Prime Time Replay:
Kathe Koja
on Kink
MsgId: *omni_visions(2)
Date: Thu Oct 17 22:01:03 EDT 1996
From: Edward_Bryant_(mod) At: 206.80.181.52
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to another Thursday's Omni Visions. My guest tonight is the spectacular novelist and short story writer Kathe Koja who will be on-line momentarily. I'm delighted to tell you that after the first hour of interview, the format will open up and all of you will have the chance to ask questions.I'll offer a few words of introduction while our guest arrives. Kathe Koja is the author of KINK, a new novel from Henry Holt. As with all her other fiction,the prose is often deceptively cool, but always dense and elegant. She's a writer with an absolutely distinctive voice.
Her career as a novelist started in 1991 with the publication of THE CIPHER, a book which was also the debut offering of Dell Publishing's Abyss line of avowedly cutting-edge horror, dark fantasy, and simply dark fiction. THE CIPHER, simply put, made a splash. People noticed. People commented. People argued.
Four more novels followed, including BAD BRAINS, SKIN, and STRANGE ANGELS. There has been as well a distinctive and distinguished body of short fiction, the most recent being "The Inverted Violin" in GAHAN WILSON'S THE ULTIMATE HAUNTED HOUSE.
...
Patience, as Ambrose Bierce wrote, is a minor form of despair disguised as virtue. I'll beg your patience out there, gentle readers, while we all work with propitiating the silicon gods and the ether deities.
MsgId: *omni_visions(8)
Date: Thu Oct 17 22:24:13 EDT 1996
From: guest At: 168.100.204.58
While we're waiting, what is Kink about?
MsgId: *omni_visions(9)
Date: Thu Oct 17 22:24:39 EDT 1996
From: Edward_Bryant_(mod) At: 206.80.181.52
Indeed, feel free. Ask me anything. Or, if you wish, orbit tonight's topic with commentary and discussion of Kathe's work. Hey, I'm a reviewer. I'm willing to offer opinions... /ga
MsgId: *omni_visions(10)
Date: Thu Oct 17 22:25:04 EDT 1996
From: Kathe_Koja At: 206.62.38.30
Hi - I'm here, I think ...
MsgId: *omni_visions(11)
Date: Thu Oct 17 22:28:04 EDT 1996
From: Edward_Bryant_(mod) At: 206.80.181.52
If you're not here on-line, you're a great simulacrum. Welcome, Kathe. This brave new world of communications sometimes resembles trying to create CB radio with aluminum cans and taut string. Anyhow, a person asked about KINK. I'd call it a darkly foreboding and erotic relationship-driven novel. You?
MsgId: *omni_visions(12)
Date: Thu Oct 17 22:32:38 EDT 1996
From: Kathe_Koja At: 206.62.38.30
Help - I keep trying to get on & failing. ... Much tsuris here, trying to get on & failing. Hi to all, thanks for patience.
MsgId: *omni_visions(15)
Date: Thu Oct 17 22:34:15 EDT 1996
From: Edward_Bryant_(mod) At: 206.80.181.52
Okay, he said cautiously, not wanting to jinx a thing. Are you still on, Kathe?
MsgId: *omni_visions(16)
Date: Thu Oct 17 22:34:16 EDT 1996
From: Kathe_Koja At: 206.62.38.30
Ok - I think I'm REALLY here this time. Ed, ask me something ... anything.
MsgId: *omni_visions(17)
Date: Thu Oct 17 22:36:50 EDT 1996
From: guest At: 130.191.246.38
kink just got a pretty nice review in the new Death Realm...
MsgId: *omni_visions(19)
Date: Thu Oct 17 22:37:36 EDT 1996
From: Edward_Bryant_(mod) At: 206.80.181.52
Ah, Kathe. When I first read THE CIPHED and your work thereafter, I sort of looked at it as the work of a writer who had simply walked out of the sea one day, fully formed and expert at her craft. Could you speak to the earlier Kathe Koja as a writer? Did you write as a girl, as an adolescent?
MsgId: *omni_visions(20)
Date: Thu Oct 17 22:39:06 EDT 1996
From: Kathe_Koja At: 206.62.38.30
Again, thank you all for your patience -- Ed, ask me some pungent questions about KINK or anything else that might be fun.
MsgId: *omni_visions(21)
Date: Thu Oct 17 22:42:54 EDT 1996
From: Edward_Bryant_(mod) At: 206.80.181.52
I'll give you a choice of questions, then. KINK's dark and edgy enough it should look familiar to the folks who loved your previous work. But it's published outside the genre of horror completely. Do you have any clue whether your old fans and readers are finding it? And what's been the reaction in the mainstream?
