Brief Interviews with Women Writers of the Fantastic #1: Kate Bernheimer

After reading Jeff VanderMeer’s post praising the work of women in fantastic literature, I thought that it might be nice to interview as many of these significant authors as possible for their take on writing, their own work and sexism in their chosen field. The following is part one of an ongoing series. Please note that each author received the same set of questions.

Interview with Kate Bertheimer

Would you mind introducing yourself?

Kate Bernheimer.

When did you first consider yourself a serious writer?

I have been writing and reading obsessively since early childhood. It was as an adult that I realized that, along with reading, writing is the only occupation that calms me. So I have practicing it as diligently as possible for ages.

How would you describe your writing style?

Unadorned, lucid, and associative.

Who are your strongest influences?

Fairy tales, fairy tales, fairy tales, and their cherished translators into English.

What is your greatest strength as a writer?

Can you ask Lydia Millet for me?

What is your biggest weakness?

Fear.

What is your favorite piece out of everything that you’ve written?

Hands down, a series of allegorical, rhyming, illustrated & laminated poems I wrote in fourth grade called “The Many Moods of Kathy Bernheimer.”

As a woman, have you ever experienced sexism, bias or exclusion in your chosen field?

Probably!

Do you think that there are some common barriers that all writers who are women face?

That is a very serious topic that I am afraid I can’t address in a short answer. Of course the most common barriers would be poverty and violence. Other, lesser evils which I have kept a checklist of over the years (and could, with more space, quantify with objective examples)—severely diminished critical space (both as writers and as reviewers), a lower level of acceptance of flaw (many critics still love the ‘flawed genius’ of a male wunderkind, but women are held to a higher and more exacting standard and perhaps that’s a twisted sort of compliment), a tendency to see their innovations as individual ‘quirks’ rather than as broadly important artistic originality. I could go on. I fear backlash . . . “fear,” my greatest weakness, if you recall an earlier answer!

Over all, do you think that the writing and publishing communities are healthier, worse, or about the same for women writers?

I don’t think groups of humans in industrialized society are all that healthy for humans (let alone other animals and living creatures).

Speaking to communities of writers historically, I would say that fairy-tale communities in general have been on the whole very good for women writing in a range of fairy-tale styles: I think of Madame D’Aulnoy and her salons, Laura Gozenbach’s tales (she was a Sicilian fairy-tale writer translated recently by Jack Zipes), Angela Carter and the scholarly excitement around her work thriving today, Maria Tatar and Marina Warner’s voluminous contributions among so many other authors, editors, and translators. (Of course the production of fairy tales as a consumer product in publishing and popular culture is vexed when it comes to women–and the reception of fairy tales in literature departments has been diminished, I feel, by their association with women and the nursery. This complexity interests me very much as a novelist and editor, and I write about it a lot.

What are your longterm career goals?

To keep reading and writing, and to continue learning more about fairy tales as an art form.

What are you working on now?

I have had a productive period, for totally mysterious reasons, so this will sound a little manic. I have just finished a collection of stories called Horse, Flower, Bird, and the proposal for an anthology called Contemporary Fairy Tales; and I’m close to finishing other new books, including a third novel called The Complete Tales of Lucy Gold (the third installment in a roman fleuve based on Russian, German, and Yiddish fairy tales about three sisters), a memoir about a friend who committed suicide last summer, and a new children’s book (in collaboration with the illustrator of my first one).

Where can we go to learn more about you?

www.fairytalereview.com is where you can learn more about the work that I do as an editor in service of fairy tales as a literary art form.

Where can we read your work?

I was lucky enough to have a story called “Whitework” in the beautiful Tin House: Fantastic Women issue, along with many writers I admire. It is forthcoming in book form next year. I recently published a first children’s book called The Girl in The Castle inside The Museum (Random House). FC2 has generously published my first two novels, The Complete Tales of Ketzia Gold and The Complete Tales of Merry Gold. Even though they’re part of a series they can be read in any order—and just on their own.

The floor’s all yours: is there anything else that you’d like to say?

Thank you for doing a feature on women writers. That is nice of you.