12 or 20 (second series) questions with Eliza Robertson

Eliza Robertson [photo credit: Sara Hembree] was born in Vancouver and grew up on Vancouver Island. Her stories have been shortlisted for the Journey Prize and CBC Short Story Prize. In 2013, she won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Her first collection of stories, Wallflowers, came out with Hamish Hamilton Canada and Bloomsbury this year. She lives in England.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
Well- it made me a "published author" rather than "writing student," but that answer only makes a difference when you've blagued your way onto a work visa. Honestly, I feel the same way about writing as I did a few years ago.

My more recent work is less exploratory with form, I think. I am exploring other things instead, like how a character thinks. I have always had trouble with how characters think! Saying that, I just wrote a story modelled after my astrological birth chart. Old habits, &c.

2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?
That may be the nature of a class called WRIT 100 at UVic. I studied poetry first term, before I realized eighteen adjectives for "blue" was not poetic. My two favourite genres— fiction and screen-writing— were at the end of the year, after I had unlearned a lot of bad habits.

I still screenwrite, though. Right how I am working on a project with Carwell Casswell Productions in the UK. (www.carwellcasswell.com)

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 write so slowly! Novels take ages to start. I have to pretend they are not novels. First drafts do appear close to their final shape, though. That's one bonus to writing at glacial speed.

4 - Where does a short story 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?
Further to #3, I rarely think of my projects as "books" until I have a book-length word count. Maybe that will change some day. Short stories begin in details or moments for me. The last story I wrote spun out of two gentlemen who suntan in front of the council flats near my house.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
Neither— I would say they are separate from my creative process. I do enjoy readings. I enjoy most events where writers gather and drink alcohol. (Let's be frank— the audiences of most readings are other writers. But I like events where non-writer readers gather too. Even better!)

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?
Sure. I have concerns like insecurities (see above re: "character thought/emotion.") But I don't think that's what you mean. For my PhD, I am researching rhythm in prose...how rhythm can offer an alternative "metaphor set" to analyze style. I am interested in both micro and macro rhythms—from punctuation marks to a novel's white space. I don't dwell on theory when I am writing, though.

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 am not idealistic or prescriptive about these things. I think writers should be true to what they want to write. The funnelling of that work into "culture" will take care of itself.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I have always written with an editor... Be they university instructors, workshop pals, PhD supervisors, my agent, magazine editors, friends or family. Other people's opinions are integral to my revision process. With this book so far, I have mostly worked with my Canadian editor, Nicole Winstanley. I really respect and value her notes. Where I run into trouble, on occasion, is the copy editing. My MA supervisor, Andrew Cowan, once called my punctuation "unhelpfully eccentric."

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
I hear so much good advice and forget it instantly. Right now one the one that applies to me might be, "just get on with it."

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?
With porridge and coffee. Typically, I write in the morning for a few hours and do email admin in the afternoon. But that routine has been less defined of late. I write when I can, and particularly near deadlines.

11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Other writers. Herta Müller and Marilynne Robinson helped dig me out of my current work-in-progress. Housekeeping and The Land of Green Plums both revitalised the project when I was falling asleep at the wheel. (Not in any discernible way to readers, I am sure.)

12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Woodsmoke and seaweed.

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?
Well, I can't write without headphones, so music inspires me in an indirect, noise-cancelling way. I am also inspired by visual art— especially photography. I talk about that more on Hamish Hamilton's The Looking Glass. (http://www.hamishhamilton.ca/looking-glass/)

14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
I already mentioned Herta Müller and Marilynne Robinson. Also: Mark Anthony Jarman, Zsuzsi Gartner, Annabel Lyon, Lorrie Moore, Lydia Davis, Flannery O'Connor, Raymond Carver, Anne Carson...

15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Go to India or South Africa.

Make my own yogurt.

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'd happily work in film. Production or pre-production, probably, though I've enjoyed editing in the past.

17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
It started to feel better to do something more creative and self-guided. I wanted to go into law for a long time.

18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Book- Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson

Film- I recently watched Nebraska on the plane and really enjoyed it.

19 - What are you currently working on?
Well, I am technically still working on that novel I mentioned. And I've started another for the phd. So far, it's set on an island in the 1950s.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Grain: the journal of eclectic writing (Vol. 39, No. 1): “Imposter”

Green Beans

She’s wearing my shoes and sleeping in my bed

with my husband, so it goes without saying

she shouldn’t also be in my vegetable garden,

harvesting the green beans I planted in June.

Even if summer’s failing now, and the leaves aching into red.

Her hands are stained with a half-bushel already harvested.

She’ll argue with him, like I do, about stems.

