Brief Interviews with Women Writers of the Fantastic #3: Beth Adele Long

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 Beth Adele Long

Would you mind introducing yourself?

Beth Adele Long, currently reside in a town called Dunedin in the Tampa Bay area, currently earn a living as owner and Chief Creative Officer of a web development company. I’ve done the genre writer schtick: Clarion, a 3-month writing residency, a series of short story publications in several print and online venues. My introduction to the sf/f writing community happened when I won the Asimov Award (now the Dell Magazine Award) early in the century, which strangely enough was for a science fiction short story which is, I think, the only one of my science fiction stories that’s had any success! Since then I’ve worked mainly in literary fantasy, I guess you could call it (I lose track of the panoply of labels for current genre sub-sub-sub-categories).

I deliberately set out to learn the short story form when I began writing because it’s a helluva lot easier and faster to crank out a bunch of terrible short stories and learn from that process than it is to crank out a bunch of terrible 100,000 word novels. I do think my natural form as a writer is that of the novel, and I’ve been moving in that direction over the past few years. But more on that in a bit.

When did you first consider yourself a serious writer?

I decided I wanted to *be* a writer when I was, let’s see, fourteen. I’ve considered myself serious in the sense of “this is one of the single most important activities in my life” since then. But not too serious, I hope!

How would you describe your writing style?

Urgh. It’s always tough to evaluate one’s own work in that way. One hopes certain positive adjectives apply (powerful! imaginative! insightful! hilarious! moving!), but I prefer to leave it to the reader to describe my style while I focus on developing it.

Who are your strongest influences?

The fiction I read as a kid still influences me deeply: The Neverending Story, The Phantom Tollbooth, The Secret Garden, everything by Roald Dahl. Lewis Carroll, of *course*. I’ve been strongly influenced by several contemporary genre writers, particularly Kelly Link, Maureen McHugh, Sean Stewart, and John Crowley, and also more “mainstream” writers (said with big air quotes) who have genuine imagination and energy, especially the inimitable Michael Chabon. At present I’m religiously devoted to George Eliot, who in my book is one of the funniest and most insightful writers to set pen to paper, and Leo Tolstoy. I mean, Anna Karenina. ‘Nuff said.

I’m also influenced by other art forms: Shaun Tan, Remedios Varo, Dave Brubeck, Bach, Harry Nilsson. I’ve learned a lot from Project Runway, about making every piece of art your own and about not making excuses. I’m trying to learn about dance right now. I can’t imagine being an artist and not wanting to soak up every kind of human expression available. It all goes into the creative compost.

What is your greatest strength as a writer?

Again, urgh. From what I can tell, the answer to that varies according to who’s reading my work. At this stage one of the things I’m working hardest to develop is humor, especially as I begin to tackle darker and more painful stories.

I’ve had people tell me my writing is vivid, that it hits all the senses. I’m often overwhelmed by the intensity of physical experience, and I love stories that evoke the full sensory spectrum. The mind exists in the entire body, not just the brain; emotions are stored and expressed in our muscles as much as in our neurons. I love trying to translate the full physical experience into words so that the reader can reconstruct emotion through sensation.

What is your biggest weakness?

A review of one of my earlier published stories included this line: “The writing tends to devolve into vague emotionalism at critical points in the text, leaving me without a compass in otherwise skilled writing.” I took umbrage for about half a second when I read this, and then thought, “Well, yeah. There’s something to that.”

I think the core weakness that this review articulated is laziness; my particular laziness can emerge in “vague emotionalism,” a tendency to wave my hands to suggest a feeling rather than doing the hard work of building a story that provokes an authentic response in the reader.

I’m working on it.

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

Right at the moment, my favorite is a very short piece I wrote a couple years ago that’s not seen publication (yet). It’s called “Epistolary” and I think it’s the most poetic and intensely personal piece I’ve written. It may not make a whit of sense to anyone else in the universe, but to me it represents my finest artistic achievement to date in terms of the writing, the authenticity of emotion, and the intensity of expression.

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

If I have, I was gloriously ignorant of the fact. I’ve found the community of fantastic fiction to be welcoming and open and wonderful to me as a young writer, as a woman writer, as a queer writer.

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

These days, in the West, for the most part, I think female writers face internal barriers more than external ones. Crises of confidence, etc. I also think the culture is more likely to marginalize stories by women, about women — “women’s fiction,” etc. — whereas stories by men, about men automatically get extra points towards being taken seriously. Thank the gods, I think that’s changing a little bit each decade, and there are so many incredibly powerful women writers out there that it gets harder and harder to dismiss the female voice.

Are there any common strengths that women bring to the craft of fiction?

Hm. I’m going to say, “not really.” I’m sure this question would provide rich fodder for a whole row of dissertations, but all the writers I love are so particular and individual that I can’t distinguish a pattern of strengths that includes the female writers and leaves out the male ones.

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

As above, I’ll have to say “the same,” although my exposure to a particular subset of a particular genre means that I don’t have a large data sample on which to base my conclusions.

What are your longterm career goals?

Pulitzer Prize, Macarthur Genius grant, a recurring New Yorker column, oodles of money from a string of bestsellers and a few unexpectedly popular film adaptations. Your basic writerly goals.

Artistically, my goal is just to keep getting better. I’m working on learning the novel form, which is terrifying and wonderful and really, really hard work. My most important goal is to develop artistically, to say something meaningful and to say it well, to stop being so damn self-conscious and just say my piece. In reality, as much as I really do lust after in the trappings of success I described in the previous paragraph, I have to train myself to forget those things and just put my head down and write.

What are you working on now?

I’m working on a novel. It’s not overtly fantastical; it’s about a midwestern family, and in particular about two very different sisters, one who’s a free-wheeling artistic type and the other who’s a buttoned-down Presbyterian, who have to fly down to Florida to find their wayward third sister in time to bring her back for a family wedding.

This is the second novel I’ve started but probably the first one I’ll complete. I have another novel sitting in a drawer (well, sitting on my hard drive and several back-up CDs). It’s set in a steampunkish alternate universe and is about a former assassin who falls in love with Death. It was too big for me. I intend to be good enough, one day, to write the whole thing.

Where can we go to learn more about you?

I have a horribly neglected personal website at http://www.longbarcorp.com/bethadele/ which does have a mostly current bibliography and some reviews, etc. I also have my company website at http://www.longbarcorp.com/ — also sadly out of date, but it gives you an idea of the creative work I do during the day. If anyone wants to subsidize my writing career, hire us to do your website!

Where can we read your work?

My personal website has links to the stories of mine that are online, and excerpts from everything that I’ve had published.

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

Just thanks for the opportunity to talk about myself for a bit. What more could a writer ask?