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5/24/2008 [ interview ]
Interview with Joshilyn Jackson
by Ashley Harris
Q: Has your writing process changed from writing your first novel, Gods in Alabama, to writing your most recent novel? If so, how? Of the three, which did you find the most challenging to write?
No, not at all. My process is slapdash and insane and involves three am drafting sessions and spending 80% of my working time revising and having no set schedule. I wish it would change. I wish I got up every day at 7 and write from 9 – 3 as all the books on writing say is my moral duty. I also wish my closet was organized and that I would not leave my shoes lying around all over the house for the dog to eat. But, apparently, that’s not how I roll. Alas.
The most challenging book is always the one I am in the middle of. It’s like childbirth in that once it is done, you forget the ugly parts and just look with parental over-fondness at the results. The one I am writing right now is always the one I think is going to kill me.
Q: For Between, Georgia, you collected information from the Helen Keller National Center and you spent time with the president of the Georgia Deaf-Blind Association, Alice Turner, in order to prepare for the writing of the novel. Did you do any of this type of research for your new novel, The Girl Who Stopped Swimming? What kind?
Between was definitely the most research intensive book I have ever done. For The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, I did get to hang out with a lot of cops. I usually have a crime or two being perpetrated in my books, but I have never had a police investigation before. I wanted to get it right. As a bonus, it turns out cops are cool.
Q: What kind of writing habits do you have? In the morning? With music?
Horrid ones. I violently hate drafting, and would never ever do it if I could avoid it and still, you know, write books. I love to revise, however, and if I do not draft, I have nothing to revise. So. To draft, I like to go to a hotel with very few TV channels and no internet. These are hard hotels to find, but it can be done. Or I will go to bed at 8 pm and wake up 3 am and draft then, when no one is awake and nothing remotely fun could possibly happen.
Revising, I love. I sneak moments to revise a sentence or two all day long, every day.
Q: If Hollywood were to make a film of Between, Georgia, what actress would you want to play Nonny Frett and why?
Oh, just for funsies? I like Bryce Dallas Howard. There’s a sweetness there with all kinds of spine hidden under. I think she’d do it just right.
Q: What is the question you wish people would ask about your work?
That’s a hard question because I don’t have a particular response or question I am looking for from readers. I think a book is a conversation between a reader and the book itself, and I am not sure the writer has a place in that conversation. I want people to read my stories. I hope the book speaks to their experience in some way, so that the conversation is a good, two-sided one. After that, it is always neat to have conversations with folks who are willing to talk about all the people who live in my head as if they were real.
I like the fact that, thanks to the internet, I get to hear from so many readers, whatever their question. I keep up with a blog called Faster than Kudzu on my website, so it’s easy to contact me. I love to hear from readers, even the crabby ones who drop by to berate me for allowing my characters to use the Very Bad F word.
Q: Name a writer whose work is currently making you envious.
Karen Abbott. Tom Franklin. Frank Turner Hollon. Sara Gruen. Paula Wall.
Q: The living writer you most wish to have preserved for posterity (maybe frozen for later defrosting . . . a la Ted Williams . . .).
Haven Kimmel—the whole Haven Kimmel. It’s creepy to only freeze the head.
Q: The writer—dead or alive—you’d most like to bury in the literary basement.
Who invented confessional poetry? Let’s bury that guy.
Q: What quote most often comes to mind? (Something a character says, a poet's line, a writer on writing, or a quote from someone at large that applies to writing . . .)
If you can’t be kind, at least be vague.
I try to apply that quote in life, but not while writing.
Q: The worst job you’ve ever had.
Oh, I filed things once. Invoicey things. Murderously boring. I dropped out of college to be a bohemian actor and I ended up filing things to make rent. If your kid ever drops out of college, enough filing will make them go back.
Q: The job you’d want to have—other than writer, teacher.
Voice Actor. I have loved reading the audio versions of my own books. I wish I could do more voice work. I would like to read other audiobooks, and think it would be a blast to do voices for video games and cartoons. I would like to be the voice of a minor Simpsons character. Or a villain on Pokemon! I would get 11 million cool points with my kids for that one.
Q: Favorite curse word.
Shite. I wish I could say it without sounding pretentious but very few Americans can. I love it when other people say it, though. Hearing it makes me poke my husband with my elbow and whisper, “He said Shite! Shite!” I also think it’s funny every time when the dog farts and looks at his own butt in surprise. Yes. I am twelve.
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Copyright © 2008 The Southeast Review
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