SmokeLong Quarterly

Ginny is one of the most intriguing characters I’ve ever stumbled upon. What inspired you to create her?

It was one of those random driving-to-work-in-the-morning thoughts. I was thinking—what if there was a girl who really wanted to be kidnapped. Serial-Killer-Taken. But what if (sweet, sweet irony) no one wanted her? No one would ever even try because she had something working against her. And it’s not ugliness because that’d be okay.

Someone would still kidnap you if you’re thin and ugly.

But what if she was fat and hard to carry? If you’re fat, you’re out of luck. There are logistics to that shit. No one could lift her. Have their way. Sure, she’d make it easy, because it’s her fantasy, but they wouldn’t know that. So from there, that train-of-thought-spiral just kind of morphed into this character Ginny Hanover with a demented reflection on the unfairness of life.

Do you watch a lot of horror movies?

I do. I’m kinda obsessed with them. Any genre. Slashers, paranormal, comedies. I love them all. I turn off all the lights and sit in the dark when I’m home alone. It’s raucous.

You do a great job pinching wit into the grotesque. Are your other poems and stories this darkly humorous?

I think so. I think many of them have undertones of dark humor. But I don’t actively set out to give them that twist; it’s just my take on life. Things get awful, so what else can you do except point and cackle? Make fun instead of dwell on the unpleasant. Hell, if I were thrown into a trunk of a car, I’d at least like to keep an honest laugh. All you have in life is a sense of humor. Or at least that’s how I see it.

What is your writing process like?

When I write flash it’s usually the just-write, spur-of-the-moment kind. I have an idea—usually one that comes to me when driving or in the shower, one of those debauched “what-ifs”—and I’ll sit at the computer until I upchuck the story. Good or bad, it’s out. I’ll leave it for a few days and go back to finish it up.

Every Sunday I write. It’s my day. Full spurts. From 9am to 9pm, with the occasional breaks for booze or food or Twitter. During the week I try to squeeze in an hour or more each day, but if I’m unsuccessful during the week I don’t beat myself up. As long as I have Sunday. That’s my day.

Friends don’t invite me anywhere anymore.

Will Ginny’s dreams ever come true?

I like to think so. Only I imagine some sort of disastrous Keystone Cops scenario in which this poor girl does all she can to make her dream real, and then it gets fucked up beyond all recognition because she’s so damn eager and then somehow she’s on the news and in the jail cell and it’s all downhill from there, but Ginny’s had her thrill and it’s been amazing.