Spotlight On…

Today, the lovely, gifted, and intelligent Amber Sparks lights-up the Dark Sky stage. She’s funny, sassy, honest, and doesn’t hold back, and that’s why we love her. Brace yourselves.

– Ethel Rohan

Writing wise, where are you now? Where are you going?

Here’s the part where I bitch and moan about how hard my writing life is. I have two manuscripts, one a collection of short stories and one a collection of writings about myth and legends, and I need to whip them into shape and start getting them out to publishers. The problem is that these are not “fun” things, in the way writing is fun for me. So I cannot make myself do these things.

I’m also trying to work on a novel, but so far all of my attempts have turned into short stories instead, mostly because I can’t be bothered to think of anything else for my characters to do. I don’t think I’m cut out to be a novelist, but I keep trying. It’s probably really tragic, actually, like watching someone drive their car into a wall over and over again. But I persist, despite all the head injuries. Or maybe because of them.

Oh, and I’m going to be Necessary Fiction’s Writer in Residence in September, so watch out for that.

What informs your creative process? How do you keep inspired?

My creative process is pretty OCD, actually. I am an obsessive list-maker and planner-outer. I have to chart and plan everything, make graphs, do research — you’d think I was planning a polar exploration or doing a paper on statistics, not writing a story. But I have to do this, that and write with constraints, because my brain is way too unstructured to just start writing. Also because I write about a lot of subjects that actually need researching. What inspires me? Everything. Anything. What I’m reading, what I’m watching, history, science, math, my family, my friends, old shoes, the backs of cereal boxes, the shape of the states on my map of the U.S. The only thing that never inspires me is nature. I’m allergic to pretty much everything nature produces (pollen, trees, dust, plants, flowers, mold, etc.) so I feel a deep and probably pathological bitterness toward the natural world. But sometimes I pretend nature inspires me, and that usually works out okay, too.

How do you feel about the label writer? Woman writer?

I have complicated feelings about both those labels. Writer, because am I a writer? I mean, I’ve always written, ever since I can remember, but does that make me a writer? If someone asks what I do, I don’t say I’m a writer, because I don’t make a living at it. I say I work for a labor union, because that’s what pays the bills. But then I feel bad, because I’m very serious about my writing. I really am.

And woman writer, that’s even more difficult. Mostly I object to it, honestly, because people don’t say “male writer,” and throughout history adding “woman” as a descriptor seems to demote the occupation, to deny it true legitimacy. Like, Oh, she’s only a woman writer, or a lady lawyer, or a female firefighter. Although female firefighter actually sounds kind of badass. Also because I don’t feel I write very often about women’s issues, though of course I suppose everything I write is seen through a woman’s eyes so I guess you can’t separate your gender out completely. I also have great admiration for many women writers who have proudly called themselves that, and I consider myself absolutely a feminist, and I know many women think by reclaiming terms we can redefine them, so I get that side of it. But I guess I prefer to just be a person who writes, sometimes. I’m a person who eats, too. And a lot more often than I write.

Do you struggle with self-doubt? How do you cope with those feelings?

Of course — if anybody honestly answered no to this question, I bet they’d be the shittiest writer ever. Has anybody ever answered no? Aren’t all writers complete neurotics struggling with constant self-doubt? Maybe just me. Sometimes I read a piece I wrote and I think it’s so inadequate that I just want to eat my own face off with shame and embarrassment. I cope with these feelings by continuing to write. Self-doubt is the best motivator there is to keep improving your work.

You sport many fine, fine hats. Do you worry about spreading yourself too thin and diluting the quality of your writing, editing, and living?

I never do worry. I’ve always operated this way — I’ve always been involved in eighteen million different projects and pursuits and hobbies and jobs and I like it that way. I’d die of boredom if I only did one thing. I don’t feel at all like I’m a fixed or finite entity — there’s way more than enough of me and my writing/editing/whatever to go around. The only constraint on it all is time. It is, of course, very helpful that my husband loves to read as much as I do. We spend a ton of time together, and much of that is spent reading. If he didn’t like to read, I don’t know what I would do. I’m really lucky.

How has the Internet impacted your reading and writing? What is the future of print publication?

I am absolutely one hundred and seventy-five percent in favor of literature online and of the lit world taking advantage of new media. Yes, this is probably partially because new media happens to be my job — but also because I see the positives of online lit, every day. No one reads my stories in print mags. Well, a few people, but hardly anyone. But I get emails all the time about my stuff online. I’ve met almost all my awesome writer friends online. I find out about readings on Facebook. I pimp other writers’ stuff on my blog, and they sometimes pimp mine, too. People always make fun of the idea of online communities, but this community is there and it’s strong and it’s real. It leads to real collaboration, real projects, real solicitations and publications and exposure to writers I never, never would have heard of otherwise.

