Hothouse Anniversary Album – From Sugar to the Mountain

“So take a day. Call it day one.”

These are the first lines of my first post for HOTHOUSE. Twelve months gone by, and suddenly it’s March again. In that time “The Poppy: An Interview Series” has grown into a true HOTHOUSE flower. My reason for creating an interview series – to promote writers and artists via conversation and in terms of where their artistic lives are leading – has become a reality. The plural WE of the interview, and the lone I, pouring over a collection of poetry, stories, essays or a script, a set of images, a succession of movements, thinking things through. And then the connection made when we exchange questions and responses, ideas and thoughts, discovering more than we’d imagined. Add to that another dimension, in which the interviews focus on, circle around, or flat out dive into the idea of PLACE: the spaces we occupy in our minds and art; in dreams and visions, in actuality; and geographically, where we have been, where we are going.

And inside this enormous year so much has happened. So many surprises, so much sadness, so much happiness, and some serious sigh-filled moments in between. Friends’ successful artistic endeavors; good-byes; finishing a novel-in-stories; too-good-to-be-true cocktail concoctions; a bitter-cold winter with bluebird skies; and yes, any day now, any day now… that moment of almost-spring when the forsythia buds and frost comes three more times.

And so, here we are. Again.

So let’s begin. Again.

“Take a year. Call it year one.”

Open your eyes and recall one large, laughing, amazing year! Serious celebration is called for. An open-your-mouth-wide-and-insert-cake kind of celebration! Because March 8th marks my one-year anniversary with HOTHOUSE MAGAZINE!

Since first reporting for HOTHOUSE from Boston’s snow-covered AWP 2013, I’ve posted nineteen interviews with fiction writers, poets, filmmakers, visual artists, and dancers.  Of those interviewed, all were open to and inspired by the questions and the possibilities the responses presented. They discussed endless ways of seeing and understanding the world, whether in description and dialogue, momentum and motion, from mountaintop and coastline, in multiple voices on the dismantling of DOMA, and solo on language and memory, sadness and bliss. And inside the conversations, we always came back to place, for place is where we begin, where we find our muse. And so, I wanted to recognize and thank those writers and artists for accepting my invitations and then playing along.

Every celebration needs music and so the playlist follows – the thus-far collected hits of “The Poppy: An Interview Series” – each matched with a song. I call it “From Sugar to the Mountain,” thinking of my first interview with Natalie Young of SUGAR HOUSE REVIEW and the latest with Augusta Thomson of “Nine-Story Mountain.” Turn it up loud, laugh, go ahead, have another glass, stay a while. It’s still snowing outside. Where else do you have to go?

FROM SUGAR TO THE MOUNTAIN 

– The Collected Hits of “The Poppy: An Interview Series”

AWP13: Interview with Natalie Young of Sugar House – Def Leppard – “Pour Some Sugar on Me”

An Interview with Yolanda J. Franklin – Sheila E. – “The Glamorous Life”

Andrew Lam: Language, Memory, Bliss / Andrew Lam: A Voice from the Heart –  James Taylor – “You’ve Got a Friend”

Jennifer Genest’s Worlds and Words – John Mellencamp – “Small Town”

Brooklyn’s Jamel Brinkley – Floetry – “Say Yes”

Tim Watson: A New Orleanian Now – James Booker – “Black Night”

DOMA and the Arts Revisited – with Marlene Robbins – Sister Sledge – “We Are Family” – and with David Covey – David Bowie – “Heroes”

Matthew Draughter: Vision and Voice – Stevie Wonder – “All I Do”

Sharon Millar: from Caribbean to Commonwealth – Ella Andall – “Bring Down the Power”

Brad Richard: from Aubade to Bacchae – James Booker – “Classified”

Amy Wright: In the Garden – Doug Paisley – “Wide Open Plain”

Surrealist A.W. Sprague II – Amethystium  – “Exultation”

The Gaze of Emilie Staat – Karen Choi – “Tangled”

The Coastal Concerns of JoeAnn Hart – Steve Earle and the Dukes – “The Rain Came Down”

NONTRADITIONAL: The Landscape of Homecoming – with Brian J. Hauser and Christina Xydias –Bach – “Cello Suite No. 6 v-Gavotte”

Fort Starlight: A Florida Story – with Claudia Zuluaga – Duran Duran – “Lonely in Your Nightmare”

NINE-STORY MOUNTAIN – with Augusta Thomson – Rusted Root – “Send Me on My Way”

BONUS TRACKS – with thanks to and inspiration from all those interviewed – James Taylor – “Blossom” & Pete Seeger – “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”

Since we spoke, many of the writers and artists interviewed have received all kinds of recognition for their work. Congratulations to all! And so I asked what they felt were their greatest artistic achievements of the past year. And here is that playlist as well.

• Natalie Young comments: “Hmmm… Not shutting the magazine [SUGAR HOUSE REVIEW] down. Just kidding! I guess I feel the most accomplished about sticking to the series of poems I’m working on and getting a number of them accepted for publication. I have commitment issues – that’s why I’m a poet.”

• Yolanda J. Franklin has had two readings, one at AWP and the other at FSU for their warehouse reading series, and a publication in African American Review.

• Andrew Lam’s short story collection, “Birds of Paradise Lost” (RED HEN PRESS, 2013) won a Pen Award.

• Matthew Draughter was nominated as an American Voice in the Scholastic Young Art and Writing Competition.

• Sharon Millar writes, “My greatest artistic achievement was co-winning the Commonwealth Short Story Prize.”

• Brad Richard on artistic success: “Stumbling upon the perfect title for my next book, the title I didn’t even know I was looking for. Like the titles of my last two books, it scans as trochaic dimeter.”

• Jennifer Genest’s biggest artistic success this year: finally writing a personal essay – and having it published! And in THE DOCTOR T.J. ECKLEBERG REVIEW!

• Jamel Brinkley placed a story for the first time and what a venue! A PUBLIC SPACE!

• Tim Watson says, “Artistic success? Finishing Booker film ["Bayou Maharajah"], finding a deeper story in another film that is in progress, and unshelving another film project that has been on the shelf for 8 years.”

• Marlene Robbins was awarded an Ohio Dance Award for outstanding contributions to the advancement of dance education.

• David Covey calls his artistic achievement from this past year “surviving the renovation of Sullivant Hall [Ohio State’s Dance Department] and all the rest of the BS in the world.”

• Amy Wright had three essays accepted by journals she’s long admired – BREVITY, DIAGRAM, and KENYON REVIEW!

• A.W. Sprague II, an incredibly talented surrealist artist, and very humble, says his greatest success this past year was being interviewed by me. Thanks, Bill!

• Emilie Staat tells me that her Faulkner-Wisdom award-winning essay, “Tango Face,” was recently published in THE DOUBLE DEALER. And it’s exciting to see everyone going mad over HBO’s “True Detective,” which she worked on as the Script Coordinator.

• JoeAnn Hart says, “My greatest success would have to be the publication of my second novel, “Float“.”

• Brian J. Hauser and Christina Xydias think their greatest success of the past year was securing two tenure-track jobs in the same place, while their greatest artistic success was finishing “Nontraditional” and getting it accepted to the 2014 Bare Bones International Film and Music Festival!

• Claudia Zuluaga writes: “After eight years of revising and finally publishing a new novel ["Fort Starlight" (ENGINE BOOKS, 2013)], even with a new baby and full-time job, I’ve built enough momentum to get deep into a second novel.”

• Augusta Thomson’s biggest artistic success was completing a full-length film about Mount Kailash, Tibet – “Nine-Story Mountain.”

• And mine is, of course, this glorious collection of interviews, the music heard and stories read, and low and behold, the completion of my novel-in-stories!

