Fringe editor Heather Falconer answers a couple questions about Oulipo and the Vintage Fringe reprint of her essay, Ou-Li-what? What American writers might learn from the French.

What got you interested in OuLiPo?

I’ve always been interested with artists that experiment with form, and experimenting myself. The exercise of trying new things, breaking rules, and being creative outside of traditional confines can lead to surprising new ways of seeing the world. Oulipien writers take this to an entirely new level, often creating work that the mainstream might not get or want to spend brain energy in trying to figure out. The fact that a large group of people are willing to devote their time and energy to creating work that others may not ever praise or appreciate is really interesting. It brings into question the purpose of creating art — a particularly engaging question in an economically-obsessed culture.

Why is OuLiPo important as an experimental form?

We see so much formulaic writing out there in the popular literature and what amuses me about OuLiPo is how it takes ‘formula’ to another level. Instead of following a formulaic story structure, many OuLiPo writers apply mathematical formulas to their work. In the early days, trigonometric functions; more currently, computerized algorithms. It’s a bit tongue in cheek, in a way. The importance of this writing form is much like other smaller artistic genres and techniques: it informs the whole. A hundred OuLiPian pieces might be simple exercises that don’t do much, but one may offer something new and accessible that can be applied to more mainstream writing. But, again, that brings us back to the question of the purpose of art in general. Do we create to create? Or create to inform? Or create to sell? OuLiPo, I think, is about creation for creation’s sake, and seeing what comes out as a result.

Who are your favorite OuLiPian writers?

My favorite, by far, is Italo Calvino. I love Calvino on so many levels — and, truthfully, part of it is that it has elements of the traditional so that it isn’t always drawing attention to itself. Calvino is an example of what is wonderful about applying experimental techniques to traditional writing forms. Georges Perec is someone I respect. I’ll say upfront that I don’t find his works particularly easy to read or follow at times, but his constraints (such as not using the letter ‘e’ in A Void) are clever and serve as excellent examples for the rest of us. More recently, a colleague of mine created an OuLiPian website that takes aspects of traditional games, like baseball, and randomizes them through a computer program. Each time you click the randomizing button you get a new game that uses features from other games in new combination. I think that’s fun and forces you to think outside of the box; reconsider the realm of possibility.

A couple years after publishing this article with us, is there anything you’d change about it?

It’s a bit surreal reading my own work years after the fact. Would I change anything now? I might not be so long winded! But in terms of content and explanation, I think it gets to the core of OuLiPo and its importance for writing as a whole.

Could you suggest an OuLiPo exercise that our readers might try?

Try this: write 150 word short short that does not use the letter ‘c’ anywhere. You choose a topic area.