From Danila Botha’s publisher, Tightrope Books: “A startling and original new voice that owes as much to Black Flag and Bikini Kill as it does to J.D. Salinger and Heather O’Neill. Botha’s prose is compassionate, provocative, often funny, and always fearless.” Danila’s debut collection, Got No Secrets, hit the shelves this season. Check out her posts at The Afterword Here, or her last guest post on Salty Ink here.
For today’s guest blog, I’m thrilled she chose to interview a Salty Ink favourite: Metcalf-Rooke winner, Amy Jones. her debut, What Boys Like, blew Salty Ink’s mind, remember?
“I think that most fiction is really just piecing together little bits of reality in different ways.”
Amy Jones (http://listophelia.blogspot.com/) is a fantastic writer. Her first book, a collection of stories called What Boys Like is the most exciting book I’ve read in ages- a diverse group of utterly convincing, uniquely voiced characters whose pain, restlessness and triumphs are entirely relatable, and whose voices are fresh and vital. Both the dialogue and internal monologues are spot on.
I had the chance to chat with her recently about her writing process, inspirations and what she loves about writing short stories.
1) You write from so many perspectives so well- from the perspective of a young kid living with her teenage mom in How To Survive Summer in the City (I loved that story, it cracked my heart open) In A good girl, from the perspective of a waiter, Alex, who is in love with a much younger woman, in Miriam Beachwalker, a teen trying to figure out who she is and what she wants from life, and a girl who realizes how unrequited her love is in All We Will Ever Be. Do you find it difficult to get into different character’s minds? It reads so seamlessly. What is the process like for you? How do you get the characters to seem so relatable, so real and so human?
Well, for one thing, I spend a lot of time people watching. I’m kind of obsessed with what’s going on in other people’s lives, and I’m always wondering “What’s that single mother at the grocery store thinking?” Or “What’s that guy with the super young girlfriend thinking?” My stories are all attempts to answer those questions.
2) How did the story “The Church of the Latter Peaches” come about? In it a bereaved widow tells the story of how she and her young fiancée met, and what their relationship with each other, and his family was like prior to the funeral. Was the chocolate fortune part inspired by the Caramilk secret? I’m wondering what your inspiration was. I found it wonderfully inventive.
I had this image of a pregnant widow sort of rolling around in my head for months, but the story really started to come together for me when I found Marty Peach. That story, more so than any other, went through a huge revision process — at one point I think it was 50 pages, at another point it was only 8 — and the whole Caramilk secret thing was just an experiment to throw in something kind of crazy in order to help me crack the thing open. But I ended up really liking it! So it stayed. I don’t know; it’s the most polarizing story in my collection, but I have a soft spot in my heart for it.
3) I can see why. It’s experimental for sure, but a very touching and realistic seeming story. You make a lot of local references- to Halifax, Wolfville, other parts of Canada. Do you think setting is really important in short stories? Do you plan to set more in Halifax? I loved all the references, especially in How To Survive, it really hit a nerve with me. I’ve met a lot of kids like that, and moms like Stacy.I don’t know if setting is important to all short stories, but it certainly is for mine. When I was writing What Boys Like, I was very conscious of the fact that I was writing about a city rarely fictionalized, and was careful to portray it as honestly as I could. That my Halifax friends say I got it mostly right means a lot to me! And yes, I’ve got way more Halifax up my sleeve. It’s what I know. I don’t know if I feel comfortable enough with any other city yet to settle into it with stories.
4) That makes sense. I don’t know if I’ve lived in Halifax for long enough yet to write about it. Are the stories mostly fictional, or are they based on people you’ve known? Have you ever been afraid to reveal parts of other people’s lives that were told to you in secret, or did they come purely from imagination? I ask this because to me they felt unbelievably vivid and real. Have you ever been afraid to expand on, or tell other people’s stories, and how did you resolve it?
I steal people’s stories all the time! But I totally consider everything I write about completely ficticious. If someone I know has had something interesting happen to them, it might find its way into a story but in a totally different way and to a totally different character. Or that little quirk that a friend of mine has, it might show up in an 80 year old man instead of a 30 year old woman. I think that most fiction is really just piecing together little bits of reality in different ways; even if you imagine something, it’s probably someone’s reality somewhere. Also, one thing I’ve learned is that people are going to see themselves in your stories no matter what, even if you consciously try to avoid it. Like, my mother thinks that every mother I ever write about is her. Eventually, I just had to stop writing about mothers.
5) That’s really funny- it happened with my mom too. It must be a mom thing.
I was reading that you love short stories, and that you want to write another book of stories next (which I am frankly thrilled about, and can’t wait to read) What do you say to people who say that short stories don’t sell? (I think it’s ridiculous myself. There’s a great Zoe Whittall poem where she says she’s told that, and so she decides to call her next book Go Ask Alice Munro).
I definitely love short stories above all else, and the reason I write is because I love to do it, so what sells isn’t the first thing on my mind (except maybe around the time rent is due!) I think short stories sometimes require more work from the reader, and definitely a more open mind, and that’s why I love them. I had a person tell me recently that they didn’t like short stories because she liked character development and dialogue, and in short stories there was no chance to develop either (actually, she said “well, sometimes you know what they’re saying to each other, but you don’t know why!”) But that’s really what I love about short stories: how much of it is in the subtext, how your own interpretation of it as a reader can be your own little beautiful secret. Also, I’m pretty much up for any challenge, so if someone says to me, “short stories don’t sell” it makes me want to say “oh, yeah?!”
6) Yeah, I love the subtext too. That’s a beautiful way to put it. Who are your main literary influences? Have you read anything fascinating or great that’s changed your life lately?I love Aimee Bender, Rick Moody, Lorrie Moore, Steve Almond, Miranda July, Lisa Moore… and about a hundred other short story writers. Rebecca Rosenblum, who won the Metcalf-Rooke award the year before me, continues to astonish me with her short stories. I’m reading The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz right now and it’s the first novel in a long time that is completely blowing my mind.
7) Your dialogue is so fresh, and sharp. Is it something you acquired through practice, or does it flow naturally for you? What is your writing and editing process like?
I really attribute my ability with dialogue to the years I spent as an actress, learning how other people talk, how the rhythm of their conversations flow, how they say so much in what’s not said. Also, like I said before, I eavesdrop a lot! That’s really where my stories start, with the dialogue — I hear the characters speaking in my head, and it’s not until I can clearly hear their voices that I can put anything down on paper. Once I start, I usually just vomit it all out onto the screen as fast as possible, and rarely do much rewriting, because I do so much of it in my head before I even start.