*

The Poppy: An Interview Series

Four to six questions begin as pods, then burst open with answers, bright lapis, 

black-stamened, conspicuous—ornament, remembrance, opiate.

*

First posted in the ARTS section of Hothouse Magazine.

NINE-STORY MOUNTAIN

“In the far west of Tibet, there is a mountain some call the CENTER OF THE WORLD… MOUNT KAILASH.”

The opening of Nine-Story Mountain, a documentary film directed by Augusta Thomson, reveals soaring blue skies and a wealth of white clouds and the Kora, the route pilgrims follow around Mount Kailash, a holy pilgrimage site. Originally from the Monadnock Region of New Hampshire, Thomson is a dynamic and engaged world citizen, now in her final year of studies in Archaeology and Anthropology at Oxford University. She has been involved in other documentary projects, including as Director Corporate Screenings and Outreach Coordinator for ongoing screenings of Girl Rising, a strong and stunning documentary about nine girls in developing countries, and how education has transformed their lives and their communities. The powerful message of Girl Rising has inspired a global movement for the right to education for girls around the world, just as the panoramic footage of Nine-Story Mountain will raise awareness about the cultural and environmental impact of pilgrimage practices in Tibet.

“Nine-Story Mountain charts the journey of three western researchers on a path of self-discovery, from Lhasa to Mount Kailash, Tibet… to understand the secrets of a mountain and landscape that have magnetized millions of people for centuries.”

Four young Tibetan Bon pilgrims come barreling down the incline. “So, so, so, so, so,” they sing as they run. When they are directly in front of me, they raise their hands. “Tashi delek,” they say. “Blessings and good luck.”

I am in western Tibet, on the path leading up to the highest point along the Mount Kailash pilgrimage route, or Kora, a significant site for many faiths—Buddhists, Hindus, Bonpo, and Jains. I carry my karma with me—a 40-pound backpack filled with assorted books, clothes, notebooks, snacks; a Canon d550; and a 35-pound tripod. With the aid of two expedition members, I am researching the material culture of pilgrimage—the offerings left by pilgrims along the sacred route and the rituals associated with them.

— from“The Purple Umbrella,” by Augusta Thomson, WellesleyMagazine, Summer 2013

“Not only does material culture have implications for spiritual devotion, but it also connects individuals and communities to the geographical landscape.”

Augusta, tell us about your background, your interest in Tibet, and how you came to filmmaking as a student of Anthropology and Archaeology?

People always ask me where my interest in Tibet came from. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure. Tibetans would say it’s Karmic. I do have one memory of when I was around thirteen and a group of Tibetan monks came to visit my middle school. They chanted for about an hour during an all-school assembly with these deep and haunted voices; during and afterwards I was completely transfixed.

Later, I did some research. And the more I learned about the Tibetan diaspora the more I felt compelled by Tibetan culture. I was intrigued by Buddhist philosophy, and especially, the concept of compassion. There was something so graceful about the way that Tibetans handled the Cultural Revolution and corresponding religious persecution. I thought then and still feel that grace like that is a valuable teaching tool.

Later, when I was studying at Wellesley College I remember watching my peers respond to academics and adopt career paths, and being struck by the realization that so many people seemed to be “running before they could walk.” They were filtering into finance jobs and career paths they hadn’t chosen intentionally, with self-awareness. It made me want to do something to help—to fill that gap. I decided to leave Wellesley and apply to Oxford University to study Archaeology and Anthropology—to learn more about alternative perspectives on the world and especially the culture of the Indo-Tibetan region. In the interim before the start of my first year I spent six months working on a Tibetan text preservation project in Cazadero County, California. For six months I worked in a bookbindery set up by the Nyingma Lama, Tarthang Tulku. I spent much of that time dyeing the sides of sacred Tibetan texts a traditional red hue, and preparing them for shipment to Bodh Gaya, India. Tarthang Tulku set up Yeshe De, the Buddhist text preservation project after fleeing Tibet during the Cultural Revolution and subsequently recognizing the need for cultural preservation through literature. Over the course of that time I developed a deep reverence for Tibetan culture, and especially, for the significance of cultural preservation in the Indo-Tibetan region. Every year the Lama funds a world peace ceremony in Bodh Gaya, India, the Monlam Chenmo, when thousands of monks and nuns pilgrimage to Bodh Gaya to receive offerings of the sacred texts prepared by Yeshe De—texts they might otherwise never have access to. To be honest, working in the bookbindery was the first time I felt wholly connected to a humanitarian project—probably because I could really see where it was going and how it was benefiting people. That sense of connection to the deeper intention behind the project was really transformative.

I never actually thought that I would make it to Tibet, and later, when I had the opportunity to launch an anthropological research expedition to study Tibetan culture, I realized the blessing of that opportunity. Tibetans and other pilgrims from different faith groups used to spend their whole lives dreaming of the chance to visit Kailash. In the past, pilgrims would walk or prostrate over 1000 kilometers from Lhasa to the Ngari Prefecture of Tibet just to visit the mountain.

To think that we would have the chance to live that dream was deeply humbling. And before Lara, Don, and I even left I remember thinking that we had to turn that gift into something more—a blessing for others—with the simultaneous purpose of memorializing the stories and myths of a mountain that are at risk of becoming lost. This film is our attempt at painting a picture of a mountain that deserves to be protected and preserved, as a landscape of peace.

“Nine-Story Mountain memorializes the sacred myths and stories surrounding Mount Kailash— myths and stories in need of preservation.”

Nine-Story Mountain focuses on “pilgrimage practices across the Tibetan plateau,” specifically around Mount Kailash. What is it about pilgrimage that calls to you?

As an anthropologist and artist, the concept of pilgrimage has long fascinated me. I am intrigued by the individualistic and community-focused elements of pilgrimage journeys, which seem to meander easily between the personal and the communal. For some time now I have been drawn to the ways that pilgrims cement their ties to transitional pilgrimage landscapes—either through storytelling, the construction of small shrines and sculptures, and/or the collection of photographs and other sacred mementoes in the landscape. Taken one step further, the material culture of pilgrimage might be viewed as a sort of meta-language, left by pilgrims in a sacred landscape, to connect them to the landscape, to past legends and stories, and to other pilgrims.

After sifting through assorted literature on pilgrimage I knew that I had to travel to Tibet. In Tibet pilgrimage is almost universal. Pilgrimage routes circle sacred monasteries, shrines, and even towns. Larger pilgrimage circuits weave from sacred monasteries to sacred lakes, on circuits stretching thousands of kilometers. Pilgrimage in Tibet is undertaken as an exercise in purification; pilgrims walk to cleanse their defilements and karma. Offerings comprise an ingrained part of Tibetan pilgrimage culture, as do stories and myths.

“As one of the few landscapes… where people of different and historically oppositional religious and cultural traditions can peacefully coexist, the story of the pilgrimage community begs viewers to consider how the mountain’s culture of tolerance might be a useful tool for different conflict zones around the world.”

“As some of the few westerners to make it into Tibet… they travel alone through an empty landscape, a landscape witness to changes most people will never have the chance to see.”

What did you, along with your fellow Oxford University researchers, experience and learn on the expedition across Tibet?

Over the course of five weeks we learned a landscape unlike any other we had ever experienced. Our amazing guide and Tibetan crew introduced us to locals and took us to locations off the beaten path to aid in our research. When we were on Kailash, our guide and translator, helped to facilitate the interview process, such that we captured never-before-seen footage and anecdotes of Tibetan Buddhist pilgrims, Tibetan Bon practitioners, Hindu pilgrims, Western pilgrims, Chinese pilgrims, Tibetan teahouse owners, Tibetan guesthouse owners, Tibetan nomads, Tibetan monks and caretakers, and Tibetan mantra carvers. I spent most of the research period learning Tibet through a lens, and I will never forget how the colors of what we saw and experienced gave life to our film and story.

