1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
I had no idea I would continue to write after my first book was published. I was a visual artist and videomaker and had not intended to write for publication at all, but a publisher approached me and invited me to write a book for them. As a kind of dare to myself, an experiment, I wrote nine short stories and called the lot Out on Main Street, after one of the short stories. It was meant to be an opportunity taken, but I was surprised by two things--how much I enjoyed working with verbal language, as different from visual language. I enjoyed making up stories, the whole process of working on the "how-to' of this kind of story telling. And then, when the book came out, I was amazed by the reach of a published book compared to the reach of the kind of art I was making. In my world of artmaking, we artists all knew or knew of each other, we were our audience and reviewed each other's work, and often showed together. But a book travels far out of the reach of its writer, falling into the hands of people one might never meet, in cities and towns and countries one might not visit. With that first book, my world had suddenly, unexpectedly, opened up and widened.
But there is something else that speaks to the second part of your question. Although I had not anticipated or dreamed of being a writer, I was writing--scribbling--by way of trying to answer some hard questions about my early childhood. I had written quite a bit of this material at the time the publishers introduced themselves to me, but this was never meant to be published. It was purely for my eyes only. After I was published, in between the writing of each book, I would pull this 'stuff' out of the drawer and quietly go at it again. As I became better experienced at writing, the scribbling of that material also improved in quality, and I actually began to enjoy writing it, but as story now rather than as inquiry. It ended up being Starry Starry Night, my newest book. Having worked on it as a story for publication now, I realize that this particular book could never have been written cold, like Out on Main Street was. I had to write all the other books first, to learn how to write this deeply personal one, no longer for myself only, but for the unrelated reader.
2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?
I did, in fact, always write poems, from childhood to adulthood. But this was sporadic, with no focus, and no intention to publish. As I say above, I had not intended to be a writer at all. I was an artist when I was offered the opportunity to write for a publisher. They showed me a contract which they had partially filled out for me, and in the space indicating what work the contract was for, they wrote in " A book of short stories and, or, a novel". I chose short stories only because of my ignorance of the genre, and imagined that 'short' meant quick, if not easy, but at least easier than a novel. One thing I would add, my art practice and those little poemy things I always scribbled did influence how I saw images and how I translated them into words and sentences.
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 last book has complicated the answer to your question. Until this one, the writing of a story would begin with the tiniest idea that caught my attention, and yes, it would come quickly, say over the course of a year or so. Then another year would find me taking stock of what I had so quickly written, identifying the story, the real story within, and rewriting, shaping now. But as I said above, this last one, Starry Starry Night, had been in the works, so to speak, for some thirty to forty years.
4 - Where does a poem or work of prose 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?
Everything begins with an image, a wordless image, that when scratched unearths an idea that then needs to be translated into words. It is this translation, getting it right, that then turns into a poem, or perhaps a long work. When an idea begins to be fleshed out, the excitement is then tempered by caution as I realize that I have been caught, so to speak, and can't stop myself from following a train of thought. I always say, then, "OK, but this one will be short. Not a short story, but not a long novel either. Perhaps a novella." But these things seem to develop a life of their own and there comes a point where I am just following the work to its end, and all have ended up being twice, and more, the typical size of a novella.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I do enjoy giving public readings. The reading out loud starts as part of the creative process. I often read out loud, during the writing process, particularly when writing dialogue, and more so when that dialogue is in non-standard English, or includes, in my head, the accent of a Trinidadian. As an aside, public readings often include a question-and-answer period, and this engagement with readers is one of my favourite parts of putting a book out into the world.
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?
There are many concerns I would call theoretical. I'll mention a few. Much of my writing references Trinidad where I grew up but left more than forty years ago, and which is a place that, in a sense, no longer exists. It was a paradise once, but is a dangerous place now, because of drug-related criminal activities of the worst kinds. My first concern, then, regards nostalgia, and any trap of romantisizing old times and ways, even as an aside to the main story that is being told. A giving-in to nostalgia can be a noisy distraction, weakening a strong story-line.
In Starry Starry Night, one major challenge was staying away from the usual story-telling ideas of the need for arc and denouement. This is tied to the reason for me calling this work autofiction, and not simply a novel. It was clearly not memoir, but it was also the unfinished story of a girl in the process of becoming and understanding her place in a family. The end of the novel, or the autofiction work, is actually the beginning of her life, so to speak. Bowing to the usual desire for an arc would have suggested a movement from beginning to end towards resolution, the possibility of completion, arrival, success, and all of those to me would have amounted to too much fiction, denying the 'auto' part of the word.
I also struggled, as I suggest earlier, with whether to term this work--that was clearly not a memoir-- a novel, or to term it autofiction. What is today called autofiction is an old form given a new name, but in the case of my book, the new naming seemed important. There are too many 'truths' in the book, regarding recognizable incidents and what are bridges clearly invented between incidents. Emotional resonances that are real but whose actual causal incidents have been lost in memory, are given invented scenarios to account for them, but played out so that they are a kind of hyperreality. I use real photos in the book, of real people who are the subjects of the story, but are differently named in the story, and the photos have been altered, blurring the faces of the people, just enough to make them not fully seen, even if they might still be recognizable. This use of photos was my attempt to further openly toy with the 'auto' and the 'fiction' of and in autofiction.
