12 or 20 (second series) questions with Mandy-Suzanne Wong
Mandy-Suzanne Wong is a Bermudian writer of fiction and essays. Her novels include The Box, a Bustle Best Books selection, and Drafts of a Suicide Note, aForeword INDIES finalist and PEN Open Book Award nominee. Awabi, herduet of short stories, won the Digging Press Chapbook Series Award; and heressay collection Listen, we all bleed was a PEN/Galbraith nominee andASLE Book Award finalist. Her work appears in Black Warrior Review, ElectricLiterature, Literary Hub, Litro, Menagerie, SuperstitionReview, and Necessary Fiction and has won recognition in the Best ofthe Net and Aeon Award competitions.
She is represented by Akin Akinwumi (aakinwumi at willenfield dot com) at Willenfield Literary Agency.
1 - How did your firstbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous?How does it feel different?
My first book, Awabi, a duet of short stories, won the inaugural Digging Press Chapbook Series Award. It was my first opportunity to work with an editor, the greatGessy Alvarez, from whom I learned so much. She gave me the confidence to developsome of Awabi’s characters into protagonists of mycurrent novel-in-progress, of which the lead character, Ayuka, daily brings mejoy.
2 - How did you come tofiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?
Since my earliest days,all my favorite books have been novels; and it’s reading other books that makesme want to write them. Fiction has always been a refuge for me, a way ofgetting out of myself.
3 - How long does it taketo start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially comequickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to theirfinal shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
It depends on the project.All my books begin as reams of handwritten notes; but whereas my novel TheBox came together in less than a year, with the final manuscript bearing asurprising degree of resemblance to the first drafts, Ayuka’s novel is alreadyin its third major overhaul.
4 - Where does a prosework usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end upcombining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" fromthe very beginning?
Again, it depends. TheBox and my first novel Drafts of a Suicide Note were conceived asnovels, the novel form being my first love as a writer and my favorite kind ofbook to read. My short story “The Indoor Gardener,” though its acceptance forpublication preceded that of The Box, began as an excerpt from thatnovel. Ayuka’s novel, though, is arising from short stories.
5 - Are public readingspart of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer whoenjoys doing readings?
I do enjoy givingreadings, but I also find it terrifying. I’ve been fortunate in my audiences,which for the most part have been encouraging rather than discouraging. But Iprefer only to give readings of work that’s already settled into itself.
6 - Do you have anytheoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are youtrying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questionsare?
I seem to be obsessed withanti-anthropocentrism. Even when the first spark of a project is a humancharacter, some nonhuman thing or phenomenon, like the handful of paper in Draftsof a Suicide Note, shows up to undermine the human characters’ agency andself-control. Dispelling the human from the center of our imaginative universesis vital: it has long been time to put other Earthlings first and to admit thatwithout, for example, a healthy Ocean, our species will not survive. It’s ourspecies’ hubris, believing humans to be the most important beings on Earth,believing ourselves to be entitled (by virtue of nothing whatsoever!) toexploit and consume everything else, that’s directly causing global ecological collapse.
7 – What do you see thecurrent role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? Whatdo you think the role of the writer should be?
Literature has the abilityto pinpoint and question the ambiguities inherent to each and every moment;great writing discovers beauty in ambivalence, complexity, even contradiction.In today’s egocentric, exclusionist, and exploitative cultures where simplisticdemagoguery and unquestioning cancelations decide what counts as “freeexpression,” ambiguity is suffocated at every turn—and yet, it may be the onlytruth.
8 - Do you find theprocess of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I’ve been really fortunateso far in that the best, most talented, professional, and companiable editorshave wanted to work with me; and they have shared my determination to make thebook or story of the moment its best self. Even when that self is weird anddoesn’t “fit in.” They’ve also relished joy and laughter as integral parts ofthe process, and that is so important.
9 - What is the best pieceof advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
From Grace Paley in TheParis Review, an interview to which my awesome editor Yuka Igarashi drew myattention: “One of the first things I tell my classes is, If you want to write,keep a low overhead. […] Don’t live with a lover or roommate who doesn’trespect your work. […] Write what will stop your breath if you don’t write.”