Nine-Story Mountain is our tribute to the landscape and culture, not only of Tibet, but of a sacred mountain on the Tibetan Plateau, with the incredible ability to transcend territorial ties. Mount Kailash is one the few places in the world, claimed by oppositional religious faiths, where pilgrims of different ages, genders, and cultural backgrounds walk together in peace. It is one of the few transitional landscapes in the world, shared by people of different ages, genders, cultural, and faith backgrounds, where the culture is unequivocally one of tolerance and acceptance. Throughout the research project I kept looking for a hole in the fabric and culture of Kailash; I kept searching for the one broken strand. In the end, I found that the only broken strand was my resistance to believe.

“The Tibetan woman holds a bright purple umbrella.”

At Drolma La Pass, “the most sacred point along the Kora,” which “represents the point of rebirth,” you came across the woman with “the purple umbrella,” as mentioned in your essay in the Summer 2013 issue of Wellesley Magazine. Would you describe this encounter?

I made my way up the incline toward Drolma La for the second time. The last time I’d climbed up to the pass, on our first Kora, the wind bit my face and the path was blanketed with snow. This time the rocks were clear, the sky cornflower blue. Behind me, a young Tibetan woman with a baby strapped to her back held a bright purple umbrella.

Almost at the top of the pass, the sun hit my back, and I found myself gasping for air. Around me Buddhist pilgrims blessed the sky with lungtas—five-inch paper images of the Tibetan “windhorse,” thrown into the air like confetti. Bonpo pilgrims sang mantras and shook strands of prayer flags to honor the sacred mountain. A small urn smoked; the smell of juniper mingled with the clear smell of Kailash. In Tibet, juniper is believed to possess healing and restorative properties.

As I passed another rock littered with prayer flags and other pilgrims’ mementoes, I saw the woman with the purple umbrella. She sat, picking tufts of juniper, her baby sheltered under the purple arc, then stood, approached me, and gestured at me to watch. She took the juniper, rubbed it between her fingers, and threw it into the air. “Ah,” she said. “Ah.” Then she gathered a bundle of the savory green shoots and placed them in my palm. She carefully closed my hand with her hand, looked right though me, and nodded. When her baby began to wail, she turned away, my gesture of thanks unnoticed. Drolma La Pass, in the mid-morning, was full of pilgrims. Together we sat—to share snacks, to smile when communication faltered, and to watch others learn the landscape—rebirth everywhere.

“In Tibet, pilgrimage sites are everywhere. They dot the landscape: lakes and rivers, monasteries and shrines.”

To have assembled the research team and funding for the expedition, traveled to Tibet and trekked the Kora, interviewed Tibetans and others about the pilgrimage to Mount Kailash and captured these moments and the landscape on film—really, this is beyond accomplishment. You must feel astonishment and an incredible kind of pride. And in exactly one month—on March 8, 2014, International Women’s Day—Nine-Story Mountain will premiere at the inaugural Women’s International Film Festival at Oxford University.

What are your thoughts at this point, about the film, in terms of the audience, and in wider scope, in terms of the world? And in close-up, what does this mean to you personally?

This film is about the power of community. It is a testament to the strength of stories to connect people of different cultures and backgrounds. It is a testament to the power of hope and perseverance, to the beauty that exists, always, at the foundation. Even as the landscape changes and evolves to welcome tour operating companies and hordes of pilgrims, I have faith that the beauty of Kailash will inspire a renewal.

I never thought that I would be the one to film Kailash, to capture its transcendence with a tiny HD camera. In the end, Kailash captured me.

Hearthside, mountainside, or deep within an archive of sacred Tibetan texts?  

I love this question. But, I would have to say, “none of the above.” I’d like to hope that the most comfortable place I find myself is always the place I am most needed. That could be any or all of the above. It could be anywhere. A little like a snail—I carry my home on my back.

What is your idea of absolute happiness?

For me, happiness is the feeling of running through a summer thunderstorm, of the wind on my face cutting through the waves of a wide ocean, of being totally and completely free. Absolute happiness is the experience of passing that on to someone else—bringing others into the immediacy of that joy. It’s something that drives my work; I truly believe that if everyone could feel that “splash-in-a-puddle, tennis-in-the-rain” type of freedom the world would be made better. So much of joy is tied to space—to the sense of expansiveness that comes with opening one’s heart. In my opinion, joy channeled into positive action, inventiveness, and productivity will change the world. That would make my absolute happiness ABSOLUTE.

Augusta Thomson

Augusta Thomson is currently a student at Oxford University, where she is studying for a B.A. in Archaeology and Anthropology. She spent the last year living and working in New York City, as Director of Corporate Outreach and Distribution at 10×10/Girl Rising, and simultaneously interning with the filmmakers, Sarah Teale and Lisa Jackson. During that time she wrote pieces on the Girl Rising movement and spoke at schools and venues throughout New England. She is the Director of Nine-Story Mountain, a documentary film about an Oxford University and Royal Geographical Society-sponsored research expedition, which took place in July 2012, to study pilgrimage practices across the Tibetan Plateau and around Mount Kailash, a sacred mountain in the far western Ngari Prefecture of Tibet. The film will premiere in March 2014. At present, she is working as Regional Ambassador for Girl Rising, to help launch the movement in the UK, and is coordinating the first Women’s International Film Festival at Oxford University— to celebrate International Women’s Day, on March 8, 2014.

Photo credits: Don Nelson

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The Poppy: An Interview Series

Four to six questions begin as pods, then burst open with answers, bright lapis, 

black-stamened, conspicuous—ornament, remembrance, opiate.

*

First posted at Hothouse Magazine.

Fort Starlight: A Florida Story

reading Fort Starlight en route to Prague

When traveling by train from Berlin to Prague, I began reading Claudia Zuluaga’s debut novel, Fort Starlight. Immediately caught up in the Florida tale of lost souls, swampland, and strangely discovered dreams, I was startled every now and then at the sight of cliffs and castles outside the train windows. Perhaps I was missing the sights of central Europe, but this is typical of me—I head off on adventures and find myself longing for home, which means “the South,” specifically the age-old stomping grounds of Florida. And so, Claudia Zuluaga’s words gave me permission to do just that, with a story that calls up uniquely believable characters, a vibrant and true sense of place, and just the right sway of narrative voice to carry the piece from start to finish. Engine Books’ editors, Victoria Barrett and Andrew Scott, have their sights set on fine writing, and Fort Starlight is among their many well-received titles. Curious about the author’s inspiration, the novel’s themes, and the astounding writing that adds Fort Starlight—by The New York Times Book Review’s standards—to the latest shelf of “Southern Literature,” I asked Claudia if she’d consider an interview, and I’m thrilled that she said, Yes!

Port St. Lucie, Florida

“past the beach houses built on stilts”

“Past the Beach houses built on stilts, past the ocean highway that runs along Erne City, past an inlet that is a shade lighter than the ocean, past more houses, past small streets, past the Florida turnpike, past dark clusters of trees, two North American blackbirds, male and female, fly west over the southeastern shore of the Florida peninsula.”-Claudia Zuluaga

The prelude to Fort Starlight—a novel about leaving the familiar and discovering the unfamiliar, about isolation and longing, about desperation and dreams—is one of place, and our first view, reminiscent of Eudora Welty’s opening passages in “A Curtain of Green,” is from above, an aerial shot of that place in Starlight County where the story will unfold.

