Patti Abbott writes top crime fiction. If you don’t know that go and read ‘Portraits Of Detroit’ by her at A Twist Of Noir.

She is the author of more than 75 stories in literary and crime fiction print and online journals and anthologies.

She is the co-editor (with Steve Weddle) of DISCOUNT NOIR. She won a Derringer for her story, MY HERO, in 2008. She blogs daily at PATTINASE. She’s been running a series on forgotten books for almost three years.

She met me at The Slaughterhouse where we talked about the legal system and psychology.

How much of your material do you get from Detroit?

Increasingly over time, more of my stories have become set in Detroit. (My childhood was spent in Philadelphia so some of my material also comes from there).

In a recent attempt to turn a story “Raising the Dead” into a novel, I researched ten crimes involving young black men that took place in or around Detroit. Those ten stories have figured into a lot of my recent flash fiction. More and more, Detroit has become a major player in what I write because it is hard to think of a darker place to dwell.

I live six blocks from Detroit, work there, and go into Detroit for cultural and sporting events so it has a major impact on my world view. Also my son is a prosecutor nearby and his tales sometimes morph into my tales. I can’t imagine anyone who writes not finding Detroit frightening, exciting, and apocalyptic. Every institution from the city government to the schools to the neighborhoods are plagued by poverty, unemployment, crime, corruption and incompetence. Less than half the people in Detroit have driver’s licenses. Only a quarter of them read at an adult level. They cannot perform eighth grade math.

Pretty fertile ground for writing stories. But also ultimately depressing as hell.

Do you think the legal system needs to be changed in order to cope with crimes, or do you think there is a better way of dealing with the problem?

The legal system in Michigan has coped with crime by incarcerating more than 50,000 citizens as of 2007. The number is dropping now–but mainly from the state’s need to save money. One of the most prevalent reasons for incarceration is drug- related crime.

I think drugs like marijuana should be legalized for persons over 21 and regulated for purity. We spend 40 million dollars prosecuting drug offenses. Drug trafficking produces much of the violence in cities like Detroit and fills the jail cells.

I think the best way to deal with crime is to improve the education system and improve life in the inner city. When people have no legitimate way to earn a decent living, they turn to the drug business or to the drugs. If you are addicted to a drug that is expensive on the black market, you turn to crime to procure it.

I am very far from being an expert in any of these things, but I live in a city where drugs is the number-one business for the uneducated population.. An amazing percentage of black men in Detroit spend time in jail and I see few attempts at rehabilitation.

I think you could now be paid to take a house in Detroit. Any taxes the city could derive from the gift would improve their position.

Who are your literary influences and why?

I write short fiction and my favorite writers in that form would include Andre Dubus, Alice Munro, Antonya Nelson, Raymond Carver, Bobbie Ann Mason, Mary Lavin, Flannery O’Connor, Eudora Welty, Jean Thompson, William Trevor, John Cheever, Barry Hannah, Amy Hempl, John Updike and the incomparable Lorrie Moore. I like the precise, succinct and elegant prose of all of the above. Now it the realm of crime fiction, great short story writers are more rare. The traditional “mystery” does not lend itself as well to a short form because solving a puzzle requires more pages. But as we’ve come away from that narrow definition of crime fiction, there are more and better short story writers. Kyle Minor’s collection IN A DEVIL’S TERRITORY, Paul Tremblay’s IN THE MEANTTIME and Bonnie Jo Campbell’s AMERICAN SALVAGE are three recent stellar collections.

My favorite crime fiction novelist is Margaret Millar. She looks at crime from a psychological viewpoint, which I admire greatly. I am also a fan of Charles Willeford (his Hoke Mosley series is one of my favorites), Sjowal and Wahloo, Simenon, Nicholas Freeling and all the usual suspects.

How do you think the psychology of a serial killer differs from that of other criminals?

I have never written a story about a serial killer nor researched the topic but I imagine the crime is less profit motivated than other crimes. Less against a specific person and more against society at large. More about perceived injustices, perceived ill-treatment, a desire for fame, a wish to prove himself smarter than other, especially the police. I have never found serial killers all that interesting because they seem interchangeable in most cases. Hard childhood, psychosis develops, they act on it. My preference is for stories about the victims of crime or a person who gets backed into a corner and kills once. After Hannibal Lector, there is little to say for me.

Do you think humour is a form of social commentary and which comedians do you like and why?

I think a good comedian can have more impact that a good columnist or essayist because it goes down easier. Of course, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are both brilliant and I can’t believe they turn that stuff out four nights a week. I also like Lewis Black, Chris Rock and Wanda Sykes. Fran Leibowitz’ recent HBO special PUBLIC SPEAKING was witty and reminded me of how much I enjoyed her books SOCIAL STUDIES and METROPOLITAN LIFE. Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, Monty Python, David Sedaris, George Carlin, Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce all made an impact. I adored Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby in their day. Right now, Ray Romano has turned out to have more to say about the angst of the middle age man than I would have ever expected (Men of a Certain Age). It isn’t as funny as his standup routines, but it sure is great writing.

