Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Dictionary Stories
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.jezburrows.com/
CITY: San Francisco
STATE: CA
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: British
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Male.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, designer, and illustrator. Designer of record covers and other forms of commercial art. Previously worked for Facebook and publications, including McSweeney’s.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Jez Burrows is a British writer, illustrator, and designer currently based in San Francisco, California. He has worked for companies such as Facebook and publications that include McSweeney’s.
Burrows’s book Dictionary Stories: Short Fictions and Other Findings is a “collection of found sentences repurposed as genre-blending stories ranging from lists to flash fiction to longer prose stories,” noted Adam Vitcavage on the Electric Lit website. The book started out as a zine that included stories “made up entirely of sample sentences pulled from the dictionary,” Vitcavage reported. Dictionary Stories grew from this zine to become a book-length collection put together from the same source.
“The stories feel oddly personal and resonate so beautifully because the concept is easy to explain,” commented Rebecca Fulleylove on the website It’s Nice That. The dictionary, Burrows notes, is familiar to most people, and those who have used a dictionary have seen the example sentences used to provide context for words defined in the book.
Burrows presents short, sometimes absurd, sometimes strangely meaningful stories in genres that range from science fiction to fantasy, crime noir to dystopian fiction. The stories he derives can take many forms, noted a Publishers Weekly writer: short flash fiction, eulogies, math problems, speeches, even recipes. Obscure words from the dictionary form the basis of sentences, which chain together to create narratives with unexpected depth and emotion. Throughout the book, the Publishers Weekly reviewer observed, “unlikely sentences generate even more unlikely narratives.”
To assemble the sentences into coherent stories, Burrows did establish some rules for himself, such as the ability to change pronouns and clear up grammar. However, the sentences that he links together, puzzle-like, to make the stories in his book are essentially the same as they were found in the dictionary pages.
In an interview with Lakshmi Singh on All Things Considered, on the National Public Radio website, Singh asked Burrows, “why did you decide to create these stories using . . . this mix, this mishmash of only pre-existing example sentences? Why not use one example sentence as a prompt, for example, and then just make up the rest?” In response, Burrows said, “I think I’m drawn by ideas that seem distinctly unlikely or foolhardy is probably the better word to use in this instance.”
The Publishers Weekly reviewer called Dictionary Stories a “joyful celebration of idiosyncrasy and invention.” A Kirkus Reviews writer remarked: “The stories are wickedly short but exquisitely rendered, accompanied by whimsical, minimalist illustrations by the author,” and called the book a “fabulist remix of the English language and a tribute to clever lexicographers.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2018, review of Dictionary Stories: Short Fictions and Other Findings.
Publishers Weekly, February 26, 2018, review of Dictionary Stories, p. 58.
ONLINE
Electric Lit, http://www.electricliterature.com/ (June 3, 2018), Adam Vitcavage, “Jez Burrows Finds All His Stories in the Dictionary,” interview with Jez Burrows.
It’s Nice That, http://www.itsnicethat.com/ (August 26, 2015), Rebecca Fulleylove, “Jez Burrows Creates Short Stories Composed Entirely of Example Sentences from the Dictionary,” review of Dictionary Stories.
Jez Burrows website, http://www.jezburrows.com (June 3, 2018).
National Public Radio website, http://www.npr.org/ (May 13, 2018), All Things Considered, Lakshmi Singh, “Dictionary Stories Fictionalizes Dictionary Example Sentences,” interview with Jez Burrows.
Jez Burrows is a British designer, illustrator, and writer, living in San Francisco. You can find him on Instagram and, regrettably, Twitter. He has an email address.
Currently:
— Dictionary Stories: Short Fictions and Other Findings, out now from Harper Perennial. Out May 17th in the UK from Harper 360.
Previously:
— 10 record covers for 10x17
— Work from the Facebook Analog Research Laboratory displayed at the Design Museum's California: Designing Freedom exhibition
— Style tips and gift advice for McSweeney's
— A ridiculous print for Secret Hitler
— An episode of the podcast Lecture in Progress
— Three years of work in a 10-second gif
— A distinctly adult playing card for Cards Against Humanity
Jez Burrows creates short stories composed entirely of example sentences from the dictionary
23
Words by Rebecca Fulleylove, Wednesday 26 August 2015
Designer and illustrator Jez Burrows’ latest project plays upon the lexical brilliance of the dictionary as he takes found sentences and builds stories out of them. “I just happened to be looking up some definitions in the dictionary when one of the example sentences really jumped out at me,” Jez explains. “It was for the word ‘study’, and the sentence read: ‘He perched on the edge of the bed, a study in confusion and misery.’ The language of dictionary definitions is all very plain and functional, so seeing this incredibly heavy and evocative sentence in amongst it all really struck me and seemed like the beginning of a short story.”