The wetlands and heat and flat brilliance of Florida’s east coast are familiar to you, Claudia. Could you tell us a little about your background, how you, too, once found yourself in Florida, and why this setting is integral to your main character Ida’s story?

I’m the sixth of seven children. I was born in White Plains, NY. My parents, who had never owned a house, had bought a parcel of land in Florida around the time that I was born. I don’t think it was ever worth much, but the summer before I turned sixteen, when all of my older siblings were living on their own, they traded that plot of land toward the purchase of a villa in Port St. Lucie. At that time, Port St. Lucie wasn’t fully developed, and there was nothing but wilderness to the west of our planned community. Only maybe half of the villas were occupied, and for a teenager, pulled away from her friends and her pedestrian life, it was profoundly disorienting. And the heat. The whole thing felt like a dream. I would try to go for a walk, but five minutes in any direction was just swamp, tall grass, or asphalt, rippling in the heat. I spent most of that summer, after I gave up on the walking, inside the villa, in the air conditioning.

I was only fifteen, and my parents had put everything they had into starting a life there, but all I could think about was that everything I had known, all the people I had known, were gone, and I had to find a way to make something for myself, because I couldn’t imagine anything coming next. It seemed, at that point, impossible. And then, like Ida, I realized it was something I’d just have to survive, and that maybe I’d never know what it meant. But I did find things to hold onto. I made friends. I made it work as well as I was able. It didn’t take away my urge to escape, to undo what I felt had been done to me, but I found beauty there. It is beautiful.

North American Blackbirds

The blackbirds, first introduced in novel’s beginning pages, appear throughout, at first to show us the way and then, more than literary device, more than motif, they reveal their own story. Like the characters of Fort Starlight, they, too, are trying their best to survive the harsh and beautiful wetlands, “a place where anything dripping and new could step up out of the muck and begin its existence.” And inside the act of survival we witness the imperfections and vulnerabilities of the creatures and characters.

Would you expand on the importance of the world here, “the seven square miles of muddy rivers, scrubby trees, swamp, the forest hammock,” in relation to your characters and the intertwining stories?

The world of south Florida, of this wild part of south Florida that doesn’t touch the Atlantic, is something you can’t deny, can’t get away from. There is no ocean breeze to cool you off, no reassuring smell of salt in the air.  It’s something that makes you think, “People probably aren’t supposed to be living here.”

But they are. And they are in Fort Starlight. Nature has pushed (almost) everybody inside to shelter, and inside is where they have to deal with their weaknesses, their problems, their pain. The place makes me think of a sweat lodge, somewhere you go to sit and sweat and suffer, all for the purposes of purifying, of moving forward.

A friend of mine says, “You can’t get away from your shit. It’ll track you down and eventually make you deal with it.” Everybody in Fort Starlight is at that place in their lives. They can’t run any longer. This is what unites all of the characters. This is the basis of their community, whether they know it or not.

“An alligator could snap you up in two seconds”

“the body of… a twelve-year-old boy is guarded by a thirteen-foot alligator”

As I read Fort Starlight, I noticed the idea of imperfection casting itself into the storylines, and in each successive chapter, with subtlety and great care, the perfection of imperfection beginning to fold itself into scenes in which characters interact with each other and with nature. Careful narrative threads, crosscutting, and lyricism work together and create a landscape in which the perfection of imperfection is revealed. Pairings appear: Ida and her long-lost brother, Peter and the memory of his wealthy father, the at-odds gay couple Ryan and Lloyd, the neglected and wandering boys Donnie and Carter, Nancy and her terminally ill great-niece, even the body of twelve-year-old Mitchell Healy and a four-hundred-pound alligator, and yes, the blackbirds.

What might you tell us of the meaningful isolation and imperfection of your characters and of the physical, emotional places in which they find themselves?

I wanted to make Ida stuck, with no easy way out. The only way she is going to grow, meaningfully, is by being stuck with herself. It is so tempting to think that everything will change, if only you pack up and move away from the familiar, if only the background and the noise and the weather are different. Of course, it’s not that easy. The only things that change are the background, noise, weather. As soon as the disorientation has dissipated, you are back where you started.

Despite the difficulties that Ryan and Lloyd are having, that Nancy and her great niece are having, that even the boys are having, they all have each other for support in their journey. Ida has only the imaginary companionship of her brother. Peter has only the memory his father and the illusion of his superior intellect. These two are the most in need of figuring out who they are and how their lives are going to be, and both are brave about it, if a bit misguided. They have to be alone, until they don’t anymore. And I see their relationship—one of parallel growth rather than intimacy—continuing beyond that last moment at the beach.

Florida tree house

Tidal pool, tree house, or a beachside table spread with a sunset supper of cold white wine and deep-fried gator?

I’m torn between the tidal pool and the tree house. When I was in high school, we would go to a beach called Bathtub, and when the tidal pools were full and warm, at night, we’d bring goggles. You could swim in some of these pools in darkness, without having to worry about riptides or sharks. There were these phosphorescent organisms, and if you moved your hands underwater, watching with the goggles, it was like you were parting the stars. Amazing.

One of my brothers moved to Florida for a few years, around the time I moved out of my family’s home, and he and his wife did live in a tree house for a time. It was tiny, dark wood, with bunks instead of beds, no real furniture. Something from a fantasy movie, like The Dark Crystal or Labyrinth. It wasn’t open to the elements, but it was up in a tree, up over swamp water, cozy. He moved there with his wife, just after they were married.

Florida map

Claudia, you’ve lived in the South, and your writing, so far, concerns the South, a place that for many, including myself, has a mystical, powerful, sinkhole kind of attraction. There are the harsh realities of hurricanes, overzealous religions, and unsettling heat, and then there are the gentler ones of salty ocean breezes, herons in flight, the taste of grilled pompano.

Do you find that you are drawn still to writing mostly about Florida? What is it about this particular setting that inspired you to write the Pushcart-nominated story, “Okeechobee,” and then the much-praised novel, Fort Starlight?

There is something in the very shape of Florida that makes it feel cut off from the rest of the country, the rest of the world. Once I moved there, I never once drove up and out of the state. It just seemed so far. We’d go south, west, east. Never north.

I moved to an efficiency near the beach just before I turned nineteen, and then to Orlando for a few years, where I worked as a waitress. As a matter of fact, I didn’t leave Florida until I was twenty-one and flying out on my very first airplane ride. I’ve never been back to my home town. Not even once. Miami, the Keys a few times, but no more Treasure Coast. This wasn’t on purpose. I didn’t really feel I had roots there, and even my parents gave up and moved back north, because none of their children lived down there.

That isn’t to say that Florida doesn’t have culture or joy or possibility, because of course it does. I think my feelings about that particular part of Florida were really colored by the fact that, when I did live there as a teenager, I was under the thumbs of my strict parents, and I had no car or freedom. I was away from everything I’d ever known and believed the rest of the world was gone; there was no evidence of it anymore. I couldn’t even go for a walk, because there was nothing to walk to. I couldn’t get my bearings, really. All of this combined made me really disoriented and unsure about how to figure out who I was. I fled, thinking I needed the distraction of other people to be able to figure it out. Maybe I did.

Now, I’m a grownup, I can drive, and there’s the magic of the internet, connecting everybody. The place I lived, as I knew it then, doesn’t exist anymore. I wouldn’t experience it the same way.

I didn’t realize I had to get it out of my system, work through what it all meant, until I was in the noise and chaos of New York City. People have described my writing as atmospheric, very setting-oriented. I’m not sure if that is the case in anything I write that isn’t based in Florida. I think I may be done with Florida, but who knows! I have other Florida stories, one called Be Your Animal, published in the now defunct Lost Magazine.

