This past Sunday, Miranda Mellis met with us to talk about her books None of This is Real (Sidebrow Books, 2012) and The Spokes (Solid Objects, 2012). Miranda's short fiction is compelling in its surrealist narrative. Her background in poetry is evident in her incredibly beautiful prose. Her stories seek to illustrate our habits, our interactions with time, the goals that propel us into action and the ways in which we make sense of our places in the world. At the same time, her stories are political in how they mirror how we are caught up in the wheel of capitalism or how we look away when we know we are acting as part of a societal machine that may be harming others. Miranda's characters seek knowledge, seek approval and are sometimes not sure why they do the things they do. In this way, we can relate to them, even within the surrealist landscape of her worlds. Her stories deal with death, family dynamics, ancestral powers and the growing line at the cafe. She talked about the things she resists in her narrative, like locating the events in a specific time and place. At the same time, she is able to work through a sentence that perfectly represents her character's emotional state in the same way a poet will work through a line until it's just right.
Click here to listen
No comments:
Post a Comment