Jez decided to try and finish that story by using other example sentences. Since then he’s created a handful of ambiguously elegant vignettes that are now housed on their own website called Dictionary Stories. The unexpected pairings and collage of words feels almost poetic but there is a process behind each story. “Often I’ll find at least one [word] that makes a good jumping-off point and I’ll start to flesh out some sort of vague narrative, then work backwards to imagine what sort of words might give rise to the sentences I’m looking for,” explains Jez.
The stories feel oddly personal and resonate so beautifully because the concept is easy to explain. “Most people are familiar with the dictionary… so the stories feel accessible in a way that perhaps other short fiction might not,” says Jez. “Knowing the constraint behind it all means you can really see the guts of the thing on display.”
Collecting these sentences has become a slight addiction for the designer. “I have an enormous text file of hundreds of sentences that I think might go somewhere… I love seeing sentences which I swear can’t be used, then finding another that unlocks the potential for narrative. Although I’m not so sure I’ll ever be able to use ‘The country is heavily dependent on banana exports.’”
Jez Burrows Finds All His Stories in the Dictionary
The ‘Dictionary Stories’ author talks about turning sample sentences found in the dictionary into a short story collection
Underneath the definition for the word “burrows” in the dictionary is this sentence: “The little penguins dig out long burrows to use as nests.”
Purchase the novel
In 2015, Jez Burrows printed a zine collection of stories made up entirely of sample sentences pulled from the dictionary at his booth at the San Francisco Zine Fest. From there, his twelve-page zine evolved into Dictionary Stories, a collection of found sentences repurposed as genre-blending stories ranging from lists to flash fiction to longer prose stories.
I spoke with the author about his love of words and the challenges of creating new fiction made entirely from remixing and combining sentences.
Adam Vitcavage: What fascinates you about sample sentences from dictionaries?
Jez Burrows: I love language and I am fascinated by words in general. The most significant role dictionaries played in my life is a game my grandmother and I would play; we would pick a word and read the definition, then we would pick another word from the definition and continue that way. It was a glorified way to read the dictionary, really.
The idea [for the book] started one night when I had to look up a word’s definition and the sample sentence was so melodramatic that a light bulb went off. I had never paid attention to them before. I thought I could take advantage and play around with them.
AV: Did any of the early stories from the zine end up in this collection?
JB: A handful did, but the stories that made it through were richer and bolder because I edited them more closely. When I wrote those first stories, the method I had for sample sentences was looking through a print dictionary and trying to find sentences that would work.
AV: Why is the book organized into an alphabetical catalog?
JB: I wanted to pay homage to the source material and organizing it alphabetically seems like an obvious choice.
The New Oxford American Tells a Story — An Essay by Helen Betya Rubinstein
electricliterature.com
AV: When I’ve talked to writers of short story collections, they usually mention that finding the right sequence for their stories is so important because they need the first story to be compelling enough to make readers stay. Since this is a experimental collection, are there stories that stand out that you think will entice the reader to read the whole book?
JB: My book has a lot of different genres and form. Some stories are just prose and some are lists. One list, “Fifty More Ways to Leave Your Lover”, lends itself perfectly to sample sentences. Another short prose story called “A Walk” uses only sentences taken from the A section of the dictionary which adds another writing constraint. “Haunting the Docents” is about a heritage site where ghosts are hanging out with the tourists. If I had just tried to write that as a short story, I don’t know if the idea would come to me. That story came about purely because I found the right sentences.
The idea started one night when I had to look up a word’s definition and the sample sentence was so melodramatic that a light bulb went off.
AV: What was the most challenging part about the whole book?
JB: The alphabetical structure. When I started, my editor and I made a list of themes that would be great to cover in a story. The tricky part was trying to write to a theme with found content. There was a balancing act to make sure each letter has enough themes and that the themes felt varied but also complementary to each other. We wanted the stories to feel universal but also with a few red herrings and complete non-sequiturs added in just to be interesting.
AV: How long did you spend collecting the sentences on a story?
JB: It depends based on the form. Lists were more straightforward to put together. The fastest story was over the course of an afternoon where I got lucky and found the sentences I needed. There were a few stories I was chipping away at for many a fortnight. I knew I needed the perfect sentence to make it worth it, it was just a matter of finding it.
AV: Were you pouring over dictionaries before you went to bed at night?
JB: I ended up with a dozen dictionaries and digitized them to be searchable PDFs. A lot of the time was spent picking random pages and inputting interesting words to see if anything worked. The other half of the time was spent categorizing.