MsgId: *omni_visions(23)
Date: Thu Oct 17 22:45:36 EDT 1996
From: Kathe_Koja At: 206.62.38.30
Anyone who's read other stuff of mine, CIPHER et al, will I think enjoy KINK for the same stylistic pleasures, no matter what it says on the spine ... as far as those to whom my work is new, well. I suppose I'm an acquired taste.I find myself impatient as well with the idea that readers who enjoy a particular genre will read only IN that genre; absurd. Taste is I would think a reader's compass, not where the book is in the store. Right, Ed?
MsgId: *omni_visions(25)
Date: Thu Oct 17 22:48:42 EDT 1996
From: Edward_Bryant_(mod) At: 206.80.181.52
Have you got any sense of critical reaction? Are being hailed--as you should be--as a strong new voice in the arid mainstream?
MsgId: *omni_visions(26)
Date: Thu Oct 17 22:51:49 EDT 1996
From: Kathe_Koja At: 206.62.38.30
I haven't had a 5th avenue parade yet ... the trouble with having a strong voice is its initial reception anywhere, I think. People either like it a lot, or need a LOT of time to adjust.The trouble with writing ANY kinds of books is that all books are now so stratified. This hurts everyone, not just the writers.
MsgId: *omni_visions(28)
Date: Thu Oct 17 22:55:30 EDT 1996
From: Edward_Bryant_(mod) At: 206.80.181.52
About KINK, then, and perhaps about voice as well. In my LOCUS review of the novel, I opined this was maybe your most accessible book. I had my reasons for saying that, but I gather from your recent response in an e-mail that I may have been interpreted as saying something rude or just wrong-headed. I know what I meant, but is accessibility a red flag to you?
MsgId: *omni_visions(30)
Date: Thu Oct 17 22:58:26 EDT 1996
From: Kathe_Koja At: 206.62.38.30
You, rude? No way. Yes of course accessibility is a bad word; it's a pandering word ... no, not really, but I don't want KINK to be perceived as Koja Lite. It still retains, I hope, the pleasures offered by any of my books, while perhaps offering those pleasures to a different audience. I guess when I hear "accessible" it means "trying to make everyone like something" which is not a good thing. McDonald's is not literature.Incidentally, what about KINK made it seem more...well...accessible?
MsgId: *omni_visions(33)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:02:23 EDT 1996
From: Edward_Bryant_(mod) At: 206.80.181.52
Okay, I suppose my definition of accessible is a fairly personal one. I feel empathy with the people and situations in KINK perhaps more closely than any of your other novels...well, except maybe for BAD BRAINS. Hmm. Well, this isn't therapy so I'll stop there. But I did think KINK's cast was extraordinarily familiar. Thus accessible.
MsgId: *omni_visions(34)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:04:13 EDT 1996
From: Kathe_Koja At: 206.62.38.30
Do you mean because they were in a more quote-unquote normal situation? like broken hearts, weird sex etc? things we normal folks have to grapple with all the time? -- rather than black holes & bad brains?I'd also like to thank you for something you said in your LOCUS review -- that the CIPHER's dark hole was present in KINK as well, though metaphorically. AT LAST someone has pegged my m.o. -- that black hole is at the heart of every novel I've ever written. ...
MsgId: *omni_visions(36)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:07:55 EDT 1996
From: Edward_Bryant_(mod) At: 206.80.181.52
Black holes and bad brains I thought, as as reader and reviewer both, are just another metaphor for the real world stuff we and ours contact all the time in the mundane world. But then that's one of main attractions for the wide spectrum of stuff that gets published under the unruly horror rubric. (end of moderator's rant)
MsgId: *omni_visions(37)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:08:28 EDT 1996
From: Kathe_Koja At: 206.62.38.30
... as a symbol, metaphoric or not, of the emptiness we each carry close to our hearts, the emptiness of being alive in a world that doesn't care. -- And the way we fill that Freudian hole, well, That's the novel.Another of horror's attractions is the freedom to handle icky stuff -- great pain, great loss, great waves of emotion -- without gloves. Readers and writers both. Although it's done in the so-called mainstream without the tag. Susanna Moore's IN THE CUT comes to mind. Did you read that by any chance?
