FIGHTIN' WORDS: AN INTERVIEW WITH THOM JONESThom Jones writes about war, boxing, illness and heartbreak with an air of familiarity and a cyclone of words. His characters – like the author himself, who suffers from epilepsy and diabetes – have been battered by the world, but they refuse to be beaten down. His three collections of short stories: The Pugilist at Rest, a finalist for the National Book Awards; Cold Snap and now SONNY LISTON WAS A Friend of Mine (Little, Brown, $23) - presents a supreme writer in the agony of a thinking man. We recently spoke with Jones about his life, his stories and his passion for words. He will sign and read his new collection at Off Square Books on Monday, January 25 at 5:30 p.m. DR: Not so long ago, you were christened a literary star. What was it like?Jones: You used to hear these stories, the overnight success. Out of nowhere. Who is this guy? An asshole who lives in Washington. Every time I pick up a magazine, this fucking shit is there. Who is he? He's a guy, a janitor or something. Every five years, a new writer will appear like this. The idea is that it happened overnight. Truly, I have paid my dues. It took a long time. I wrote these same stories 20 years ago, but it was just too much at the time. It wasn't until baby boomers became editors that my voice became acceptable. DR: Has this sudden attention affected your work? Jones: No, not really. I was just reading a book by Flannery O'Connor about writing short stories and novels. Flannery is one of my heroes. She was talking about how you write for the sake of the piece. You don't write for fame or fame or anything like that. It's a very spiritual thing. You are looking for meaning in your piece. It’s a quest, almost for God. She said that in this (new) form, it is different from the novel, like the 100 meters compared to the marathon. Things have to be a lot more dramatic in a short story, and they have to happen quickly, and there's no room to fake it or write a bad line or lose your reader. And when it's all over, the person better say, "That did something for me." That's what Flannery did for me. I thought, yeah, she just expressed what I was feeling but I couldn't articulate it.