Interview: Max Rauhman
On lizards, returning to fiction, and cultivating compassion for ourselves and others
Welcome back to another Wizard of Claws interview!
As soon as I read “Little Lizards,” I knew I had to talk to Max Rauhman. In fact, he was the very first person I emailed with an interview request. Max is an author based in New Orleans, and though he primarily writes fiction, he masterfully tackles creative nonfiction in “Little Lizards.” Bringing us into a moment from his childhood, little Maxy learns to see the creatures around him with new eyes. You can read it here, available for free on the Literary Veganism website.
This story is four paragraphs long; there’s gonna be spoilers!
General Questions
Can you share a little bit about your background, including how you came to care about animals and creative writing?
These loves go so far back I really don’t know. A few years ago, my mom mentioned that she used to call my older brother “face” because he had “the most beautiful face she’d ever seen,” right from the moment she first saw him. I playfully asked “Did you have a nickname for me?” She thought for a moment, and then said “Worm.”
I….was altogether unprepared for this turn in the conversation. Obviously, after both laughing and wondering how ugly of a baby I could have been, I asked her why. She told me that when I was a tiny baby, I was a very active wriggler, always scooting around in my crib. She said the name stuck later because I always had my nose in a book—a “bookworm.” She said as soon as I learned to read on my own, she’d find me in my bed before bedtime, and she’d tell me it was time to turn out the light, and no matter what, I’d say “can I read one more page, mom?”
As for animals, this also goes all the way back. My family and friends’ pets always gravitated towards me, and when I think back, I know it’s because I always took a special interest in them. I remember the day we got a dachshund, we all played with him, but somehow or another, everyone else moved on to other things. I sat on the couch, playing with his smooth ruffled skin, smelling his puppy breath (one of the greatest scents in the whole world), and staring into his big brown eyes. I only wish that I’d had the cleverness at the time to say, “I shall call you ‘Face.’”
Many of us have childhood dreams of becoming a writer. At what point did you decide to actually go for it?
I remember writing stories as early as the second grade and sharing them with my friends. They were mostly designed to crack myself up and make my friends laugh. These often featured nonsense mayhem, like having my hang glider cut in half mid flight by a falling knife. I then graduated to Rugrats fanfiction that emphasized Reptar, an underutilized character in my young opinion. Having cut my teeth on cartoon screenplays, my next move was, obviously, a morality tale called “War is Hell,” a third grader’s contemplation on the horrors of war.
I have no idea why nine year old me felt the need to make a literary statement towards peace, but I guess harm-reduction has always been on my mind—and it’s also been an internal struggle throughout my life, as I was raised in a very masculine environment. Although “Little Lizards” zooms in on the tender element my mother added to my home life, I also grew up with two brothers and my father, and I went to an all-boys private Catholic school from fifth grade until I graduated from high school. So, I’ll pretty much be in therapy for the rest of my life.
Anyway, I’m currently going through a lot of soul searching on the connection between masculinity and violence, as my wife and I just found out we’ll be having a boy. I think I’d hoped I’d have a girl, and be spared the challenge of reconfiguring my upbringing, and cultivating a more positive, wholesome, and gentle path for a male-bodied child. But, life imitates art, and the literary version of my life requires me to face these deeply buried and avoided concerns.
Anyway, at some point, I “grew up.” I think the reasons for this have to do with my own self-perception and notions of masculinity as I went through puberty, and then on to college where I employed a more practical approach to finding a career that I believed would make a difference and be fulfilling. It wasn’t until after I became a lawyer that I had a story idea and scribbled it down. Then I realized that I hadn’t written fiction in over fifteen years, and I hadn’t read for fun in nearly ten. So, I threw myself into fiction as a reader and a writer, and have been making up for lost time ever since.
As an adult, I think my goals with writing are the same that they were when I was a child. First and foremost, I’m in it for my own self-amusement. Once I come up with something that either causes me to grow, or makes me laugh, then I send it to some folks I trust and workshop it with them. I repeat this step a few times until I’ve either scuttled the project or come to believe in it.
What role can the arts play in changing how people think about animals?
