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A stitch in time: In which Sophie and Jess chew the fat about all things past, present and future

Sophie Cunningham and Jess Au December 09

Spikers – tis the season for silliness and unseriousness. And, of course, with our wonderful editor Sophie Cunningham saying her goodbyes, it’s a time for sadness as well (and, as you’ll note from our post title, mixed metaphors).

Spike will also be finishing up for 2010, putting on Bermuda shorts and tramping off to the beach, as of today. We hope to see you and yours sometime in the new year. In the meanwhile, we wish you happy summer reading, writing, drinking, merriment and eating (not necessarily in that order) and leave you with a post in which Sophie and Jess interview each other about Patagonian Toothfish (well not really, but you get the drift…).

Sophie Cunningham (SC): There is a rumour going around that you’ve a novel coming out in 2011. What’s it called, when’s it coming out?

Jessica Au (JA): If I make it through the last slog of redrafting with my social graces in tact, it’ll be called Cargo, and hopefully be out in 2011 with Picador. It is, I assure you, nothing do with the stacking crates, but more to do with adolescence in the early 90s, and all the awkwardness and introversion that goes with it. I’m also a bit of a YA buff, and while Cargo is likely to be adult fiction, I did want to try and see if I could tap into some of that rawness, and carry it over.

JA: Likewise, I hear that you have some serious novelling, as well as a book on Melbourne, in the works – tell me more…

SC: I’ve been working on a book about Melbourne for the last year – that’s coming out with New South in August 2011. It’s hard writing about a city without falling into a travelogue or a list of facts – I’m sure I do both at times – but I’ve never written an extended piece of non-fiction before and found that I really loved it. My second project is something I’ve been working on for more than four years. It’s a novel, called This Devastating Fever, and is about Leonard Woolf in the early years of his marriage to Virginia, and in the years before that, when he was a colonial administrator in Ceylon. It’s always hard to know what motivates you to write about a particular character but I think that part of what fascinated me about Leonard was the complexity of his response to that country. Behind the bluster there was a very nuanced understanding and respect that was unusual. His diaries of his years there are just wonderful. The drama of writing this book is the non-fiction versus fiction aspect. I want to engage with my characters imaginatively but the facts sometimes box me in. Why choose a project like this then? Well, that’s a good question.

Anyway, I plan to work on these projects, and on another, more nebulous, non-fiction project, when I leave Meanjin.

SC: How did you fit in writing with you work as Deputy Editor of Meanjin? Tell us a bit about your routine.

JA: Working at Meanjin was most excellent for writing – part-time, immersed just enough in the world of publishing to feed your brain with all things creative, but still with enough flexibility to give you at least 2-3 days of decent novelling. I do agree that too much editing work can spoil you for writing, but I’ve actually found that small doses can really help tighten your work and keep you disciplined.

In terms of routine, I’d probably get up late (I’m a zombie before 10am). The rest of the day pans out like so: turn on computer while having toast and tea, log into Spike, Twitter, email etc for an hour. Close browser and open up word. Scroll down to where I finished up last before reopening browser and procrastinating some more. Close browser and determinedly disconnect. An hour later, reconnect. This internet vs writing showdown continues until evening, although sometimes I’ll swap the net for a good book, or an aimless trip to the kitchen. If I’m lucky I’ll have done some actual writing by then, but either way I’ll try and go for a very pathetic jog around 5 or 6, then come back and cook dinner.

JA: Can you give us a tour of your writing space?

SC: Oh, I think not. It’s a feng shui disaster with piles of books, bills, and folders in which I’ve attempted – and failed – to sort out my tax obligations. But what I do like about the space is the bookshelf that lines the back wall – it’s full of all the books (including Meanjin) that I’ve ever worked on or written. It’s a big, fat, hard to pack, retro, sun-damaged CV and I love it. It’s also got a slightly feral buddhist shrine in there.

SC: Spike has been ausome. Can you tell us a bit about the ideas that informed it over the 18 months or so that you edited it?

