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amarama interviews me
Jan. 22nd, 2004 12:10 am1) You're a really great writer! How'd you get that way? How do you navigate combining identity politics with fiction writing?
Thank you. I've always been wildly ambitious for very specific things -- to write things that are unbearably beautiful in a nuanced, recognizable way, and to write things that linger and sing and matter to the people who read them. So, I want it, want it, want it. That's one thing.
Also, I have an older brother who is this terrific painter, so there was (and is) someone in my family who was an artist. That helped me see the kind of work it takes and to kind of scrape off some of the romantic glow, although I still romanticize the New York publishing world sometimes. I'm getting more and more over that as times goes on, though. So that has been good for practical information (for instance he told me about a six week artists residency in Banff that I went to when I was 19), and also for someone I know and trust to bounce things off.
I was in a writers' group for many years -- the Valley Lesbian Writers Group. Some of us published each other's chapbooks, we gave readings and produced readings for groups from other towns, raised money together to fund our projects, met every Tuesday night in eight week sessions to critique work. So important to me, so sustaining, to have serious, committed peer relationships, and I still meet every Wednesday with another writer who I met in the group -- think I've been meeting and exchanging work with her for fifteen years.
And then there's poetry in the bathroom -- reading poetry a lot and often and going back to poems, especially old, dense poems. There's nothing like it for keeping me awake to language. And also, just trying to tend towards writing, to make the best choice I can see to support my writing, at any given moment. To push and give up things to have time to work, and then use it as patiently and relentlessly as you can stand.
Identity politics and art -- oh, that's so hard. I mean, I remember a specific moment in the mid-eighties or so when I realized that I wanted to write about fat, about being fat, that that was full of danger and risk and things literally aching to be articulated for me, things that I was terrified of and drawn towards in equal measure -- really simple stuff, like trying to describe my own body, and running up against so many limitations in language about that. And I was meeting politically-aware fat, queer women for the first time -- I had just moved to Boston from Colorado -- so I felt as if there were going to be some folks who would want to read this work if I could do it -- it gave me a sense of urgency. Lots of gifts in those ways -- including, eventually and still, publishers for my novels from the women's press movement. At the same time, I just want to be read, to have these stories be acknowledged as human stories, of real value to a wide range of folks. Having to deal with narrow expectations and endless looping stereotypes about what my work is supposed to be or mean sometimes feels like trying to eat brick -- not sustaining, not easy on the teeth and gums. I have to keep pushing myself to negotiate these tensions with all of the grace and honor I can muster in any given moment, and it's worth it. But hard.
2) You live in Western Mass, right? How'd you end up there? What are the pros and cons of living where you do?
Yeah, I live in Northampton. I ended up here because of the twists and turns of my long, precious, private relationship.
I love it here. The pros are that I can stroll downtown and see the Triplets of Belleville like I did tonight (yay!). There are so many people I love here. There is a cemetery with 18th century graves across the street from me, and the Holyoke range are these stunning hills that stretch out along the horizon in a way that opens my heart. I like the Connecticut River a lot, too -- lots of available beauty. I do okay without car here, and live pretty cheaply (knock on wood.)
I have access to cities like NYC and Boston, and there is so much more happening here all of the time than there was in Littleton, the suburb of Denver where I grew up. When I got fat hate mail because of an article that I'd been invited to write for the Springfield paper, all I did was walk down the street, telling the people who asked me how I was what had just happened, and a few of the folks I ran into on that one walk (plus some of my beloved friends) formed a working committee that organized a speak-out against fat hatred, at a time when I was kind of reeling from it all. My town -- and lots of folks beyond it -- came through for me when I really needed it.
Cons include a kind of New England insularity or stiffness that can get wearing at times. Things can start feeling narrow or smug. I think fat girls are in general less widely appreciated here than we are in the west. I've sometimes envied the Bay area for energy and the seeming ability to generate really productive communities. Folks who move here from big cities often miss a lot of beautiful food or find people here unfriendly, unwelcoming. If I'm annoyed with someone, the odds are pretty good that I'll run into them. I want to swim regularly, and there's not a swimming pool that I have access to and can get to without a car.
3) What's your story of fleeing Texas?
Oh, I didn't flee. I was born in Amarillo, but left with my family when I was six months old. We moved to Wichita, then Denver. My grandparents lived in Texas, and we went to see them every summer. My brothers both spent the whole summer with my grandparents every year, helping work a very small ranch. My parents live there now, so I'm connected to Texas in lots of ways, but not really from there.
4) What do you do to make yourself focus on your work?
It helps me if I can go to a physical space away from other distractions -- no phone, no email. Sometimes I do some stretches, a few other starting rituals -- although those can get too long and be a distraction in itself. Reading something incredible makes me want to write. Reading stuff I had been working on the day before brings me back there -- gets harder as more time goes by. Don't do it so much any more because my arm aches when I type now, but I used to start sometimes with pages of lavish and specific praise for my own work -- it was pure encouragement, and it also helped me see just what I most wanted to do by that which thrilled me the most when I told myself that I was already doing it. Just starting and keeping going -- even if what comes out at first is unsatisfying -- that's a good one.
5) What kind of shoes do you like to wear?
Since I started having arthritis in my ankles and knees, I only wear one kind of shoes: black SAS walking shoes. Lots of padding on the soles, and they fit. I miss sandals. When I was a kid, my mother had two pairs of shoes that I remember with awe: clogs with white leather straps and polished wooden soles that at eight inches high: they made a thunderous noise against a hard floor, and changed the perspective of the wearer. Also, glittery orange stilettoes, with gloves to match.
Jette's rules:
1 - Leave a comment, saying you want to be interviewed.
2 - I will respond; I'll ask you five questions.
3 - You'll update your journal with my five questions, and your five answers.