AV: What were the categories?
JB: I was using Scrivener to collect everything I was finding. I had a file for every dictionary I was doing and each dictionary had categories like: food, fitness, film, gardening. I had full sections that began with he and she as pronouns. Whenever I found something that fit into a category, I would drop it into a file just in case I ever needed it. Sometimes I would find a sentence that was so captivating, a sentence that I just had to use, that it become its own category.
Sometimes I would find a sentence that was so captivating, a sentence that I just had to use, that it become its own category.
AV: Out of all of this time looking in dictionaries, did you come across a word that is now your favorite?
JB: Yes. The word is “flocculent.” I don’t think I am ever going to have to use it, but it’s fascinating to say and means “having or resembling tufts of wool.”
AV: That’s a great word that I am sure you’ll use eventually. Your Instagram bio says that you’re an illustrator and a graphic designer. Then you say you’re a “writer (alleged).” Do you now feel like you’re a writer?
JB: Well, I honestly don’t know. When I tell people about the book, there are some who say that I am more of an editor than a writer. I guess you could make a case for that, but we’ll see. I am keeping that bio, it puts the emphasis on everyone else deciding if I am a writer or not.
'Dictionary Stories' Fictionalizes Dictionary Example Sentences
May 13, 20185:53 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
Look up any word in the dictionary, and there will be an example of that word in a sentence. Author Jez Burrows's book Dictionary Stories expands those sentences into works of fiction.
LAKSHMI SINGH, HOST:
Unless you're a kid in a spelling bee or a high school or cramming for the SATs, it might have been a while since you've paid much attention to those example sentences in the dictionary, you know, those simple, can-I-hear-it-in-a-sentence sentences like this one included as part of the definition of the word study. A study of a man devoured by awareness of his own mediocrity. Wait? What? Who is the man? What caused him to feel his own mediocrity so deeply to feel devoured by it? Well, now we get to find out. In his new book "Dictionary Stories: Short Fictions And Other Findings," author Jez Burrows expands those example sentences into 100 little works of literature. Jez Burrows joins me from KQED in San Francisco to share a few dictionary stories. Thanks for joining us.
JEZ BURROWS: Thanks so much for having me.
SINGH: We mentioned the word study which launched you onto this project. Is there another word that had a surprisingly imagination-provoking example that you can share with us?
BURROWS: Oh, there were lots, as you might imagine. I think one of my favorites came from the Macquarie Dictionary, which is actually a Australian. And the sentence was for the word admonish. And the sentence read, do not admonish little Stanislaus if he tears the heart out of a backyard sparrow - which is kind of a wild sentence to be in any book but particularly to be in the dictionary.
SINGH: And it feels a little intimidating.
BURROWS: It does.
SINGH: So give me another example.
BURROWS: I looked up the word gallon as a unit of measurement, and the example was gallons of fake blood, which is not my first liquid that I would go to if I was talking about a quantity of liquids. I don't know, that just seems more worrying.
SINGH: Gallon of water, gallon of milk.
BURROWS: Even - somehow even real blood is less creepy than fake blood. I don't know what it is about the fakeness that really set it off for me but...
SINGH: I'm just thinking about the person who actually comes up with the sentence, you know?
BURROWS: Yes.
SINGH: So let's turn to page 93. It's titled "A Very Good Boy." Why don't you go ahead and read it for me?
BURROWS: OK. Absolutely. (Reading) Does your dog do any tricks? He published his autobiography last autumn. Laura's (ph) brow wrinkled. I beg your pardon? He wrote a book on the history of Russian ballet, and he has a novel in the works too, a spy novel set in Berlin. He needed something to both challenge his skills and to regain his crown as king of the thriller. She looked down at the chocolate-colored labrador and gave David (ph) a look of complete incomprehension. He's the strong silent type. The dog licked its paw. Down, boy, down.
SINGH: All right. So I'm looking at this and reading this and I'm thinking, what the? (Laughter).
BURROWS: That is a fair comment.
(LAUGHTER)
SINGH: I mean, when you read the story, when you see what you have actually created, what's the first thing that goes through your mind?
BURROWS: I couldn't point you to the specific point where I thought, oh, yeah, this is a story about a dog who was a novelist. I think that is just - it's just something that happened quite organically because I found sentences that happened to be in the right order, and the total absurdity appealed to my particular sense of humor.
SINGH: But why did you decide to create these stories using, you know, this mix, this mishmash of only pre-existing example sentences? Why not use one example sentence as a prompt, for example, and then just make up the rest?
