Betty Joyce Nash interviews John P. Loonam, author of “The Price of Their Toys: Stories of Men and Boys”

Betty Joyce Nash crossed paths with John P. Loonam, author of The Price of Their Toys (Cornerstone Press 2026) when Betty Joyce and co-editor Deirdra McAfee chose John’s story, “Action Adventure,” for the anthology Lock & Load: Armed Fiction, (University of New Mexico Press 2017).

John P. Loonam’s fiction has appeared in The Madison Review, Modern Shorts (an anthology from Fiction Attic), and The Santa Fe Writers Project among others.  His short plays have been featured in The Mottola Theater Project’s Cherry Picking Festival and the anthology Cherry Picking.  A teacher in New York’s public schools for more than thirty years, Loonam earned an MA in Creative Writing from City College, CUNY, and a doctorate in American Literature from The Graduate Center, CUNY. He has lived in Brooklyn with Maria, John James, and Joe long enough to be considered a native by anyone but his neighbors.

Betty Joyce Nash’s novel, Everybody Here is Kin, was published by Madville Publishing, 2023.  Her story collection, Never Mind Your Good Reasons, is forthcoming, September 2026.

BJN: I love your collection’s almost-exclusive concentration on male protagonists. Did the pieces evolve as men-and-boys, or did the concept change? These male characters are depicted so thoroughly we feel we’ve met them before.

John P. Loonam

JPL:  I didn’t set out to write a collection centered on being male.  Over the years I had written a number of stories that focused on boyhood and manhood.  I began to see power in putting them together. I write to understand my life, and the world. How to be a male in this world is an enduring question for me.

BJN: In “Jorge’s Notebook,” school officials grill a Latino teenager over a violent journal entry. His teacher narrates: “. . . his pockmarked complexion burned a bit darker than usual, the red undertone heightened as he leaned slightly forward and watched me. I leaned in as well, getting as close to his face as I could without spooking him. I whispered, “Remember that piece you wrote last month, the guy and his girlfriend?” The interview proceeds as officials struggle with technology. The empathetic teacher ponders duty.

JPL:  That story came out of a teaching experience that went down almost exactly as described.  I was certain that the boy in question was writing creatively and posed no harm, but, like Jorge in the story, he would not say that.  In a post-Columbine world, I was intensely aware of my duty to the safety of the community, but also knew I had a duty to that boy’s creativity and to his anger.  It haunts me that I could not meet both obligations.

BettyJoyce Nash

BJN: In “Returns,” a broken engagement forces a jilted groom to return gifts to a bridal department. How did this idea arrive? How often do we see men in housewares?

 JPL: For many years, I worked near a Bed Bath and Beyond, now bankrupt. I went in to replace a coffee pot, got lost and found myself in the wedding registry section where young couples and one lone women were checking off their material hopes and dreams. I began thinking about the stockpile of possessions that go into building a life and to imagine the opposite trajectory—the shedding of possessions as part of a life falling apart.  I had a great time wandering the aisles of that store over the next few weeks coming up with details. 

BJN: Which story, or stories, mean the most to you? And which gave you the most trouble?

 JPL:  Duke Ellington was once asked which of his compositions meant the most to him and he said, “The next one.”  I feel similarly.  As for trouble, no one story stands out as a whole, but certain sections were hard.  For example, I rewrote the end of  “The Unexamined Life” many times because I needed the character of “The Catherine” to shift the sympathetic center of the story, to be both patient and harsh with the narrator.

 BJN:  Characterizations are particularly brilliant. Can you share your “character-building” techniques and process?

JPL:  There isn’t a single process.  Each character arrives a little differently, but a common pattern involves finding a balance between what makes the character jarring, and what makes them empathetic.  So, Ed Bracebridge, in “Guy and Doll” is a little creepy but also someone who a reader connects with, and sees themselves, even if that reader is not creepy.

 BJN: What’s the backstory behind “Say a Few Words,” in which a writer’s newly minted MFA comes in handy for writing eulogies, despite his mother’s doubts: “What could you possibly have to say that was true?”

 JPL:  I once gave four eulogies in eighteen months—relatives and close friends, young and old.  It is a form in which it is impossible to succeed—how can you express a person’s life and character and your love for that life and character in five minutes? But it is delivered in a setting in which you undoubtedly get credit for succeeding.  For all four I came off the stage or altar feeling like I had failed to touch the importance of the moment, but received thanks from listeners who seemed genuinely moved and appreciative.  All writing is like that for me, the thrill of creating mixed with the sense of having fallen short of the world you are trying to create.  But with the eulogy, both happened at the same time.

 BJN: What’s your drafting process? How many drafts lurk behind these stories? Any tips?

 JPL:  That depends on what you consider a draft.  Does rewriting the same few sentences over and over count?  There is a piece I’m working on now that is labeled draft nine in my computer, and I’m not up to the kind of tweaks that count as fine tuning.  This kind of drafting is important because I don’t work with an outline.  I figure out what I’m writing by writing it, so often the third or fourth draft becomes the outline.