JA: I’d like to say that there was a carefully planned agenda behind it, but really it was very much a case of experimental cooking. Back in 08, if you’d said the word ‘blogger’ to me I would have gone cross-eyed, but since then I’ve come to really enjoy and marvel at what can come of the form. This is also thanks in no small part to your very wise editing of my editing – bravely leading the way to LOLcats, Mad Men and 80s music videos.

Looking back, I can see now that there were a few ideas that emerged, even if by accident. One was just the blatant joy of sifting through the net for finds – from things like George Lucas Stole Chewbacca, But It’s Okay and a 1980s Russian animation of Ray Bradbury’s There will come soft rains, to Andrew McDonald’s A Pictorial Guide to Avoiding Camera Loss and minimalist superhero covers. The other was trying very much to make Spike a place for new writers – for example, posting on the quandary of balancing day jobs and a career in writing, questioning the concept of originality and starting up Spike interviews with a view to throwing open creative process. I also wanted to reflect a lot of what was happening, excitingly, on Meanland and in the print edition in terms of changing technologies and, to that end, we’ve posted on gaming, privacy and social networking and why the internet is punk. Finally, there are our wonderful guest bloggers – if Spike is at all awesome (or ausome) it’s also thanks hugely to them.

JA: From a complete redesign (both print and online) to the Meanland project to our 70th anniversary issue – time frogleaps: what’ve been some of the highlights of the past few years?

SC: It’s always impossible to disconnect high points from the people you worked with. On that note I want to note the obvious but very real pleasure of working with so many really terrific writers and thinkers – people like Ben Eltham, Carolyn Fraser, Lorin Clarke, Mel Campbell, David Nichols, Helen Walpole, Ken Wark, Jane Gleeson-White, Marcus Westbury, Hilary McPhee and Jeff Sparrow. Too many to mention here. But thank you to you all.

But to answer your question in chronological order.

1) The redesign, and the chance to work with my main man, Stuart Geddes.

2) The launch of Spike (Thanks Inventive Labs and Golden Grouse) and watching you – my main woman – take to blogging like a duck to water.

3) The relationship with Overland and the chance to work with all the folk there. Healthy competition is very motivating.

The highlight of this collaboration was the Meanland (another thanks to Inventive Labs) project and the low light was losing the emu egg to the Jeff Sparrow.

4) Working on the 70th edition and re-reading all those old editions. And, in terms of the physical product, it’s the issue of which I’m most proud. (Thanks again Stuart.)

SC: Is it true that you used to hate lolcats, but now you’ve come around?

JA: It is true I used to vehemently opposed to LOLcats – and really, I still can’t quite understand what makes stuff like this so funny. I mean cute furballs doing unlikely things with painfully shouty grammar – what’s to love? But, having said that, yes you have won me over, if only for the delightfulness of opening a new email with a serious subject line in the middle of my work day, only to find this staring back at me:

JA: I may have come round to LOLcats but I have yet to understand Buffy. How can vampires still be cool in a post-Twilight era?

SC: What youth such as yourself don’t understand was that when I watched Buffy, back in the nineties, Twilight did not exist yet. Consequently Buffy’s coolness was established before though stupid anti-sex vamps came along. Also, the vampires and demons on Buffy could sing. ‘Once More with Feeling’ is possibly the best hour of television ever.

SC: This is not so much a question as a statement. I’ve loved working with you and am going to miss you. May your novel sell heaps, and may Spike keep being spiky. * virtual hug *

JA: Oh * hug back * . What you’ve done with the journal has been nothing short of brilliant – I’ve loved every minute of it and am going to miss you too! Thank you, not only from me, but from all the Meanjin team.

SC: That sounds like a statement, not a question. And a very nice one it is too. Thanks for having me for the last three years, Meanjn. It’s been a great honour. (Folks looking for me, will find me, after december 20, over at www.sophiecunningham.com, on twitter (@sophiec) and at sc@sophiecunningham.com

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

 

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