Spotlight On…

Today Ethel Rohan shines the spotlight on Amelia Gray. Amelia Gray is the author of AM/PM, published by Featherproof Books, and Museum of the Weird, due August 2010 through Fiction Collective 2. You won’t hear it from her, but she is also gifted, intelligent, and delightful.

Just one of the many glowing reviews for AM/PM:

“The stories in AM/PM have ruined me as a reader of shorts. I will no longer be satisfied by the merely beautiful, the singularly clever, or the one big thought purely rendered. I want all those things in a two hundred word package. I want to be highly amused and deeply sad at the exact same time. Amelia Gray packs more power in a paragraph than I thought possible.” —Stacey Swann, Editor of American Short Fiction

Writing-wise, where are you now?

I’m finishing edits for Museum of the Weird, due August 2010 through FC2. It’s a collection of short stories. I’m also working on something longer; about 24k words in currently.

Writing-wise, where are you going?

Trying out this “plot” thing. Making diagrams and road maps and lists that don’t make a lot of sense. Getting stuck in dead-ends. Spending a lot of time feeling like a dam or a brick wall. Sneaking off to write short stories.

What informs your creative process?

Staring out the kitchen window with my mouth open as I wait for the kettle to boil. Lying in bed trying to decide what happened to a character to make her become a certain way. Figuring it out and forgetting to write it down. Looking at my parents’ wedding pictures. Thinking about wasps and their nests. Eating fish. Eating salad. Eating chicken.

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

When I was ten, I won a contest and became an official ice cream taste tester for a year. They gave me a special spoon and a kid-sized lab coat with my name embroidered on it and there was an article in the newspaper.

How has the Internet impacted your reading and writing?

If I allow myself, I’ll read articles online all day from aggregation sites. I get sucked down the rabbit hole. There’s a lot of grotesque stuff on the internet. There is a video of a gecko’s body getting eaten by ants in time-lapse. I start to ask myself what I need to know about and what I don’t need to know about.

What is the future of print publication?

Print will be fine as long as people like to hold things. The best print journals recognize that they need to innovate with a special medium. Spork and Annalemma are two journals that shine. Longer work is always better in print, but journals need to ask themselves if the length issue is the only reason they stay in print form. If it is, they need to find more reasons. Good print material finds more than one reason to survive.

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

I’d probably still work at a bunch of different jobs, but they wouldn’t be related to writing like my jobs are now. I like spreading out the resources. I’d go back to retail. I like being a cashier and I’m pretty fast at 10-key. Maybe I would work in a doctor’s office. I think it would be okay.

Do a five minute free-write with the word “up,” and please share:

She looked. “That looks nothing like a bird or a plane.”

He stopped pointing. “You’re right. It looks like a man flying through the sky.”

“We might as well say what we mean when we see it.”

He looked at her eyes. His eyes and her eyes watched each other. Their eyes looked. His eyes saw her eyes and her eyes saw his eyes. The two of them looked at one another. He and she observed each others eyes. Her eyes were looking at his. His eyes regarded her eyes, their shape. Their eyes were watching one another. Her eyes watched his eyes watching her eyes watching his eyes watching. The man in the sky grew smaller and vanished.

***

Please return this Friday, May 14, when we spend time with Stephen Elliott. Stephen Elliott is the author of seven books including The Adderall Diaries, which has been described as “genius” by both the San Francisco Chronicle and Vanity Fair. Elliott’s writing has been featured in Esquire, The New York Times, The Believer, GQ, Best American Non-Required Reading 2005 and 2007, Best American Erotica, and Best Sex Writing 2006. He is the editor of The Rumpus

________________________________

Born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, Ethel Rohan now lives in San Francisco. Her work has appeared in PANK 4, Keyhole 9, The Emerson Review, Los Angeles Review, and Potomac Review, among others. She blogs at ethelrohan.com.