Category Archives: Interviews

Isolated and Deeply Enmeshed: A Conversation with Sarah Heady

In 2013 poet Sarah Heady went out to southeastern Nebraska for a writing residency at Art Farm, a program started by a woodworker who’d grown up in that farmhouse. While introducing her to the place, he invited Heady to poke around the attic, which was filled with turn-of-the-20th century magazines and newspapers. It was July on the prairie, and it was sweltering. “So I went up there and spent a long afternoon sweating and looking through these old magazines from the teens and twenties,” Heady says.

Mostly, she told me, she was drawn to the stacks of a magazine called Comfort, “which was like a Ladies’ Home Journal for rural women.”

Touted as “the key to happiness and success in over a million and a quarter homes,”[1] Comfort was a mail-order magazine published from 1888 to 1942 by Gannet & Morris out of Augusta, Maine. Primarily a means to advertise Gannet’s Giant Oxien, a snake oil cure-all, Comfort increased its circulation ten-fold in the first six years of publication, making it the first magazine in America to surpass one million subscribers.

The pages of the magazine were filled with articles and ads about domestic life, in some ways much like those that fill magazines marketed to women today: advice columns, beauty tips, and recipes, with a tinge of early-internet-esque information sharing. “People would write in with questions about what was wrong with their chickens or share recipes for food or fertilizer for the kitchen garden,” Heady says. More surprising for today’s readers might be the ads for things like pessaries, mechanical devices used to keep one’s uterus in place to recover after a prolapse, most common after a woman has had multiple vaginal births.

Heady left Art Farm with photographs of many pages of Comfort magazine and other similar periodicals. When she got home, she started experimenting with constructing poems from this found language and, eventually, many other primary and secondary sources about the settlement of the Great Plains. These experiments, interspersed with other lyric pieces, eventually became her second book, Comfort.

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Those Objects of Desire: A Conversation with Rachelle Toarmino on Objectification, Persona & the Internet

Rachelle Toarmino Weird Sister

That Ex, writer and editor Rachelle Toarmino’s debut poetry collection, came out last summer with Big Lucks Books. God, does this book vibe. It vibes way down in the bones of every relationship you’ve ever had, of every love you’ve lost or are afraid to lose. Like the Libra the author is, That Ex is all cool sophistication and casual glamour on the surface while bubbling up with eager tenderness and brutal honesty underneath. Toarmino gives herself and her reader permission to revel in the love poem while never letting anyone forget that emotional apocalypse is around the corner, that there’s something exploitative in documenting your love, that there’s nothing we crave more than total devastation.

At the beginning of the pandemic, I was reading think pieces about anticipatory grief, a term that continues to be thrown around during this period of universal loss. That Ex speaks to that kind of fearful breath-holding: we know something disastrous is going to happen but must push on with living anyway. The speaker’s relationship status is constantly in flux from poem to poem. In “I Wanted to Ask You,” the speaker is in a relationship. In “I Said Okay,” the speaker admits “what doesn’t kill you / makes you mad for the rest of your life” and as a reader, one is left on unsteady ground, looking apprehensively into the future, knowing what has been lost and wondering what else there is to lose. Toarmino references the poems’ speaker as “that ex,” but the speaker could also be the you (or multiple yous) comprising the addressees of these love poems, hate poems, and I-couldn’t-care-less-about-you poems. Either way, even the title of this collection casts every use of the future and past tenses into turmoil: we know this will end, but when? Who is that ex? Will I be next?

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Gion Davis: What makes a person “that ex”? Is there any way for a woman/femme to process her grief or anticipatory grief about a relationship without becoming “that ex,” or is it impossible to escape the patriarchal, misogynistic and contradictory expectations of being a perfect woman even after a relationship has ended?

Rachelle Toarmino: We all know that ex—the one who can’t let go. I wanted the title to nod to a gossipy recognition—we’re expected to know what someone means when they qualify a noun with that—as so much of the book is about having fun with the term’s reclamation. What’s less chill-girl than writing a whole book about your breakups?

