Alexander Steele serves as the dean of faculty of Gotham Writers’ Workshop, a creative writing school that offers classes in New York City City, as well as online, to some 6,000 students each year.

Steele is also the editor of a series of books being created by Gotham Writers' Workshop. Fiction Gallery (Bloomsbury USA 2004), due out this month, is an anthology of short stories by such masters as Raymond Carver, Dorothy Parker, T.C. Boyle, Jhumpa Lahiri, and ZZ Packer.

The first GWW book, Writing Fiction, (Bloomsbury USA 2003), is a guide to the craft of fiction writing, now in its third printing. With chapters about different aspects of the craft of writing fiction by top quality writers, Steele’s contribution is entitled “Fiction: The What, How and Why of It.”

Born and raised in Dallas, Texas, Steele graduated from Vanderbilt University with a B.A. in Drama and English. Soon after, he moved to New York City to pursue a career in acting, then eventually drifted into writing.

Steele has written numerous plays which have been produced throughout the country, including One Glorious Afternoon and Lightening and Frenzy. He has also written screenplays, articles for several publications, and books for such popular children’s series as Wishbone and The Hardy Boys.

Derek Alger: Gotham Writers’ Workshop has just come out with Fiction Gallery of which you are co-editor. Why do you think it is such a unique anthology of short fiction?

Alexander Steele: That’s the first question we had to address with this book. There are so many short-story-anthologies out there. Why this one? Well, I’ll try to answer without sounding too much like a proud father.

DA: There’s nothing wrong with proud fathers.

AS: I view this book as a prism, with several distinctive angles. Which angle you see will depend on how you look at the book, and, of course, you’re free to view the book from numerous angles. First, the book is a great read, with accessible stories that grab you on the first page and pull you through to the end with strong momentum.

Much of contemporary short fiction seems designed for an elite audience -- the fiction writer or the connoisseur -- but these stories, I believe, will have a broader appeal. At the same time, these stories exemplify the best in literary fiction.

DA: Not to sound too much like a proud father, but as a writer and reader of fiction, that’s how I found the stories in Fiction Gallery.

AS: If you’re interested in learning about fiction craft, everything you could want to study is in these pages. The book isn’t a teaching guide per se, but I can’t think of a better book to hold up to the light if you’re hoping to learn how great works of fiction are constructed. For example, every type of literary point of view is represented, even the obscure ones.

DA: How did you decide which order to place the stories?

AS: The stories are placed in groups that deal with aspects of life -- like youth, romance, family, etc. This lets the stories reflect off each other in interesting ways, and the whole book is arranged in such a manner that, if you read straight through, you’ll feel a progressive flow, rather like the progression of a novel. There’s a blend of serious and humorous stories, with some teetering in between, and this gives the book a dazzling variety of emotional colors.

DA: You have an interesting mix of writers in Fiction Gallery? How did you go about the selection process?

AS: Oh, yes, interesting mix. There’s ZZ Packer rubbing elbows with Anton Chekov, and they’re both looking over at Peter Marcus, wondering who the hell he is. Most of the writers are hotshots, either the current crop or from days past, but there are a few wild cards hanging around. At a good party, you want the guests to mingle well but also be a little surprised by some of those invited.

Which brings me to the selection process. We decided that most of the stories would be by Americans and fairly contemporary (post 1970), with a few exceptions sprinkled in -- older and foreign works. We also steered away (mostly) from those stories that appear repeatedly in anthologies. Then we also tried to find stories that worked (individually, and as a whole) with all those angles I just went on about. So we had a few guidelines in place, which gave some focus to our selection process.

DA: Sounds like an awesome undertaking.

AS: There were a limitless number of stories to sift through. The sifting was done by me and my co-editor -- Thom Didato, who’s the editor of failbetter, a great online literary magazine, and also a Gotham teacher. And we had a secret weapon -- an amazing assistant, Danny Goodman, who did a tremendous amount of work.

DA: How did you eventually narrow down the field?

AS: Each of us sifted through piles of stories, then every week we would meet and discuss our findings. If all three of us (or a passionate majority) really liked something, then we would give the story to an assortment of people, who were not hard-core fiction types, to read. It was important that most of these folks love the stories. It’s not that we wanted stories amiable enough to make everyone comfortable. It’s more that we wanted to avoid stories that the general reader would have a tough time getting through. That may sound like an obvious point, but a lot of contemporary fiction (forgive me) is “tough to get through.”

DA: How did you come up with the name Fiction Gallery?

AS: Fiction Gallery seemed like a cool name, mixing, as it does, a sense of the written and the visual. And I think we’ve arranged the stories in a way that is somewhat “gallery-like”. I go on a bit more about the title in the book’s introduction, if anyone is keenly interested.

DA: You also have interviews with three of the writers who contribute stories to Fiction Gallery within the same book. What was your thinking when you came up with that idea?

AS: We didn’t want to interrupt the spell of the storytelling with anything academic, like study questions or analyses of stories. But the interviews seemed like a great way to go “behind the scenes” without getting too scholarly about it. We interviewed three authors -- T.C. Boyle, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Hannah Tinti. Three very different writers at differing stages in their careers, and they each gave us wonderful stuff. Interviewing these brilliant writers was one of the real pleasures of the process. T.C. lets me call him “Tom” now, and I’m very excited about that. Usually the step-up is going from name to nickname, but it works in reverse with him.

