Meet the Authors: Chris Huntington

Welcome back to our special Q&A series with Old Iron Press authors.

‍We are thrilled to present Playing Authors contributor, Chris Huntington.

Chris Huntington’s book, Mike Tyson Slept Here, won the Fabri Literary Prize and was described as “a throttlingly beautiful little novel” (Tom Bissell). His non-fiction has been featured in The New York Times Modern Love column as well as The Millions, The Rumpus, and numerous anthologies. His prose poetry has appeared in RATTLE, Frontera, River Teeth, Singapore Poetry, Peatsmoke, The Museum of Americana, and elsewhere. Links and more information can be found at chrishuntingtononline.com.

Welcome Chris!

Q.01:

Favorite word / font / letter?

Chris: ‍

I think Garamond makes everything vaguely poetic, though I know I’m not the only writer who fantasized that this typeface would change my writing into poetry. Before I have my first beer, I recognize that Garamond is not that powerful and that its italics is inelegant at best.

I have a weakness for any typeface that makes a lowercase g look like a pair of eyeglasses.

I never use it, but I have a tender feeling for comic sans because I once had a student who insisted on using it. She felt sorry for it. I used to tease her for it with an old dad joke: “Mehak and comic sans walk into a bar. ‘Hey, hey, hey,’ the bartender says, ‘get out. We don’t serve your type here.’”

But my favorite book has no typeface, or technically it does on opposite pages, a bare sans serif that paraphrases Emily Dickinson’s envelope poems. The Gorgeous Nothings. I love seeing her pencil-tip lettering .  .  . rubbed into torn pieces of paper like so many tattered ribbons . . . all of her delicate thoughts like pale flowers and thin leaves she once pressed into a book.

Thank you so much, Chris!

We love what you make, and we’re so excited to publish your work.

Read Chris Huntington's book Mike Tyson Slept Here (Boaz Publishing), and make sure to check out Chris's The World of Tomorrow, the inaugural poem featured at Tomorrow Bookstore. Follow @cbh1000words and discover more at chrishuntingtononline.com.

This fall, you can find an excerpt from Chris Huntington's My Best Acquaintances in Old Iron Press’s anthology, Playing Authors!

Continue to follow along all summer with Gutenborg, our favorite one-wheel wonderer, as we roadtrip to meet Old Iron Press authors near and far. Look for Playing Authors, coming out fall 2023.

Next up, tova greene!