Do you think that crime is related to economic deprivation and to what extent do you think crime authors reflect this?

Economic deprivation is an important element in crime. I think the best crime writers always reflect the political and economic situation to some degree. Pelecanos has been taking on race relations and poverty in D.C. for many years. Mosley does this too. Stieg Larsson looked at right wing politics and crimes against women in his trilogy. Stuart Neville looks at the repercussions of the troubles between Ireland and England. Woodrell sheds light on the consequences of poverty in Missouri–where an entire society has been turned into one giant meth lab.

Lehane and Connelly have important messages in all of their books. Gillian Flynn looks at dysfunctional families. Megan Abbott and Laura Lippman, among others, are concerned with the treatment of women across the decades of the 20th century. I could go on forever. But the best crime fiction functions in the same way the best so-called literary fiction does by shining a light on what makes us act in the ways we do. And it is often related to poverty. Other than psychosis, poverty must be the biggest factor in the commission of crimes.

Any book that has no larger goal than entertainment, in any genre, is only a fast beach read to me. I feel the same way about movies. I am almost never there solely to be entertained.

Elias Canetti commented that ‘Paranoia is an illness of power’. When you think of rulers and the exploitation of power how true do you think his observation is and in what ways does it expose the legitimisation of crime by those in authority?

I think the seeds for paranoia would have to be already in place for this to occur. If we look at the American presidents as an example, Richard Nixon comes immediately to mind. He exhibited paranoid tendencies from his earliest years in politics. It reached a crescendo during Watergate when he felt entitled to do whatever was necessary to hold onto power. LBJ acted similarly, testing people’s loyalty constantly, even in his years as leader of the Senate. Nearly all dictators seem to exhibit such tendencies: Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, Castro, Saddam, Kim Jong -il. Democratic elections help but do not solve this problem.

Plato said in Book 9 of THE REPUBLIC that tyrants have no control over their emotions so they project their bad impulses onto others and then punish them for it. English kings such as Richard 3 and Elizabeth 1 saw plots all around them. The more isolated political leaders allow themselves to become, the more likely such latent, perhaps, tendencies are to arise.

I think people in power begin to believe that only they understand the circumstances and only they can lead the country effectively so they do what they feel they need to to maintain power. Recently, I think Vice President Cheney was perhaps more paranoid after 9-11 than President Bush and as the stronger personality set the country on a course he believed was necessary.

On a lesser stage, you see such behavior in the workplace and in the home as well. A paranoid supervisor can wreak havoc on a workplace and a parent on a home.

Tell us about your novels.

I have two unpublished novels. The first one was based on a short story called Raising the Dead. It is the story of a photographer who hasn’t achieved the success she’d hope for and how she goes about achieving that elusive goal. It takes place in Detroit and deals with the current situation here–the poverty, the animosity between black and white, the failure of a once-great city. The second novel is about a Philadelphia woman who steals, grifts, hoards, and eventually kills, and the effect of her behavior on her family over many years.Neither novel falls solidly into crime fiction or solidly into literary fiction. I have not put the effort I need to into finding an agent and I am not sure why. I think I am past the point where such an endeavor seems worth it to me. I’d rather put my time into writing short stories where I know I have a better chance at success. I enjoyed writing the novels and do not regard it as a waste of time, but I won’t do a third. I continue to tinker with them between stories. I think thirty years ago, I would have been able to find a publisher. But with the current situation, no one would know how to pitch them. And I can’t seem to write a book that lands squarely in the proper place to attract interest.

Do you think that Charles Manson is guilty of incitement to murder or is there something else going on with the killings he was convicted for?

I think he must have had some potent gift for mesmerizing people to persuade seemingly normal woman to engage in such activity. Of course, you cannot overlook the times, when it was very easy to be swayed by a sense that if you did this or that, you could change society. Cults and radical groups abounded. And the war put us on the path to examining every social construct. If you read the memoirs of some of these sixties radicals, many of them red-diaper babies, you can see the angst it all produced. But in the end, I think Manson, was a megalomaniac and guilty of incitement to murder among other crimes. None of his followers would have come up with such a dire and directed action on their own. They may have bombed banks, draft headquarters or post offices but not tortured people in suburban houses. For a good look at this phenomenon, read Philip Roth’s AMERICAN PASTORAL or Carol Shields’ UNLESS. It was not so hard to persuade vulnerable children to engage in destructive acts.

Forgotten Books has been a feature on your blog for almost three years now. Do you think it has served much of a purpose in drawing attention to older books?

