20 Questions with Mourning Goats
INTERVIEW THIRTEEN
Lidia's editor contacted me in February asking if I would do an interview for her upcoming book, The Chronology of Water. I didn't think too much of it because I'd never heard of Lidia at that point, I'm not too interested in memoir, and up until then, have picked all my authors personally...then I read the book. In all seriousness, I want to thank her editor for introducing me to this amazing author. Go buy her new book today and enjoy the interview, I know I did!
1. What comes to mind when you hear, "Mourning Goats?"
2. To tell you the truth, I read Chelsea Cain's introduction to the book, and said, out loud, "bullshit," after reading it, I agree with every word she wrote. How do you pack so much physical emotion in to such short pieces of non-fiction?
Wow...THANK YOU!!! That makes me laugh--what you said--I might have thought that when I read her introduction too! But I think the answer to your question is that I tried to make the body the point of view. Rather than a psychology or personality. I tried to write by and through a corporeal experience -- to keep the body up front -- to keep everything we feel through our bodies the point of the story. The swimming metaphor helped me to do that. You know? In a lot of memoir or nonfiction I feel like the body recedes and the personality or psyche gets big. I tried to make the body big.
3. You are another Mourning Goats interviewee out of the Chelsea Cain, Chuck Palahniuk, and Monica Drake writing group, what is it about this group that is pouring out great books?
3. You are another Mourning Goats interviewee out of the Chelsea Cain, Chuck Palahniuk, and Monica Drake writing group, what is it about this group that is pouring out great books?
Very fine wine. Almost exclusively Pinot Noir, because of Chelsea. Joking aside (though there really is something great about wine), I am humbled every single week by the fact that I get to sit in a room with the most amazing writers on the planet. It's not just that they are ALL titans of mind and spirit and talent (Cheryl Strayed, Suzy Vitello, Erin Leonard, Diana Jordan, Mary Wysong). We all not only take extreme pleasure in writing but in the idea that, as Monica Drake says, "writing is a living practice." We live it together -- the good bad and ugly -- we respect that writing is like a primary relationship -- we push and pull and love one another on the page with as much intimacy and seriousness and love as you would a person. And as Chelsea says, sometimes we cry in the bathroom.
4. I love your quote, "I believe in art the way other people believe in god," can you go a little deeper in to this? Is writing a spiritual experience to you?
4. I love your quote, "I believe in art the way other people believe in god," can you go a little deeper in to this? Is writing a spiritual experience to you?
Boy howdy. It's an altered state. When I listen to people I respect talk about god or faith or ecstatic states, I think yep, I get that, only not about god. Shhhhh. All the times in my life when I was ready to hang it up? Art was there. Music or painting or books or plays -- something to believe in greater than yourself. Something to give you hope and inspire you to do good in the world. Something so beautiful and life altering you almost can't stand it. Artists who sacrificed themselves over and over again to bring it to you. Art gives me a moral compass. Rules to live by. How to be compassionate. How to value beauty. How to understand my "worth" in the world with regard to giving of myself, rather than to myself. I don't exactly pray to art, but I can sit in a roomful of Rothkos or Bacons or Joan Mitchell paintings and bawl my eyes out just from what it opens up in my chest. I can pass out from a Beckett play. I can orgasm from a Kathy Acker book. Ecstatic states.
5. Your blog is very politically inspired, is this just a hobby, or something that you do outside of the blogosphere?
5. Your blog is very politically inspired, is this just a hobby, or something that you do outside of the blogosphere?
I'm not very bloggy. I'm too sporadic to be hip like real blogsters. But since it's a space you can inhabit however you want, I use it when things piss me off or chafe ... ha. The only way in which I'm political is that I think we are uber responsible these days for educating ourselves, participating in civil discourse, asking good questions, and actively engaging each other in communities that stretch beyond the self so that our own society doesn't cave in to unbridled power or uneducated moronity. We live in kind of dangerous times in terms of power and moronity, if you know what I mean. It's easy to become too passive -- to become a media viewer from the comfort of one's home. I'm still thinking about what to "do" amidst the current zeitgeist besides make art. Though I'll say for the record that making art is a political act even when it's not.
6. I saw that your new book, The Chronology of Water, has a book trailer, what do you think of it, and book trailers in general? Is it a way to intrigue non-book readers?
