to some people, I don’t know.
Q: I’ve written to Jed asking him to participate here. Do you think he’ll respond?
A: I don’t have a red phone on my desk, and as of now I haven’t heard from him in more than two years. My guess is that if he became aware of an issue he felt was not adequately covered in the books, that we’d hear from him. I take him at his word; he said he’s done and I believe it. I hope I’m wrong.
