Kathryn
Mockler is a writer and filmmaker. She is the
author of The
Saddest Place on Earth (DC Books, 2012) and
Onion
Man (Tightrope
Books, 2011). Currently, she is the Toronto editor of Joyland: a hub for short fiction
and the publisher and co-editor of the online literary and arts journal The
Rusty Toque. She teaches
creative writing at Western University.
1 - How did your first book change your
life?
It
changed my life in the sense that it forced me to get more involved in the
literary community than I had been previously. Although I started writing poetry
many years ago, I’ve spent a great deal of my writing life as a screenwriter. I
started writing my first book of poetry, Onion
Man, about fifteen years before it was published, and it was a project I
picked away at over the years. So when it was accepted for publication, I
realized that I needed to get more involved—read more poetry, go to more
readings.
How does your most recent work compare to
your previous? How does it feel different?
Onion Man is a semi-autobiographical series of
narrative poems set in London, Ontario in the 1980s about an eighteen-year-old
girl who works in a corning canning factory with her boyfriend. She’s
questioning the world around her and her values.
My
second poetry book, The Saddest Place on
Earth, is quite different in tone. The poems are more absurd and not linked
to each other in a narrative sense but by tone. These poems were initially a
response to a series of bleak and absurd paintings that my husband, David
Poolman, was working on called Start
as You Will Go On. Around the same time (2003 to 2004), in
the early days of the Iraq War, I was pretty obsessed with the war and how the media
was portraying it. Of course this was all before the discovery that there were
actually no “weapons of mass destruction” and that the war was predicated on
what we now know to be false intelligence. In the later poems, my critique
centres around the Harper government’s assault on the environment. However the
issues are dealt with indirectly and usually with some form of humour.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as
opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
Once
when I working at the factory that my first book is based on, for no reason, I
just wrote a poem in the middle of my shift on a cigarette pack. This was
before I wrote anything or identified as a writer or even knew what a poem was.
The poem just came at me and had to be written down. I think it might have had
something to do with being in a trance-like state, standing on the Brite stack
watching cans go by for hours. I remember thinking—that was weird, I just wrote
a poem. I want to find that poem. I wonder if it’s any good.
3 - How long does it take to start any
particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it
a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or
does your work come out of copious notes?
This
depends in which genre I’m writing. Screenplays take a lot of planning, drafting
and rewriting. I think I enjoy poetry becomes it comes to me and I don’t have
to go looking for it. I edit my poems quite a bit, but the process is more
satisfying in the short term.
4 - Where does a poem usually begin
for you?
An
image or a line sparks an idea, and I have to stop what I’m doing to write the
poem down like I did that time in the factory. Sometimes this is inconvenient, especially
if I’m busy or trying to sleep, but I know if I don’t follow the poem, it will
get away from me.
Are you an author of short pieces that
end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a
"book" from the very beginning?
For
Onion Man I knew the poems were going
to be part of a larger narrative, and in a way it feels like a poem novel to
me, so I approached it more the way I do fiction or a screenplay. For the poems
in my second book The Saddest Place on
Earth, I knew they were similar in tone and just kept adding more and more
until I realized I had enough for a book. But I wasn’t thinking of them as a
book while I was writing them.
5 - Are public readings part of or
counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing
readings?
I
learn a great deal about my writing by doing live readings, so it can be a
helpful part of the creative process. There’s a series in Toronto called Draft where I read a couple of years ago, and
the whole point is for writers to read from a work-in-progress which can really
inform you on what’s working and what’s not. I’m not a huge fan of reading my
own work, but I do like the feeling in the moment just before the reading is
over.
6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns
behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your
work? What do you even think the current questions are?
I’m
not trying to answer questions, but rather I’m trying to ask questions usually
through absurdity and humour. Why do we do the things we do? Why do we act like
this?
7 – What do you see the current role of
the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think
the role of the writer should be?
I’m
interested in politics and the environment and that informs everything I do in
my writing life. I think it’s everyone’s role (not just writers) to be
concerned about the world that they live in and what’s going to be left for the
next generation. I'm particularly concerned with how our current government is
undermining that future—our environment, our health care system.
8 - Do you find the process of working
with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I
like working with an editor. I’m used to it because in screenwriting, you often
get feedback from a variety of people. I’ve learned to develop thick skin and
an ability to push back. The push back has to be because it’s in the best
interest of the work and not because your ego is bruised. And it takes a long
time to know the difference between the two.
With
my second book of poetry, I had a great editorial experience with Jason Camlot from DC Books. He was pretty
ruthless—but in a good way. It was an intense period of cutting, editing, and
writing new stuff. One week I wrote ten poems. I wish I could do that every
week.
