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ISSN 1543-6063 |
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Elizabeth Ellen has been blowing up the online and print literary world for at least the last year or two now. Her recently released chapbook BEFORE YOU SHE WAS A PIT BULL, was released by Future Tense to rave reviews, and rightfully so, as Ellen creates a world of provocation: weird sex, weirder minds, and a knack for description that will burrow in your mind. In addition to PIT BULL, she's published a ton of prose and poetry in scads of magazines, including Juked, Smokelong Quarterly, Quick Fiction, elimae and etc. Recently I got a chance to talk with EE via email about her recent successes, her writing practices, and the background that got her where she is.
EE: Whoa. That must have been some hardcore insomnia, if you were at an urgent care clinic. I'm curious what they gave you and if it worked. I mean, are you, like, addicted to sleeping pills now? Like that shit Eminem was on? And what are you trying to say, Blake? [By the way, every time I type or read your name now, I'm immediately reminded of Amy Winehouse and that tattoo she has over her left tit. You must get that a lot now, huh?] That my stories aren't of the "feel-good" variety? Fair enough. "Weird sexuality"? Hmmm. Interesting. Yeah, I don't know. I think my writing is heavily influenced by my childhood, for better or worse. I was an only child raised by a single, working mom, which means I spent a lot of time home alone. Probably too much time, actually. I was prone to melodrama. I got into the whole me against the world thing. Even at school, amongst my friends, I was the "weird" one. I was the chick who stayed home and sang along with my Yentyl album on a Friday night instead of going to whatever keg party everybody else was going to. Total 'Welcome to the Dollhouse,' Indie movie bullshit. Well, until my senior year. My senior year I went to a lot of keg parties. I just didn't talk to anyone. I still didn't have a clue how to relate. BB: I guess by weird sexuality I mean your characters seem to be either haunted by people they've been with. And it's not that there's absolutely zero "feel good" style, but that your more stirring moments seem to come from something beautiful in the warped. Does it ever feel strange to see what comes out of you? Are you surprised by your own words at times? EE: Oh, of course. All the time. Surprised, revolted, alarmed, amused… BB: How far removed do you feel from your work? EE: Not very. In fact, I feel like I need to be very close to my work or I can't write. Or it comes off sounding bogus. Which is probably a handicap, actually. I should work on that. BB: I suppose beyond your home life, your relationships might also play into what influences your writing? What was your longest relationship? Do you have a type? Perhaps a type you go for and a type end you end up with? I'm mostly conjecturing here. EE: Wow, this is such a chick question, Blake. Um, well, I was married for eight years. I seem to alternate between dark-haired, dangerous boys and light-haired, nice boys. Though, surprisingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly, I married the dangerous boy. I don't think it matters much either way, longevity-wise. Though dangerous boys are obviously more fun to write about. It's the old, "every happy family is happy in the same way," observation. BB: I don't think it's necessarily a chick question. I feel influence by the people I've loved, or tried to love. I see reflections of people I've spent time with coming out in my work, and sometimes even feel like I learn about those other people in exploring them accidentally with words. Do you feel that at all? Is there any character, dangerous or otherwise, in film or fiction that you would like to have a go at, relationship-wise or other? (Sorry, I'm weird.) EE: Sorry, it’s just my knee-jerk, chick reaction: would he be asking this of a dude? Of, say, Tao Lin? I don’t think I learn about other people when writing as much as I learn about myself. If there’s any learning going on at all, accidental or otherwise. As for characters I’d like to have a go at…um…is Lolita still up for grabs? I’d have a go at her. For sure. Why not? One of the best characters ever conceived. Also, tres dangerous. BB: What was the first thing you read that made you want to become a writer? EE: I don't know, The New Yorker, maybe? My mom wallpapered our bathroom in New Yorker covers when I was five. More recently, I'd probably say, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. It's one of those books, like Catcher in the Rye, that deludes the reader into thinking they have a close, personal relationship with the author. Talk about dangerous. I predict AHWOSG will be found at at least one crime scene in the future. Maybe not a presidential assassination attempt or rock star murder, but something along those lines. It's that good. BB: PITBULL is dedicated to the internet. Why? EE: I dedicated Pit Bull to the Internet because more than any one person, the Internet as a whole helped shape me as a writer. I didn't graduate college. I don't have an MFA. I didn't/don't live in New York, Chicago, L.A. or San Francisco. I bought my first computer in 2000 or 2001 and shortly thereafter stumbled onto an online chat room/forum where a group of up and coming writers and editors hung out. I learned a lot about writing and publishing from them. But it was easier to dedicate the book to the Internet than to a forum. Also, it's funnier. BB: I like the internet. I think online publishing doesn't get its due, but is beginning to. I asked why the dedication because it made so much sense for me. If it weren't for the internet I don't think I'd get through some days. I don't think I would have ever published anything because I would have gotten frustrated and maybe given up with the necessary progression of submission and small acceptances making you feel like you're actually getting somewhere. What was your first publication, story or poem or otherwise? EE: Well, I have a love/hate relationship with the Internet. Mostly love, but sometimes hate. Which is why I have a safety deposit box at the bank where I stash my Internet hookup when I really need to write. Is that pathetic or what? Although I recently discovered that one of my neighbors must have wireless because one day last week I was able to get online without being plugged in. Luckily it didn’t last. What will I do if it does? I’ll have to move or something. I have no will power whatsoever, as you may have already concluded.