I am not sure. What is has done, at the very least, is draw a group of people together in talking about these books. Books that often have languished on dusty used bookstore or flea market shelves for years. And it has also introduced some new writers to the readers of the blog. Stuart Neville did a book review just as his first book was debuting here. I am not saying it sold any books for him, but it told a few people that he had a book coming out.

It has introduced me to the many people who I’ve gone to for reviews. Hundreds of them, in fact, and very few have refused to do a review. In the beginning I was shocked at how few people turned me down. Laura Lippman, Ken Bruen and Sandra Scoppettone did reviews in the first few weeks. I think all of us have a book we want people to know about. A book we believe is unjustly forgotten or was neglected on publication. I am appreciative of the support of the people who do this every week. Bill Crider has not missed a single week and several others are right behind. And I am also appreciative of Jeff Pierce on THE RAP SHEET who has done this project along with me until recently.

In many ways, we have access to these books more now than ever through online resources, but in other ways, all but a few of us ignore them.

Thank you Patti for giving a revealing and insightful interview.

Anthony Neil Smith otherwise known as Doc Noir is one hell of a writer, who is also the Director of Creative Writing Associate Professor at Southwest Minnesota State University.

He writes fast paced crime fiction that leaves his rivals in the shade.

You may know him as the editor of Plots With Guns.

His novels have put Minnesota on the map with Noir.

His latest novel ‘Hogdoggin’ is out.

He met me at The Slaughterhouse where we talked about real crime and gun culture.

Do you think that Minnesota lends itself to a particular style of crime writing?

To be fair, I haven’t really read a lot of Minnesota crime fiction, and the one or two books I have read don’t really have much local flavor.  I’ve only been in Minnesota for six years, so I’m really more familiar with the Southern fiction of my home state, Mississippi.

However, I guess I was first exposed to the idea of Minnesota crime fiction through the movie FARGO.  And the tone of that seems to still fit, I think, especially if you’re looking at that world as an outsider like Steve Buscemi’s character was.  A bit of the absurd mixed with a dark underbelly.  Yeah.  But the Minnesotans don’t much like to talk about the underbelly, thank you.

“Minnesota Nice” was a concept I’d been warned about–surface politeness that repressed what people really thought.  But right away, here in the Southwest part of the state anyway, I was greeted a general sort of unfriendliness.  That sucks in a neighbor or plumber, yeah, but as possible characters for noir?  Gold mine.

Also, my slice of Minnesota is in farm country.  Very rural.  And one thing I’ve seen from Mississippi to Minnesota is that rural is rural.  A lot of the same attitudes.  Accents might change, weather might be worlds apart, but still more similarities than differences.

You see a lot of attention given to Scandinavian crime fiction right now, and I really do love the atmosphere from writers like Jo Nesbo and Henning Mankell–showing us harsh people, withdrawn.  You’d think that would translate easily to Minnesota which is full of

Scandinavians and cold weather.  But for some reason it doesn’t quite make it.

Henning Mankell is known for his political views, being a strong opponent of the Vietnam war, South African apartheid and Portugal’s colonial war in Mozambique. To what extent do you think these views are reflected in the stark and brilliant figure of Wallander?

I don’t know much about Mankell.  I’ve just read a few Wallader books and liked them okay.  But I guess thinking of the books in a political way didn’t occur to me.  Could be that’s a blind spot for me.  I like to read novels where it’s harder to tell where the author comes down on the political spectrum.  Even better if over several books he or she is a bit of a wild card.  I hear Ellroy call himself a conservative and do a double-take.  Really, you can be a conservative and say that?  Act like that?  Same with Ted Nugent, Andrew Sullivan, Stephen Hunter, for example.  I like the politicians who surprise me, make me think.  And, you know, being opposed to bad stuff, that’s great and all, but…hey, I don’t like war either.  But I won’t oppose them all on principle.  Lots of gray areas.

When you read about real crime do you find it more shocking than the events in crime fiction and do you think crime fiction can be too realistic?

I’ve never read crime fiction that feels as real as real life crime, no.  And I don’t think we should ever stop striving for that realistic feel in crime movies or novels, but we should also remember that a lot of real life crime lacks the sort of drama that fiction delivers.  A lot of crimes in real life are, well, usually inexplicable moments where people who know each other do terrible things out of a strong emotional jolt.  The majority, I’d say.  And yet whenever I hear of real life crime stories, they get me in the gut.