9 - What is the best piece of advice
you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
I
just attended the AWP conference in Seattle this year, and I saw Chris Abani
read with Chang Rae Lee. Abani talked about his process (and I’m paraphrasing
here) and how he writes everywhere—in airports, when he’s waiting in line, etc.
For him writing isn’t about setting up the right conditions—the perfect space,
the right mood. Basically if you’re a writer, you just write wherever you are.
I think that’s great advice.
10 - How easy has it been for you to move
between genres (poetry to film)? What do you see as the appeal?
I
don’t really see myself as one particular type of writer. I’ve always written
in diverse genres, and often adapt my work from one genre to another. A short
film I wrote called Skinheads was based on poem from my
book The Saddest Place on Earth, and
my husband and I have made a series of videos, The
Reluctant Narrator, from some of those poems as well. I find
an editing process always happens along the way which makes the work in each
new form a little different.
The
actual writing in different genres is not difficult for me, but the labels can
feel strange. Working in film for many years and pretty much seeing myself as a
screenwriter or fiction writer, it felt strange to be referred to as a poet
after the publication of my first poetry book. Not that there’s anything wrong
with being called a poet, but for me the label just felt weird.
11 - What kind of writing routine do you
tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
One
of the reasons I enjoy being a writer is that I don’t like a routine. I don’t
like doing the same thing every day.
Once
a poem or a story or essay captures me, I just work on it like crazy. I wrote
an essay for Lemon Hound last summer, and it just took
over my life for a coupe of weeks. I had planned to write something else, but
that project took hold and I went with it.
Sometimes
though I have long breaks in between projects. The breaks are part of my
process, and I’ve learned not to get panicked by them. If something isn’t going
well then I work on something. I always have some kind of a project going.
The
other thing that’s part of my process is napping. Seriously. I used to wonder
why every time I sat down to write, I needed a nap until I realized that I come
with the best stuff when I’m in that half-awake, half-asleep place that I can
only get to with a nap. I think this is the reason I like writing on trains
too.
12 - When your writing gets stalled,
where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I
either read writers in the genre I’m trying to write or I eavesdrop.
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Curry
and cigarettes and Barbie dolls. Whenever I think of my childhood home I have
this memory of playing Barbies with my best friend Eleni. My mother was cooking
curry in the other room and smoking, and I guess one of us said that Barbie was
giving Ken a blow job, and my mother heard and came running into the room and
said—how do you know what that is?
14 - David W. McFadden once said that
books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work,
whether nature, music, science or visual art?
Definitely
visual art and music. My husband is a visual artist and his work has been an
influence, but also being exposed to a lot of art has also been an important
influence on the way I look at the world.
15 - What other writers or writings are
important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Kurt Vonnegut for his humour and his scathing view of humanity.
16 - What would you like to do
that you haven't yet done?
Write
a play. I think I’m actually a playwright, but I’ve never written a play. My
poems are often plays and my screenplays are very dialogue driven. But I’ve
never made the leap.
17 - If you could pick any other
occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you
would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
I
probably would have done something involving activism and the environment.
But
I can’t picture myself doing anything else quite honestly. I can’t stand
discomfort, so I’m not one of those people who can toil away at a job I hate
for years on end. The closest I came to that was when I taught composition at a
community college for three years. I was very miserable and often would say
over drinks with friends—the English teacher wants to kill herself. I was
kidding and not kidding.
When
a student from that college asked me how I knew I wanted to be an English
teacher, I was horrified and said—but I'm not an English teacher! I quit
shortly after that conversation and studied at the Canadian Film Centre. I
still teach of course—I have to make a living, but I teach creative writing and
I love it. It’s whole different job when you’re teaching students who are
interested in what they are learning and when you’re interested in what you are
teaching.
18 - What made you write, as opposed to
doing something else?
I
was taking English at Concordia and I heard that if you did an English and
Creative Writing major then you didn’t have to do an English honors thesis. So
I took creative writing and loved it and it changed the whole direction of my
life. But basically I started because I was lazy.
19 - What was the last great book you
read? What was the last great film?
I’m
doing Jonathan Ball and Ryan Fitzpatrick’s #95Books challenge in which the goal is to be as well read as George W. Bush
by reading 95 books each year. I’m off to a slow start but hope to pick it up
in the summer. Some good books that I’ve read this year have been I Love Dick by Chris Kraus and Sarajevo Blues by Semezdin Mehmedinović. The great thing about this challenge,
which I know I won’t be able to live up to and I’m fine with that, is that I’m
reading books that have been on my shelf for years that I’ve meant to read but
have not gotten around to. So having this goal is forcing me to finish more
books.
The Panic in Needle Park is an Al Pacino film from the
70s that I recently watched. It’s bleak but good.
20 - What are you currently working on?
I’ve
gone back to an old screenplay that I could never get right and now I feel like
I’m ready to fix it. It’s a bullying story set in the 80s before helicopter
parenting. I’m always working on poems too.
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