I honestly haven’t thought of it head-on until you asked this question; but immediately the first thing that came to mind was the tragedy of Boxer from Animal Farm. His betrayal, his desperation, my fear and hope, stemming all the way back to the sixth grade when I first encountered it, came right back to me as if I’m just now experiencing it for the first time. I remain traumatized by that scene.
Fiction has a way of allowing for empathy on a heightened level. Sinking into a book and allowing your mind to construct the realities of a story somehow makes them real to you, and allows you to have important experiences that you may not (and often hopefully won’t) have in real life.
So, I think portraying animals in a way that honors them as individuals, and exposes the cruelties they’re often subjected to, can change people’s mindsets about them.
I do think that empathy needs to be applied towards other humans that may not agree with you, just the same as it needs to be applied to animal life. We live in a meat-centric world, and no one likes to be made to feel like they are a bad person. Compassion is self-perpetuating, so, in my better moments, I lead with that. And out of compassion for myself, I’ll withhold a narration of my thought process in my lesser moments.
Any advice for aspiring authors to improve their craft, especially as it pertains to writing about animals?
My best advice about improving your craft is to maintain your connection to a creative space over time. This means talking to other writers about writing, reading, reading about writing, taking writers workshops, or attending writing events in your town, or over the internet. Ever since I’ve cultivated a community around writing, and daily habits that keep me checking in to my writerly space, I’ve been writing more, and improving in my abilities. A shortcut for me is listening to podcasts about writing during my daily commute. There are tons of great podcasts out there, and this allows me to stay in that headspace without rearranging my whole day. After all, I can’t always talk to someone about writing, and there are a million books on my TBR list.
As far as writing about animals specifically, I think that if you’re always thinking about writing, and always writing, you’ll get better at it over time. You’ll also probably be writing—and reading—about what you care about. So, if that’s animal welfare, then you can apply your improved and improving skill set towards this important topic. And similarly with developing a community around fiction, if you are able to incorporate nature and nature-lovers into your daily life, you’ll have a richer understanding of animal life to apply to your writing.
Do you plot out your stories beforehand, or do you prefer to start writing and see where the story takes you?
I am always trying to find the balance here. For my first few novel attempts, I outlined immensely. Then I realized that I was both bored with the story because I already knew it, and also that I didn’t have the craft skills to actually write it. So, I abandoned the novel format, and began writing short stories with no plan whatsoever. I think this really helped me learn some craft elements, and how to intuit story rhythms. It also helped me to understand how important revision is to my process, which I’d never gotten to on stories I was abandoning early.
This past summer, I decided to return to novel writing, which I think is my truest calling as an author, and I just set up shop and wrote. I use a pen and paper to write, and I now have over four hundred pages in a swollen binder—the furthest I’ve ever gotten in a single story, by far. Although writing this novel has been so rewarding for so many reasons, I see now that revising this novel is going to be exponentially more challenging than my short stories. I don’t think I will purely draft a novel without any outline or any characters developed in the future, but I’m glad I did it this time. I’ll probably finish the story by February 2025.1 Although I will have more work cut out for me both transcribing and revising this story, when I finish the first draft, something new will be true about myself that I’ve always wanted to be true: I’ll have written a novel.
Also, now that I’ve gotten so far, and the end is in sight, I can feel that the mystique and intimidation of writing a novel has been dispelled. Whether I publish this novel or not, I will absolutely write another one.
Story Questions
Decades after this experience with the lizards, why did you want to share this story?
I wrote this story while experimenting with flash as a story length.2 I quickly found that flash is not for me, because both as a reader and as a writer, I need a long runway to sink into the story. With flash, I struggle to move into that zone of consciousness where you’re experiencing the story, rather than just reading it. So, this remains one of only a handful of stories that I wrote in flash format.
At the same time, I was experimenting with memories, so all of my flash pieces, both fiction and creative nonfiction, have some very firm tie to a lived experience. As for “Little Lizards” specifically, I have always thought of that almost like a mythic origin story of mine. “The day I learned empathy.” It obviously wasn’t a once and done transformation. There were setbacks and new lessons to learn; but I think that was the first moment I remembered thinking of living beings that weren’t other humans or family pets as beings that have their own experiences and feelings. So, when I started trying to write short pieces using my memories, this was an easy choice. Of the several flash pieces I’ve written, this is the only one that I’ve really loved and insisted on publishing, despite an enormous amount of rejections.