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?
To start with, I would say that the most important thing would be, as in any role, to do no harm. The word 'role' suggests to me a kind of office, or responsibility. It depends on the writer, then, I suppose. The relatively new proliferation of diverse voices and experiences in publishing has broadened readers' knowledge and understanding of the world. However, if the writer were to have a role in larger culture, then I think larger culture must also have a role in how it receives the work of a writer. Intelligence, wisdom, the ability to judge and discern would be needed on both sides. If the role is assumed on one side only, it is also being assumed that that side has power over the other, and this could be dangerous, for we can't be certain that sure these traits--wisdom, intelligence, etc., exist in all writers, or exist all around, in writers and readers in general, in amounts enough to confidently say that a writer ought to have a role in larger culture or society .
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
This process can be difficult when working with an editor one has not worked with before. But, even in a case like this, I always look forward to this part. It is a gift to have someone read my work with an eye to helping me make it stronger. I am very fortunate to have had editors with whom I worked well, and who understood my intentions. In particular, my last editor fully understood when I said that it was important to me to stay away from the sense of Starry Starry Night having an arc to the story line. This was vital to the work. The arc happens, so to speak, in the person, the protagonist, but ever so subtly. It was a risk to take, and my editor understood and helped me accomplish it as I wished.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
It is only when you have arrived at the end of the writing of your story, that you will understand what it is you have been writing. Then, you can go back to the beginning and begin to write that story. V.S. Naipaul said this, or something close to this, or wrote it somewhere, and I may have interpreted it to suit myself. Still, it works for me all the time.
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to fiction to visual art to video)? What do you see as the appeal?
For some reason, unknown to me but for which I am grateful, I have access in myself to different ways of experiencing ideas, and disseminating them. The idea usually comes first, in the form of a feeling in the body--the hands wanting to gesture that may do so then in a painting--a sense, an odd set of words strung together, that must leave the body, but get fleshed out on paper over a period of time, or must be worked out as a moving project that involves sound spoken out loud as actions are made and all captured like a jewel in one place and brought to life by the press play button. There isn't a decision to be made about which medium is suitable; that decision is the material itself.
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?
I have no writing routine. When a book is in the works, I will write sometimes for four hours, sometimes five, sometimes eight. And then not for three or four days before I begin again. A typical day begins early, with twelve minutes of Qi Gong, the meditation of coffee-making (cappuccini) and communing with the four parrots who are let out of their cages for an hour on mornings and run our lives for most of the day. A shake for breakfast. Then to the computer to see what has come into my inbox. I begin answering emails. This is all that is typical. The rest changes from day to day--if a book is being worked on, I approach it and might or might not work on it. Depends on where its at. A walk, a bicycle ride maybe, cooking something for dinner, barbeque, a trip into one of the nearby towns, WhatsApping with siblings. Routine might save me, but it would also surely kill my spirit. Then the birds again. They come out two more times for the day, which means they must be cleaned up after. These are the things that are fairly usual, but there are always several unplanned activities, thankfully. Right this minute, the birds are being taken out onto the porch, in their little hotel cages to get some sun and torment the hawks. I admire, more than envy, writers who have and keep schedules.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I don't dwell on what one might call a stall, don't spend a long time on something that isn't working. If something isn't working I find the place where the trouble began and start writing again from there, usually by first wiping out the entire area that stumped me.
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
The odour of oil in which something sweet coated in white flour has been recently fried.
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?
Looking back at all my books, I would say that they come from my life, from the personal--which includes my observations of the lives of others, family and friends.
15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
J. M Coetzee didn't shy away from interrogating colonisation in his home country of South Africa. He shone the harshest of lights on racism and its various ways of power in S.A, but this light was not blinding--it was illuminating, and courageous. I imagine he made enemies, on all sides, but he and his books didn't tread lightly. He is a beacon for me.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Spend time in north India, Devprayag specifically, at the confluence of the Alaknanda and Bhagirathi Rivers. I often imagine being at the source of the Bhagirathi, Gomukh, which means the cow's mouth, at the foot of the Gangotri Glacier. It is stunning that that little opening, the mouth of the cow, through which a trickle of glacial meltwater runs eventually meets up with Alaknanda in Devprayag and the two join others that then all create the River Ganges.
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'd like to have been a long distance bicyclist. In my dreams, of course. Or a cocoa farmer. Or a coffee roaster. Maybe a chef. A perpetual scholar.
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
An opportunity taken, and the joy discovered there in being able to 'speak', to use my voice, to unearth, to create order out of the unruly.
19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Texaco by Patrick Chamoiseau.
Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest.
20 - What are you currently working on?
I am writing what may end up being non-fiction, perhaps a real memoir, in which I search for the how and whys of my grand yet troublesome father.
12 or 20 (second series) questions;