BURROWS: Yeah. I mean, that would have saved me a lot of time. I think I'm drawn by ideas that seem distinctly unlikely or foolhardy is probably the better word to use in this instance.
SINGH: So, Jez, what did you actually end up doing with that gallon of fake blood?
BURROWS: That one actually ended up in a story that's just called "Recipe."
SINGH: Wait. Wait. Wait. Gallons of blood and recipe having to do with food?
BURROWS: Yes. It begins as a fairly normal recipe. And as with a lot of stories in the book, it becomes increasingly unhinged.
SINGH: OK, Jez. All right. Well, thank you so much for your time. Jez Burrows. His book, "Dictionary Stories: Short Fictions And Other Findings," is out now. Thanks again for joining us, Jez.
BURROWS: Thanks so much for having me.
Dictionary Stories
Publishers Weekly.
265.9 (Feb. 26, 2018): p58.
COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* Dictionary Stories
Jez Burrows. Harper Perennial, $15.99 trade paper (256p) ISBN 978-0-06-265261-4
Uproarious and ingenious, Burrows's debut is more than 150 shorts composed entirely from example
sentences taken from 12 different dictionaries. Burrows crafts tense postapocalyptic scenarios, moody noir,
fantasy, erotic science fiction, and "the double life of a freelance secret agent." Stories come in the form of
recipes, eulogies, math problems, answering machine messages, cocktail menus, mix tapes, and a coach's
motivational speech to his team. Anything can happen when a sentence needs to account for words like
phantasmagoria, meeple, and rock spider, or when a definition includes evocative prose like "He perched on
the edge of the bed, a study in confusion and misery," the jarring "he is, in brief, the embodiment of evil," or
the hilarious "I never believed in love spells or magic until I met this spellcaster." What sounds like mere
novelty turns out to be a revelation in Burrows's hands, as unlikely sentences generate even more unlikely
narratives, oddball feats of lexicography inspire warped story snippets in which lions gossip, zombies
intrude on a lackluster date night, and Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe makes a surprise appearance. This
volume is a joyful celebration of idiosyncrasy and invention. Agent: Ted Weinstein, Ted Weinstein Literary
Management. (Apr.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Dictionary Stories." Publishers Weekly, 26 Feb. 2018, p. 58. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A530637387/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=de4f5542.
Accessed 17 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A530637387
5/17/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1526585895158 2/2
Burrows, Jez: DICTIONARY STORIES
Kirkus Reviews.
(Feb. 1, 2018):
COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Burrows, Jez DICTIONARY STORIES Harper Perennial/HarperCollins (Adult Fiction) $15.99 4, 10 ISBN:
978-0-06-265261-4
An A to Z collection of atmospheric short stories composed entirely of example sentences from dictionaries.
Designer and illustrator Burrows turns an artist's eye to these delicate, intricately constructed microfictions.
It started, he explains in the introduction, with a single line, culled from the definition of "study" in the New
Oxford American Dictionary: "He perched on the edge of the bed, a study in confusion and misery." With
rules about the kinds of tiny edits he could make (changing pronouns, adding conjunctions, etc.), he set
about assembling short stories from the bones of example sentences. Without forcing them, he achieves a
remarkably diverse set of tales, assembling them much as one would a puzzle, finding which pieces fit
together and then organizing them under general subject headings such as "apocalypse, the," "gossip," and
"optimism." The stories are very funny, as in "Ten Dollars an Hour and Whatever You Want from the
Fridge," the only story in the "babysitting" section: "I'll be home before dark. Here's the money I promised
you, a fifth of whiskey, a list of forbidden books, and a bulletproof vest. Thanks, I owe you one for this."
Many are mere trifles, such as "Bands You Probably Haven't Heard Of" (in the "ego" section). Others are
subtly, wryly subversive, as we see in the performance art-perfect "Fifty More Ways to Leave Your Lover"
or the acidic "Breakup Side Effects." Burrows also has a talent for a delightfully askew existentialism, as
demonstrated by "Famous Last Words" that may include "Do you love me?" but just as blithely might offer,
"Can I have the last slice of pizza?" Still others are calls to action, as in the entry titled "Reveille" in the
"youth" section: "Keep your wits about you. Run along now. Run atilt at death. Go as fast as you can. Go,
by all means. Go before I cry." The stories are wickedly short but exquisitely rendered, accompanied by
whimsical, minimalist illustrations by the author.
A fabulist remix of the English language and a tribute to clever lexicographers everywhere.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Burrows, Jez: DICTIONARY STORIES." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Feb. 2018. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A525461657/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=0cc5bee0.
Accessed 17 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A525461657