The Lounge Chair Interview: 10 Questions with Jon Gresham

By Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé

Let’s get down to brass tacks. Why do you write?

I find writing quite a painful, difficult experience but then there’s the exhilarating rush when things fall into place and something that never was comes into being.

I enjoy the delusions, and license to tell lies. There is a compulsion and a need to deceive myself in order to find deeper layers of truth. I try to rationalise the accident of being alive and end up questioning every sentence.

Tell us about your most recent book. What were you trying to say or achieve with it?

My debut collection of short stories, We Rose Up Slowly, was published by Math Paper Press in July.

The stories concern issues of escape and belonging in contemporary Singapore, Australia, and Jakarta. As worlds fall apart, each protagonist has to confront the gap between messy reality and romantic idealism. I wanted to explore loneliness, disorientation, the framing of narratives, the mishmash of race and identity, the significance of the past in an uncertain present, and the delusions and distractions that obscure meaning and self-awareness.