A Brief EMail Interview with Zally Adams and C.T. Thieme
This week Twilight Tales features a returning favorite and a new voice to our mic for your listening enjoyment.
First up is new voice Zally Adams. Zally read us a wonderful piece of fantasy fiction when she first appeared with Tina Jens’ writing class back in April. Considering her sense of humor and story telling ability, we are sure to be pleased with what she’ll read for us this time: either the continuation of the tale she began that night, or whatever else her happily warped mind constructs in her next alternate reality. Whichever case, we are confident Zally will continue to make us laugh and amaze us with stories for quite some time to come.
C.T. Thieme is a returning favorite. He tells fabulous ghost stories, both real and imagined. One of his recent publications was in the new anthology Hell in the Heartland (Annihilation press, Roger Trexler and Martel Sardina eds.). The story Moon Creek Road is an eerie tale of Streator, Illinois and its environs. C.T. always manages to make us think and surprises us with the unique turns his stories take. We can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.
Following are their answers to our interview questions.
What’s your story called, and what is it about?
Zally: The piece I will be reading is from a selection of origin stories I have been working on about the creation of 20th century gods.
C.T.: I was afraid that was going to come up eventually. It doesn’t have a title yet. Not because of lack of effort, but because it just hasn’t come to me yet. Right now, I’m calling it “Mo and Jesse” so I have something to save the file as. It is a conversation between two, well, people, depending on your point of view. They are definitely people from my point of view. Kind of like “My Dinner with Andre” except Andre Gregory once claimed he was god, Wallace Shawn attempts to kill him, and Satan is their waiter. They meet and talk in a recreated Garden of Eden in the middle of the Sahara. Ghosts, nuns and Al-Qaeda all make cameos in the cast of players.
What inspired the story, or what inspires you to write?
Zally: For the past few years I always wondered how ideas of gods were created and what kind of gods would be created in the 20th century. Sure there would be gods of things like electricity, computers, and cars but there are also very 20th century concepts that get swept under the rug, which is what this story deals with.
As for things that inspire me (I’ve never been asked this so it is a little odd to answer) I have to say it deals with a few things. Music, orchestral and cello solos are the biggest contender in my writing. I’m not sure why cello exactly but it always seems to play apart in my creative process. I also am a documentary buff and love nothing more than the History channel on a rainy afternoon (or National Geographic with the all their shows about serial killers and taboo subjects like that. Its nice fuel for the fire you know.) Besides that I love to research. I will spend hours with dusty old books looking up mental disorders, historical events, names, gods and even flower meanings until I find something that stirs me into writing.
More than anything else however is just observation from daily life. I enjoy studying human behavior everywhere I end up. Every scenario allows me to look for a different emotion, a different stance, facial expression that can be used in my writing. As of right now I have been hanging out at the Art Institute since it is the only museum in the city where people go with the mindset that they are going to judge everything around them. Its very fascinating indeed.
C.T.: This story is a good example of my general source of inspiration. I have always read and looked for old myths and stories, local, national and international. I’ve also always had a strong draw towards new interpretations of old mythological themes. Jungian archetypes with the overlay of various eras. When I was in high school, I was really drawn to the tales of Morocco and the Berber tribes of the Atlas mountains which eventually led to a trip there when I graduated. There was a tale I read, at the Peru, IL library of all places, regarding a very simple but special place in the desert where two great men met and talked. That image stuck with me until, twenty years later, it developed into this story.
You have both had some significant changes in your lives. Zally, you graduated from college and have begun to work seriously on your writing and C.T we understand you just welcomed an new addition to your family (congratulations!) This is a significant, positive change in both of your lives. Has it affected your writing in a good way?
Zally: Oh Gods! Don’t remind me I don’t have school in the fall, the concept of not being in a classroom is still beyond my mind to comprehend.
Even though I don’t have school to look forward to this has been the first summer that I have been able to devote to nothing more than my writing since, well, ever. The time has given me a chance to really explore my craft and play with developing concepts and ideas that I had to put on hold for far too long.
I have also been looking into becoming an editor in the future to immerse myself even deeper into the art form I love so much. But this idea is currently on hold along with the majority of my writing for I am apply for graduate school as we speak and that has been taking up the majority of my time.
