An interview with Matt Cantor
Tell us one of your first experiences where you realised that language had power.
I think it’s a thing that I am continuously realizing throughout my life, always in new ways. A poem, for instance:
“Words are powerful things.
Imagine brushing your teeth with ketchup.”
In all seriousness, when I was young, I learned that while words in general have power, names have a special power-- a la Ursula le Guinn or Rudyard Kipling. It’s like how you don’t call your parents by their names, but they call you by yours. Think about how your relationship with someone changes just from knowing their name. Or often, knowing their full name. My wife, for example, almost always goes by her nickname, and I almost always call her that. But to use her other name, her given name, the temperature of the air in the room changes. Words are powerful like that. I call Coyote “Coyote”, but it means something else to call him “Mai’i” or “Sk’elep”, or “Huehuecoyotl”.
If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would you say?
Don’t be afraid to step away for a bit when it stops being fun. This is supposed to be a wonderful thing in your life. Don’t let it become poison. And don’t try to be too serious in your work, certainly not all at once. That’s not who you are.
Have you ever written under a pseudonym?
I have indeed, and do.
What kind of research do you do for whatever it is you’re writing?
Depends a little. When I’m just telling a goofy, surreal story made up from scratch, I tend not to research at all besides the occasional place-name or proper title for a news channel. Often, I’ll just look something up to confirm what I’m pretty sure I already know.
For pieces like this one, (Bluff) which have much more distinctive cultural and folkloric elements, on the other hand, I go DEEP. I want to understand EVERYTHING-- and of course, I can’t actually do that, no one can actually do that, but I certainly want to have tried to. I read story after story after story, as many versions as I can find, and I dig into as much scholarship as my noodly brain can manage. I find people to talk to. I watch films. I listen to music, if I can track some down.
What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters of a different gender to you?
I think it depends a lot on the intention. There’s a difference, for instance, between writing as a woman, and writing about being a woman. I don’t know anything about what’s it’s like to be a woman. I know what women tell me about being a woman, but what they tell me is that I can’t really know what it’s like. And that’s fine. Because I can still very much write as a woman. Women just do regular people-things. They brush their teeth. They go to the grocery store. They do mathematics. They fall in love. They fall out of love. They make mistakes. They come up with clever ideas. They tell jokes. I think what’s really important, though, more than depicting what womanhood is, is avoiding what womanhood is not. Women don’t stand in the mirror every morning, seductively describing their bodies to themselves.
Do you believe in the dreaded Writer’s Block?
I think it can certainly occur, but it’s also something you can very much learn to work around. I’ve always found it useful to keep two or three projects running at once; whenever I get stumped on one, I can shift to one of the others for a little bit until I get stumped there, and then I can shift again. Taking time away from a problem to do something else can really clarify things.
I think it’s a thing that I am continuously realizing throughout my life, always in new ways. A poem, for instance:
“Words are powerful things.
Imagine brushing your teeth with ketchup.”
In all seriousness, when I was young, I learned that while words in general have power, names have a special power-- a la Ursula le Guinn or Rudyard Kipling. It’s like how you don’t call your parents by their names, but they call you by yours. Think about how your relationship with someone changes just from knowing their name. Or often, knowing their full name. My wife, for example, almost always goes by her nickname, and I almost always call her that. But to use her other name, her given name, the temperature of the air in the room changes. Words are powerful like that. I call Coyote “Coyote”, but it means something else to call him “Mai’i” or “Sk’elep”, or “Huehuecoyotl”.
If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would you say?
Don’t be afraid to step away for a bit when it stops being fun. This is supposed to be a wonderful thing in your life. Don’t let it become poison. And don’t try to be too serious in your work, certainly not all at once. That’s not who you are.
Have you ever written under a pseudonym?
I have indeed, and do.
What kind of research do you do for whatever it is you’re writing?
Depends a little. When I’m just telling a goofy, surreal story made up from scratch, I tend not to research at all besides the occasional place-name or proper title for a news channel. Often, I’ll just look something up to confirm what I’m pretty sure I already know.
For pieces like this one, (Bluff) which have much more distinctive cultural and folkloric elements, on the other hand, I go DEEP. I want to understand EVERYTHING-- and of course, I can’t actually do that, no one can actually do that, but I certainly want to have tried to. I read story after story after story, as many versions as I can find, and I dig into as much scholarship as my noodly brain can manage. I find people to talk to. I watch films. I listen to music, if I can track some down.
What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters of a different gender to you?
I think it depends a lot on the intention. There’s a difference, for instance, between writing as a woman, and writing about being a woman. I don’t know anything about what’s it’s like to be a woman. I know what women tell me about being a woman, but what they tell me is that I can’t really know what it’s like. And that’s fine. Because I can still very much write as a woman. Women just do regular people-things. They brush their teeth. They go to the grocery store. They do mathematics. They fall in love. They fall out of love. They make mistakes. They come up with clever ideas. They tell jokes. I think what’s really important, though, more than depicting what womanhood is, is avoiding what womanhood is not. Women don’t stand in the mirror every morning, seductively describing their bodies to themselves.
Do you believe in the dreaded Writer’s Block?
I think it can certainly occur, but it’s also something you can very much learn to work around. I’ve always found it useful to keep two or three projects running at once; whenever I get stumped on one, I can shift to one of the others for a little bit until I get stumped there, and then I can shift again. Taking time away from a problem to do something else can really clarify things.