For example, this case in Massachusetts of the home invasion, where the two assholes tortured the family, demanded the mother drive them to the bank to withdraw money, then raped and murdered the mother and daughters while the dad, tied up in the basement, escaped just as the assholes set the house on fire.  That really gets to you.  Shit.  But as a work of crime fiction?  The closest thing I can think of to this is FUNNY GAMES, which has a lot of craft to it (I’m not saying it’s a good movie.  Not that keen on it).  There’s story.  There’s drama in that we see the movement of the story from more than just the outside.  There’s even a sick dark humor and metafictional element to it all. We experience it differently than we experience stories of real crime.  Maybe that’s what crime fiction’s real power is–showing us crime from the inside-out.  But it will always feel like art compared to true crime or news reports.  That’s because the artists, even when trying to show shocking crime and violence, are still crafting art, right?  Can reality be art? Maybe accidentally.

Crime fiction needs to reach for the realism, sure, but I don’t think it can ever feel the same as how we experience real crime stories when they’re told to us.  And they don’t need to.  Crime fiction needs to serve a different purpose.

Tell us about your latest novel.

HOGDOGGIN’ was the most recent, from the Summer of 09.  It was a sequel, kind of, to YELLOW MEDICINE, which took my characters Billy Lafitte and Special Agent Rome to their psychological extremes (and in Billy’s case, physical).  Bad cop Billy somehow got away from Pale Falls and ended up as enforcer for a small motorcycle gang led by a guy named Steel God.  Rome used Lafitte’s family as bait to draw him out into the open.  And then shit got wild.

I have finished two more since then, which I think will go out to publishers under pen names due to my crappy sales record under my own.  The first, I can’t tell you about because we’re keeping the pseudonym secret.  But the other I can tell you is a thriller concerning the disappearence of young Somali men from the Twin Cities.  About twenty of them vanished, only to end up back in Somalia fighting for the Muslim extremists over there.  Something about that really got to me, and since our small rural town west of the Cities has a pretty decent-sized population of Somalis, I imagined what would happen if one of these small town guys became one of those converts, and what the local cop assigned to the case would do about it.  The action shifts back and forth from the search for answers in Minnesota, and the action on the ground in Somalia.

After that, I’ve got another idea I’m exploring right now, and since I’ve got a one-semester sabbatical this winter, I’m looking forward to jumping back into the pool.  I like it when I’m working on a novel.  It seems I only ever take a month or two off from writing one.  This time, I’m thinking a few weeks.

There is a definite distinction between various types of crimes, for example between robbery and serial killing. What psychological extremes do you think drive men down criminal paths that many people find impossible to comprehend?

You know, I think a lot of it goes back to a sense of entitlement.  Part of a larger, narcissistic personality disorder, maybe.  Take selfishness to the extreme.  We see plenty of sociopaths around, but they’re not all killers. Many are just manipulators, able to get what they want through emotional blackmail, emotional play-acting, passive-aggressive suggestion (I’m not an expert, though.  I’m just pulling this out of my ass as I see it). Never taking responsibility, always ready to pace the blame elsewhere.  So the next step, taking it into the criminal world, is to see others’ lives and property as belonging to them to do as they please.

Even the most heated decisions to kill or maim or steal, we see, always come back to the perpetrator not taking responsibility.  It was a temporary fugue state, or insanity, or he or she wasn’t thinking straight because, after all, it was the cheating spouse/partner’s fault, or or or…you know.  I think of those kids (allegedly) who broke into celebrities’ homes, stole their stuff, paraded it online, and then got a fucking TV show out of the deal.

Charles Baxter talks about something similar in Burning Down the House, about “Dysfunctional Narratives”, starting with Nixon’s Watergate denials/justifications/blame game, that ended up defining how we communicate in contemporary American culture.  No one taking responsibility.  I’m paraphrasing here, but Baxter says something along the lines of us losing the story of ourselves.  Losing our way.  And in todays criminals, you see this writ large.

Do you think that crime writing overlaps with horror?

It should, I think.  In the best instances, especially with the “suspense” category, which Hitchcock learned to do very well by the time he got to PSYCHO.  Yeah, crime, which is the thing that scares us all more than zombies, should be horrifying.

So that’s why Agatha Christie is so hard to read.  No horror.  Too much tea.

I’m not so sure I like the overlapping of supernatural horror with crime fiction, though.  In those cases it’s a bit hard to believe.  I can take a psychological fake out, but not an actual supernatural connection.  But then again, I’m sure there are some books out there that would prove me very wrong.

I like zombies as much as the next weirdo, and I enjoyed Anne Rice’s rock star Lestat novel, and I like some of Lansdale’s horror stuff, and some King, and so on.  And the feel of those books can be a lot like crime fiction.  So my objection is more along the lines of having a series detective keep stumbling over the supernatural every time out.  Hell, I tried to do that when I was eleven years old–my “cajun detective” named Mason Jane was always finding out it was a ghost or some shit.  Of course, those were handwritten, never published.  I could’ve cashed in!

Horror and crime should go hand in hand, and I’m glad to see it does in the hands of Sean Doolittle, John Rector, Stephen Graham Jones, Scott Phillips, Vicki Hendricks, Lansdale, Allan Guthrie, Ray Banks, Tara French, Sara Gran, wow, that’s a lot of fucking names right there.

