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Juliet Escoria: When I make things—whether it is writing or more visual types of art—I do things for stupid, shallow reasons first. Usually the stupid, shallow reasons can be reduced to “Because I felt like it.” To elaborate on the stupid reasons behind the pictures… I like taking photos, I like books with pictures, and it’s my fucking book and I want there to be fucking pictures in it.Later, I question the stupid, shallow reasons, and oftentimes they’re not that stupid or shallow after all. Oftentimes they’re much more intelligent and complex than anything I could have come up with were I trying to construct some sort of effect or convey some sort of philosophy.
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It makes me think of what goes on at 12-step programs, rehabs, mental hospitals, etc. In these environments, you have people telling each other horrible, ugly, ridiculous stories about things they did or things that happened to them. Maybe they've never told these stories before because maybe they're ashamed about their role in things. Sometimes the only way to tell these embarrassing, messy stories is to dress them up with a little bit of swagger and humor. Part of this is protective—humor as a defense mechanism—but part of it has to do with being completely honest. A true story, a whole experience—they are never only one thing. Addiction and mental illness are tragic and sad and devastating, but they are also funny and ridiculous. You need to have one in order to stay true to the other. You can't be naked without being nude. If there's no bravado in your vulnerability, then all you are is a gaping wound.
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“The Other Kind of Magic” was based on a bad breakup I went through. The process was atypical because it was a really easy story to write. I think the only things I changed about it were little things, like punctuation and phrasing. It was the kind of story that writers write in hopes of—the effortless story that almost writes itself. It was less than a month between me starting it and it being published on Vol. 1 Brooklyn.“I Do Not Question It” was a lot more typical in that it gave me trouble. I originally wrote it in January of 2013 as a journal entry. I was still pretty manic and thought it was amazing, but it was just sort of OK. It sat on my computer for several months. I’d open it every few weeks and add a paragraph or take one away or something. Eventually I was able to turn the reality into a fiction that worked: Two characters were condensed into one, a name was changed, I made some stuff up in terms of the history between my friend and I. That blue ball was some crazy shit, though.What’s it like having another writer as your significant other? I read that Fitzgerald used to complain that it messed him up when Zelda used a shared experience as a basis for her fiction. Like, that it altered the experience in his mind and he couldn’t use it in the way he would’ve. It irritated me that he seemed to think he should get first dibs, as I understood it, and I also found it amusing. Is there a sense of competition in the household? Do you write at the same time or at different times and to do it do you need to be in separate rooms?
I don’t really know yet but I will soon because Scott [McClanahan] and I are marrying in four days, and then I’m moving across the country to live with him. It’s been long distance so far, which is very different than actually living with a person. I’ll let you know how it goes.So far it’s been supportive. So far it’s been a good thing, because we can talk shit about the same people and tell each other when our work is good or not.The thing that makes me uncomfortable is that Scott is a man and I am a woman and Scott is so much more well-known than me. I don’t want to be a Zelda. I don’t want to be a Rita Marley.Who do you want to be?
Juliet Escoria