Okeechobee

Trailers & Palm Trees

At David Abrams’ literary blog, The Quivering Pen, you wrote of earning your first paycheck for a story accepted by Narrative Magazine. I love the humor and honesty of this account, and even more, I love the story itself. “Okeechobee” is a sweet, sad short-short about how childhood and family are rough and rare.

Would you tell us something about the narrator, a young girl who notices the world around her—her own version of Florida—in terms of the tension between her parents, the hot afternoon of canned colas and closed trailer doors, curses and class differences and broken-down cars?

Kids take in what they are ready to take in. There is an age when children start noticing the things that are not right about their lives, not right about their families. They start to imagine what their own life will be like someday, and this causes them to notice and judge and long for what they don’t have. My narrator has just begun to have this awareness. She sees the tension between her parents, the lack of joy, affection, spontaneity, and starts to put the pieces together, trying to figure out where it all came from, trying to figure out what it means for her.

My second summer in Florida, I had a boyfriend who seemed to be, at the time, the only thing I had going for me. Naturally, he dumped me. I was despondent, because I had thought I’d found some direction, something to hold onto that made me who I was. If I mattered to someone, then I was connected to the world. The dumping happened around the time my mother wanted to visit her friend in Okeechobee, and though I was a mess, she made me come. Maybe she thought it would cheer me up, or maybe she just was wary of leaving me home alone. We got in the car and drove, meeting her friends at a rodeo (where they did, I think, have warm cans of cola). It was so hot. I thought it was supremely ugly. I sat with my shoulders hunched, too numb to cry.

A bull collapsed. People rushed over, then just stood over it, watching while the beast’s heart gave out. It seemed that there could be no more miserable place on earth at that moment. Hot and dusty, warm soda, a heartbroken girl, a dying bull, all of this happening even closer to the center of the state, where there seemed to be no escape. Why had my mother made me come? Did she not understand my despair? There was definitely something about the disconnect that inspired the story of Okeechobee.

“Small fishes, sand, bits of seaweed, scallop shells, whole and cracked”

And finally, I want to acknowledge the ending of Fort Starlight without giving it away. There are moments of resolution I feared might become too carefully tied, and so I was relieved that the characters and their story lines remain a bit smudged, as well as lovely and imperfect. Ida’s character expands exponentially once she finds the Atlantic, and as in the beginning, she experiences a new place with “tide pools on both sides… the water… so clear… [she] can see the bottom… Small fishes, sand, bits of seaweed, scallop shells, whole and cracked… a stingray in the last… just before the sand bars end and the open ocean begins.” Here, there is a widening, the possibility of moving forward, the moment Ida and all Fort Starlight’s characters have longed for. Is this perhaps where you as a writer also found a place from which to move forward? And from this easterly view, where are you headed next?

Yes!! I am working on a novel right now that goes to an even more challenging place for me, emotionally and psychologically. Before Fort Starlight, I wouldn’t have had the courage to jump into the strange, unknowable thing I’m jumping into now. Now I trust the process of writing a novel and know that it will work itself out, as long as I keep at it. Fort Starlight was a mess for years. I had all of these pieces and had no idea how they connected. For the longest time, I couldn’t figure out who Ida was. I would see her doing things and I didn’t know why. All I had was atmosphere, and it took so long for the people to emerge from this atmosphere, and this is echoed in the prologue with the bit you excerpted: “a place where anything dripping and new could step up out of the muck and begin its existence.”

So I’m looking east, yes. At the deepest, darkest, most unknowable trenches of the ocean. With my fingers crossed.

CLAUDIA ZULUAGA

Photo Credit: Christian Uhl

Claudia Zuluaga is an English Lecturer at John Jay College (CUNY) in New York City. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College. Her short stories, which have been nominated for Pushcart and Best American Short Stories, have been published in Narrative Magazine, JMWW, Lost Magazine, and Linnaean Street.

 *

The Poppy: An Interview Series

Four to six questions begin as pods, then burst open with answers, bright lapis, 

black-stamened, conspicuous—ornament, remembrance, opiate.

*

First posted at Hothouse Magazine.

NONTRADITIONAL: The Landscape of Homecoming

INT. REGISTRAR’S OFFICE — DAY

Erika waits in an area in front of a service counter. A sign indicates that this is the Registrar’s Office. Smaller signs point the way toward ID CARDS, FINANCIAL AID, and ADMISSIONS. A placard on counter says FEES & DEPOSITS.

The ASSISTANT REGISTRAR, 40ish, stands behind the counter speaking to a student at the counter, but we can’t hear what they say.

The student picks up a heavy backpack and weaves his way around Erika.

ASSISTANT REGISTRAR: Can I help you?

Erika approaches the counter and lays the bill in front of her. The registrar takes the letter and scans it — she’s seen millions of these; her eyes know just where to look.

ERIKA: Yes, ma’am. I received this is the mail today, and I’ve been charged in error.

The registrar taps on her keyboard with lightning speed.

ASSISTANT REGISTRAR: Byrd. Erika M. Freshman. Out-of-state.

ERIKA: That’s the thing, ma’am. I’m not out-of-state.

ASSISTANT REGISTRAR: Did you live in New York the past 12 months?

ERIKA: No—

ASSISTANT REGISTRAR: Then you’re registered as an out-of-state student, and you have to pay out-of-state tuition.

ERIKA: No, I don’t.

The registrar has heard this line from entitled students before.

ASSISTANT REGISTRAR: Look, where did you live for the past year?

ERIKA: Baghdad.

- from the screenplay of Nontraditional, a film by Brian Hauser

In Nontraditional, a film by Brian Hauser, the landscape of war is approached in terms of homecoming, how soldiers — in particular, a twenty-six-year-old female combat veteran — fall back into civilian life, how communication and gender and powers of deduction crisscross. Erika Byrd, the protagonist of the film, embodies all of these issues. Her creators, filmmaker Brian Hauser, and his partner and producer, Christina Xydias, agreed to talk with me about the film’s conception and realization to its production and upcoming Veterans Day premiere.

In approaching Hauser and Xydias for this interview, I initially asked about their interest in filmmaking. Their candid, comprehensive responses are included here.

How did you became interested in film and this project in particular?

Hauser: I have been interested in film as a viewer more or less all my life, but I think I first became interested in making movies when I was in the Army in the mid-1990s. I was more interested in screenwriting at that time, but I had this sense that knowing how moving pictures actually got put together would be an enormous help in achieving a better understanding of writing scripts. I bought a cheap 8mm Samsung camcorder and noodled around with it to very little effect. When I got to graduate school several years later, I got a bit more serious about it. I purchased my second camera and set about making a few short films. This is also where I started reading the various filmmaking books on the market in a more systematic way. I was learning about all of this just as the World Wide Web was becoming robust enough to be useful. I found all sorts of like-minded people on the web, including a loose group of filmmakers dedicated to making film adaptations of the works of H.P. Lovecraft, as well as the production company that gave me my first writing job. I was also inspired by all of the talk of the digital revolution that was in the air in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I soaked up all the rhetoric about DIY and the democratization of filmmaking. As a result of all of this, I wrote and directed my first micro-budget DIY feature in 2002.