4 - You'll include this explanation.
5 - You'll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.
Thank you. I've always been wildly ambitious for very specific things -- to write things that are unbearably beautiful in a nuanced, recognizable way, and to write things that linger and sing and matter to the people who read them. So, I want it, want it, want it. That's one thing.
Also, I have an older brother who is this terrific painter, so there was (and is) someone in my family who was an artist. That helped me see the kind of work it takes and to kind of scrape off some of the romantic glow, although I still romanticize the New York publishing world sometimes. I'm getting more and more over that as times goes on, though. So that has been good for practical information (for instance he told me about a six week artists residency in Banff that I went to when I was 19), and also for someone I know and trust to bounce things off.
I was in a writers' group for many years -- the Valley Lesbian Writers Group. Some of us published each other's chapbooks, we gave readings and produced readings for groups from other towns, raised money together to fund our projects, met every Tuesday night in eight week sessions to critique work. So important to me, so sustaining, to have serious, committed peer relationships, and I still meet every Wednesday with another writer who I met in the group -- think I've been meeting and exchanging work with her for fifteen years.
And then there's poetry in the bathroom -- reading poetry a lot and often and going back to poems, especially old, dense poems. There's nothing like it for keeping me awake to language. And also, just trying to tend towards writing, to make the best choice I can see to support my writing, at any given moment. To push and give up things to have time to work, and then use it as patiently and relentlessly as you can stand.
Identity politics and art -- oh, that's so hard. I mean, I remember a specific moment in the mid-eighties or so when I realized that I wanted to write about fat, about being fat, that that was full of danger and risk and things literally aching to be articulated for me, things that I was terrified of and drawn towards in equal measure -- really simple stuff, like trying to describe my own body, and running up against so many limitations in language about that. And I was meeting politically-aware fat, queer women for the first time -- I had just moved to Boston from Colorado -- so I felt as if there were going to be some folks who would want to read this work if I could do it -- it gave me a sense of urgency. Lots of gifts in those ways -- including, eventually and still, publishers for my novels from the women's press movement. At the same time, I just want to be read, to have these stories be acknowledged as human stories, of real value to a wide range of folks. Having to deal with narrow expectations and endless looping stereotypes about what my work is supposed to be or mean sometimes feels like trying to eat brick -- not sustaining, not easy on the teeth and gums. I have to keep pushing myself to negotiate these tensions with all of the grace and honor I can muster in any given moment, and it's worth it. But hard.
2) You live in Western Mass, right? How'd you end up there? What are the pros and cons of living where you do?
Yeah, I live in Northampton. I ended up here because of the twists and turns of my long, precious, private relationship.
I love it here. The pros are that I can stroll downtown and see the Triplets of Belleville like I did tonight (yay!). There are so many people I love here. There is a cemetery with 18th century graves across the street from me, and the Holyoke range are these stunning hills that stretch out along the horizon in a way that opens my heart. I like the Connecticut River a lot, too -- lots of available beauty. I do okay without car here, and live pretty cheaply (knock on wood.)
I have access to cities like NYC and Boston, and there is so much more happening here all of the time than there was in Littleton, the suburb of Denver where I grew up. When I got fat hate mail because of an article that I'd been invited to write for the Springfield paper, all I did was walk down the street, telling the people who asked me how I was what had just happened, and a few of the folks I ran into on that one walk (plus some of my beloved friends) formed a working committee that organized a speak-out against fat hatred, at a time when I was kind of reeling from it all. My town -- and lots of folks beyond it -- came through for me when I really needed it.
Cons include a kind of New England insularity or stiffness that can get wearing at times. Things can start feeling narrow or smug. I think fat girls are in general less widely appreciated here than we are in the west. I've sometimes envied the Bay area for energy and the seeming ability to generate really productive communities. Folks who move here from big cities often miss a lot of beautiful food or find people here unfriendly, unwelcoming. If I'm annoyed with someone, the odds are pretty good that I'll run into them. I want to swim regularly, and there's not a swimming pool that I have access to and can get to without a car.
3) What's your story of fleeing Texas?
Oh, I didn't flee. I was born in Amarillo, but left with my family when I was six months old. We moved to Wichita, then Denver. My grandparents lived in Texas, and we went to see them every summer. My brothers both spent the whole summer with my grandparents every year, helping work a very small ranch. My parents live there now, so I'm connected to Texas in lots of ways, but not really from there.
4) What do you do to make yourself focus on your work?
It helps me if I can go to a physical space away from other distractions -- no phone, no email. Sometimes I do some stretches, a few other starting rituals -- although those can get too long and be a distraction in itself. Reading something incredible makes me want to write. Reading stuff I had been working on the day before brings me back there -- gets harder as more time goes by. Don't do it so much any more because my arm aches when I type now, but I used to start sometimes with pages of lavish and specific praise for my own work -- it was pure encouragement, and it also helped me see just what I most wanted to do by that which thrilled me the most when I told myself that I was already doing it. Just starting and keeping going -- even if what comes out at first is unsatisfying -- that's a good one.
5) What kind of shoes do you like to wear?
Since I started having arthritis in my ankles and knees, I only wear one kind of shoes: black SAS walking shoes. Lots of padding on the soles, and they fit. I miss sandals. When I was a kid, my mother had two pairs of shoes that I remember with awe: clogs with white leather straps and polished wooden soles that at eight inches high: they made a thunderous noise against a hard floor, and changed the perspective of the wearer. Also, glittery orange stilettoes, with gloves to match.
Jette's rules:
1 - Leave a comment, saying you want to be interviewed.
2 - I will respond; I'll ask you five questions.
3 - You'll update your journal with my five questions, and your five answers.
4 - You'll include this explanation.
5 - You'll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.