What do you think’s wrong with the publishing industry today?

Not much.

I mean, yes, you’ve got bean counters who won’t publish mid-list stuff, thus making the expectations for everything they do publish unrealistic.  But small or indie presses could take up the slack.  Except that it’s hard to make money publishing…even if you were to do it like the indie record labels, it’s a different product…

You know, I guess that’s all way above my head.  I’m not a businessman.  I want to write stories, get paid for them, and have the company who paid for the stories to do its damnedest to get them into the hands of the right readers.  I don’t really care what format that is, either.  Although I do think paperbacks are better technology than a Kindle, and that hardbacks are way way way overpriced and not a good determination of an author’s selling ability until he or she becomes pretty well known.

But if someone offered me a juicy hardcover deal, I’d take it.  So no matter what I think is wrong with the industry, I’m pretty sure I’d fuck it if it was putting out.

What is the most disturbing thing you have ever experienced?

I was on a panel once called “Guys with Guns” or something like that, and we were talking about noir fiction when a woman on the front row, a British writer of mysteries (not my favorites, I’ll tell you that), asked, “Have any of you ever been on the wrong end of a gun?”  And of course, no one on the panel had, so she held her nose high and said, “Well, I have, down in the blah blah jungle at the hands of the blah blahs…” Of course, trying to upstage us, make us feel as if we really didn’t know what we were talking about.

But fuck that.  No, I’ve never been on the wrong end of a gun.  But I’ve been afraid for my life.  I’ve lost people in my life, I’ve had some bad bad luck, even though I was raised upper middle class and didn’t get into a lot of trouble.  But yeah, I’ve experienced some disturbing shit, but I don’t want to talk about it.  I just…don’t think it does any good.

Do you think it’s possible to write a made for film novel and if so how does it differ to other novels?

It would be short.

The best TV shows, like THE SHIELD, for instance, feel like a good novel.  But a two hour movie?  Feels like a short story, at least to me.  Very different experiences.

To write one for film, you have to be as objective as possible, not a lot of character thoughts or description.  It just has to move.  And it has to have style.

Personally, I’d love to see more adaptations made into completely new stories, like THE HUNTER becoming POINT BLANK, or the way the Coen Brothers made MILLERS CROSSING almost like a Hammett novel, or how Tarantino’s PULP FICTION was the best adaptation of an Elmore Leonard novel ever, even without it being Based on an Elmore Leonard novel (and JACKIE BROWN was not that good of one, I’ll say).

TV is where you can make novel-like stories shine.

Do you think gun culture still informs the American psyche and if so how do you think it links into men’s perceptions of themselves?

Yes, yes I think it does.  I think it links into men’s perceptions by having us buy into the fact that we’re the masters of our own fate.  A big individualist streak.  We protect our households and our families, not the government.  The government’s in a building across town.  That won’t do.

So, really, it’s life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness all balled into a 15-shot clip.  Is a lot of it pure psychological delusion?  Probably.  But a gun can end a life, save a life, all at the same time.  It makes a man feel safe first, powerful second.

Especially out here in the big, wide, empty Midwest.  Guns are like muscle cars.  Awesome machines in the right hands, deadly if you fuck around with them.  Cool.

Thank you Neil for giving a revealing and engaging interview.

Doc Noir’s office hours are posted here.

And get your copy of one of Doc Noir’s new novels, ‘Choke On Your Lies,’ on Kindle at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk, or on NOOKbook at Barnes & Noble.

Lynn Alexander created Full Of Crow and stormed the internet with her vision and artistic insight.

She is a great writer and a great editor.

Her unflagging efforts have supported many online writers and built a mini-Empire.

She is a highly energised force on the net who knows her literature and art.

She is also a great poet.

Lynn met me at The Slaughterhouse where we talked about Royalty and what inspires her.

If you had to pretend you were a Royalist in order to survive how would you need to distort your character to carry it off?

What an odd question. I would probably go into a paranoid panic, hiding my Sex Pistols and Morrissey. In this hypothetical, am I adapting to an installed monarchy, or am I fighting for one? I assume that if they have the power to kill me for dissent that it is in place and I am trying to appear loyal, maybe so I can get cake. Maybe I would sell “I Heart The Queen” t-shirts at flea markets, get a new tattoo.

One of the reasons we beat Brit ass way back was because we here in America have a thing with Kings-although we are certainly used to the senseless squandering of the public purse. We want to at least pretend that we have a participatory democracy and we want to pretend that we are engaged in the process. If I had to pretend I was a Royalist to survive, it would indeed be difficult because I am about as far away from being desirous of a monarchal-fascist system as you can get because in general any model where people are controlled by an entitled power elite seems a step in the wrong direction.