The project was one part ill-conceived and two parts overambitious, so there was never really much hope of finishing it, but the last nail was driven in when I was called to active duty two months later. I was away for twelve months, during which time I put the film and graduate school on hold. That was a signal moment for me. Until then, my adult life had been very intentional; this was the first time that I had ever honestly felt swept away by the course of events. Since then, much of my creative work has been an attempt to sort through that experience, and Nontraditional is certainly a part of that. While I was teaching at the Ohio State University as a grad student, I was fascinated by the way that I could pick out the male veterans in my classes without them telling me. At the same time, I was reading a number of news stories about women in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I wondered how many female vets had been in my classes. I was sure that my curiosity about this had something to do with my own gender preconceptions, but I was also sure that female vets often did not display the same kind of non-verbal cues that males did: military-themed clothing, regulation haircuts, visible military tattoos, and all the other small details of military bearing. And as I thought more about it and tried to pay more attention to the issue in my classes, I came to the conclusion that female vets were far less likely than males to self-identify as veterans in all sorts of direct and indirect ways while in college. That interested me, so I started looking into it more here and there, seeking out more news articles. Eventually, Christina and I decided that we wanted to speak with female vets directly, so we arranged to interview eight female Ohio State students who were also veterans or in ROTC. Those interviews provided the background information that I molded into the screenplay for Nontraditional.

Xydias: My interest in filmmaking, specifically, as a means of expression is entirely through Brian’s interest. I have other voices: I used to produce enormous quantities of fiction—mimicking whatever I was reading at the time (Jane Austen, Tom Clancy, anyone). I’m an amateur musician with a lot of experience in performance, and over the last ten years I’ve worked to cultivate my skills in public speaking. Filmmaking is very new to me, and I don’t actually view myself as a creative participant in Nontraditional so much as … managerial. This isn’t to say that management isn’t creative, because I think it really is. I came to this project with an overarching interest in making the film happen, financially and logistically and creatively, not with very precise technical skills in camera work, say, or acting.

My interest in the content of the project Nontraditional in particular comes from three directions: first, my own feminism; second, my work as an academic studying and writing about women and politics; and third, my understanding of Brian’s experiences in the military.

I have long viewed women’s exclusion from registering with the U.S. selective service as promoting differential citizenship, so I was interested in exploring the dynamics of gender and power within the military. I’m also really curious about the extent to which these dynamics reflect how American politics works more generally. A lot of political discourse emphasizes protecting women when it really means protecting masculinity. It sounds silly to need to say it aloud, but gender and sexuality are really complex. I was intrigued by the idea of having a protagonist who challenged simplifying assumptions about both combat veterans and college students. I was even more intrigued by the challenge of developing this protagonist without portraying her as a victim, either of sexual assault (which is often the focus of portrayals of female soldiers) or of other people’s misunderstandings. Even when Erika Byrd is struggling in college, she is not a victim.

And, of course, by the time Brian and I undertook interviews with female vets at OSU, which was more than six years ago, I was very familiar with his own story and his experiences in the military. Projects generally have their own timeline.

Tell us more about both your views on the politics and dynamics of gender and power in the military. How did you get this across in Nontraditional?

Xydias: The central co-concerns of any military are morale and combat readiness. Even when we observe that some female soldiers are sufficiently competent to serve in combat roles (and even when we observe that some male soldiers are not) – which might otherwise suggest that gender is not relevant to military concerns – service members’ attitudes towards one another and their conceptions of gender matter. Soldiers opposed to women’s formal inclusion in combat roles might experience lower morale, for example, with female unit members. However, there is a point at which it is not the state’s obligation to accommodate outdated conceptions of gender. At a certain point, people opposed to women in combat roles purely on gendered grounds need to remember that they are professionals and do their jobs. (By analogy, we would not argue that someone else’s aversion to women wearing pants should result in a pants exclusion rule. That person would just have to keep this aversion to himself.)

I also would like to clarify here that this emphasis on citizenship and democracy as they relate to women in combat is not because Brian or I happen to be particularly pro-war, or that I cannot imagine an alternative version of the world in which combat exclusion has nothing to do with mutual respect and self-determination. In the world that we live in right now, though, states have borders, and militaries protect them. The exclusion of anyone from a combat unit for reasons unrelated to their competence is a form of discrimination regarding who gets to contribute to this core state activity.

Hauser: I have always approached the question of gender in the military from a competence-based standpoint. Service members should be evaluated based on their willingness and ability to perform the required tasks to standard. Sex and/or gender should have nothing to do with it. I knew men and women who could do the job, and I knew men and women whose abilities I doubted. The tricky part about the question, I think, has always been not the fact of sex integration but what people think about it, what it means to them. In Nontraditional, Erika is simply a combat veteran. She has a Bronze Star for valor and a Purple Heart. This is the part I feel she does not have to explain or justify. She did it; she was recognized for it. The question is not whether or not she can do it, as it is in films like G.I. Jane. The question here is, now what? Erika is a warrior, and a scarred one, but her identity as a woman blinds others to those important parts of who she is. There are thousands of women like Erika, and there will be thousands more soon.

In Nontraditional’s opening scene, Erika Byrd is seen in combat gear, crossing from forest to field where she is greeted by a crowd, each embracing her and taking her weaponry, then her uniform from helmet down to boots, exchanging them for civilian clothing and then accompanying her back into “the World.” This is, of course, a dream sequence, but, to me, this seems an incredibly profound and important kind of recognition for those who have been in service to our country, and I wonder why we don’t do this for our own returning soldiers. Would you speak about the decision to begin the film with this scene?

Hauser: To me, this is the crucial set up for the story. It is, I think, the broader context of all stories about soldiers coming home, not just women and not just Erika. Society has asked some of its members to shoulder the burden of stepping outside the confines of civilized behavior for the benefit of the state. However, when soldiers return home, they are implicitly expected to cross back into the civilized space and shed their warlike habits and attitudes. It seems to me like the perfect scenario for a ritual. Before you enter the peaceful city, we require you to put away warlike things; and because we are the ones who sent you to war, we will honor your service by helping you disarm. Of course, this is precisely what we don’t do for our veterans. We tend to be pretty good about the “welcome home” part, and this is usually carried out on the unit level, but I think it’s the ritual disarming that’s really the key to the process. That’s what we don’t do. My sense is that the reasons we don’t do this are tied up with an American warrior culture that tells us we must always be warriors, always ready for battle. In particular, this message is directed at young men, but to the extent that it is reflected in the Second Amendment it is directed at all of us.

Relationships are approached in multiple ways, from Erika skyping with her parents and speaking one-on-one with her Sociology professor to studying with other college students and when Todd “Doc” Clark, a friend from her old battalion, shows up for a visit, revealing the soldier she was and the woman she’s become. All of Erika’s encounters disclose what it’s like for a female combat veteran to re-enter civilian life and especially university life. The occasion that really stands out is the one in which Erika tells Todd of the necessity “to dwell in the boredom.” We understand here how the lack of action and adrenaline is entirely unsettling for returned soldiers. This is a phenomenal way of describing this circumstance that certainly all who’ve been in combat must experience, and how it’s pretty damned frightening to come up with coping strategies for simply engaging in everyday, dull-as-all-get-out life.

And so the question: would you tell us how you found your way through the maze of relationships in the film, all in service of Erika’s character and her story, and how you managed to fold them all so expertly together?

Xydias: Brian’s screenplay first introduced these characters and their relationships, to be sure. But ultimately what we see on the screen is as much a product of the actors and environment of the set. Erika’s relationships with other characters on screen are characterized by both tense interpersonal conflict as well as tremendous warmth. An audience can share in these dynamics because our actors worked really well together. They worked well together in ways that are not possible to anticipate; they created something new.

Hauser: Thank you; that’s an awfully kind way to phrase the question. As I wrote the script, I was aware of the ways that Erika was responding to different people. She was respectful to professors and staff, unless one of them seemed disrespectful to her. She was less impressed with her classmates and neighbors, and even with people she identified as peers she came off as gruff. She is only really open and warm with her Army buddy, Todd, and their conversations are sprinkled with some of the harshest language in the film. My experience in the military was full of that kind of interaction: harsh exteriors masking the personal. It’s a defense mechanism a lot of the time, and it’s one that Erika finds very useful in college. Though a number of characters reach out to Erika in the film, it’s really her fellow nontraditional student, Laurel, that does so in the most powerful way, and Laurel could only do that by mustering a kind of interpersonal courage. Erika is not an easy person to get close to, but Laurel chooses to fight for the opportunity. Looking back on it, this might be one of those unconscious themes at work in the film: people can be strong and competent by themselves, but it’s only in their relationships that they can be heroic. Heroism is transitive.

