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Editor-in-Chief:
Kenneth Brosky

Managing Editor:
Stephanie Nolasco

Associate Editor:
Janelle Kennedy

Poppy Z. Brite

Interviewed by Stacey Cochran

If there is a diva of dark fiction, Poppy Z. Brite has long been the strongest contender for the title. Her intelligence and wit has made her a star of the small presses, and her career has seen a constant evolution from her first novel Lost Souls to the forthcoming Liquor (due from Random House’s Three Rivers Press Imprint on March 23, 2004), a literary tour-de-force written with perfect-pitch poignancy and an indelible wisdom and charm that could vaunt Poppy Z. Brite into the bright waters of mainstream fiction. Writer Stacey Cochran caught up with Poppy at her website and had this to say of their earliest exchanges: “Poppy Z. Brite is one of the most charming writers I’ve ever met. I approached her about doing the interview on-line, and she was gracious, generous, and a joy to talk with. She never once condescended to me, a young writer myself, but acted with nothing less than dignity and grace. Her wit and her dedication to craft is unsurpassed, and I for one think the world is a brighter place for our having a Poppy Z. Brite.” For more on Poppy make sure to visit her home in the cyber-suburbs at www.poppyzbrite.com.

(Editor's note: After hearing about this interview being published in Brew City, Stacey Cochran tells me Brite was furious. Apparently, we're too small potatoes for her to be featured on, but I still love her)

SC: The publishing industry prides itself on being a liberal-minded business, in touch with the pulse of America. Is there enough equality -- female/male equality -- within the publishing business? Or are men running the show?

POPPY Z. BRITE: I can’t help approaching this from a selfish standpoint, and I don’t really give a damn about the genital configuration of the person editing my work as long as they are intelligent, open-minded, and pleasant to work with. I’ve worked with male and female editors and don’t prefer one or the other; there are geniuses and idiots of both sexes. But from my not-terribly-well-informed perspective (the midlist writer really doesn’t tend to know all that much about how things work) it seems to me that the publishing industry is mostly populated by scandalously young women.

SC: You broke into the business at a pretty young age yourself; looking back nearly two decades, how did early success affect the kinds of writing you did?

BRITE: I don’t think my (relatively small) success affected my writing a great deal. It certainly changed my life and caused me to say a lot of stupid stuff in interviews -- I can hardly stand to look back at some of those now -- but I have always tried very hard to not let critical opinions, good or bad, affect my actual work.
     In the mid-90s, a time when I wasn’t doing much fiction of my own anyway, I did take on a couple of lucrative commercial projects that I probably wouldn’t have been offered if not for the success of my early novels. I’m not particularly proud of either of these projects (a semi-authorized biography of rock star Courtney Love and a novel set in the world of the Crow comics and movies), but they did give me a financial bridge through a difficult creative time.

SC: In the opening chapters of Liquor, G-Man and Rickey seem nostalgic, longing for a better life, their own restaurant, their own fulfilled dreams. There’s a poignancy (and maturity) here that may remind some readers of the classic, Of Mice and Men. What do you do to reach contentment? Is it routine? Is it hitting the perfect note? Is it love? What is contentment to Poppy Z. Brite?

BRITE: Of Mice and Men? [laughs] OK, they are Yats from the Lower Ninth Ward, but they’re not actually retarded. I know that’s probably not what you mean, but I’m kidding around because I don’t really understand the comparison.
     As for contentment, that would be finishing a piece of writing I’m really pleased with. The only other time I can remember experiencing it, I was sitting in a cafe in Amsterdam as the sun went down. It was the first time I’d visited an unfamiliar city by myself, not on tour or for work at all but just because I wanted to go, and for a few minutes everything seemed perfect.

SC: What else can you tell us about Liquor?

BRITE: Well, lots.  What do you want to know?

SC: Well, the story’s set in New Orleans in a lower income section, right?

BRITE: The characters are from a very poor neighborhood (the Lower Ninth Ward), but that part of their life takes place in the previous book, The Value of X. By the time Liquor begins, they have moved to a more mixed neighborhood, the Irish Channel in Uptown New Orleans, though they themselves are still poor because they’re line cooks.

SC: And it’s a story about friendship and love, true?

BRITE: I guess. I mean, the characters are an old married couple by that point. Obviously they couldn’t get through the travails of the story without each other, but I don’t want people to start saying it’s about love. It’s about a restaurant. It’s about what working in a restaurant kitchen and trying to open a restaurant is really like, as opposed to, say, this silly-ass Rocco Dispirito “The Restaurant” show that’s playing on TV right now.

SC: It’s been four years since your last novel. Why the break?

BRITE: There was a period in the mid-to-late 90s when I felt bored with my work, had no idea what I wanted to do next, felt I had nothing left to say about New Orleans, or about much of anything really. I think these periods happen to most writers, but they never stop being terrifying and when you’re in one, it’s hard to believe it will ever end. This one only ended in the fall of 2000 when I started writing Liquor.

SC: How important is audience to you when you’re writing a novel? Are you interested in connecting with a mainstream audience?

BRITE: I can’t think about that kind of stuff at all when I’m writing. I can’t imagine anybody reading it, or wanting to -- I’m just trying to get it done, because not getting it done makes my brain feel like exploding.

SC: You’ve travelled to a lot of interesting places geographically, and I’ve read a couple-three interviews where you mentioned that place and setting is important to you in writing. How do the two interact for you as a writer -- the connection between a certain emotional state you want to achieve (whether it’s fear, nostlagia, love, friendsip, etc.) and the actual physical place where a story is set?

BRITE: Well, it’s like trying to pull apart nerve fibers. They’re too intertwined to work separately. But I will say I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about emotional states I want to achieve in fiction -- that tends to grow out of the story itself; it’s not an objective I set for myself when I begin a project.

SC: If you had an unlimited budget and 12 months of free time to travel, where would you go?

BRITE: I’d really like to get to Spain. Everyone I’ve met from there is interesting and brilliant, and some of the most exciting restaurant cooking in the world is being done there.
     I’d also take the time to see more of Louisiana. I’ve only just begun to see my home state outside of New Orleans, and I want to get to know all the different parts of it. I always have a good time in Texas, too.