An Interview
What is your favorite book, and why is that your favorite book?
I finally have an answer to this one! My favorite book is Little, Big, by John Crowley. I mean, like any book junkie I have a list, but that's at the top. I think it's one of the most perfectly written books ever published, and the beauty of it, the wisdom and sadness and effortless, gorgeous prose is like the world's most pleasant knife in the gut, and it's what I aspire to in my own work. It is a fascinating blend of realism and fantasy, and should be read by everyone ever. It's the only book I've ever finished both laughing and crying.
What do you think about fan fiction?
Did you just ask me about my thoughts on yaoi? I think you did.
(Here the Editors buff their respective nails)
Fan fiction. It's...complicated. I truly believe that fans should be able to perform any and all fan activity they please, and remain unmolested in that activity. I have always maintained a "run and play!" policy with regards to my own work -- it doesn't hurt me or my ability to make money from my work. In all the online hulaballoo about fan fiction, wha tis often lost is that for those of us who are not bestselling authors, fan fiction is advertisement. It helps us. Most of us would be delighted with the most bizarre slashfic if it meant someone loved our characters that much. Most of us will never have the gigantic fan bases that breed fanfic.
I think it would be ironic and disingenuous for me to say that people shouldn't write it -- what, exactly, am I doing when I retell Snow White or Hansel and Gretel? The Orphan's Tales requires other texts to exist, to function. No book can live in a vacuum. They are always already -- to crib my man Jacques -- in dialogue with other books. So I encourage my fans to write fanfic -- it can be holy work, to dwell in a story and expand its borders.
Not all of it is. Much of it is poorly written, and I don't think it serves anyone to pretend that's not the case. But that's okay, too, it doesn't have to be. The real issue here is legitimacy, and unfortunately a lot of authors behave as though fanfic somehow threatens them on the level of mercury poisoning, threatens their ability to control what is legitimate. I do think there is a line between professional and fan work, of course there is, but I don't really think it's in danger of being scuffed, Nebulas notwithstanding. Fan writing needs source material, guys. Chill.
What is the first book you remember reading with joy?
Easy, The Neverending Story, which was the first Grown Up Book I ever read, at the tender age of 5. No one believed I read it, so I had to tell my parents very patiently what it was all about, and what the last lines were. I suppose it's fitting that my first real reading experience was about books which are more than books.
What is the first book you remember crying while reading?
Oh, man, it was probably Where the Red Fern Grows. For anyone who didn't have to read this in school -- you are lucky. It was traumatizing for all children I know. The copy in my library is all smeared with little kids' tear-stains! Dan and Ann! Stay away from that cougar! Nooooo!
What about the first poem?
Very likely something from Medea: The Sorceress by Diane Wakoski. That book was extremely formative -- I read it for the first time when I was 13. It is full of Persephone and lost love and physics. "What I want to do/is turn into the moon/and be the sea in which all men can swim."
What have your experiences been in the world of a small press poet?
Those experiences have included low sales, little publicity, and few reviews, but reasonably good on the whole, given the state of poetry publishing in general -- it's especially difficult as someone who writes poetry with genre content but isn't trying for the funny SF poetry or pagan market. Realist presses don't want your content, genre presses don't want your style. I've done collections with a couple of different publishers and am starting to get a name, but honestly, the difficulty of getting poetry published is across the board. I've never won an award or a grant, I don't do open mics or slam poetry. It's a road to obscurity I've chosen, but I'm also lucky enough to know some amazing and tolerant publishers.
You write, and you hope for the best, like anything else. In 500 years, you may be lucky enough to be spared by mold and digital apocalypse, and survive, in which case, it won't matter who published you.
Besides, is there really anyone who isn't a small press poet these days?
Tell us about the cover of your new book, A Guide to Folktales in Fragile Dialects. There was a contest, wasn't there -- and it was the winner. Were there runner ups? Why did you choose this one? We know you were already familiar with the artist's work; how did you come in contact with her art, and has she inspired you to write any poetry?
There was, and Connie Toebe won with her beautiful work "Kitsune." I was familiar with her through the cover for Interfictions and because she did the Tiptree art the year I won. She's an extremely talented woman, and I was thrilled that she took an interest in my work! I was struck by the combination of objects, by the story that seemed to be told by them. "The Girl With Two Skins" was written to accompany the image.
What projects are you currently working on?
I'm working on two novels, Deathless: A Triptych, a retelling of a Russian folktale in the Stalinist era, and Our Own Dust, my first attempt at SF, about a family of Italian-made AIs.
My next book, however, is Palimpsest, out in 2009, a very strange urban fantasy about a viral city which lives in the bodies of its inhabitants.
If you were walking down a busy Market street and were confronted by a merchant of spices and a merchant of cloth, which would you approach first, and why?
I'd like to say I'd go for the cloth, it being more permanent and all, but I'd head straight for the spices to smell them all and dream about what I could make with them. I'd smell like cinnamon and coriander all day, and my fingers would be golden.
What places that you haven't yet visited would you like to visit? What would you like to do once there?
I'd love to visit the Middle East, and Argentina. And Andalucia. And Hungary. And Russia. And, and, and. I'd write books about them, of course! It's how I say "I love you."
Do you have a favourite scent, be it commercial or naturally occurring?
I tend towards Cockaigne from BPAL these days. But one of my favorites is baking bread. Can we bottle that, please? I want to smell that new and rich and warm.
Have you ever feared you'd go to bed a poet and wake up a madwoman? Or vice versa?
More afraid of going to bed a madwoman and waking up a poet -- much more dangerous, you know. Madwomen don't often leave books littering their paths like old socks.
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