Spotlight On…

Today, Meg Pokrass — unique, funny, multi-talented and wonderful — graces Dark Sky.

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

Thanks so much for interviewing me, Ethel. What a treat. The answer to your questions: Where am I now? I am here (tonight that means writing a few poems). Where am I going? I am going THERE (this means there is no conscious plan. I am just following an invisible rabbit). Ahem.

Also, I am finishing up a very exciting book collaboration project… a book called Naughty Naughty. This is a book of sexy flash fiction stories co-authored with Jack Swenson, to be published by Balder Press. In February, 2011, my book Damn Sure Right will be released by Press 53. The book will include over one hundred flash fiction stories. Tiny stories.

You are remarkably prolific and creative. In particular, your latest creative child, animated shorts, comes to mind. What informs your creative process? How do you keep inspired?

I play. I actually play way too much, especially on Facebook. I play with visual prompts, word prompts, and my writing buddies. That is how I stay inspired, mostly.

I try strange techniques… for example…mistranslating my own stories into Arabic or Swahili or Filipino, and then translating them back. The results make no sense, and then I have to make sense of it again, but in a new way. The piece may make me laugh when originally intended to be sad, or sad when originally intended to be humorous. I honor what the piece becomes!  It demands attention, like a moon rock… especially after translation sifting.

All of these things wake my brain up. The key word for me is PLAY.

In addition to writing, you sport many metaphorical and literal hats. Do you worry about spreading yourself too thin? Diluting the quality of your writing, editing, and living?

That is a really good question, Ethel. When you and I first met, my focus was very narrow. It was flash, flash, flash. What I have added since we first had coffee (in the last year or more) has been a grand adventure: I interview authors, I animate, I mentor and teach. My sense of adventure is what keeps me interested in my own brain, and it allows me to constantly learn from other artists.

No…I don’t worry about being spread too thin. My family is happy that I am happy. And my writing (so far) seems to benefit from animating. I’m really getting so excited about dialogue.

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

The internet saved my life. It got me in touch with people who GET me: both writers and readers.

The future of print publication is totally unknown. Still, on the hopeful side… I believe there is nothing more sensual than curling up with a book. Well, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration…  How about this: Nothing will replace owning and schlepping and dog-earring and spilling coffee on a book! There is something intimate and personal there that will never be replaced, to my way of thinking.

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

Most people don’t know that I was a successful new business development consultant and that I worked with advertising agencies for nearly twenty years before dropping out to write.

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

A dead field with a few dried-up gopher holes. I’d be a nail biting shrew.

Please tell us your favorite, and why:

a. Musical

The Music Man – sentimentality

b. Fable/Fairy Tale

The Little Prince – because it feels completely true… even though it is impossible

c. Movie

Harold and Maude – because it should be true and is, in fact, possible

d. Painting

Marc Chagall’s The Lovers – because it asks for hope… or else, maybe, a new kind of looking

e. Place

The Olympic Peninsula – because that is where Raymond Carver became real to me. Walking around that town with my boyfriend who later became my husband. That was where I knew I would somehow, someday be a writer.

Please do a five minute free-write with the word “nylons” and share:

She was wearing nylons her mother had sent her, a special kind that slimmed her hips, tucked in her tummy, and sculpted her waist. They felt like shark death. It took twenty minutes to put them on, and then at least an hour to take them off.

“Thank you so very much,” she said to her mother trying to make her voice cheerful. It was her fortieth birthday. This was her gift. Her mother had called to see if she was feeling better.

“You don’t need to be so formal,” her mother said.

She always seemed to hurt people’s feelings. That was why it was so important to have animals. She had seven of them, all different sizes and temperaments. If the dog seemed annoyed, the cat would rub against her. If the cat was stand-offish, the rats would scamper under her shirt and nuzzle. Nobody was angry for long, and there was always something to do, to really do… to make things better.

Her friends were convinced she needed a man. One of them suggested moving to Montana, where there were four men to each woman. Or was it Alaska? She always thanked them. She imagined throwing out the nylons, and moving to Montana or else Alaska. She thanked them for all of their suggestions. She tried not to sound stiff and formal.

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Meg Pokrass is a fiction writer who lives in San Francisco. Her debut collection of flash fiction, Damn Sure Right will be published in 2011 by Press 53. Meg is an editor for Smokelong Quarterly and runs the “Fictionaut Five” author interview series for Fictionaut. Her story, “Leaving Hope Ranch,” published in Storyglossia was selected for Wigleaf’s Top 50 Flash Fiction 2009 list. She has published over one hundred stories and poems in journals such as Gigantic, Gargoyle, Wigleaf, and Annalemma.