My first publication was a
list on McSweeney’s. And for a day I was credited with my legal last
name. I was going through a divorce at the time…Then I came to my
senses and asked if they could change it. EE: To be honest, I pretty much know everything from the outset since I'm mostly incapable of inventing characters. The pianist was an actual person. So I just wrote down what I knew or remembered. That said, not everything I write is thinly veiled memoir. For instance, I didn't actually have an affair with a teenage boy, as the protagonist of Avoidance does. I did, however, live next door to a seventeen-year old boy and his mother the year I left my husband and he, the boy, saved me from a drunken, lecherous neighbor one night as I was attempting to carry in my groceries from the car. That boy was a football player, not a skateboarder (like the kid in Avoidance), though. Much tougher. BB: I've always been interested in a writer's process. Some claim to have none. Do you have a process, or method, or routine? A day of EE? EE: Well, I stole mine from Aimee Bender. I went to one of her readings once where she said she wrote two hours a day, six days a week, no matter what. Or, to be more specific, she sat in front of her computer with Word open for two hours. Whether or not she actually wrote anything was not the point. The point was she dedicated those two hours a day to the possibility of writing. She also said she didn't limit herself to working on a particular novel or short story. She wrote what she felt like writing on any given day. I try to do that. First thing in the morning. Right after the kid leaves for school. BB: So you write most everyday. I do that too, it works as a kind of personal therapy, even if nothing publishable comes out of it. I've written long drafts of things and ended up deleting them without a recovery copy, just to have gotten it out of my system. Do you use writing as a form of therapy? EE: Sure, I suppose. There have definitely been mornings I had to write; had I not written I would have been lying in a puddle of my own tears on the floor or slashing someone’s tires. But those mornings are few and far between. Mostly I just write because I don’t want to die without publishing a novel. It’s mostly about vanity. BB: In addition to your short fiction, you've also published a bit of poetry, which often seems like a fractalled version of your fiction in that in takes the ideas in your other work and kind of rips them open, splays the urge. What different process, if any, do you take when writing poetry as opposed to a story? What poets influence you as a writer? EE: Bukowski is the influence when it comes to poetry for me. He’s a huge influence in every aspect of my writing, but the only influence with regard to poetry. I don’t think I would ever have attempted a poem had I not read first read his. As for the process…I honestly don’t know…poems just seem to either happen or they don’t. What I mean is, I never sit down with the intent to write a poem, as I do with short stories or flash fiction or a novel. I wish I did. I’d love to write a whole collection of poetry. Unfortunately, I only have six so far. And, at this point, I may never write another one. BB: What would you do if you were suddenly banned from the practice of writing? EE: Have a lot more sex? I don’t know why I’m saying that. Just seems like a person would have a lot more unfocused energy or something…does that make sense? I’d be less fulfilled, I suppose. And would need to seek fulfillment in other aspects of my life. Like, sex, for instance. ***
Blake Butler has been published or is forthcoming in Ninth Letter, Fence, /nor, Willow Springs, and etc. He edits the online magazine LAMINATION COLONY. He lives in Atlanta and blogs at http://blakebutler.blogspot.com. |
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