Interview VIII

[cailj]

1) Heathcliff eventually dies -- sometime when you're 50, of course. You decide not to get another cat. You get a dog instead. What kind?

A small one that won't get too big, doesn't have short greasy hair, and won't bark at all hours of the morning to make me get up and feed him or walk him. One that has massive cute potential for gettin' the chicks.

2) You get burned out on literature and can't teach it anymore without hating reading it. But you're an academic darling, so you can teach pretty much anything that isn't brand-new to you (no chemistry or Spanish) if you choose to. The University just wants to keep you happy. So what do you teach?

Film. Lots and lots of film. I almost always use lots of film in my literature courses anyway, so it's not that big of a stretch. Barring that, possibly creative writing. Or maybe modern religious thought.

3) Your romance novel takes off, they want another one, and there's a chance -- if you took the time for it -- that you could write full-time. You might not make as much as you do teaching. You might make more. Do you risk it? Would you be interested?

Oh god yes. Yes yes yes yes yes. I don't know if I could write /only/ romance fulltime, but I'd write enough of them to keep us fed and use the rest of the time to write non-romance stuff. See, that's the thing. I love teaching. Love it. But I would give it up in a heart beat if I could spend my life researching and writing fiction.

4) You can only play one game (LARP doesn't count, I mean of the Uno/Monopoly/Guillotine variety) for the rest of your life. If you try to play other ones, the game warden's magic weasels will eat your fingertips and eyebrows. What game do you pick?

Probably either Fluxx or Settlers of Catan. Or maybe chess, actually. Ugh. I'd hate to have to make that choice. I'd really hate it. Fluxx for the different variations and because it's a quick game that can be played anywhere. Settlers because it is my current favorite. And chess because there are so many varieties of that and I always enjoy it.

5) Cake or death?

Death. Oh! I mean cake!

6) Archaeological evidence concealed by the Vatican reveals that Jesus is a fictional character created by Paul, and that nothing in the New Testament except for Paul's testimony about his own life actually happened. What happens to your religious beliefs?

I'm not actually sure. It's only the New Testament that's made up? I'm not sure it would honestly make that much difference. The way I live my life, the things I believe, I think I could believe whether Jesus was a real person or not. I believe that Jesus, as a man, could touch something of the divine. Is that because there /is/ a divine? Because he /was/ the son of that divine being? Because he just managed to harness something that none of the rest of us have been able to? Who knows. I think I tend towards that last answer, though, and so, with that in mind, it doesn't really change what I believe.

7) Steve Erickson decides to make you his Number One Fan, and asks what you'd like to read a book about. What do you tell him?

About a fifteen year old girl who gets sucked into a wonderland type place that is crossing worlds with a serial killer's world. In one world, she is his accomplice, in the other, he is the mad hatter and he's out to get her. With lots of sex and weirdness.