Aimee Parkison
Aimee Parkison’s newest book Suburban Death Project, published by Unbound Edition Press, is a collection of stories about people who haunt each other while still alive. Parkison is the author of 7 books and has won the FC2 Catherine Doctorow Innovative Fiction Prize, the Kurt Vonnegut Prize from North American Review, an Isherwood Fellowship, and a North Carolina Arts Council Fellowship. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals, in translation in Italian, and in the Best Small Fictions. She teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Oklahoma State University.
Twitter: @AimeeParkison
Instagram: @aimeeparkison
If you could create a museum exhibition, what would be the theme?
I would create a new Troll Museum exhibition (I realize there are already many awesome Troll museums, but the world could always use more and mine is different!). My Troll Museum exhibition would be divided in two halves–The Partitioned Troll Museum. The theme of this Partitioned Troll Museum would be naming and connecting narratives of Trolls.
One half of the museum would be all things Troll doll: Troll-doll history and decades of popularity of Troll dolls and the different styles of Troll dolls and stories of people who collect Troll dolls.
The other half of the exhibition would be devoted to online trolls and the divisive, infuriating tactics online trolls use to insight disagreements and chaos. This part of the exhibit would reveal how online trolls spin things by displaying some of the most outrageous, inflammatory, insensitive things trolls have said to get reactions from strangers and provoke the public. There would be curated digital content for the most infamous cases of online trolling as well as yearly nominations and awards and gallery exhibits for Troll of the Year. Each online troll dialogue would be coming from the image of a specific Troll doll, and each online troll would have its own Troll doll icon.
The museum would beg the questions: What is the connection between online Trolls and Troll dolls? Why do people troll other people? How did "troll" become a noun and a verb? Why are online trolls called trolls? What do they have in common with Troll dolls?
What’s the difference (at least for you!) between being a writer and an author? How do you shift gears between the two?
Being a writer is all about creating and the generative process of making something new, enjoying the process and learning by doing. The writer writes, creates, experiments, solves problems, dreams, weaves, revises, rewrites, makes something new.
The author is a person who is known for writing because of publishing. The author is known for the product created, and the writer makes the product.
The writer is an artist. The author is a public figure, which is very different from creating, which is usually a private, solo experience.
A person can be a writer and not an author, and oddly, a person can be an author and not a writer.
In my personal experience, being a writer is much more exciting, rewarding, and enjoyable than being an author. I’m a creative introvert. Shifting gears between writer and author is a process of moving from the private (writing life) to the public (author mode).
Vacation druthers . . . City or Rural destination? Why?
I prefer to vacation in the city to get a bit of variety. I live in a wonderful college town that is suburban but rural in its roots. My house is built on a former pecan grove, surrounded by trees. The view from my balcony is leaves, squirrels, birds, and owls. When I vacation, I like to get away, to feel like I’m experiencing a different place and culture, so that’s why I prefer the city for vacation, though I much prefer living in my town to visiting any other place.
What’s the oddest thing a reader has ever asked you?
Most odd things I’ve been asked by readers have to do with people assuming my fiction is nonfiction. Some of the strangest questions based on that assumption have been from readers asking if I’m worried about getting sued or if I have been the victim of a crime or even committed a crime.
Do you collect anything? If so, why, what, how long?
I collect many things. One of my more recent collections is of vintage historical photographs, which I've been collection for a couple years. I arrange them into albums.
I love the way the photographs (even ones that have nothing to do with each other) spark creative connections through juxtaposition.
The mind creates connections among unlike images when the images are grouped together.
For me, collecting historical photographs is another way to make stories by curating, going into the world of a photograph by examining it closely and connecting it to other images in my collection.