DA: You recently were also the editor and one of the contributors to Gotham Writers’ Workshop Writing Fiction. How did that come about?

AS: Here at Gotham, we thought, “Hey, we do all these fiction classes pretty well, why not put some of our teaching in a book?” Each chapter is written by a different one of our fiction teachers, all of whom are accomplished fiction writers in their own right. Like our classes, we tried to make the book clear, practical, and entertaining. People seem to like the book, and so we’ll be doing some more of them, on other types of writing.

DA: Could you elaborate a bit on you statement that “In a way fiction is firm affirmation that We Are Not Alone?”

AS: That comes from Writing Fiction’s first chapter, which I wrote. The great thing about literary fiction, when it’s done well, is that it gives you a secret peek into the lives of other people. Their lives may be quite different from yours, but you see they have the same kind of ups and downs, fears and desires. I’m not filthy rich like Jay Gatsby but you know I’ve had problems similar to his (troubled relationships, questioned credentials, shady bootlegging partners). There’s a story in Fiction Gallery, “Whoever Was Using this Bed” by Raymond Carver. Pretty much the whole story is this guy and his wife talking in bed. You, the reader, feel like you’re standing outside the window peering in through the blinds. They’re having a conversation that’s rather absurd, but you realize it’s no more absurd than conversations you may have had. And, yet, by watching someone else in the situation you see it in a more universal way.

DA: I see you stress the idea of community among writers, that writers shouldn’t work in a vacuum. Is that one of the main reasons you got involved with Gotham Writers’ Workshop?

AS: Well, on a personal level, that’s part of why I got involved. I had been making my living just writing away in my apartment and I was finding the life a bit lonely. So I began teaching some classes for Gotham as a way of sharing my writing life with others. Then I received the opportunity to become the dean of faculty, and I liked the idea of actually mingling with other people while I worked. When I started the job, I wasn’t used to working in an office, so I’d go to work, socialize with everyone, then go home to do most of my business. Now I’ve actually learned to work in the office environment and I’ve even mastered the postage machine.

But, yes, I do think a sense of community is one of the valuable things our classes offer. You can learn plenty about craft by reading books and you can usually coax someone you know to give you feedback on your work. But it helps to be around other writers, to have people with whom you can share the euphoria, puzzlement, and hardships. It’s helpful socially and artistically, and, best of all, the group serves as a spur to keep you going. Frequently students in our classes will form writing groups, and sometimes these groups stick together for years.

Nowadays over half our classes are taught online and we’ve tried to design the online classes so they foster a sense of community, in much the way that a live class does. We’ve tried to make these online classes a haven for someone who is, say, out in the middle of Wyoming or stationed at a military base in Guam, or even a harried parent or professional in a big city who would have trouble meeting in person on a regular basis.

DA: How long have you been the Dean of Faculty at GWW?

AS: I’ve been the dean at Gotham for almost four years now. It’s a big ship to steer and it certainly keeps me busy, but I’m lucky to have the job.

DA: Plus, you know how to use the postage machine.

AS: The GWW office staff has become family to me, the students are endlessly fascinating, and it’s a real pleasure working with our terrifically talented corps of teachers. And with our online program, we have teachers and students located all over the globe, so that plays well into my Napoleon complex, which I shouldn’t have because I’m not short.

DA: GWW provides workshops in many specialties, I see, from literary fiction writing to mystery and romance writing, and from non-fiction writing to comedy writing.

AS: We cover pretty much all types of creative writing. I love walking down the hallways when I’m visiting one of our New York City locations. In one room I’ll see an aspiring standup comic trying out material on the class, in another room I’ll see an aspiring memoirist listening to feedback on a memoir about her checkered past, and in another room I’ll see the group intently watching a screen as the teacher analyzes a movie. Gotham has enough variety -- among topics, teachers, and students -- to ensure that it’s never a dull place. Exhausting, yes. Dull, never.

DA: You obviously thought dramatically in order to write plays?

AS: I began my writing career as a playwright. Since it’s not the best career in which to make a living (understatement of the century), I moved into other fields, but I think it was a great place to start.

DA: Why so?

AS: First, it’s simple enough to get going. Writing bad plays is, I think, about the easiest thing to write. You just put down a bunch of dialogue without worrying about the “visual element” or the “interior thought” or without even having to write that many words. But to write a really good play, that’s maybe the hardest thing to pull off in the writing arena. It’s just so easy for people to get bored or distracted while watching a play. With works of prose, most readers will give you some leeway, and with works for the screen, you’ve got those flashing images to catch your attention. With theatre, there’s no safety net. The audience is either riveted every moment, or you’ve lost them. It’s the most unforgiving way to tell a story. And if you can pull it off, ah, then you’ve really done something.

I suppose my experience in the theatre has given me a low tolerance for any kind of storytelling that is more concerned with its own glorification than holding an audience in thrall, be it a viewing or reading audience. And when I hear feedback on Fiction Gallery, the comments I most desire will be something like: “Wow, I’ve never been so sucked in by a short story!”