10 - How easy has it beenfor you to move between genres (short stories to essays to the novel)? What doyou see as the appeal?
I wouldn’t say that movingbetween forms has ever been easy for me. Novels and short stories require verydifferent strategies for timing and pacing; essays are beholden to thingsbeyond themselves to a greater extent than fiction. These constraints present specificchallenges and opportunities that preclude effortless flowing between forms. ButI do aspire to such flexibility in my writing; I don’t want my work to fallinto unbreakable patterns. That means continuing to experiment with form,genre, language, subject matter beyond my comfort zones. Each project has somethingnew to teach me.
11 - What kind of writingroutine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day(for you) begin?
I try to keep to aneight-hour workday just as I would in any profession, but that doesn’t alwayspan out. Each morning begins with some sort of caffeinated beverage and a phoneconversation with my mom, almost always about books!
12 - When your writinggets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word)inspiration?
From the edge of writerlydespair, I turn to other writers’ books. Anything with beautiful prose mighthelp me to stave off panic and regroup—to find, if not exactly inspiration, thecourage and desire to carry on searching for ideas.
13 - What fragrancereminds you of home?
Seaweed in salt water.
14 - David W. McFaddenonce said that books come from books, but are there any other forms thatinfluence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
Other-than-humanEarthlings, including boxes, snails, sounds, artworks, buildings, shapes, andtheoretical or scientific papers, are vital influences on my writing. I tend tothink about language in musical terms; my sentences prioritize rhythm, timbre,tone, breath, phrasing . . . Even though I’m not a poet, the way a piece lookson a page, even in manuscript, is also an important consideration for me.
15 - What other writers orwritings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Ah! You got me started.This list could go on for reams. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, Clarice Lispector, Sofia Samatar, Andrei Platonov, Antoine Volodine, Lev Tolstoy, Mark Haber, Nadezhda Mandelstam, Fernando Pessoa, Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, Salman Rushdie, Amina Cain, Terry Pratchett, Mieko Kanai, Marie N’Diaye, Maxim Osipov,Chinua Achebe, Maria Stepanova, Yoko Tawada, W.G. Sebald, Maaza Mengiste, Yoko Ogawa . . .
16 - What would you liketo do that you haven't yet done?
I wish I understood Greek,Japanese, Russian, Portuguese, and German, and I wish I could improve mytotally inadequate French and Italian. If only such things came easily.
17 - If you could pick anyother occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do youthink you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
Had I not decided to throwcaution to the winds, throw over my education and common sense, and become awriter, I would’ve ended up a miserable musicologist or piano teacher wishingdaily for the world to end me.
18 - What made you write,as opposed to doing something else?
Can’t help it. Can’t stop.Tried to stop and (see question 17) shan’t try again.
19 - What was the lastgreat book you read? What was the last great film?
Right now I’m reading twophenomenal novels for blurbs. Watch for both of them in 2024! Lesser Ruins byMark Haber (forthcoming from Coffee House) is an inimitable digression ondigression, grief, and techno that curls and stretches language in ways thatEnglish doesn’t often dare. The Future Was Color by Patrick Nathan(forthcoming from Counterpoint) looks obliquely at McCarthy-era artworlds whileexperimenting elegantly with the very idea of “plot,” with what makes a story alove story, and of course with color. Films haven’t been doing it for me lately,but Nathan’s novel may just make me want to take another look at Old Hollywood.
20 - What are youcurrently working on?
Inaddition to Ayuka’s novel, I’m working with several writers and artists on TheTubercled Blossom Pearly Mussel Memorial Library of Hope, which I wasinvited to create for Delisted 2023; an international artisticcollaboration curated by Jennifer Calkins in honor of twenty-one nonhumanspecies that were recently stricken off the US Endangered Species List anddeclared extinct, relieving the US Government of the obligation to either seekthem out or preserve their habitats.