In Nontraditional, communication plays an immense role, from college essays to military acronyms, from understanding to misunderstanding, from classical music to jazz. Within these parameters Erika reveals her remarkable powers of deduction, as well as her loss of comprehension.

 In the army, there are “tasks, conditions, and standards” — the goal is clear. In college, however, process replaces goal in terms of thinking: “Always revise. Always experiment. Always question.” Erika’s considers the wider spaces of possibility and seems to lose her footing, but then bears down into a place of understanding, the Rhetorical Triangle as her compass. Every communication as a trilateral relationship and each point of the triangle bearing some responsibility for the success of the communication, from credibility to consistency to imagination, from form to idea to force. This shape, this new way of seeing the world is related to an old way of seeing the world, as revealed by Erika’s notebook drawing of the symbol for the 18-Deltas (Special Forces Medics) — an 18 inside of a triangle. These kinds of connections are forthright, brave, and even scholarly.

In writing the screenplay did you realize the representation of the triangle, rhetorical and otherwise, would then lead to Erika’s ability to communicate more effectively by drawing from the past, while letting it go, and moving toward the future? Or is this something you came upon and worked through during production?

Hauser: I did not have the triangle associations in mind when I sat down to write the script, but they were definitely in place by the time I finished the first or second draft and well-thought out before we started shooting. I did know that the rhetorical triangle was a fairly didactic tool to stick into the middle of a film, so I was happy to stumble upon the link between that triangle and the “delta” of 18Ds. That also made me think of the triangle/delta as the chemistry symbol for reaction or change. At that point, I knew there were enough connotations that I could build on the motif; it was fertile ground for a character epiphany.

Are there any other stories you’d like to tell about discoveries made in the writing and in production?

Xydias: Making a micro-budget movie is the context for lots and lots of discoveries! We self-financed production, which was freeing (because no external funders controlled technical or creative details) as well as terrifying. Even though we did not produce the film expecting to make a profit per se, it felt like gambling with an enormous amount of our income. At every turn, we made decisions that balanced creative vision with very pragmatic questions of what we could afford. As producer, I constantly wondered whether we were investing enough to create something beautiful; as production manager, I stressed over how fast we went through hummus. (Incidentally: the cast and crew consumed approximately 50 pounds of carrots over the course of principal photography!)

In creative terms, I’d like to mention how hugely collaborative our set was. As producer, maybe I can’t claim to speak for the entire crew in describing it as egalitarian, but promoting a collaborative context was certainly one of our principal goals – and every day, everyone made suggestions and solved problems. Many of our core crew members are very young, and I found it so exciting to watch them assert their own creativity.

Hauser: Kat Evans really jumped into her role as Erika and did a lot of work to make that character come alive, and she also worked closely with the other actors on set to flesh out new dialogue (often saving me from myself as a writer). I invited and expected those kinds of collaboration and discovery.

What I didn’t quite expect was the way that the Bach soundtrack would fit together with jazz. I was looking for a piece of music in the Public Domain that I could reasonably use for the end of the film, something to say that Erika and her music class had moved on from Bach. By asking my music-savvy friends and through my own research I surmised that a lot of early jazz was on the Internet Archive. This seemed like a reasonable solution. It’s a big temporal jump from baroque to jazz, but in a music appreciation class like the one Erika is taking these periods of music history tend to jostle one another. I settled on The Original Dixie Land Jass Band’s “Livery Stable Blues” mostly because I liked the sound of it and the recording is in the Public Domain. However, when it came time for my brother, Kurt, to record the guitar version of Bach’s cello suite that forms the majority of the film’s soundtrack, he was suffering from a severe neurological disorder, thankfully from which he is now recovering. At that point, though, there was no way he was going to be able to play the suite on classical acoustic guitar, because he had lost nearly all the feeling in his left hand. In addition to being profoundly freaked out by what was happening to him physically, he was devastated that he wasn’t going to be able to provide the music we wanted. I remember when he called to tell me all this, he said, “So, when the plan fails, what does a soldier do? Improvise.” (Kurt was a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne.) The music he could record for us was a series of gorgeous improvisations based on the six movements of Bach’s cello suite no. 6. The improvs on electric guitar make the entire soundtrack seem a bit more jazz-inflected than I originally expected. This wound up becoming an important change to the feel of the film, and in a subtle but powerful way it also emphasized the importance of the jazz motif as a way forward for Erika.

And last of all: Drive-ins, multiplex cinemas, or independent single-screen theaters?  

Hauser: Independent single-screen theaters primarily, but I would also add in newer distribution platforms like streaming, VOD, and mobile devices. This is an intimate film and one that we would like to get in front of the people who might have an interest. Since it’s not a genre film, my guess is that it wouldn’t play well at multiplexes (though I would be happy to be proven wrong!). Thinking about digital distribution will hopefully allow us to get the film in front of more people who want to see it.

Xydias: Independent single-screen theatres. Ours is a beautiful film that is best appreciated on a bigger (theatre) screen — And it’s an independent drama, which independent-single-screen-theatre-goers are more likely to be drawn to!

Thank you both for the great conversation and for your time, which is quickly leading up to the film’s premiere! Any final thoughts you’d like to share?

Xydias & Hauser: We’d just like to thank you for letting us talk about our film with the readers of Hothouse!

Brian R. Hauser

Brian Hauser grew up in Sylvania, Ohio near Toledo. He attended public school, watched too much television and too many movies, and played a lot of video- and role-playing games while he lived there. He later attended The Ohio State University, eventually taking a B.A. and M.A. in English and a Ph.D. in film studies. For several years in the 1990s and again in the early 2000s, Brian served on active duty with U.S. Army intelligence. He is now an Assistant Professor of Film at Clarkson University in Potsdam, NY, where he lives with his partner, Christina Xydias, and their two cats.

Christina Xydias

Christina Xydias grew up listening to NPR, running and skiing long distances, playing classical piano and cello, and reading reading reading. She’s one of those people who did all of her homework and didn’t have a fake ID. Christina studied political science at Brown University (A.B., 2003) and then at The Ohio State University (Ph.D., 2010). She is now an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Clarkson University in Potsdam, NY. She talks with her hands, is a meticulous recycler, and always tries to listen to the other side of the story.

 *

The Poppy: An Interview Series

Four to six questions begin as pods, then burst open with answers, bright lapis, 

black-stamened, conspicuous—ornament, remembrance, opiate.

*

First posted at Hothouse Magazine.

The Coastal Concerns of JoeAnn Hart

“While he lamented the shipwreck that was his marriage, he mourned the equally disastrous changes in his old route. It was no longer the road of his blissfully rudderless youth, when this stretch was a wild and untamed curve of the bay, dotted with signs of warning—“Swim at your own risk” and “Caution, strong tides”—which had only encouraged recklessness. This area had once been so sparsely settled that, at low tide, he and his older brother, Nod, could walk the few rocky miles from their house to their dad’s office without ever touching the civilization of the sidewalk. They loved the damp band of earth that was neither wholly sea nor entirely land, a constantly changing landscape that offered their prepubescent souls new, exciting dangers to overcome. Duncan and Nod had felt themselves gifted at avoiding the perils of the seaweed slicks. They had leaped across the cracks and crevices with ease, even grace, and had waded unafraid through tide pools full of barnacles and crabs. They had scratched their bare legs on wire lobster traps and tripped on minefields of trash, surviving to tell the tale. As boys, they were masters of their world, demi-gods of the water’s edge. Now their infinite kingdom was gone.”–JoeAnn Hart

JoeAnn Hart writes about environmental concerns that affect coastal regions, where sea and land meet, and where ecosystems are made even more fragile by man’s irresponsible pursuits. Her characters are observant and engaging, her prose layered with metaphor, her setting lush with realism, and her themes linked to the beauty and tragedy of the natural world. In this interview she speaks of her novel, Float, and the environment, as well as community and collaboration.

