Our very own Janice Lee answers, um, six ridiculous questions on Vol. 1 Brooklyn:
3. Do scorpions have rich inner lives? Why or why not?
Of course. I believe all animals and plants and living beings do. Just because we can’t access it doesn’t mean there aren’t worlds within worlds occurring all around us. They think, imagine, dream, just not in the same ways we do.
Yahoo!
Our very own Peter Woods is profiled on VoyagerLA as the amazing, prolific, community building human being he is.
And of course, he is an Accomplice.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Every journey has its ups and downs. There were struggles. Money. Relationship issues. Time management. Racism lol (for real though). As for Writ Large Press, we supported each other and dove head first into creating books that amplified marginalized voices and created events that engaged and recognized our community. The struggle made us simplify and streamline our processes. They made us become better at what we do.
And about what The Accomplices do:
We call ourselves The Accomplices because we are dedicated to supporting each other in the mission to center marginalized voices and transform the publishing and literary landscape. There is a power in publishing, in sharing our words with our communities and declaring them for all the world. We believe that through publishing we can move the center and practice living a bold, radical, sustainable future.
1. What’s your favorite song to dance to?
Though I don’t really dance, I find I am most motivated when listening to the music of C+C Music Factory.
2. Describe your personal hell.
Forever reliving the moment I walk into my kitchen and see the new roommate and he’s wearing Aladdin pants and those weird shoes with the toes and he’s making his own candy and everything is smoky because he’s just lit sage and I consider calling the cops.
3. What’s something that always makes you laugh?
Anytime Conan O’Brien pulls the Walker, Texas Ranger lever. Google it.
4. You’re sucked into a bad movie and you have to choose a point in history to live out the rest of your years. What time do you choose and why?
If I had to be sucked into a movie I’d want it to either be A) Repo Man, specifically the scene where Emilio Estevez and Harry Dean Stanton sit in a car and they talk about a lot of bullshit while snorting coke, B) Encino Man, but instead of being “rescued” by Pauly Shore and Sean Astin, I am left frozen inside a block of ice for 90 minutes, or C) a potential remake of Scrooged where David Johansen reprises his role as the cabdriver and, before being visited by the ghosts of all the dead members of the New York Dolls, he runs me over with his cab.
5. What’s a gif that you can relate to?
6. You’re hit by lightning. What happens?
I watch a 90-minute documentary on YouTube about the making of the movie Caddyshack and then fall asleep for several hours.
7. It’s snowing outside, how do you feel?
Same way I always feel—like a big, smoldering pile of E.T. Atari video game cartridges that were dug out of a mysterious landfill and then set on fire.
8. What’s a cat picture you can get behind?
9. Where did you write most of your book? Why?
In bed, surrounded by garbage, drinking Rolling Rock tallboys, and listening to Oasis at 6 am while my cat gave me pitiful looks from across the room. “P, A, R, T, Why? Because I gotta!”—The Mask (1994)
10. What are your struggles and strengths as a writer?
I struggle with anxiety and depression, which is also my strength as a writer. *winks*
11. Tell us a little about your writing process. What works, what doesn’t, what doesn’t but you still try anyway?
Writing every day is cool, but have you tried taking 24 caffeinated and junk food-fueled hours out of every month—after getting fucked up, making bad decisions and thus setting fire to your already scorched life the previous 29-30 days—to write? Oh boy, what a ride!
BRIAN ALAN ELLIS runs House of Vlad Productions, and is the author of three novellas, three short-story collections, a previous book of humorous non-fiction, and Something to Do with Self-Hate, a novel. His writing has appeared at Juked, Hobart, Monkeybicycle, Electric Literature, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Funhouse, Talking Book, and Queen Mob’s Tea House, among other places. He lives in Florida, and tweets sad and clever things at both @brianalanellis and @HouseofVlad.
#CopingWith is CCM’s interview series run by managing editor Joanna C. Valente
Lauren Hilger’s debut collection, “Lady Be Good,” just came out on October 31, 2016 from CCM. Clearly, we’re pretty excited to bring her gorgeous book out into the world–so excited that we interviewed her about it. Except instead of asking her boring lit questions, our managing editor Joanna C. Valente asked her about everything else instead, like what her favorite meal and gif are.
Here’s what Lauren had to say:
Describe your favorite meal.
The Italian Christmas Eve seven fishes, but the next morning, for breakfast. Heaven. This makes me sound like a cat, but I think about it all year.
What music do often you write to, if at all?
Chet Baker.
How would you describe your gender?
I present as high femme.
What are three books that you’ve always identified with?
Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Fatal Interview: Sonnets, Anne Brontë’s Agnes Grey, Mikhail Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita.
Choose one painting that describes who you are. What is it?
Gustave Courbet’s Self-Portrait (The Desperate Man.) Not with fear, but awe, and always grabbing my hair.
Choose a gif that encompasses mornings for you.
What do you imagine the apocalypse is like? How would you want to die?
I once got stuck in a blizzard, in the Canadian wilderness, on a horse. It was just hours on a horse with my legs numb. I was with my friends, but we each were on our own horse so we couldn’t communicate. We also couldn’t see beyond the few feet ahead. We’d start getting warm and sleepy then would laugh because we knew that was a bad sign. It was funny and profound and excruciating and stunningly beautiful, too. So, like that.
If you could only watch three films for the rest of your life, what would they be?
The Third Man, All About Eve, Niagara.
How would you describe your social media persona/role?
On Twitter, making jokes to the void, at which no one laughs.
What’s your favorite animal and why?
Humans! Because we can make fire and music and art.
What do you carry with you at all times?
My friend Rowan Hisayo Buchanan gave me this porcelain key in a tiny cloth envelope. I used to carry an antler with me, not all the time, but enough. I’ve accepted the porcelain key as a reminder to be easier. To be gentler, too, since it’s fragile.
T Kira Madden
Lauren Hilger is the author of Lady Be Good (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2016.) Awarded the Nadya Aisenberg Fellowship from the MacDowell Colony, where she was a fellow in 2012 and 2014, her work has appeared in Gulf Coast, Harvard Review Online, Kenyon Review Online, and Massachusetts Review, among other journals. She serves as a poetry editor for No Tokens.
Joanna C. Valente is a human who lives in Brooklyn, New York. She is the author of Sirs & Madams (Aldrich Press, 2014), The Gods Are Dead (Deadly Chaps Press, 2015), Marys of the Sea (ELJ Publications, 2016), & Xenos (2016, Agape Editions). She received her MFA in writing at Sarah Lawrence College. She is also the founder of Yes, Poetry, as well as the managing editor for Luna Luna Magazine and CCM. Some of her writing has appeared in Prelude, The Atlas Review, The Feminist Wire, BUST, Pouch, and elsewhere. She also teaches workshops at Brooklyn Poets.