I published a terrific story by Sam Asher this week. It’s called Fish Food and you can read it at The Forge. I also had the pleasure of interviewing him. Seriously, his answer re: his phobia is still making me smile.
1) What is your favourite fish?
My instinct was to look for some kind of obscure, exotic, masterwork-given-gils of a fish and pretend I’ve always been fond of one of those, but the truth is I’m exceedingly fond of the goldfish. They’re wonderfully unpretentious, and excellent listeners. My parents had one for over a decade, and we gave him a decent burial. He was a good fish.
2) Have you ever had your fortune told?
Nope
3) What is your worst habit?
Putting my boots on the couch.
4) Who is your favourite TV detective?
I’m not at all sure I know any.
5) You are wallpaper—what is your pattern?
He-Man.
6) What is your default pub/bar drink?
I’m an alcoholic in recovery. Typically I’ll just order a soda, but the further I get into sobriety the farther my waistband seems to expand. That in mind, I’ve been trying to stick to water. Yes, a party with me is exceptionally muted and depressing. I did recently discover cream soda with lime juice, which tastes a little like an old holiday cocktail my dad would make us.
7) What colour is Thursday?
Mauve.
8) What picture do you have on your wall?
Atop the mirror that hangs over my wife’s dresser is a painting of a tiny penguin carrying a turkey baster. His motives, surely, are nefarious.
9) What is your favourite fairytale?
Trickle down economics.
10) What words make you cringe?
The verb ‘get’ (or any of its variations) is a garbage verb for garbage people.
11) What is the last thing you googled?
Toy stores in Soho.
12) What’s your favourite swear?
Fuck. Absolutely. No other word contains such a wealth of meaning based on such tiny variations in intonation. I could write ‘fuck’ five times and each time it could signify something altogether different, or even opposite to, the ‘fuck’ previous.
13) What was your first gig?
It was the Reading Festival in 2005. The first band on the line-up was Goldie Lookin’ Chain, so their classic hymn to acceptance ,‘Your Mother’s Got a Penis’ will be a tune I never forget.
14) Do you have any writing rituals?
Trying not to suck.
15) Do you have any phobias?
Turtles. I don’t trust any creature that can hide its face inside of its torso. And they walk so deliberately, at such a slow pace. Where to, I ask? Where are you going, turtle? Why are you taking so long to get there? Is your time somehow infinite? Are you immortal? Are you just lazy? What are you hiding inside that shell? Is it money? Is it gifts? Is it my childhood? Reveal yourself, cruel amphibian.
16) What was your favourite book as a child?
I was actually taught to read with an illustrated children’s bible, and despite my avowed, and occasionally dispiritingly militant atheism, I still think kindly of it. In terms of narrative, I stole a copy of Little Wolf’s Diary of Amazing Deeds from school when I was 6 or so, and read it a dozen times. I kept the same copy until last year, when a combination of mental illness and residual, twenty-five-year-old-guilt at my first foray into theft led me to donate it to a local LGBTQ charity store.
17) What instrument did you play at school?
Air drums.
18) Write me a question for the next Smash Lit interview I do.
Assuming ghosts don’t currently exist, if I gave you the power to do so, would you will them into reality?
19) Who is your writer crush?
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah.
20) Bacon VS Tofu—who wins and why?
I’m a vegetarian, but tofu is brewed in a vat of spavined farts, so I suppose bacon, as a concept, but tofu as a meal. Pigs also, did you know, are smarter than Republicans? Eat a Republican instead.
Sara Crowley 