JoeAnn, tell us about your background. Has Gloucester always been your home? And how has that coastal landscape influenced your writing?

I grew up in the Bronx, then Westchester, before escaping to the Rocky Mountains, which is where young people went in the 70’s. Most of New York was cavorting about in Boulder, including the man who would be my husband. He was from Manhattan, but had just inherited a creaky house in Gloucester, and so I was dragged, somewhat kicking and screaming, from the sunny mountains to the icy sea. It was January, 1979. The sky was gray, the snow was gray, and the harbor was frozen over for the first time in decades. It was no Coastal Living magazine spread. I was only 22, and I wasn’t sure I had the fortitude for maritime life, but love being what it is, I stayed, and Gloucester became a part of me, and me of it. I didn’t start writing until much later, when the working waterfront had already begun its decline. The fisheries were decimated by the industrial fleet with their bottom-scraping trawls, and plastic debris was becoming the main harvest in the nets. In Float, I’ve tried to come to grips with the crippling of the local fishing fleet, and the ecological devastation of the seas. Most writers attack these problems through journalism and other non-fiction formats, but I am comfortable writing about these issues in fiction. I believe that environmentally conscious fiction can forge a strong connection between the brain and the heart, and become a catalyst for social change.

JoeAnn Hart’s novel, FLOAT – Art by Karen Ristuben / Design by John Yunker

“A wry tale of financial desperation, conceptual art, insanity, infertility, seagulls, marital crisis, jellyfish, organized crime, and the plight of a plastic-filled ocean, JoeAnn Hart’s novel takes a smart, satirical look at family, the environment, and life in a hardscrabble seaside town in Maine.”

I love this description of Float. Would you tell us the details of what inspired you to write this novel? And how you decided on the title and on Duncan Leland, the man whose “infinite kingdom” is facing rising tides, as the character through which the story is revealed?

As with my first novel, Addled, I started out with the title, Float, then dove in to play with all the many different meanings and images. The concept of Float began when I heard a friend tell me what her therapist told her, that she had to learn to float over her stress, that she couldn’t struggle against every crisis or else she would get pulled under and drown. So she learned to just say the word float whenever she was stressed and it helped get her through. I thought that was brilliant, and started building on it. I developed a main character, Duncan Leland, who had both his personal and business life in jeopardy, then I gave him a crazy mother to boot. Through the course of the book, he must learn to float, or sink. I used ‘float’ not just in this psychological sense but also in its financial meaning, as in, to float a loan. Then there are the things that float in the ocean, such as plastic, or dead humans. A float is also a wooden platform connected to a dock by a ramp, and it moves up and down with the tides. Not to mention, floating on air.

Tidal pools, salt marshes, or white-capped seas?

Since I am a total wimp, no white-capped seas for me. I enjoy watching them from a distance, inside. Near a fireplace. And when I think salt marsh, I think greenhead flies, who will rip the flesh off your bones during breeding season. There are a few toe-biting crabs scuttling along the bottom, but you won’t ever find a shark in a tide pool.

JoeAnn Hart with Daisy – Photo credit: Morgan Baird

What has been the most memorable harbor sighting from your dory? And does Daisy, your rescue pup, share these fair-weather outings?

The most wonderful part of rowing around the harbor in a silent vessel like a dory is the seals. They are as curious about us as we are about them, so we – me and my rowing partner, Sarah – always have an eye out for a mammalian head peeking out of the water. It is amazing to think of these large animals, these air-breathing animals like us, living under the ocean’s surface. It is not just a parallel universe to ours, but a completely foreign landscape, and here is an ambassador from that country –  a seal – saying hello. To them, we are a dark lozenge shape moving slowly over their heads. They see the tips of our oars enter the water, then disappear. What are we doing, they wonder. What are they doing, we wonder. Daisy doesn’t come on the dory with us – she much prefers luxury motor yachts with staff – but when I walk her on Brace Cove and it is low tide and the seals are sunning themselves on the rocks, they seem to know one another. The seals arch up, as she goes by, and stare. Perhaps they feel their vestigial leg bones twitch, just a little, as they watch her jump from rock to rock.

You are active in the Gloucester writing community—including the Gloucester Writers Center and the Rocky Neck Art Colony—as well as environmental alliances and animal rescues—NAMA: Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance, Save Your Ass Long Ear Rescue, and more. It seems you’ve found a way to traverse the worlds of art and environment. Collaboration is also evident in your choice of artist Karen Ristuben’s cover image for Float, and your partnered gallery reading/artist discussion this September. With your past, present, and future endeavors in mind, is the environmental path of your writing career ever overwhelming? Or does the support of community and collaboration keep you energized and inspired?

In almost all cases, I get back more from an organization than I give. Usually, that pay-back is in the form of satisfaction of having at least tried to make a difference in the world, especially when it comes to the environment. There is also the payback of connection. I’ve met wonderful people working with groups. I’ve also met a few clunkers, but it’s all grist for the mill. Humans just crack me up. We say one thing, and do another, and we almost always work against our own best interests, especially when it has to do with the environment. Here we are, a species destroying our own habitat, and we just continue on our way as if it’s not happening. So I have nothing but admiration for organizations that keep fighting the good fight even as we’re sinking. Especially the arts and humanities, which are too often viewed as if they were an accessory to our culture, and not the defining aspect of our species. Science can make us think, but the arts make us feel, and in order to make the right decisions for the future of the world, we need to use the whole brain, not just half of it. We should all try to approach the world with the wonder of an artist and the curiosity of the scientist. Gloucester artist, Karen Ristuben, who did the cover art for Float, has this sensibility, so I was thrilled when Ashland Creek, who specializes in environmental literature, chose her photographs for Float. We were on a panel together this summer with other environmental artists and writers – Kyle Brown and David Abrams – to talk  about how the arts can be used to enhance environmental action. It was the hottest night of the year in an un-air-conditioned space, and we had a packed house, which demonstrates a great deal of interest in the collaboration between the arts and the environmental sciences.

NAMA is important because they promote local fishing in the same way that the plight of the family farm was brought to our attention. We can fish and save the fish at the same time if we have the right international policies, and if people understand where their fish comes from and how it is caught. And of course, Save Your Ass is close to my heart because we got Abe and Zach from them. We love our donkeys, and we like to think they love us too.

JoeAnn Hart – Photo credit: Brendan Pike

JoeAnn Hart is the award-winning author of the novels, Addled, (Little, Brown) and Float, (Ashland Creek Press), a finalist for the Dana Award in the Novel, and an excerpt of which won the Doug Fir Fiction Award. Her work explores the relationship between humans and their environment, natural or otherwise. Recent stories, essays and articles have appeared in The Sonora Review, Newfound Journal, and The Boston Globe Magazine.

Photos by JoeAnn Hart, Morgan Baird, and Brendan Pike.

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The Poppy: An Interview Series

Four to six questions begin as pods, then burst open with answers, bright lapis, 

black-stamened, conspicuous—ornament, remembrance, opiate.

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This interview first posted at Hothouse Magazine.