I’m also interested in the grammar of that and how it communicates a subject making an object out of something. That is the direction of an outstretched finger—no word in the English language does more pointing than that. But then a magic happens when my speaker, after finding herself on the receiving end of that looking, turns to the reader and yells “Look!” She resists objectification by insisting on the significance of her pain—its power to be interesting, even. Continue reading

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Our Songs Are Our Trauma Prizes: An Interview with eCOCOBOYS

eCOCOBOYS feminist band

Photo by by Michelle LoBianco (@brooklynelitist)

I had the pleasure of seeing eCOCOBOYS perform at Alphaville this August. They were energetic and raw, with a lo-fi, Riot Grrrl-esque vibe, and told powerful stories throughout their set—all while wearing coordinating cowboy hats. The band and I caught up over email, and they answered a few questions about what drives them, and what’s coming next!

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Matt L Roar: Tell us how the band formed, who plays what, and how long it’s been around.

Maia: Tara plays bass and is our lead singer, I play guitar and sing some harmonies mostly, Griffin also plays guitar and is starting to sing now (!), and Tasha plays the drums. We all started playing together in September 2018.

Tara: I met Maia and Griffin my freshman year of college and I talked to them about always wanting to start a band, so two years later we finally started the band. We would just sit in Maia’s apartment writing our song to our talented drummer, the metronome app. Then finally we were like, we have to get a drummer, so our friend Gabi posted on a musicians Facebook page and Tasha responded. We played together once and it just all came together.  Continue reading

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Morgane Lhote Finds Her Disco-Drenched Place in the Sun with Hologram Teen

Morgane Lhote Hologram Teen

Morgane Lhote aka Hologram Teen creates atmospheric electronic music that is equal parts dystopian horror movie soundtrack and disco dance banger. A French expat, she now lives in Los Angeles, after stints in London and New York City. Hologram Teen’s newest record, Between The Funk and the Fear, released by London label Polytechnic Youth, is a tribute to the places Lhote has lived, as well as her love of cinema, video games, and a full spectrum of pop music. After decades as a professional musician, recording and touring in bands including Stereolab, Hologram Teen is Morgane’s first solo record. It is a project that embraces her diverse musical influences and a dark, futuristic, queer aesthetic.

Morgane and I first met in Brooklyn in the late 00’s, when we bonded over our mutual love for the ridiculous elements of 60s French yéyé music and style, Feminist theory, over-the-top sci-fi thrillers like Escape from New York, and the “classic” 80s French teen melodrama La Boum. Between the Funk and the Fear brings together these influences to create an album that rides the line between danceable and experimental. I had a chance to catch up with Lhote over email about her record, and the experiences and pop culture that have influenced it.  

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Eleanor Whitney: You’ve been playing in bands for decades. How did you come to play music and, specifically, electronic music? What were some of your early musical influences or inspirations?

Morgane Lhote: I was really lucky in that my parents gave me a turntable and some of their records when I was 4 or 5. The two records I played constantly were the soundtrack to Grease and Breakfast in America by Supertramp. They also gave me this really weird record by Guy Béart, Futur Fiction Fantastique, which had this amazing futuristic cover by French cartoonist Mœbius.

When I was a teenager, I already knew I wanted to be a professional musician and at that point in time I really loved the Bangles, the B-52’s, and new wave bands in general like Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club.

I started playing in bands from the 1980s, but nothing serious, it was more like jamming with people from high school and I played drums back then. A couple years later, I also started playing guitars in local Paris bands with friends. It was nice to get that experience and learn to play with other people.

I didn’t start making electronic music until 5 years ago when I bought [the music-making software] Ableton Live 9 and suddenly I was like: I can do this on my own!

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Two Cities, Fairy Tales, & a Marathon Sprint: An Interview with Muriel Leung

Muriel Leung, poet.

Photo by Sarah Gzemski.

Muriel Leung is an Asian American poet who defies convention and form, who adds whimsy to everyday objects and exposes the darkness behind them, and who pushes the boundaries between the real and the normal and the hyperbolic and absurd in her work. Her first collection, Bone Confetti (Noemi Press), toys with the magical yet apocalyptic and the romantic yet grotesque; it is both a strut through a flowery meadow and a devastating walk through the ruins of a ravaged city. I joined Leung in her adorable Echo Park, Los Angeles apartment for this conversation in racial politics, Asian American poetics, labor, and grief.

MV: What was the process behind writing Bone Confetti? As a fairly young poet, how did you balance writing and coming-of-age in your 20s?

ML: I wrote the bulk of Bone Confetti during my MFA, which I started in 2013. I moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana from Queens, New York, which is where I grew up. I had the great fortune of having a wealth of different experiences, to work with different people and communities beforeLouisiana. It was such a big move and shift—from going to a chaotic city that constantly displaces people and is very difficult to live in—to then move to Louisiana where the pace of life is different. Baton Rouge has a different set of racial politics, where being an Asian woman there meant something entirely different than in NY.