I love it!! It's fantastic!! Everyone! Go immediately to
Ha. My husband Andy Mingo made that film/book trailer. So I'm quite fond of it. But it's also just a kick ass little movie. And yes, the Oregon ocean is very freezing in November. To answer your question, I like book trailers. I understand why it makes authors cranky to have to produce "media" in addition to writing books, but I also understand that the gaps between modes of artistic production are closing, so inter media or multi media forms are exciting to me. Books merging with music or visual art -- that's always excited me. I've collaborated on projects that emphasize those mergings. I'm for it.
7. It says on your website that you became a writer in 1986 and the first story in, The Chronology of Water, with the same title, is a piece focused on your daughter, is this the story that made you consider yourself a writer?
Probably. The event of my daughter's death is what cracked me open as a person, and what came out after I regained my wits and emotions, was writing. And when I wrote that story, something got reflected back to me that didn't depend on the outside world's judgements or rejections. My own intelligence and creativity. That's all. For some of us, that's a profound moment. To claim an intellect or creative impulse -- to embrace it -- to say "mine" without shame or apology -- to stand up. By the way, when I wrote that short story, I was in Diana Abu Jaber's creative writing class at UO. She said, "Um, Lidia, I think this might be a book." That was 20 years ago.
I'm slow.
8. Hawthorne Books sent me out a copy of The Chronology of Water, and a postcard with a picture of the cover on it. Is it true that they are doing a cover and a "censored" cover? What do you think the response to it will be?
8. Hawthorne Books sent me out a copy of The Chronology of Water, and a postcard with a picture of the cover on it. Is it true that they are doing a cover and a "censored" cover? What do you think the response to it will be?
Yes there is a version with a "belly band" that covers up a naked breast with an in focus nipple on the cover. I wrote an essay about that called "About a Boob, or, The Hermeneutics of a Woman's Body" over at the Rumpus. It's been a little odyssey, actually, for both me and the publisher, Rhonda Hughes at Hawthorne Books. I have very strong opinions about what is culturally, commercially, and literarily "sanctioned" in terms of the female body and its representation, and what is considered troublesome or problematic. Talk about hypocrisy. But the book's main metaphor is swimming. So there is a woman in water on the cover. And for anyone with itchies about that, there is a swank charcoal gray belly band. Removable.
9. Our first interview on the site was with Stephen Elliott, Editor-in-Chief at therumpus.net, who have picked The Chronology of Water for their book of the month in March, how did the come to be?
Cheryl Strayed forwarded it as her selection when asked by The Rumpus. The folks at the Rumpus, Stephen, Isaac, and a woman named Julie Greicius, have been incredibly kind and generous to me.
9. Our first interview on the site was with Stephen Elliott, Editor-in-Chief at therumpus.net, who have picked The Chronology of Water for their book of the month in March, how did the come to be?
Cheryl Strayed forwarded it as her selection when asked by The Rumpus. The folks at the Rumpus, Stephen, Isaac, and a woman named Julie Greicius, have been incredibly kind and generous to me.
10. You don't write just memoir, you have books of short stories, a book of criticism, and you have a novel coming out, The Small Backs of Children, next year; which was your favorite to write? Why?
I'm not sure I have a favorite, though fiction is my heartbeat I guess. I love the form of fiction writing -- and by that I mean less than conventional fiction writing, because I am a language and form junkie. I like to play in fiction. Like paint. Or music. I'm not sure "memoir" is the best description for what I did in COW...it's more of a body story. Wish there was such a category -- Whitman would be happy. I suppose what I love most about writing is the poetics of it. Swimming in language is like swimming in a very, very large pool. or the ocean. I will say this, COW nearly did me in emotionally. But then so did The Small Backs of Children.
The most FUN I've ever had writing a book is one I just finished -- a novel called Dora: A Head Case. Crazy fun. Like laugh out loud fun.
11. With the authors I've interviewed, it seems as though one theme is the same for them all, their life is non-stop, action packed. Married, teaching, running Chiasmus Press, writing, doing readings, how do you do it?
11. With the authors I've interviewed, it seems as though one theme is the same for them all, their life is non-stop, action packed. Married, teaching, running Chiasmus Press, writing, doing readings, how do you do it?
Pharmaceuticals. Swimming. Meditation. Active sex life. These things give me balance.
12. The story, Ecstatic State, is about dating your now husband, Andy, do you think that a support system at home is important when one of your occupations is centered around being alone?
12. The story, Ecstatic State, is about dating your now husband, Andy, do you think that a support system at home is important when one of your occupations is centered around being alone?