How did you channel the younger version of yourself while writing? Did you alter your typical writing style so a younger voice would come through?
“Little Lizards” is a story about learning empathy. Ironically, I think empathy is what allowed me to write this story. I had to have empathy for little Maxy. Feel his feelings, recognize them as real and important, rather than as small and old news. The younger voice came through in the writing once I had centered myself properly on the experience I was trying to convey.
I have always been a sensitive person. So the events of this story unleashed a torrent of emotions for my small frame. When I wrote “Little Lizards,” I thought about what I was going through. First, eagerness and sport. The Lizard ran within reach, and I wanted to catch it. Then, there was the exertion and challenge. Then the rush of victory.
But, that rush was immediately followed by reprimand, something I always hated the most. And reprimand was followed by repugnance towards myself, when I inevitably saw myself as a monster from the lizard’s eyes. Finally, my mother guided me back towards self-forgiveness and normalcy. All this happened in about two minutes. It was a lot!
Writing this story forced me to think about myself and my past with the same compassion I try to have for other living things. It’s easy to leave yourself off of the list of beings you should have compassion for. But, we do deserve to practice grace and forgiveness towards ourselves, too.
I’m one of those weird people who enjoys—or, perhaps I should say, appreciates—depictions of animal abuse in stories, but it seems many writers and readers shy away from it. Why did you decide to include the “blood and guts”? Did you consider toning it down so it would be more palatable to readers?
I included the blood and guts in this story because I’m pretty sure those were the exact words a different child used when he’d stomped a lizard. As far as toning it down for the reader goes, I don’t think I felt the need to spare anyone. I would never have written a scene where gore or animal abuse was happening just for the sake of it. In this case, I felt like the graphic nature of the scene added a high degree of dissonance with what was happening moments before. There’s a boy, being playful and cute, and then causing carnage. It was shocking to my mother to experience that at all—much less in a context of playful innocence. When she communicated that to me, I was able to understand her experience of it, and felt disturbed by it. I guess that’s another layer of empathy in this story. And, of course, it was a goal of mine to convey and transfer that to you, the reader. So, hopefully you can empathize with me empathizing with my mother empathizing with the lizard?
In any case, it was the “blood and guts” that turned my experience. It was the goal, and then it was the offense. It was an awesome thing, and then it was a terrible thing. But the “blood and guts” remained the same. I was just seeing it differently through the lens of my changing world view.
Did this childhood experience have a lasting impact on how you view animals, or have you only reflected back on it more recently?
Absolutely. Like I said earlier, it was not a linear, consistent thing, but I do think it was foundational. I think these lessons had to be retaught and reincorporated throughout my life, as I tried to juxtapose my internal world with my own changing masculinity, and with the changing models around me.
Ultimately, it was always very easy and natural for me to love my pets, and other people’s pets; but I think empathizing with the lizard is what led me to make it a point to attempt to remove bugs from my house alive, rather than killing them.
Also, maybe this is another literary irony of my life, but I adopted a puppy shortly after I wrote this story, and she immediately took to hunting lizards for sport. I’d hold her by her leash, and she’d sprint off without warning and maul a lizard—she wouldn’t even eat it! We called her Lizard Bane. Anyway, I went to great lengths to correct this behavior—but I still need to keep an eye on her during our walks. Although this put me in my mother’s shoes, I don’t think my sweet Aurelia has quite walked a mile in mine. I’ve found it very difficult to train a dog in the arts of empathy. “No!” and a tug on her leash is probably as far as we will get.
Anyway, at some point, I had to ask myself: if you are ferrying wasps out of your home in tupperware containers, and going to great lengths to stop a dog from hunting lizards, why on Earth are you eating cows? So, I think my transition towards vegetarianism is an extension both on the experience of young Maxy, but also on my experience in writing this story and thinking more carefully about these issues.
How do you approach writing creative nonfiction versus fiction?
Creative Nonfiction is a scarier project for me than fiction. I think it’s hard for me to strike a balance between honoring the truth, and honoring the story. This one was especially challenging, because it was a memory from about 25 years before I wrote it down. Even though parts of my memory are quite vivid, other parts are a haze. For instance, letting go of mom’s hand and leaping towards the lizard is very vivid. I can also hear her saying “How would you like it?!” in my head even still. I also do literally remember watching in my mind as a giant’s foot came plunging down towards me.