C.T.: It would be easy to be melodramatic about this. Suffice to say, time becomes a very precious thing, and a balance has to be struck. The family is growing and needs time and attention. Still, to give it all one way or another is to betray both. In the first weeks of Byron’s life, I could see my father’s face in his. There is a legacy to consider.
What sorts of stories interest you as a reader, and what types of fiction do you wish there was more of out there to read?
Zally: If there is a book put in front of me I will probably attempt to read it. I can’t choose just one type of story when there is so much out there!
I love books that use symbolism and I try to bring that to my own writing. Every plant, color and name I use is there for a reason and I love to watch my reader’s faces as it all clicks in their mind. Foreshadowing is a delicate art and I respect any author who can use it well. With foreshadowing comes great description, a book or story holds me if I can see the world it is taking place in, which is why I love fantasy and horror. Description is so important to both genres that I just gravitate towards them.
I also like disturbing books like my all time favorite ‘A Clockwork Orange.’ The fact that the acts committed in such books are so horrible yet the narrator is so strong makes me love them. It’s the ability to get inside the mind of a psychopath in your own home without worrying that your going to end up garbage bags at the end of the story.
Right now however my reading list has been taken over by steampunk novels and short stories for their interesting take on history and technology. Oh and the brass, I love the description of the sparkling metal.
As for fiction I would like to see more of. Hmm, I think there isn’t a specific type of fiction I would like to see more of than I would like to see interesting new ways to explore genre. I would like to see more aspects of fantasy combined like in ‘Scar Night,’ by Alan Campbell who mixed steampunk technology and angel lore together beautifully.
C.T.: In the 1980’s, NPR put a significant amount of effort and funding into supporting radio or audio drama. They aired mostly modern and some well written older series. ZBS Media (zbs.org) produced some extremely well written tales that were long enough to take the time necessary to develop not just characters and settings, but also the mood or sense of the story. I love a good piece of flash fiction, but I do miss the well told tales where action was not necessarily immediate and you got to know the place and the characters before you went on the adventure. Darren Callahan is one writer that springs to mind as someone who has actually accomplished great work with this neglected and valuable format.
Have you gotten any advice as a writer that you would like to share with us?
Zally: I met Neil Gaiman a few years ago at an NPR taping and was able to meet him. I brought my journal that at the time had ‘publish or perish’ written on the cover and Mr. Gaiman asked me if I wrote and what the story I was working on was about. I started to tell him and he hushed me telling me he didn’t want to be spoiled and wanted to be able to read it one day. I almost died on the spot. I still have the journal up on my bookcase with the simple word ‘Publish’ written by him in the cover.
Besides that it’s not the advice that I have gotten it’s the obstacles I have faced that push me to want to write. Being told that what I do can be nothing more than a hobby and not an art fuels my desire to prove myself. I know it is not what you expected for advice but I think that being able to take the negative and turn it into something positive to fuel your desire is just as important as hearing praise.
C.T.: There has been good and bad advice. Then some advice that is what you make of it. What has really made the difference is the encouragement, especially from writers I’ve met through Twilight Tales. Encouragement or not, I’d be writing. I don’t seem to have the choice. But to share that writing is another thing entirely. Whether it was Marty Mundt taking the time to help me work up a story into a stronger piece or Eric Cherry asking, “so, when are you reading next?”, the willingness of the T.T. community to let me read a story and to have that constructive feedback from writers I don’t quite feel in the same league with has been something I’ll never be able to adequately say thank you for. What Tina Jens and Twilight Tales has allowed for is more valuable than any piece of sage advice I’ve ever received.
Is there anything you’d like to add to let our reader’s know more about who you are as an author?
Zally: Even though I write fairly depressing or gore filled fiction I’m really a nice girl! Well that is if you excuse the decapitated body under the floor. I swear that was a one time thing and I would never do that to another person who said my work was mediocre…I promise.
C.T.: Stop on by heathens-haven.com. Originally collected Chicago ghost tales, short stories, novel excerpts and memories all floating in the digital ether.
We hope you’ll join us on Monday August 11th at Mystic Celt (3443 N. Southport) to hear Zally’s and C.T.’s fiction, and perhaps more discussion!
