Could you tell us a little bit about
yourself?
There’s no direct path to becoming a
writer. We all find our own way. I’ve detasseled corn, waited
tables, worked at a particle accelerator, a research lab, and been a soldier,
an EMT, a pharmacist, a wife and a divorcee. I’ve lived in small towns and
cities. All of it comes together in the work.
Describe your book ‘The War is Language: 101 Short
Works’ in 30 words or less.
At a certain point an assemblage of words
bears no meaning. For this collection of flash fiction I went beyond
post-modernism and deconstruction into a realm that lacks conveyance.
What was the hardest part of writing
your book?
Believing in my own work. I have a tendency
toward self-parody. Insecurity undermines my efforts. It’s a real
challenge to wake up every day, make stuff up and take it seriously.
What books have had the greatest
influence on you?
Tess of the D’Urbervilles really hit me hard. Reading that book in the late 20th century
was infuriating. I could not believe how far women still need to go to overcome
constricting roles, gendered obligations, and the bane of virginal status.
Masculine sadism and an expected paternalism of provision still influence our
culture.
But I didn’t want to write about a woman
oppressed or doomed by constraint. I wanted to write about a woman in reaction. The
War is Language: 101 Short Works is not written in direct response to
Hardy’s story of sexual assault. But there are too few books that escape the
pigeon hole of traditional femininity.
There is a huge difference between militant
feminism and military femininity. Army women do their hair, wear makeup, and
get their nails done. But they also disassemble and reassemble M-16s in timed
match-ups.
There are implications to having an entirely
volunteer military force. Who wants to sign up to kill and die? What
psychological forces of victim-aggressor are at play there? Well, one of those
forces is that eighty-five percent of female military personnel have been
sexually assaulted.
Rape is an evil that sets events in motion.
But none of that changes the fact that women can fight for themselves and for
this country.
In so doing, they can be as destructive to
peaceful ideals as men. I wrote this book after seeing pictures of female soldiers
gloating over piles of dehumanized bodies tortured at Abu Ghraib. I thought,
“How could a woman do that?”
Briefly share with us what you do to
market your book?
The marketing campaign for The War is
Language: 101 Short Works is grassroots all the way: fliers on bulletin boards,
business cards in coffee shops, emails to friends. We’re all on the learning
curve of what digital content is and what the implications of publishing ebooks
are. I’m not sure how much to invest. I was kind of down about the number of
sales and assumed a marketing campaign underwritten by a publishing house would
drive sales. But after speaking with a publisher at AWP it seems that may not be
the case. This is my first release of digital content and it has already sold
more copies than the backlist he’s uploading on Kindle.
How do you spend your time when you
are not writing?
I love
Chicago. I eat out with friends, walk, run, sail, and wander into tiny shops
that sell specific things. Anyone who knows me will point out I spend a
significant amount of time debating ideas on Facebook.
What are you working on next?
The On Impulse eBook Series as
a whole. The War is Language: 101 Short Works is the initial release in a four
book series that explores narrative from catharsis to craft. The other titles
are 2000 Deciduous Trees, Love & Darts, and How to
Cherish the Grief-Stricken. There is a divide between what makes a
story in life and in literature. This series crosses that divide.
Intrigued by stories told in twenty seconds at
cash registers and by all the confessional dross in the blogosphere, I wanted
to start the series in this fragmented, associative space of catharsis,
self-expression, and whatever is past deconstruction and postmodern
playfulness. Then with each book I’ll bring the collections toward plot, toward
narrative, toward causation arriving in what is considered a traditional
literary short story collection.
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