I also began to understand the history of resilience in Louisiana, which has seen so much social, political, and environmental turmoil. I saw how much this was embedded in the fabric of its history that if there is a storm coming, people know they have to cook all the meat in their freezer because the power might go out, so they just throw a big barbecue. The attitude of survival in Baton Rouge is very different from NYC, which sometimes doesn’t know what to do with itself other than facilitate high productivity. I think both city’s spirits contributed to Bone Confetti, which was a very important transitional point in my life—a whole wealth of experience and language. Continue reading

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I Can’t Rank My Loyalties: An Interview with Rowan Hisayo Buchanan

Rowan Hisayo Buchanan’s debut novel Harmless Like You is not a comfort read. At least, for me, a woman who has yet to be married or have a child, its themes revolve around a marriage at the point of potential break and a child abandoned by his mother. Reading the novel, I couldn’t help but fear “what if I do it all wrong, too? What if motherhood and marriage are jobs some people just aren’t meant for?” Luckily, I got to right to the source of the novel’s intense themes and ask Hisayo Buchanan about these questions and more:

Kati Heng: Harmless Like You touches on the hard questions many of us without kids are most scared to ask: What if I’m not meant to be a parent? What if I’m bad at it? The novel explores this idea; but, taken from your side and not the characters: Do you believe parenthood is a choice you make, or a role that naturally suits some and not others? Does it fall somewhere in the middle? Continue reading

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Cosmic Femme Punk Visionary: A Conversation with Taleen Kali

Taleen Kali photo by Emery Becker

I first encountered Taleen Kali at a small zine fair that was taking place in an open air courtyard in an arty Los Angeles strip mall. “How LA,” I thought. While browsing, I was struck by Taleen’s beautifully put together publication, DUM DUM Zine, and the sense of both playfulness and artistic gravitas surrounded her. So of course, after picking up a copy of the zine, I did what any fangirl would do: I followed her on Instagram. Through the images and stories she shares I learned about Taleen’s work as a yoga instructor, guitar shredder, dog-mom to an adorable pup named Leelo, her recent shoot with BUST magazine as a glitter makeup model, and got a sense that there’s almost a mystical girl gang that hovers around her. She seemed to embody the spirit of Weird Sister, so of course I had to talk with her more. We caught up over email about intersecting artistic identities and communities, cultivating creative rituals to survive these current political times, and the upcoming EP she is recording.

Eleanor Whitney: You do so much! You are a writer, editor, artist, musician, yogi, glitter makeup model and all around badass. Do you distinguish between your different projects or do you see them more as one integrated art practice?

Taleen Kali: The glitter makeup story for BUST Magazine was definitely a fun surprise!

As an interdisciplinary artist my projects have always been conduits, helping me to excavate and express different parts of my identity. I think it’s human nature to compartmentalize, yet the more stuff I make the more I realize it’s coming from the same source, even if it’s expressed through different mediums.

EW: You have played in punk bands around L.A. for a few years and now you are gearing up to record and release a solo EP and play a type of music you describe as “cosmic femme punk.” How did you hit on that description for your sound?

TK: All the writing and music projects over the years helped me figure out what I really wanted to write, and ultimately sing about: transcending the bullshit, comprehending the beauty of the divine feminine, and elevating my surroundings. Arriving at that mindset is what cosmic femme punk means to me.

Over time my music began to evolve from this “doom” persona, becoming less about bleak narratives and more about sonic expression and reclaiming femme visibility, and getting to decide what that means. As a first generation Armenian American it’s really important for me to use my voice and resources to uplift fellow women of color, queer communities, trans folx, and other marginalized voices. What we need to talk about will change too as media and culture evolves, so I thought: why not start with “FEMME AS FUCK” and go from there?

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Beauty Doesn’t Seem to Go Anywhere: An Interview with Catherine Lacey and Forsyth Harmon

There’s a sort of guilty pleasure that comes with reading a book illustrated on every page. Even more delicious is an illustrated book filled with exposed affairs, connected relationships, and literal-drawn-out lines of influence exposing our favorite artists from the decades gone by. When these elements come together in The Art of the Affair: An Illustrated History of Love, Sex, and Artistic Influence, the result is the most electric read with which to start the new year.