Filling in the blanks around this story from there took some doing. I remember mom explaining it to me in a narrative way, but I can’t remember her other words, and I remember my sadness and sense of loss including Danielle, a childhood friend of mine. The only part of the story that’s a complete guess is what I was doing before I let go of my mother’s hand. The skipping over cracks. That was really just an imputed portion of my childhood (and…I imagine most people’s childhoods) that I workshopped with a friend of mine to create a satisfying and relatable lead in. My memory starts with me letting go of a hand. The story initially started like that, and it didn’t work as a story. There was no context, and without context, it was not possible to empathize with little Maxy.
I also recently wrote a story about a true thing that had happened eight months prior, and I felt a lot of angst about telling the story in the proper chronology and with the exactly accurate events, many of which were at odds with a good flow to a story. Often cumbersome and unnecessary. In creative nonfiction, you do have to honor the factual truths of the story, but remember that it is not journalism, and it’s not an activity log. This is maybe a dangerous gray area when it comes to determining how real a story has to be before it is called nonfiction rather than fiction.
In the meantime, we are storytellers as a species, and even though Creative Nonfiction is a relatively new genre, it was probably the original form of storytelling. I think that’s what makes it easier to write CNF for storytelling events, rather than for a print magazine or book—at least, for me!
When did you decide the story was ready to go out on submission, and why did you query Literary Veganism?
I’ve been trying to get this story published for about four years. I have tinkered with it here and there, but it has remained pretty similar in form to what was ultimately printed. “Little Lizards” was rejected 46 times before it was accepted. I tend to put effort into getting my work published in fits and starts, so every now and again I’d send it out in batches.
One piece of advice I’ve heard a number of times is to look for journals that are aligned with your submission, and that’s clearly the case here. I found it very hard to sift through the flash publications—especially because it is not a style of writing that I write or read very often. So, it was not an efficient or targeted submission process. But then, I found a publication devoted to animal welfare, and that was specifically looking for work that honored the significance of animal life, and the individuation of non-human species.
When I look at my other publications, it’s pretty clear that the better job I’ve done of locating publications that matched the style and content, the faster I’ve gotten published.
Final Questions
How can readers find you and your stories online?
As far as free online stories go, I have a comedy about generative AI called “Allow Me To Introduce Myself.”
I also have a fantasy piece called “The Spider and the Muffins” forthcoming in Illustrated Worlds Magazine this Spring (Issue 9), which I’m very excited about. Illustrated Worlds Magazine is a relatively new publication, but the editor has put forth a beautiful product, and has attracted some authors that I’m thrilled to be published alongside. The issues are available for purchase in print or digital format.
I also have a different comedy called “Happy Face delights” published in print only at Eggplant Emoji Lit. I’m deeply proud and also deeply ashamed of this story. It’s rife with potty humor and is totally absurd. It’s the silliest thing I have ever written, but, as the name of the publication suggests, it found a suitable home.
Finally, I have a few other stories that I’m hoping to find a home for in the near future, including “The Melancholy of the Time Traveling Potato Farmer” which was recently a finalist in the Patty Friedmann Writing Competition.
Any upcoming projects?
Sure! I have a few things in the works right now. First and foremost, I am several hundred pages into my first novel. Its working title is “Strangers,” and it’s a zombie novel. With my first goal in writing being self-amusement, a zombie novel was no-brainer (pardon the pun). I have Kinemortaphobia, so I have been sending myself through a months-long exposure therapy cycle.
It’s been quite a trip, because I’ve never written anything even close to this violent before. Part of my challenge is writing a story that honors the genre, while still portraying violence in a manner that is in keeping with my values and sensibilities. And if I fail, I’ll shelf the book. Either way, I can tell that I am already less afraid of zombies. So, there’s that.
I am also trying to organize my short stories into a short story collection. This will include one major revision of an existing short story, and drafting a couple of pieces that I think would round out my existing body of fiction.
Finally, in December, I was invited to tell a true story at a story-telling event at the BK Historic House and Gardens museum in New Orleans. That story will be published and archived with the museum, but I have since expanded on it, and hope to tell it at a few more story-telling events over the next few months.
