Interview with Bonnie Kozek + a CONTEST to Win Threshold! - CONTEST CLOSED

Thursday, November 19th, 2009 | Posted by: Bonnie Kozek, Eddie Wright

The following interview was conducted by Backword Books member and Broken Bulbs author, Eddie Wright. At the end, find out how you can enter to win a copy of Bonnie Kozek’s, Threshold.

Eddie Wright: Tell us a little about Threshold. Who is Honey McGuinness and where does she come from?

Bonnie Kozek: Honey is a woman without a lot of choices. She’s damaged and defines herself by that damage. Accordingly, she’s emotionally uncultivated and she’s boxed herself into a very tight corner. But she doesn’t like being trapped or predictable, and since she’s not comatose or unintelligent, she tries – in her idiosyncratic way – to break free. When we meet her in Threshold, that’s just what she’s trying to do.

Eddie Wright: You have a few upcoming books listed on your website, two of which are the next installments in the Honey McGuinness series. When creating a series of books, do you have an overall arc mapped-out or do you wing it? Is there an end or goal in sight? Without spoiling anything of course.

Bonnie Kozek: My intention was always that Honey would die at the end of Threshold, but she survived. It wasn’t until I was well into the second book in the series that I realized the sweep of her evolution. So, to answer your questions, yes and no.

Eddie Wright: Threshold takes place in a dark, gritty and ugly world. David Lynch has said, “The artist doesn’t have to suffer to show suffering.” Do you agree with that statement? Or does a writer have to live what she writes?

Bonnie Kozek: The American psyche is acculturated to the idea of the “suffering artist.” In fact, it’s so prevalent that it’s engendered a kind of “suffering competition.” (Upon learning of Sylvia Plath’s suicide, Anne Sexton is reported to have said covetously, “That death was mine!”) I’m not a fatalist, but let’s face it: No one gets out of this life without suffering. So, in reality, there’s no such thing as a non-suffering artist/writer. It’s just a matter of degrees.

Eddie Wright: What about the genre of pulpy, noir fiction appeals to you?

Bonnie Kozek: Truth is often unearthed in the most unexpected places, utilizing the most unconventional methods, which requires an author to be willing to get her hands dirty. I like getting my hands dirty, and noir fiction offers a bottomless pit of grime. Plus, it’s a challenge – like having a dinner party and serving T-bone steak without the meat on it. Stripped of the traditional pulling of heartstrings – stripped of prettified, multisyllabic, adjective-laden language – the writer has to deliver a bone so tasty that her guests don’t miss the meat. Sucking the marrow can get pretty messy, like life.

Eddie Wright: Do you ever write something that makes you uncomfortable? Have you ever gone too far?

Bonnie Kozek: Unequivocally, yes, yes. In fact, that’s the way it was ninety-nine percent of the time with Just Before the Dawn, the second Honey McGuinness book. I kept hearing this incessant babbling inner-voice saying, “Hey, you can’t write that.” And then another voice would shout, “Remember Hemmingway!” Ultimately, I changed the conversation. Character dictates vocabulary. One character’s “Ah, shucks” is another character’s “Fuck me.”

Eddie Wright: When starting a story, what comes first? A character? Mood? Scene? Storyline? Theme?

Bonnie Kozek: Threshold started with a character and a quote from John Dryden’s Alexander’s Feast: “She raised a mortal to the skies; He drew an angel down.” (Of course, for my purposes, I had to reverse genders.) I thought about the intersection of their lives – the mortal and the angel – and decided to write a story at the vertex of that meeting. Just Before the Dawn started with the same character and a quote from Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet: “… when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters.” The story is about just how far a person can sink before it is too late to get back up. So naturally, there’s lots and lots of sex – or something vaguely resembling sex.

Eddie Wright: What inspires you?

Bonnie Kozek: I’m inspired by the mystery of words. I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something hidden in each and every single word – something just out of my reach. So, I want to get inside the word, decode the Big Mystery. Other than words, I’m inspired by everything ordinary – but nothing obvious. I’m inspired by the perfectly flawed human being searching for imperfect redemption – which is extraordinary.

Eddie Wright: Threshold is available on Kindle. Do you have any plans to further embrace ebook technology by using services like Smashwords or Scribd?

Bonnie Kozek: I’d like to embrace ebook technology, but I can’t seem to stop writing. If someone could help me out on this, I’d be ever so grateful.

Eddie Wright: Another upcoming book listed on your site is the incredibly intriguing, One Wrong Move. It’s described it as being, “Inspired by the true story of a 30-year old Manitoban cannibal, who wooed — and then ate — his wife.” Is this a work of non-fiction? What brought you to this story?

Bonnie Kozek: I was in Montreal in the mid-nineties and I read a four-line announcement in the local paper about a “cannibal.” What was interesting to me wasn’t so much that this man ate his wife, but that he was 30 years-old and she was 55 years-old, and they had only been married for a few days. So, I kept the clipping. Around 2003 I picked it up again. In the intervening years I had developed – in my head, not on paper – a labyrinthine scenario about the events surrounding their union. I went up to Winnipeg to research the story and found out that it wasn’t nearly as intriguing as I imagined. So, I decided to write it as fiction, though it is based on a true story.

Eddie Wright: To keep the tradition going: What’s your favorite sentence in the book?

Bonnie Kozek: “Today was my birthday. Happy Birthday to me. I lit a candle and made my birthday wish: I wish I was dead.”

Eddie Wright: Thanks very much, Bonnie.

TO WIN A COPY OF THRESHOLD, ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTION:

Honey McGuiness has a favorite blues singer, can you guess who it is?

POST YOUR ANSWER IN THE COMMENTS SECTION.

The winner will be announced 12/4.

Good Luck!