I think I’m lucky, because I’m the perfect age to adapt to new technology with ease, while still retaining a sense of the vast and amazing jumps technology has made in the last thirty years. I’m the last of the Gen Xers, also part of a very small group known as the MTV Generation. We’ve grown up with constantly shifting and changing technology — not like our younger siblings or cousins or kids, who’ve always known computers and cell phones and the internet — but able to adapt and embrace technology just the same. And I think we can embrace the duality of the old and the new. I love my Nook (my e-reader) but I also read a ton of physical, paper books, too. I don’t think it has to be one or the other. I think reading submissions on an iPad makes my life way easier, even though I rarely read longer works on there. I hate that people position e-books as this thing that’s going to destroy paper books. I don’t think it will. I think there will be fewer crappy mass market paperbacks printed, because people will be able to read them more cheaply and easily on an e-reader. But I think there will always be a market for physical books, too, and I think if anything e-readers and e-books just make people more excited about reading, and open up new avenues for indie book publishers.

I understand how people feel about physical books, and I feel the same way — I love the texture of some book covers, the way it feels to turn a page, etc. But I also love how much lighter my suitcase is now when I travel, which is frequently. When I’m at home, I mostly read physical books. The argument I cannot tolerate for five seconds is one I’ve heard a lot lately: that you won’t be able to tell what someone on the subway is reading, or to broadcast your own fancy-pants taste to the rest of the cafe. What a stupid argument. I’m sorry, but if you’re reading mostly to impress other people, or can’t be bothered to just ASK someone what they’re reading, then you are lame and we don’t need to continue this conversation. Words are words. If you love reading, read, in whatever way works best for you. The end.

Tell us something that most people don’t know about you?

I have seen every single Godzilla movie ever made. Most of them many times over. I have a soft spot for daikaiju — giant monster movies.

If you didn’t write, what would your life look like?

Probably exactly the same, since 99.9 percent of the people in my life don’t know or don’t care that I write. I’d probably be doing some other artistic thing, singing in a nightclub on the side or painting or something. I think I’d need the outlet. But my life would look just the same, I suspect.

Please tell us your favorite, and why:

Musical: Not a big fan of most musicals. I mean, WHY ARE THEY SINGING? I get opera, because they’re singing the whole time, okay. But musicals — WTF? Why do they talk like normal people, then suddenly bust out into a song and dance routine? Who invented this, and why? I cannot take it seriously. It makes me giggle. I do, however, enjoy the old MGM-style musical revues from the 30s and 40s, like Gold Diggers of 1933, 42nd Street, that kind of thing. Those were okay, because they didn’t pretend to be anything other than a bunch of people singing and dancing and showing off fancy costumes and sets. They weren’t, god forbid, singing stage adaptations of Les Miserables.

Fable/Fairy Tale: Donkeyskin, because I used to spend hours imagining and trying to draw her dresses, especially the one that looked just like the sky. This is actually a really fucked-up fairy tale, because the father falls in love with his own daughter, but I’ve always just sort of ignored that part and focused on the fashion. I think I also have a thing for the persecuted heroine — my other favorite fairy tale is The Wild Swans.

Movie: It’s a three-way tie between Vertigo, A Night at the Opera, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Favorite examples, all, of favorite genres.

Painting: I can’t choose just one! That’s really hard. Like asking for a favorite short story. I mean, I love the Italian futurists, the surrealists, the abstract-expressionists, some of the neo-expressionists… I guess maybe the painting that’s not necessarily my favorite, but the one I’m most emotionally attached to, is Rothko’s Blue, Green, and Brown. I used to have it up on my wall in college, years ago, and when I was really upset the blue was a door and I’d imagine myself climbing through it and just kind of soaking in the calm quiet blue all around me.

Please do a five minute free-write with the words “too white sneakers,” and share.

Coriander hated when people got their homophones mixed up, like when her aunt wrote “too white sneakers” instead of “two white sneakers” in the suicide note she left on the kitchen table next to her shattered head that morning. The note also said “there false stairs” instead of “their false stares,” though the mistakes in the first actually made it a slightly more interesting phrase. There, false stairs! Look out! It made her giggle a little. She knew that wasn’t right, wasn’t fair at all (fare, fair) but she really couldn’t help it. Nobody ever promised that death would give you dignity. If your spelling was ridiculous to begin with, your suicide note wasn’t suddenly going to be Shakespeare. If anything, death made you more a spectacle, a sorry show. Death left all your faults hanging out on display, like saggy old underwear (where?) that somebody forgot to take down from the clothesline.

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Amber Sparks’s work has appeared in various publications, and is forthcoming in New York Tyrant, Unsaid, PANK, Lamination Colony, Bust Down the Door and Eat all the Chickens, and Gargoyle. She is the fiction editor at Emprise Review, and can be found online most days at www.ambernoellesparks.com.