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Oceanography
The ocean slaps the cliffs on a twenty-four-hour basis. Is it any wonder the slapped shrinks from attack, dropping rock crumbs in retreat? Dozens walk their children, their dogs, their pet snakes, trusting the ground beneath their feet. The civilized mind is amazing—isn’t it just? Evidence of last stands, previous last stands, litter the shoreline. The ocean has never disguised its aims, only…
Domesticity
Decades and decades ago when winters were fierce and frigid rather than freakishly warm, Phineas and Martha staple-gunned plastic over the sash windows of their northeast rental to prevent the heat in their chilly apartment from further dissipating through cracked and cloudy (though still lovely) glass. They go to bed early—because they are newly a couple and because one of them cannot keep warm…
Interview with Kat Meads, writer
Kirkus Reviews calls Kat Meads’s most recent fiction, Miss Jane: The Lost Years (Livingston Press, 2018), “a sharp and tightly crafted tale…incredibly relevant to today’s reckoning with powerful men’s sexual abuse of the women around them.” She shares with LFF about how she got into writing early on, feminism in her work, her seemingly simple advice and more. Find her other titles at www.katmeads.com.
Where are you from? How did you get into creative work and what is your impetus for creating?
I’m originally from eastern North Carolina and still consider that spot of dirt home. The job hunt took me to the West Coast, where I’ve now lived for 20+ years. My earliest recollection of “making something up from scratch” was a song I sang on the back of a flatbed truck to my dogs. (Since they didn’t run off howling, I considered the performance a qualified success.) In the years since, I’ve relied on writing to keep myself sane, really. To be able, within the work, to impose something like order on a chaotic world.
Tell me about your latest book and why it’s important to you. What do you hope people get out of your work?
Miss Jane: The Lost Years is about college student Jane’s “entanglement” with one of her professors. Not an unusual story. What took longest for me to figure out was how to situate Jane’s story within a broader historical context—an aspect of the work that was and remains very important to me. Eventually I hit on narration by a pissed-off feminist chorus that serves as Miss Jane’s unabashed champions and has zero tolerance for Prof P’s power plays. In terms of reader reaction, I hope that zero-tolerance attitude will be catching.
Does collaboration play a role in your work—whether with your community, artists or others? How so and how does this impact your work?
One of my jobs is teaching in Oklahoma City University’s low-residency MFA program, directed by the fabulous Jeanetta Calhoun Mish (a previous Les Femmes Folles interviewee). Teaching graduate students, I’ve discovered, can turn into a collaborative process, advancing the writing craft on both sides of the table. And reading is also a kind of collaboration, don’t you think? That “communing” with another writer’s vision and text? Just now I’m obsessed with reading and re-reading the novels of Beryl Bainbridge, whose authorial choices are never less than astonishing.
Artist Wanda Ewing, who curated and titled the original LFF exhibit, examined the perspective of femininity and race in her work, and spoke positively of feminism, saying “yes, it is still relevant” to have exhibits and forums for women in art; does feminism play a role in your work?
Absolutely! As Jeanetta would probably say: “What work of Kat’s isn’t feminist?” The heroine of my Invented Life of Kitty Duncan was a rebel in her own time (1950s-1970s South). I recently published a chapbook of sonnets with dancing girl press about America’s First Ladies—most definitely shaped by a feminist perspective. And even For You, Madam Lenin is a novel weighted toward Russia’s under-sung women revolutionaries versus the more famous fellows (Lenin, Trotsky, etc.).
Ewing’s advice to aspiring artists was “you’ve got to develop the skill of when to listen and when not to;” and “Leave. Gain perspective.” What is your favorite advice you have received or given?
“Keep at it.” Advice that sounds simple but can be extremely challenging to put into practice.
~
Les Femmes Folles is a volunteer organization founded in 2011 with the mission to support and promote women in all forms, styles and levels of art from around the world with the online journal, print annuals, exhibitions and events; originally inspired by artist Wanda Ewing and her curated exhibit by the name Les Femmes Folles (Wild Women). LFF was created and is curated by Sally Deskins. LFF Booksis a micro-feminist press that publishes 1-2 books per year by the creators of Les Femmes Folles including the award-winning Intimates & Fools (Laura Madeline Wiseman, 2014) , The Hunger of the Cheeky Sisters: Ten Tales (Laura Madeline Wiseman/Lauren Rinaldi, 2015 and Mes Predices (catalog of art/writing by Marie Peter Toltz, 2017).Other titles include Les Femmes Folles: The Women 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 available on blurb.com, including art, poetry and interview excerpts from women artists. A portion of the proceeds from LFF books and products benefit the University of Nebraska-Omaha’s Wanda Ewing Scholarship Fund.https://www.facebook.com/femmesfolles/ instagram: @lesfemmesfollesart femmesfollesnebraska.tumblr.com lesfemmesfollesbooks.tumblr.com
Guest Post, Kat Meads: Houses, House Trailers and Memory
Guest Post, Kat Meads: Houses, House Trailers and Memory
Although I repeatedly forget names and faces, I remember in crazed detail the interiors of houses I entered before losing my baby teeth. The slant of light, natural or artificial. The furniture. The furniture arrangements. Whether or not one couch cushion (more compressed than the others) showed evidence of a favored seat. Lamp globes and ashtrays, chipped or whole. Framed or unframed wall…
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In This Season of Rage and Melancholy Such Irrevocable Acts as These is Now Out
Kat Meads’ new novel, In This Season of Rage and Melancholy Such Irrevocable Acts as These is now available from Mongrel Empire Press.
Built on the premise that the ugly can break one’s heart more profoundly than the pretty, In This Season of Rage and Melancholy Such Irrevocable Acts as These portrays the changing South of the 1970s in a narrative that encompasses deceit, revenge, Pentecostal…
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Kat Meads
S/tick is pleased to present a brand new poem from Kat Meads! You can learn more about Kat at her website.
In the Company of Drinkers
Miss Jane told tales she would rather not have told.
For instance: In the outdoor shitter Age five, she felt herself grow old. Reduced to constipated sitter In the outdoor shitter As ants bit her, Pellet turds on hold. In the outdoor shitter Age five, she felt herself grow old.
Or: Under her first boy bones She saw less male Than stars, looking up, as if alone Under her first boy bones. That while he mewed and moaned Encased, she chased light trails. Under her first boy bones She saw less male. Or: North, north, north, she drove Stumped by the word: TAP-en-zee. Ta-PAN-zee, was it? As if upon a stove? North, north, north, she drove Over bridges, into coves Amusing toll-ers who waived her fee. North, north, north she drove Stumped by the word: TAP-en-zee. But always: Her match to his night house Was meant to burn it brighter. An attempt to de-louse Her match to his night house. Done with playing spouse, Obliging a blighter. Her match to his night house Was meant to burn it brighter. In the company of drinkers Miss Jane told tales.
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“You are not about who buys you.” Great mantra! And of course absolutely true. But managing the “reaction” ingredient is wildly tricky, isn’t it? (Even when there’s no money involved.) The first comment to the first story of mine that ever got workshopped was this: “I don’t read stories that take place in a kitchen.” Bam. For weeks, I went around in a daze of bewildered anxiety. I have to avoid kitchens? I have to do this? I have to do that? It was an early lesson in do what you gotta do, trust your own brain—write about toenails, if so inspired. Because once you start doubting your own compass as a writer and turning your back on the subjects and material that make you want to write—zowee. You’re in deep, deep trouble. Also miserable.
Kat Meads, interviewed by Lidia Yuknavitch over at The Rumpus