MsgId: *omni_visions(39)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:10:40 EDT 1996
From: Edward_Bryant_(mod) At: 206.80.181.52
Kathe, I'd like to retreat to an earlier unanswered question just briefly. Before you seemed to appear suddenly, cut from whole cloth, as a striking novelist, what was your earlier writing history? Did you write juvenile black hole stories? Teen bad brains material?
MsgId: *omni_visions(41)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:12:43 EDT 1996
From: Kathe_Koja At: 206.62.38.30
No bad teen brains, lots of copycat stuff, whatever was inflaming my teen mind at that current moment. I wrote about five novels pre-CIPHER and they all suck.
MsgId: *omni_visions(42)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:13:38 EDT 1996
From: Edward_Bryant_(mod) At: 206.80.181.52
IN THE CUT's on the stack to be read Very Soon Now. Both Little Bookshop of Horrors proprietor Doug Lewis and writer Lucy Taylor recommended it highly at about the same time.
MsgId: *omni_visions(43)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:13:52 EDT 1996
From: guest At: 130.191.246.38
Any chance your current publisher would publish a short story collection?
MsgId: *omni_visions(44)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:15:10 EDT 1996
From: Kathe_Koja At: 206.62.38.30
I've recently put together some stories for a collection... we'll see. Very, um, interesting when viewed side by side like that.
MsgId: *omni_visions(45)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:16:17 EDT 1996
From: guest At: 130.191.246.38
Yeah! I will be first in line to buy it, if/when it comes out... :)
MsgId: *omni_visions(46)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:16:51 EDT 1996
From: Kathe_Koja At: 206.62.38.30
Here's a question for you, Ed -- do you think some writers are primarily novelists, insofar as their short fiction offers pleasures less intense? Like, say, me, for instance?
MsgId: *omni_visions(47)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:17:51 EDT 1996
From: Edward_Bryant_(mod) At: 206.80.181.52
On the short story side, you've collaborated by now on a remarkable body of work with Barry Malzberg. How did that happen? Will it continue?
MsgId: *omni_visions(48)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:19:29 EDT 1996
From: Kathe_Koja At: 206.62.38.30
Barry and I had so much fun with our stories that, like eating chocolate, we had to stop and take a series of breaths...it's true, we did a TON of stuff together, and it was a joy & pleasure for me to work with such a wonderful writer whose work I'd been enjoying for years. also recently did a (long) story with the inimitable Carter Scholz; another wonderful experience.One of the greatest pleasures of these collaborations, for me at least, was the chance to play while working, something my own work offers in a very different way. Two people in the room, I guess.
MsgId: *omni_visions(50)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:22:00 EDT 1996
From: Edward_Bryant_(mod) At: 206.80.181.52
Kathe, I'm growing to love this multiplex communicative process. Maybe it'll all compensate for those first minutes of bewilderment... Yeah, I do think some writers are more accomplished novelists than short story writers. Not every classical guitarist can play a mean ukulele... But I'd say the returns aren't in on you yet. Your short fiction is definitely tough, but I sometimes speculate your novels feel surer to you.
MsgId: *omni_visions(52)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:24:15 EDT 1996
From: Kathe_Koja At: 206.62.38.30
Certainly more room in the novels, the difference between a house and a hotel...do you think most novelists are made not born? how about short story writers?
MsgId: *omni_visions(53)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:27:02 EDT 1996
From: Edward_Bryant_(mod) At: 206.80.181.52
I do think both first-rate novelists and like short story writers are born. But a hell of a lot of mediocre novelists are made...because of publishing economics. We all know where the money is, right? I stand in awe, though of people who are good at lengths both short and long, and can switch back and forth seemingly at will.
MsgId: *omni_visions(54)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:28:28 EDT 1996
From: Kathe_Koja At: 206.62.38.30
I wonder if short stories feel more concentrated to the reader? like with, say, Shirley Jackson? Is this your experience with certain writers?Shirley Jackson, by the way, is a GREAT enthusiasm of mine. How I wish someone would publish her backlist! So much wonderful work (and an influence on yours truly, though I came to her very late. Just like with F. O'Connor, etc.)
MsgId: *omni_visions(55)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:29:29 EDT 1996
From: Edward_Bryant_(mod) At: 206.80.181.52
Let me pass on a question just e-mailed to me: "I heard she doesn't like to, or absolutely will not workshop her work. Why? When and how did she reach this decision? Did Clarion have something to do with her decision?" (signed) Jules
MsgId: *omni_visions(57)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:31:25 EDT 1996
From: Kathe_Koja At: 206.62.38.30
re the workshop question - no, workshops aren't anathema to me, I just don't work that way. I both enjoyed & learned from my version of the Clarion Experience, and have taught workshops too.