I suppose there is a difference between acceptance, something we all do quite readily, and actively campaigning for it or participating in it. If I had to be convincing, like to secure confidence, I would most definitely start my ruse with the purchase of a fashionable hat.

You’re given an unlimited sum of money to buy an obscenely fashionable hat and indulge a secret vice, what is the vice and what do you do if the proviso is you have to shock everyone you know and how do you do it?

First, the obscenely fashionable hat would be made from the exhumed body hairs of Jim Morrison. A few would be shocked by that.

But that isn’t enough and I want to use the unlimited money for something cool… So let me set up what happens after I get said hat:

We organize the biggest gathering ever, taking care of the logistics- think “Burning Man” or Woodstock, only in the forest. “Building Woman” maybe, where people construct giant vaginas from branches and re-enact their births and honor the earth mother. Whatever. Everyone is naked, natural, no money or clothing or ipods or cell phones. People come as they are for as long as they want. We take care of basic needs, but we explain that their laws and obligations do not apply in this temporary Utopia. We tell them that we don’t take their visa cards or want to hear about Facebook. If they don’t like dinner, they can grab some vegetables and go squat in a corner and make something else. People gotta be chill.

In the center, we erect a circular wall that is wide enough to walk along, perpetually, around. It is too high for anyone on the ground to see who is up there. A helicopter brings ten individuals who are dropped off without having their identities revealed to the crowd. I know who they are. Soon, they know who they are. Some are puzzled, some are happy. One begs to leave.

We spend time together, but every few hours we walk around the circle ledge and listen to what is going on outside. We heckle and holler poetry and stuff. Then I kick one out.

Their identity is known when they emerge, but they have done nothing to be ashamed of. The others can attest to that.

The one who remains is the one who wanted most to leave, and I present the choice to stay or go. The person stays, and now everyone wants to know what is going on in there.

The shocking part is the speculation. Are we doing drugs, drinking, hallucinating, having sex, what is going on? Why the party, why the wall? People imagine things that are crazier than what I can devise, the crowd environment fuels rumors. We have odd things delivered. They know I am wearing a hat made from man hair. An earnest hipster from San Francisco wants to make a documentary but he doesn’t have his flip camera and he’s naked. I give cryptic answers that he has to remember and they become distorted when he repeats them. Like that game- “Telephone”.

The myth becomes more interesting than the truth, which is that mostly we are inside playing scrabble and drinking tea.

I never tell anyone who this person is, in two days I get the helicopter to carry them away, and we continue the party until everyone has enough and misses their clothing and ipods and cell phones and houses. Eventually, only a handful of people are left and they are invited to live in the fortress, which we keep. They become my friends, tribe, family, the Cult of The Twig Vagina Festival. We are described in Wikepedia. Some of the content gets disputed.

Do you think that inasmuch as it is arguable that fucking is done naked so is killing?

No. Clothing is inconvenient. In the one case, it is inconvenient to have it on. In the other, it would be inconvenient to stop and take it off.

Fucking is a means to a connected humanity, killing is the product of it breaking down. To me, killing should be the result of being faced by specific circumstances, such as being unable to defend one’s own life without resorting to lethal means. I don’t buy the argument that humans are meant to kill for territory or resources or even necessarily for food- although that is another question.

Just as clothing renders us less animal, being naked brings us closer to nature, so killing and clothing seem more consistent.

The tarantula is a conditional pacifist. They seem to have resolved this issue to their satisfaction.

Fucking is nature’s consolation prize for having to walk around with the spectre of mortality. We use it to perpetuate ourselves, to feel infinite, to distract us, the temporary antidote to the death chant. It is worthy of our nudity.

If you argue that capitalism has destroyed the social fabric with competition, do you think that real anarchy as exemplified by Kropotkin and based on co-operation is a valid social model or is it no longer workable?

I would love to get into anarchism and Kropotkin with you but find it hard at this point in my mental evolution to be succinct, as you’ll see.

When I talk about anarchism, I generally focus on the relationship between authority and PERSONAL autonomy, even beyond social liberalism, with the elective use of empowered systems in place to intervene in specific ways, namely on matters of human rights or where it is practically warranted by scope.

The latter is often the basis for the justification of authority, things like disaster relief and national security, these are often areas of contention as we can agree quite readily on many of the personal freedom matters. When it comes to the justification of the state because of scope or complexity, it becomes harder to apply extreme philosophies. Some anarchists do not necessarily view their beliefs in terms of absolutes- but rather see power on a continuum where authority is challenged, metered by default, and in need of defense as necessary when rights of groups are competing.