I had the chance to ask writer Catherine Lacey and illustrator (and Weird Sister contributor!) Forsyth Harmon more about their new book, their favorite tidbits of gossip, and more:

Kati Heng: I know you had to cut down and leave out sooo much to include so many of these relationships in your book. If you were to write and illustrate a single book about the intermingling affairs of one couple or group (since it seems like every didn’t just settle for one partner!), who would you focus on and why?

Catherine Lacey: Anaïs Nin was a big inspiration for the early research and looking back, she was also one of the most prolific characters in the book as far as friendships, affairs and alliances go. Her diaries and letters reveal a sort of fervency she had about the people in her life and she left troves of writing about her relationships.

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Using Your Feminist Superpower: An Interview with the Pussyhat Project

pussyhat project weird sister, feminist activism, craft, knitting

Pussyhat Project organizers drawing by Aurora Lady

I handed my two skeins of bright pink yarn over the counter at the demure yarn store outside of Freeport, Maine, “And I’d like a pair of size eight needles please,” I said. The woman working there looked at me as she rang me up, “I think I know what these are for,” she said, quietly, nodding with approval.

I smiled, “Yes.”

“Are you going to the… ?”

I nodded back, “Yes.”

“Are you scared?”

“No way.”

“Good for you, I’m so glad you are doing that. You are doing that for all of us.”

I felt I had been inducted into a not-so-secret underground society of knitters who were uniting to change the world, and in a way, we were because that’s exactly what the Pussyhat Project is. Specifically, it’s a Los Angeles-based project co-founded by two friends, screenwriter Krista Suh and architect Jayna Zwieman, who are joined by artist Aurora Lady. Simply put, the project encourages people of all genders to knit, crochet or sew pink cat (pussy) hats and share them with marchers headed to Washington D.C. on January 21st for the massive Women’s March that will highlight the importance of a diverse, vibrant feminist movement.

But the Pussyhat Project is so much more than knitting hats to make a bold visual statement: it’s an accessible and inviting way to build community, to open a dialogue about women’s rights, and to come together to share and heal post-election. In bringing people together to make and connect, it draws on a history of radical crafting and activist art. It also demonstrates to participants that they can engage in activism starting from where they are, and contributing skills they already have. In advance of the historic march in Washington (and the many sister marches around the country), I caught up with the Pussyhat Project organizers over email (they are busy ladies these days!) about the ideas, experiences, and philosophies guiding the project, and the power of feminist doing and making post-election.

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Love Doesn’t Save Anyone from Themselves: An Interview with Angeli Cabal

Angeli Cabal

I first encountered Angeli Cabal’s work as the co-editor-in-chief of {m}aganda Magazine. My staff and I were blown away by the pieces she submitted–poems critiquing colonialism, Western beauty standards, and the figure of the Filipino woman. I was stunned to see that in addition to being a poet, Cabal is also a visual artist and multi-genre writer who creates sleek, intricate, highly clever illustrations and incredibly heart-wrenching creative essays. In addition, Cabal has been a devoted fanfiction author since age 12 and has garnered an impressive online readership on Tumblr. In 2013, Cabal self-published her first chapbook, True Love and Other Myths, which sold out after the first printing. She went on to publish a second chapbook, The Anatomy of Closed Doors, joining the ranks of  poets and writers who use social media as their vehicle. Cabal’s work is raw, evocative, hands-on, and accessible. She joined me for a conversation where we discussed fanfiction, our immigrant parents, and which three fictional characters she would invite for a session of afternoon tea.

MV: I’m not sure if you’ve read this recent Buzzfeed article about women and fanfiction, but they argue that fanfiction is a central genre for women writers because it allows us to create narratives that are not available in everyday life. Why fanfiction? Why should we keep writing and reading fanfiction? What power does this form of creation give us?

AC: It’s been 14 years since I started writing fanfiction and I’ve never grown out of it. Fanfiction is so much more accessible for me because of world building. In fanfiction, you already have this world created for you so there’s less pressure and you can focus on the narratives you want to tell, particularly characters you want to transform and flesh out. When you have these characters presented to you and you see all the paths and avenues the author could have taken to make them more human, these are awesome opportunities to take. It is also such a supportive community, I can’t even read some of the stuff I wrote back then because it was so horrible but I get reviews that say, “Hey, this is really good, keep it up.” That was so important for me as a young writer because no one else knew I was writing fanfiction. It really encouraged me and is one of the reasons why I still write fanfiction today. Continue reading

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