FICTION SELF-INTERVIEWS
Savannah Schroll Guz: The TNB Self-InterviewWEIRTON, WV 22 December 2009 |
|
Where are you from?
Right now? I live in Weirton, West Virginia (West Virginia, frequently the brunt of many a bad joke, is its own state, and I still am asked, “Where in Virginia are you?”). Weirton is a dying steel town not far from Pittsburgh, and my husband and I go there often. I write art reviews for the City Paper there as well. But there’s a very different landscape here than I grew up with. There are dynamited rock faces, soot-blackened mills, and ominous-looking power plants that, by night, glow pink with sodium vapor lights. And there are slots parlors…lots and lots of slots parlors—and race tracks, dogs in Wheeling and ponies in Chester. It seems different and exotic to me because I grew up in a more agrarian part of central Pennsylvania, where the colors were not so much black and brown but green and gold.
Does this environment inform any of your writing?
The landscape and the local culture have a definite impact on my world view, and this mood trickles into my stories. I used to work at a newspaper after I got married, and I would hear terrible things on the police scanner. One of the stories in American Soma is called “Horizontal Plane” and that is based on one of the conversations that I heard been policemen talking to each other on the scanner. I just filled in the details based on what I knew about people, and the gossip I’d heard my mother-in-law talk about.
What’s your background?
I studied art history and went to live in Germany on a Fulbright Scholarship in 1997. While I was going to the university, I also worked at the Neue Pinakothek in Munich and worked with the curator on rearranging the 17th-century Flemish painting cabinets and tracing the provenance of works in the collection. And I also made some money translating correspondence and other texts. When I got back home, I got a Master’s in art history from Pitt. I then went onto work at the Smithsonian, first at American Art and then at the Libraries, each time in public relations. I left in 2002.
Where did you go after D.C.?
Far away from the city as possible. Well, maybe not as far as possible. But I kept my apartment for an extra month because the D.C. sniper was at large then, and I didn’t want to be struggling with furniture while worrying about getting shot. When the shooters were finally caught in November, I went back down and packed up my apartment. I worked in the family business for about three years, and when my father retired, I moved back to Pittsburgh, where I met my husband, who’s a West Virginia boy. That’s how I got here.
What are your primary interests, in terms of writing?
Human psychology as it explains extreme responses, the validity of conspiracy theories, and the paranormal are just a few of my literary interests.
So, whose work are you most influenced by?
Currently, I’m very interested in dystopian works, since I see so many of the things visionary writers warned about. For example, there’s John Brunner, who wrote The Sheep Look Up. And of course, George Orwell, who is a favorite. I’m also interested in Aldous Huxley. But it’s the deep psychological acuity and dark sensibility of Joyce Carol Oates that I most admire. Almost every curative or admonitory political, economic, environmental or social prescription offered by the utopian/dystopian writers is cut short or explained by human weakness. Oates seems to explore all its various facets. Also, I’m becoming a fan of A.S. Byatt. I only just recently rediscovered her. I like her Victorian and Edwardian settings and the opulence of her language.
What’s your next project?
I’ve actually got several going at one time. There is a paranormal novel in the works, about the spirit of a Polish girl who haunts her tormentor. I also have another related work, which I’m currently revising. I’m also working on completing some new short stories.
What other books have you published?
In 2004, The Famous & The Anonymous was published under my maiden name, “Savannah Schroll,” and in 2005, I edited the fiction anthology Consumed: Women on Excess.
Now, for a complete non sequitur: what’s your favorite drink?
A Maker’s Mark Manhattan.
What’s something no one would otherwise know about you?
Hmmm….well, my husband says I am an empath, and I believe he is an empath, too. We both feel other people’s emotions very strongly, sometimes in physical ways and sometimes before they even show outward signs of their emotion…or more importantly when they’re hiding it. It’s a weird, upsetting sense to have sometimes, but it is useful for writing. And also, often, when I look at someone and can sense their internal barometer, it keeps me out of trouble.
|
||
Related Posts |
No comments yet.