Anything else you’d like to share?
For the writers out there, I’d say keep writing. And if you have an opportunity to participate or contribute to the local writing scene, do it. It’ll make you a better writer, and probably help you find joy and community along the way. A great place to start is Shut Up & Write. If there’s a chapter near you, drop in. If not, they’re designed to be very easy to start.
Also, for the humans out there, the more time I spend in real life getting to know people, the more convinced I am that people are inherently good and interested in making a positive impact on the world. It’s easy to arrive at the opposite conclusion when reading the news, or spending too much time on the internet.
In the meantime, I mean it when I say that I’d love to hear from you via email at Max.Rauhman@gmail.com.
As Max was answering the above questions, the January 1st terror attack brought a devastating act of violence to his hometown. He shares his thoughts below.
Postscript
January 2nd, 2025, at around 6:30 AM.
I had drafted all of my responses to your interview, and revised them a few times over the holiday. I opened the document this morning with the intention of skimming it once more and hitting submit, when the last paragraph—the one about people being inherently good sent chills down my spine. And here’s why:
At 7:12 AM yesterday, almost exactly twenty four hours ago, I woke up on New Years Day, and checked my phone to see what time it was. I had a text message from the City of New Orleans that read:
“There has been a mass casualty incident on Canal and Bourbon Street. Get yourself away from the area.”
I shot out of bed, instantly covered in cold sweat and with tears in my eyes. My commotion woke up my wife, and we both proceeded in panic to figure out what had happened. At the time, the only information we had was that the driver of a pickup truck drove down Bourbon Street with the clear intention of killing and harming as many people as he could. The driver wrecked the car, then was killed in a shootout with the police. At the time, the death toll was at ten. Since then, it has risen to fifteen, with dozens more injured.
So, people are “inherently good,” huh? My first thoughts of the New Year were of terror and murder. I spent the first five waking hours of the year trying to find out if any of my friends, loved ones, or colleagues were killed or injured. But, although my heart is heavy, my thoughts on inherent human goodness remain unchanged.
When I wrote “It’s easy to arrive at the opposite conclusion when reading the news, or spending too much time on the internet,” I was thinking about the harms that the ultra rich cause by ransacking our institutions and environment. I was thinking broadly, vaguely, about the violent minority and about those who have prejudicial hate in their hearts. But I was also thinking about the hundreds of people who call my law firm each year, needing legal help but refusing to cause someone else harm, even to their own detriment. I was thinking about the folks that I’ve planted trees with, and met at neighborhood organization events. I was thinking about the poets and storytellers at the literary events and meetups. The random kind stranger or acquaintances I see every day as I move through life riding the bus, buying a coffee, and walking my dogs in the neighborhood. Those people who want to help, who want to make others smile or feel seen.
But this morning, my thoughts are more focused. In the 24 hours after an attack on my city, I’ve checked in on everyone, and they’ve checked in on me. Blood drives have already been organized, and In Memoriams are being written and circulated. It’s too soon right now for the expressions of art that will inevitably come, by mural and by poem. It’s too soon even for the mournful/celebratory second line marches, because our focus will be on rooting for the injured to pull through. We have a tireless mechanism in this city of coming together in the face of tragedy. We mourn openly and celebrate heartily.
Living in this city means living under threat. Storms strike us because of our location. Infectious diseases strike us because of our ports and tourism. We’re targeted in hateful acts because our city is emblematic of lifestyles or activities that some find offensive. But we so love this city and we so love each other. So, we continue to show up, for the City, and for our neighbors.
New Orleans has been burned to the ground (twice), flooded innumerably, conquered in war, attacked for ideological reasons, and has served as ground zero or a hot spot for multiple plagues, epidemics, and pandemics. But the power of our empathy, and the strength of our community has never failed us. We have always rebuilt ourselves stronger to honor the lives and memories of our neighbors, and worn our new scars like tattoos.
That’s why I was not tempted to change that paragraph. That’s why I know that our future here will be bright and loving, and that no wicked act could ever dim our vibrance.
We’re still here, y’all.
-Maxy
Read More
Update: Max has completed his manuscript!
Flash = stories under 1,000 words