Heads or tails is no longer a matter of winning.

So she’ll take the ends to the compost and carry

sunflowers back to my garden vase.

Cut the stems on angles:

they’ll lean soft against my eyes. (Alisa Gordaneer)

Perhaps the title of the new issue, “Imposter,” the first by incoming editor Rilla Friesen, of Saskatoon journal Grain: the journal of eclectic writing (Vol. 39, No. 1) is meant to be tongue-in-cheek, especially given the way that the previous editor was removed (but most likely its not). Still, it’s hard not to be annoyed generally by grain these days, but I’m pleased that the magnificent run by previous editor, Sylvia Legris, has been given its due by the incoming Friesen in her “Editor’s Note” that opens the issue, writing: “I have turned to Sylvia Legris’ recent issues often to review the works within. During her tenure, she has left her mark on Grain, not only in the visually-appealing layout and environmentally-friendly production of the magazine, but in the way she upheld the long tradition of selecting superior works.” A bit further on, she writes: “To say I have some big shoes to fill is an understatement.” Friesen goes on to reference a number of magazine awards the journal has achieved recently, including Ottawa poet Chuqiao (Teresa) Yang, who “took first prize in two categories of the 2011 Western Magazine Awards” for her “Beijing Notes” [seethe note I wrote on the issue her piece appears here]. For Friesen, this issue is a good sign for her tenure, an attractive issue with some intriguing work, wisely following in Legris’ footsteps. Taking over an established journal is difficult at the best of times, attempting to engage and expand while working to keep to a particular foundation already established by the previous editors. Some have flourished with new editors, much the way Anita Lahey revitalized Arc poetry magazine, while others have simply disappeared (does anybody remember Essays on Canadian Writing?). Much like the issues during Legris’s run, this new issue features a range of styles in both poetry and fiction, and feel very much constructed together into a cohesive unit, despite (or even because of) the myriad directions.

This one is: Plane Ditched in Columbia River after Multiple Bird Strikes. Three serious injuries. One fatality. Forty-three passengers treated for hypothermia. On my desk Monday morning: the stats, the snaps, the autopsy, the tapes. (The .FLAC files.) (We still say tapes.) Linguists identify speech—loss of thrust, loss of trust, one five zero knots, one five zero, not. I take the acoustics. Engine noise, aircraft chimes, whether the captain has reclined his seat.

~

Flaps one, please.

Flaps one.

What a view of the Columbia today.

Yeah.

After takeoff checklist.

After takeoff checklist complete.

[Sound of chime.]

Birds.

Whoa. (Eliza Robertson, “My Sister Sang”)

I’m pleased to see the poem “Frances Disassembles the Pop-Up Book,” a piece Ottawa poet Monty Reid dedicated to the late John Lavery and first read at the Dusty Owl Reading Series fifteenth anniversary event this past summer. The past couple of years, Reid’s poetry has evolved into a series of short sequences, a number of which have formed into a larger sequence titled “In the Garden,” and another grouping of poems on neighbourhood construction, as well as the extensive renovation he oversaw at the Museum of Nature. This eight-part sequence, while referencing gardens and construction projects, focuses more directly on small matters, and exactly what the poem suggests, a meditation on his new daughter destroying a pop-up book.

The contrary garden

survives on spit and drool.

Pretty maids

have their corners folded over.

There is one monosyllabic row

of them

left

and still, they make the action

happen.

One of the magnificent elements of the new issue is the highlighted artwork by Cate Francis, a mix of playful, dark and wildly illuminating artwork; imagine the film Labyrinth merged with Grimm’s Fairy Tales directed by Terry Gilliam, perhaps. The issue features over a dozen of Francis’ original works, as well as a lengthy statement. I think I am very enamoured with the works of Cate Francis.

I’ve always wanted to be a storyteller. Unfortunately, I have always found it difficult to clearly relay my messages to an audience via language. The irony of this, which needles me, is that some of the key issues I address in my work are communication and language. Instead of sucking it up and learning to write, I’ve chosen to spend all my time communication pictorially. My work is informed by a variety of influences ranging from personal memory, cultural theory, and graphic novels. […] In my latest series, my focus has shifted from people to animals. I find nature both amusing and sad—amusing because the tendency to apply anthropomorphic characteristics to animal behaviour is an inherently silly human habit, one that I happily take part in regularly. I find nature sad because our relationship with it is becoming increasingly tenuous and alien as we rely more and more heavily on our natural resources for economic stability. No matter what my subject, every person, animal, or object I illustrate becomes a character paused within a narrative. I prefer to keep these characters anonymous in the hope that the viewer will identify with them in much the same way they would an archetype.