GO Getter: Benjamin Pfeiffer

Loved by literary fans, hated by unemployed hipsters.

Unemployed hipsters may very well loathe Ben Pfeiffer. Only 23, the Missouri State University graduate and Kansas native has completed his first novel, which he hopes will print in October. He’s also worked for renowned self-help author Keith Ferrazzi in Los Angeles and is publishing the inaugural issue of Red Ink Journal (a local lit mag of which he is president and publisher) next month. Ben is a writer—plain and simple, through and through. I caught up with him recently (at the library, naturally) and got his perspective on writing and the arts in Springfield.

It seems like people think writing—especially fiction—is something you can just sit down and do in your spare time. Do you think that is erroneous?
I hate that. A professor told me once that everybody wants to be a writer or a rock star or a director because these people make it look so easy when they do it. People think they can just sit around in their spare time and get paid to be themselves. It’s just not that simple at all; it’s really hard. Anybody who writes seriously can tell you you’ve got to be really careful with the language.

Do you have a writing routine?
A lot of writers have different ways that they do stuff. When I write best, I wake up, and then about 7 or 8 I go to the MudHouse, take my computer and work there all day, 8–5, like it’s my office. I drink coffee and work all day.

Now that’s a good use of that bottomless cup!
Yes it is. Coffee gets expensive. But that’s the way to do it, approach it like it’s a job.

Tell me a little bit about the book you’ve been writing.
The book’s called The Body of Emperor Norton. I thought it up when I was a junior in college, and it only recently started snowballing to get finished. It’s set in San Francisco in the modern day, but it’s also set in the past. There was a real guy, a homeless guy who lost all his money in [the stock market]. He became crazy and thought he was emperor. He’d parade around the streets and make a big deal of taxing people. If he met you, he’d say ‘I tax you five cents,’ then he’d take your five cents and go eat. Everyone was really nice to him and treated him as if he was an emperor. Mark Twain knew him, actually. There’s a guy named The King in Huckleberry Finn, and he’s based on the real Emperor Norton. That’s just kind of the backdrop for my novel.

Tell me a little bit about Red Ink.
It’s a huge undertaking. It’s going to be a perfect-bound literary journal, distributed for free and paid for by advertisements. Hopefully it’ll be in all the book stores and galleries and handed out at Art Walk. It’s a community effort. Springfield doesn’t have a literary journal at all. A lot of people aren’t what they appear to be. How many people are accountants, but don’t really want to be accountants? They’d rather be a photographer or something. This is an outlet for people to do artistic things and I hope the community really picks it up.

What kind of stuff are you looking for?
Fiction, short stories, poetry, essays; also art photography and art. It’s full-color, a real nice publication. [Redinkjournal.com has details.]

When not writing, what do you do?
I run. I’m actually going to run a marathon here in a few weeks with my girlfriend and my mom. Mom’s really into it; she’s going to leave us in the dust.

People might say writing fiction is sort of a frivolous way to spend your time. What would you say to that?
Why? People don’t think about how much [of our world] is stories. Every song on the radio, everything in the world is a story because that’s how we communicate.