I just published an incredible essay by Barlow Adams at The Forge. When I first read it, I actually gasped several times and I checked with him that is was actually creative nonfiction because, damn, it’s unbelievable. Read Hideous Miracles. Do it! Then come back and check out his Smash Lits interview.
1) You are wallpaper. What is your pattern?
Sasquatches playing hide-and-seek amongst a forest print. Like a look-and-find book, with bigfoots doing various activities—smoking, using a ouija board, catching butterflies, doing their taxes, playing Scrabble.
2) Did you have an invisible friend when you were younger?
I had so many invisible friends. I had factions of them. There were major conflicts. Empires of invisible friends rose and fell between the ages of 5 and 8.
3) What is your default pub drink?
It should be something more exciting considering I tended bar for years, but probably a 7&7 or a Moscow Mule. I’m also particularly fond of sour beers.
4) If there was a TV show called The Masked Writer, what would your costume be?
Pangolin.
5) Do you believe human beings can spontaneously combust?
I think this is unlikely. I’ve noticed incidences have decreased drastically in frequency since camera phones.
6) What is your favourite cheese?
Manchego
7) What sandwiches would you make for a picnic with Stephen King?
The Broodwich (a sandwich consisting of bread forged in darkness from wheat harvested from Hell’s Half-Acre and baked by Beelzebub, mayonnaise made from the evil eggs of a powerful dark chicken beaten into sauce by the hands of a one-eyed madman, cheese boiled from the rancid teat of a fanged cow, 666 separate meats from an animal which has maggots for blood, dijon mustard, lettuce, sun-dried tomatoes).
8) How do you organise your bookshelves?
Size (tallest to shortest) and genre.
9) What is your favourite smell?
Mahogany.
10) What is your favourite swear?
Damn. It’s all about the emphasis.
11) Who is your favourite TV detective?
Batman (World’s Greatest Detective) if he counts. If not, Columbo. Peter Falk’s aw-shucks brilliance is a work of art.
12) What words make you cringe?
Irregardless. Also, when people use “literally” when they mean “figuratively.”
13) Do you have a favourite pen?
I do. It was purchased for me by a mysterious benefactor from marvelously talented pen-turner Julia Beach Anderson. I still don’t know who bought it. But I had long—and loudly—admired her work. It meant the world to me. I sign all my contracts with it.
14) What is the oldest piece of clothing in your wardrobe?
I have a “lucky” shirt. I had it on the day I got my kidney transplant almost 21 years ago. It’s far too ratty to wear in public at this point, but I still sleep in it on bad nights.
15) What is the last thing you Googled?
What is the world’s most valuable pen? (It’s The Fulgor Nocturnus, if you’re curious. It sold for $8 million in 2010.)
16) What would your superhero power be?
Regeneration and the ability to pee surprisingly quickly.
17) Write me a question to ask in a Smash Lits interview.
If a Greek god cursed you with a monstrous form due to your greatest flaw, what would that form be?
18) What is your go-to karaoke song?
Round Here by Counting Crows
19) How do you stop procrastinating and get on with writing?
When it gets bad I’ve had someone I love lock me in a boring room Douglas Adams-style.
20) What question should I have asked you?
You should have asked me to tell you about my scary, awkward semi-sexy ghostly encounter.
Sara Crowley 