HUGELY. I have a writing room and both Andy and my son Miles understand its sacred status. Miles grew up understanding "mamma is writing right now" as a normal part of our household. He's very respectful about it--even tells other people not to bother me. But the other side of that is that I can hear them and smell them and feel them on the other side of the door. Always. An the animal in me needs that too. To have the Mingo and Miles near me even in my solitude.
I'm lucky too because I can write in furious speed flashes. I could never write away from Miles and Andy, which I think is not the case with other writers...my "alone" is self induced. Probably a keen trick I picked up from childhood -- creating alone worlds to survive no matter what is going on "around" me.
13. The Chronology of Water is coming out on the kindle, today (April 1st, 2011), what do you think about e-publishing and the move to digital?
13. The Chronology of Water is coming out on the kindle, today (April 1st, 2011), what do you think about e-publishing and the move to digital?
Well I think it's exciting, because I'm a person who is always excited by new forms that are triggered in the ZOOM of our world, but right this second I guess it goes without saying it's a bit of a bummer for the artist/writer. On the other hand, the books I've written have never made a ton of money, and I didn't write any of them with money in mind, so perhaps I won't miss it. Like I said before up top, multi media modes are pretty exciting to me. I'm waiting for the nano technology where we won't even have techno objects to hold. It'll all be "in us." Cyborg nation.
14. Amazon's description of your book starts out, "this is not your mother's memoir," which I love, and agree with, what pushed you to write these stories down?
14. Amazon's description of your book starts out, "this is not your mother's memoir," which I love, and agree with, what pushed you to write these stories down?
Chuck Palahniuk dared me. True story.
15. What do you think is the most difficult part of running Chiasmus Media? (Also, EPIC website!)
Not enough money to hire helpers. Not being able to publish a zillion astonishingly unique writers. Not enough people who want to read books that require a brain or that make your brains have cerebral sex...but it's nice to be small and "in the pocket," too...
15. What do you think is the most difficult part of running Chiasmus Media? (Also, EPIC website!)
16. Where do you see publishing going? Do you see it expanding into more of a mixed media?
I guess you can tell from my answers that I'd say YEP. A good example is Jaded Ibis Press, run by the wicked cool Debra Di Blasi in Seattle. Also, when chiasmus comes out of hiatus in the fall, watch for something beyond textual. Like I said, that doesn't bother me. But we do need to come up with structural models for production, distribution, and the divisions of labor and compensation that make sense...
17. It looks like you're doing some touring in the coming months, are you excited about it? What have your tours in the past consisted of?
17. It looks like you're doing some touring in the coming months, are you excited about it? What have your tours in the past consisted of?
I'm hella excited! Also terrified! HA. I've never had "tours" in the past. I've only worked my ass off on my own to beg people to come let me read. My dear friend Lance Olsen and I have done fairly well at making our own bling together. We've read together wonderously in the past in SF and Seattle and Portland -- had great fun making it all up. But it's exhausting. Lance and I also invented a terrific writer's conference here in Portland called The Writer's Edge that has generated a ton of enthusiasm and created a tribe of thrilled innovative writers. Lance is the Managing Editor of Fiction Collective Two. So what I'm saying is, we've had to make ourselves up in terms of readings and performances. But why whine? It's from the ground up. Or underground. Or counter-culture.
This mini-tour I'm doing in Seattle/Chicago/NYC/LA/SF/
18. What's your favorite part about teaching writing and literature? I would think that talking about writing every day would be the best job in the world.
Yes, that's cool. What you say. But I think my favorite part is running into the student...well hell, I really don't think of the people I work with as students any more -- just people -- running into the person who has a secret. And their secret is, they are brilliant. And they are just beginning to let their secret out. And you get to be there for the start of that...the opening moment...and you get to usher them toward their own light. It takes my breath away. The people whose paths I've been lucky enough to cross blow the top of my head off.
19. What is the best advice you've received, or want to give, or both, to the writers reading this interview?
Be who you are, don't let anyone tell you there's only one way to do things, and for the love of goats, don't stop. Ever.
20. What's next for Lidia Yuknavitch?
Trying to seduce someone into buying the Dora: A Head Case novel and finishing a new novel I'm currently tit-high in called Virgin, based on Joan of Arc. And loving the people I love as hard as I can in this hard world. THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME TALK TO YOU!20. What's next for Lidia Yuknavitch?
Thank you!
Goat
hey, I went swimming for the first time in forever after reading CoW. and I mostly didn't drown.
ReplyDeleteha...stephen - great interview guys, Lidia i loved the book, just put up my review at TNB, definitely not your mother's memoir - kudos
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