An O. Henry Award winner, her short stories have been published in The Threepenny Review, PRISM international, The Dark and elsewhere. Her debut collection The Girl Who Cried Diamonds & Other Stories was the runner-up for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award and shortlisted for the Ottawa Book Award.
Other Evolutions, her debut novel, is forthcoming from ECW press.
She can be found on Twitter or Instagram @rhirschgarcia
1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
The Girl Who Cried Diamonds is my first (and so far only) published book. A lot of people asked me if I was excited when it was published but I wasn't. I just felt this sense of calmness. I always wanted to be a writer and it was like finally, the book is here, it exists.
2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?
The world makes more sense to me in a fictionalized context and always has. I'm not interested in a world bound by possibility but worlds that are, currently, impossible. I find it so much easier to get to the truth of a matter when inventing the circumstances around it, something only possible through fiction.
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?
I've talked to other writers and they kind of seem appalled by my process because I tend to vomit drafts out really quickly and there is more cleanup than editing involved in my work. But that's really because I spend a lot of time thinking. Years, decades sometimes. I'm sure I lose a lot of good work this way but I don't move until I'm ready. Even then, the writing often surprises me.
4 - Where does a work of fiction usually begin for you? 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?
A work of fiction is usually the merger of two ideas I've been puzzling over in my head. There are lots of ideas that I think over but usually when I add some strange second thought that's when I know I have something worth exploring.
I always know the form of things before I start working on them. I come from a theatre background too so I always have a feel for whether something is a play or a script, a short piece of prose or something book length. I think this comes from naturally being someone who writes "short". If I want to write a novella or something longer there has to be intentionality behind it. If left to my own devices a piece will be a short story.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
Public readings are totally unrelated to my process and I view them as entirely divorced from writing or creating.
I don't mind doing readings. My mother put me in drama when I was a child and then I went to a performing arts school. Those years of training mean that I am comfortable around large audiences.
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 always asking questions in my work and mostly it's about human behaviour which is so varied and strange and mystifying to me.
Reading back The Girl Who Cried Diamonds during editing I think my predominant question was What happens to the people who don't get survive? I think as humans it's so much more comforting to read stories about people who go through bad times and come out stronger but I'm interested in the untold stories of the people who are still trapped in their nightmares.
7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
Quite cynically before my book came out I thought no one really cares about writers. Especially ones from small presses like me.
But then I've found that as I've been introducing myself to people as a writer they get so excited for me, even if they've never heard of my book. So I think there is, still, a huge respect for writers in the culture. I'm almost treated like someone who can perform magic. It's humbling.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I've been lucky to always have quite good, very respectful, editors and I think the best ones are the ones who call you on your bullshit. They'll sense the weaknesses in my own writing that I think I'm getting away with and say, No, it's not working. I love that kind of ruthlessness. It's the short story writer in me but I love to cut.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Take what you need and leave the rest.
10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
I tend to write at night because I am a night owl and that's when I'm sharpest but I don't stick to strict word counts or outlines or times. Sometimes my process is just lots and lots of reading and I'm okay with that.
11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I have too many ideas to ever get stalled and I think it's because I'm constantly reading. That's my advice to any writers who are stalled. Read everything! And I do mean everything: outside your genre, outside your medium. I've found inspiration reading fanfic written by preteens who are too afraid of the writing process to even read back what they've written. The tenses skip around and there are spelling mistakes galore and somehow in the midst of this there's still one knock out sentence. They're so raw and pure. It just reminds me that as writers we're all trying and we never really stop.
12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
I'll let you know when I've found it.
13 - 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?
I find visual things really stimulating whether that be visual art or movies or even objects. I have this story in my collection, "Mother," that came to me when I was looking at a silver Tiffany baby comb and wondering what kind of person would own a silver Tiffany baby comb. The comb in the story isn't silver and the story has almost nothing to do with that. I think anyone reading it would be puzzled that that's where that thought experiment led me but there you go.
14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
I really love André Alexis' work. I've read other Ottawa writers but he's the first one where I thought that we were experiencing the city in the same way. Asylum was such a revelation to me. That was a book where I thought it almost could have exactly been written for me.
For my work I love reading older books and by that I mean ones written in the 1800s or older. I love the Victorians. Their language and thoughts were so different from how we express ourselves today. That difference in language always sets off some spark in my own mind. I'm not sure what it is, but it never fails.
15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I want to learn how to fire a gun.
16 - 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 would have loved to be a film director. I always loved movies but as a kid I thought I wanted to be an actress and by the time I realized that what I actually loved was creating stories I felt like it was too late.
I suppose it's not but if people think publishing is hard the barriers to creating a film are incredible.
17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
It was never an option not to do this. My family likes to joke I was writing before I was writing: in kindergarten before I could write I would dictate my stories to the teaching assistants.
I was writing before anyone was publishing my work. I'll write after.
18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
The last great book I read was Seven Surrenders by Ada Palmer. It's harder scifi than I typically read and I was kind of iffy on the first book but the second book was where all the hard work of the first one paid off. It's brilliant. She's a genius.
I also want to shout out Camilla Grudova's The Doll's Alphabet. It's short stories and very eerie. It reminds me of the thoughts I used to have as a child.
19 - What are you currently working on?
My debut novel, Other Evolutions, which is coming out from ECW press.
But I've also been working on short stories. Everyone tells writers not to write short stories; no one reads them and publishers don't want them, but I can't help it. Every now and then I write one and I think, that's not bad actually. Maybe they'll find their way into the world one day.
12 or 20 (second series) questions;
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