The Mail & Guardian is running a series of interviews with South African authors. We posed difficult questions; we also asked some easy ones. Liesl Jobson obliges.
Describe yourself in a sentence.
One of many itching daily where the writing beetle bites; one of few fortunate enough to be published.
Describe your ideal reader.
They recognise me in public from my author picture, saying they bought the book. They tell me they planned to read a story or two at bedtime and then it was 3am and they’d gobbled the whole book. That not what you meant? I guess the ideal reader is somebody who’s prepared to be a co-creator of the narrative. I leave a lot up to the reader to play with. Flash fiction is an experimental form and it invites an encounter between the reader and the writer at the edge of experience.
What are you working on?
My next flash fiction collection, another volume of poems, a short story collection, a series of essays on women’s alternative sexuality. And a novel (it’s obligatory to say that, but really I am) in no particular order.
Tell us about your everyday writing routine.
The emphasis here lies on the last phrase of the previous answer: in no particular order. There’s a lot of pondering involved. Some reading. More procrastinating. Sweet talk, threats, promises. Then I do the writing task that is going to get me fired if I stall a minute longer. Waiting. More pondering. It wasn’t always like this, unbalanced and frustrating. It used to be orderly. Probably it will be again soon. I feel myself coming back to centre.
What book(s) are you currently reading?
I’ve been listening to audiobooks lately because the aural delight of a well-constructed narrative takes me back to being a child, that intense enchantment of being read to. Recent listens that transported me were Lorrie Moore’s A Gate at the Stairs, Ceridwen Dovey’s Blood Kin and what I’m listening to now, Janette Turner Hospital’s Due Preparations for the Plague. The books, the hard copy, paper books without which the globe will stop spinning on its access, those beautiful objects of human endeavour that sit next to my bed? They are Yvette Christiansë’s Imprendehora and Leonard Cohen’s Stranger Music.
Do you remember the first novel you read?
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by CS Lewis. I’d been Lucy in the school play, hence I had a vested interest in the book. It gave me notions, being a character in a book. A writer has to have notions about their place in the world.
Which book, if any, changed your life?
I used to think it was The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, because it helped me silence the internal critic that said my writing was lousy. But having recently discovered Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach, which helps me deal with the voice that says I’m no good, I’m no longer sure if there is only one life-changing book. I heartily recommend both.
Do you write by hand, typewriter or computer?
Yes. No. Yes. I’m very particular about my fountain pen, which I use all the time for work, taking social pics for BOOK SA. As I take down people’s names, many want to take my pen from me to write down their own names. I get really brittle because it’s like some ancestral link to my life blood is under threat if anybody touches my pen. Go figure. I heart my Mac too. It goes everywhere with me, except parties and then I hide it where burglars won’t find it. I’m a bit obsessive on that last point.
Why should people buy your book as a gift this holiday?
Because it is the perfect gift book for people with no time or little concentration. Flash fiction is also known as smokelong fiction. By the time your cigarette is over, so is the story.
What book(s) are you buying as presents?
I’m giving gift subscriptions to South African literary journals, New Coin and New Contrast to my family members.
What CD are you currently listening to?
On my iPod, all the Jacques Loussier recordings. He makes this astoundingly clever classical-jazz fusion vibe that makes me laugh. Fantastic Bach, Chopin and Debussy transcriptions.
In a multi/polymedia world, why is book publishing still important?
Are we seriously still asking this question?
What subject is now passé in South Africa?
French grammar? Sheesh. Nothing should be done till we’re all over it, but we can’t get over the big stuff because too many people don’t get enough chance to talk about it.
Liesl Jobson is the author of a collection of flash fiction, 100 Papers (Botsotso, 2008), which received the 2006 Ernst van Heerden Creative Writing Award and View from an Escalator (Botsotso, 2008), a poetry collection published with a grant from the Centre for the Book. Her writing has appeared in numerous journals including Quick Fiction, The Southern Review, New Coin, Chimurenga and anthologies, Twist (Oshun, 2007), Open (Oshun, 2008), Touch (Zebra, 2009) and Home Away (Zebra, 2010). She edits the South African domain of Poetry International and is deputy editor of the South African daily literary website, BOOK SA.