MsgId: *omni_visions(58)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:33:48 EDT 1996
From: Edward_Bryant_(mod) At: 206.80.181.52
Sidenotes: Oh yes, Jackson and Flannery O'Conner. "A Good Man is Hard to Find" would become a terrific Quentin Tarantino film--in some bizarre alternate world. When a short story writer is really on, the story is like a hologram; any segment evokes the larger whole. A good story carries most of the effect of a good novel. But novelists will argue the point...
MsgId: *omni_visions(59)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:35:19 EDT 1996
From: Kathe_Koja At: 206.62.38.30
Ideally both a short story and a novel should hit like hammers... size of the handle, I guess, is what changes? -- oh boy. A little too Freudian for someone who has to get up tomorrow at 7 Am...
MsgId: *omni_visions(60)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:35:49 EDT 1996
From: guest At: 206.80.182.224
Bantam is publishing a new collection of Jackson early in the new year that is supposed to have several unpublished stories....
MsgId: *omni_visions(64)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:37:22 EDT 1996
From: Kathe_Koja At: 206.62.38.30
Wonderful news! The best collection I know of SJ's stuff is the one edited by her husband, Stanley Hyman, called (I think) THE MAGIC OF SHIRLEY JACKSON. Superb.
MsgId: *omni_visions(62)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:37:09 EDT 1996
From: Edward_Bryant_(mod) At: 206.80.181.52
Though we got started late, I don't want to keep you up too late. But I gotta ask--for me, though I know everyone else wants to know too. Can you offer a lead on what your next book is going to be? Or where the next short fictions are going to appear?
MsgId: *omni_visions(65)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:39:53 EDT 1996
From: Kathe_Koja At: 206.62.38.30
My 7Am wasn't meant to complain about the time, just to indicate the current state of my consciousness...taffylike, I think we might say if we were being kind. Let's see, what's on the Koja horizon? -- those two collaborative tales (tales?) are both sold and will appear soon, or sometime before the century turns. -- Boy, I AM slow. I meant ONE was sold (the one w/BNM) and the other's out in the ether. But both will appear I hope sooner or later. Also working on a novel now.
MsgId: *omni_visions(67)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:42:03 EDT 1996
From: guest At: 198.81.233.67
what subjects do you see horror tackling in order to yield the prophetic qualities of greatness that transcend genre?
MsgId: *omni_visions(68)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:43:12 EDT 1996
From: Kathe_Koja At: 206.62.38.30
The subject all fiction is intended to tackle is the stress of the human heart under pressure. Horror fiction, I suspect, is no exception.
MsgId: *omni_visions(69)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:43:20 EDT 1996
From: guest At: 206.80.182.224
Kathe, ou brushed on this a bit but I'm wondering do you find short stories or novels easier to write? I know some writers feel a short story is as difficult and time consuming for them as a novel would be....
MsgId: *omni_visions(71)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:45:53 EDT 1996
From: Kathe_Koja At: 206.62.38.30
Short stories are a lot easier for me because they're, well, shorter. A novel is a major commitment of time and, depending on the subject, research reading as well. Stories are fast and (usually) pure fun.
MsgId: *omni_visions(70)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:45:49 EDT 1996
From: Edward_Bryant_(mod) At: 206.80.181.52
Well...just in the event that it's getting close to the time for all good conversationalists to sign off and get some rest (and you've all been great conversationalists), I'll bid good-night to Kathe Koja. Her new novel is KINK (Henry Holt) and one of her latest stories is "The Inverted Violin" in GAHAN WILSON'S THE ULTIMATE HAUNTED HOUSE. It's, um, accessible. And it's a hell of a story. Thanks again for participating in this adventure, Kathe. /ga
MsgId: *omni_visions(72)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:48:39 EDT 1996
From: Kathe_Koja At: 206.62.38.30
Thank you, Ed, for your incredible patience. And thanks too to everyone who waited...hope it was worth it. I enjoyed myself, taffy and all.
MsgId: *omni_visions(73)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:48:48 EDT 1996
From: guest At: 130.191.246.38
Many thanks Kathe... I enjoyed listening to(watching?!) this conversation...
MsgId: *omni_visions(74)
Date: Thu Oct 17 23:50:54 EDT 1996
From: Edward_Bryant_(mod) At: 206.80.181.52
Actually this has been like a good party with people and conversation swirling past, but swirling in patterns that both fascinate and sometimes stop you in your tracks. Again, thanks to all.
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