For example- your right to rape might necessarily be curtailed by an authority because I have the right to be protected from rape. The “state” has a specific role that we can defend when pushed. That is different than saying “let’s not have any laws and burn shit!”. Anarchism suffers from some bad p.r. as she is often championed by people who care more about their t-shirt slogans. Do we really want absolute chaos? My fear is that children would suffer the most in such a scenario. And I don’t think that chaos is what we mean, but rather a different relationship with power and control.

I don’t argue that capitalist competition has destroyed the social fabric, as I don’t see us as “destroyed”, I’m not quite to that level of cynicism yet. I don’t know that competition is necessarily the key issue, nor do I think it can be practically eradicated in favor of a cooperative or communal model. In many models that aimed to try, we saw a shift to corruption where the common people were the losers and a new elite took the place of the old. Recall how the descamisado became serf, liberators became monarchs.

What often emerges is an oppressive hold on individuals, replete with exploitation, in the name of “state” that makes it hard to reconcile anarchism with communism. I find it interesting when people try and would love to hear more vigorous debate on this.

A simple way to explain the problem is by example: you can’t force me to grow apples in the name of social cooperation without having a pretty strong boot on my neck. And if I spend the day picking apples while your brother and friends who do you favors stand around, eventually I will lose my motivation and will not see you as my ally but as my enemy. Is that about competition, or the way power corrupts? So the power itself is the issue, and we give up far too much.

Beyond the corruption, the problem with a detached state is that it cannot help but control from afar and with broad strokes, mixing good intentions with social controls that have no merit, a model of authority with control being exerted from the top down, something that might appease the hippie side of my nature because it has the power to redistribute resources to solve problems like poverty but sets off the tyranny alarms. This is the crazy-making area for many of us, myself included.

Do you think that esotericism allows women more scope for liberty?

Not necessarily, because the ultimate goal of liberty is to render itself an unnecessary pursuit. Liberty will just be, without a fight, a state of freedom that transcends that constant challenge. As a woman I also understand that this won’t happen, because the ability to sit back and consider it a battle won is a privileged perspective that we don’t experience.

“Scope”, though, is achieved through maximum universality, something that seems at odds with esotericism, despite the draw of comfort, insulation. We need some security in our nurturing of self, but when you say “more scope for liberty” I think that is achieved through engagement across the broadest of levels, looking outward, not inward, being open and thereby exposing ourselves on a bigger scale. Scope is achieved through boldness, forcing others to reckon and acknowledge, and I think esotericism can involve barriers, or require deciphering that makes dialogue less accessible. You might have freedom in your bedroom or another safe place, but you are hiding, and liberty requires us to confront both the power and shame that makes hiding seem so compulsory.

What are your darkest thoughts?

My darkest thoughts. I’ll pass on a dramatic answer to this because they are quite cliche’. I don’t suffer with much originality.

I think many of us think about death, but are relieved to have moved beyond the obsessive regard we once gave the subject. I had to learn that thoughts are just thoughts, our fantasies and desires don’t make us terrible people, our impulses can be controlled, we learn when we get older to exert more control. Sometimes we even have to laugh about it.

When my mother was dying, she made a joke about ordering a pizza and not being dead before it arrived. Sure, that’s sick, but that was how I was brought up. That is how we cope with “dark thoughts”.

Part of how we process is to learn to live with them, give them a chair at the table. There are aspects that we often come to deny for all kinds of reasons- dignity, shame, guilt. I deny my share. This year, I have had a few things pop up again, like trauma flare-ups. And it sucked.

We all have experiences that stay with us and in aggregate form that layer, that deeply painful place. My way has been to tread with detachment and safety through art, through fiction, and when possible to diffuse pain by laughing about it.

Who has had the deepest influence on your life and why?

The person who has had the most influence on me was my mother, because I wanted to see myself through her eyes, her expectations, her standards- and not my own. That wasn’t her fault, it was just the way that I responded. My father’s love was unconditional and available, he believed that it should be that way. But my mother was a person who always had people desirous of her attention and time, she was brilliant and beautiful and people wanted to be close to her, but it was something that had to be earned.

To this day, I feel insecure in many of my relationships, some going back decades, like my worth is subject to constant evaluation, renewable terms. This explains why I work very hard, people always ask when I sleep. I am not driven to be better because it makes me happy, I am driven to things because I don’t ever feel like I am ok as I am. It’s a rather pathetic mindset. You don’t rest, you give, trying to earn your keep with people because you enjoy having them around and want them to feel the same way.

Do you think that since modern women have rebelled against the patriarchal influence exerted on them they are trying to free themselves from the ways their mothers sold them out?

I think there is tension between what many call the different waves of feminism, but it is important to remember context. In many ways our mothers paved the way and we should remember that, although I believe that critical reflection is important. We have to appreciate what was accomplished but we also have to evolve, and we do this by criticism. We discuss the differences a lot in our circles, and I think some key areas that have emerged in modern feminism include more understanding of diversity among women, privilege, and changes in the way we view the response to patriarchy. I rarely use the word patriarchy, because I want to focus on power dynamics as human experiences, and move away from competing “teams”, which is not to say that these are not very real struggles that need to be defined.

