Ask the Author: Heather Fowler
Answered Questions (7)
Heather Fowler
I had online stalkers and had been researching mental illness due to some exposure I had to a few problematic people. When I cancelled an open fiction marathon due to a barrage of stalking/harassment, I realized I had a lot of stories that addressed the theme of mental illness and decided to form a collection around the topic. I'd only have to write a few more stories to have a book, I thought. I began to compile one to see what I could assemble. The book was instantly full and then I had this odd goldfish moment where I realized I had been writing on this theme, intermittently, for twenty years. Oh, wow, there's the castle again. I think I had seen it before... Many times. Who knew?
Heather Fowler
On a good day, I read. I listen. I go and look for artwork that gives me a sense of awe. I write whimsical fodder, things that delight me. On a bad day, there is a painful truth my mind opens vent to and it falls from my fingers like blood to the page. I am hoping to have more good days in the very near future.
Heather Fowler
I'm currently working on a chamber opera based on a cannibalistic short story entitled "Blood, Hunger, Child" from my fourth collection Elegantly Naked In My Sexy Mental Illness (Queen's Ferry Press, May 2014). I'm also working on my poetry, a few experimental texts, and a novel or two that have been on the back burner.
Heather Fowler
I think I'm always interested in the strange story over the mundane story--this is likely since I first fell in love with books that were magical as a child, books that had elements of the bizarre. Maybe I felt a clear sense of otherness due to my poor vision and huge propensity to daydream. The ideas for stories that come to me arrive from everywhere, are often twists on what would be a normal narrative without, say, the speckled ghost I add into the story--or the random but unusual natural occurrence. Often, the urge to escape normalcy, or skew it, makes my stories pleasantly weird and enjoyable distractions to write--in a strange story, I am free from a standard construction of reality. I am at play. :)
Heather Fowler
Do what you love--do it whether you "succeed" or not. Keep doing it. Only compete with your own personal best. Life is not fair. The publishing world is not fair. So what? You might be ahead of your time. You might be famous posthumously--but not if you give up and fail to create your own important work because you are ridiculously assessing its worth on the basis of what happens with other people's work. What matters is that you follow your own internal compass for the body of scholarship/poems/plays/stories you want to create--not whether anything you make wins awards or prizes. Create. Do it again. And let nothing stop you. You want to be a writer? So, write. Write. Write. No excuses.
Heather Fowler
Honestly, it's the amazing readers and other writers who come into my life as a result of encountering my work, very kindred souls. It's also the joy I find participating in all arts communities and having long-term bonds with many artists and other creative people.
Heather Fowler
If you align your art with your passion, there is no writer's block. I say permit failure and do a little new work each chance you get. Out of habit and movement comes brilliant results. Don't wait to be inspired.
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