Do we feel sold out, and are we responding? Well, it depends on how you look at it. One problem when we look at oppression is the tendency to either adopt the mindset of the oppressor resulting in internalized self loathing, and lateral oppression where we begin to lash out against our own. I am hopeful that we are dealing with that more now, or at least taking a close look at this dynamic and how it plays out. We can see how it played out for our mothers.

Another problem is the quite invalidating tendency to approach equality with emulation. I am equal to a man, and to show this I will adopt stereotypical masculine behaviors and rally against what is viewed as overtly female? What’s that about, really? I don’t have penis envy, I want pay equity. I don’t give a shit about wearing your suits.

We should make decisions based on need, desire, choice- not because we feel that equality is achieved by either copying “typical male traits” or worse- by hating them. We can acknowledge privilege, sure, but we shouldn’t seek to become oppressors as a response to victimization, that is not empowerment, that is a cycle we need to avoid. If I wear something sexy because I want to, you should not assume that it is to please you. Many women however feel that we are not capable of choosing “sexy” for ourselves, and I believe that we are. I also don’t want to feel pressured to be something I am not to meet expectations and I hate when I see us doing that. This is about self determination though, not about the length of a skirt and I think that we forget that as we latch onto symbols that make it easier to lash out at each other.

That is why I often talk about “covalidity”, that we need to move away from defined gender expectations and also avoid the thought trap that we are “supposed to” eradicate lipstick and burn our bras. I am all about eradicating “should thinking”.

That is part of asserting ourselves, taking that ownership of our lives and our own rules. There shouldn’t be “bad feminists”, and to impose rigidity is to really carry the torch for misogyny, instead of men telling you what to do you now have other women telling you what is right or wrong for you- and that doesn’t work for me. That is very “first wave”.

In my “mother’s feminism” the lateral oppression-women against women- often played out in a distrust of other women and the assumption that any woman wearing lipstick MUST be doing it to please men, the result of conditioning, and the way to rebel was to cast it aside. If you recall, many feminists spoke out against books, films, calling for censorship of ideas because of how women were portrayed in the arts. Censorship is dangerous ground. Talk about how women are portrayed, sure, but don’t get into silencing others.

When you ask if our mothers sold us out, this is what comes to mind, the way many feminist “leaders” not only sold out women as mindless idiots to be protected from books, told what to do, but also the new “rules” about how we should behave that created dilemmas. i.e. If I decide to stay home with my children, I am “oppressed” as opposed to an empowered woman making an intelligent decision about parenting, perhaps in partnership with other caregivers.

Ideally, we learn to act from self determination, mindful of the “male gaze” but with the autonomy to define our own sense of beauty, vocation, parenting roles, etc. Ideally, we can protect ourselves from exploitation but have the autonomy to make decisions about our bodies. Ideally, we can trust one another to be experts of our home and professional lives, and move away from making conclusions about the motives of other women. Live and let live.

Do you think education hides scars or exposes them?

I think most of the time, earnest education that is sought rather than received exposes them.  Exposure makes us more mindful, more empathetic. Exposure shines that necessary light, brings us closer to deciphering things, the more access to information- the better we usually are.

In some cases, education is the mask of propaganda and distortion, and so access is key to transparency.

How has Ted Hughes influenced you and Full Of Crow?

Full Of Crow and Ted Hughes. Well, Ted Hughes once said “a crow would become symbolic in any author’s hands.”

The Crow of Hughes is mythic of course, a reflection of many themes from religion to natural survivalism. Crow is ego, even as he is a “black little nothing”. Crow is an embodiment of something uniquely stubborn, strong and yet- wretched.

As many in small press know, I started Full Of Crow with Aleathia Drehmer, who edited the first few poetry issues. Aleathia and I had some discussions not only about poetry but crows- not only the Crow of Hughes, but crows as beautiful special birds: intelligent, misunderstood animals. It was a discussion about the mythic crow, defiant against the sun, rendered black- “Full Of Crow” that became the title of this new project. That was almost two years ago, and a lot has changed since then. I think the symbolism of the crow is important and enduring, and fascinating.

I have crows on my arm, in ink, in different stages: solitude, reflection, flight, vanishing… these are very much phases of the poet’s work…”full of crow” constitutes a sentiment regarding the need to be bold and strong even when it seems foolish.  We poets are all flying against the sun, we do so because we must.

Thank you Lynn for giving a brilliant and honest interview.

Lynn links:

My web link is http://www.lynn-alexander.com and the online Full of Crow is http://www.fullofcrow.com.  The “dot org” is http://www.fullofcrowpress.org.