HK: Your flash story, "Noise," is about a girl who has gone temporarily deaf, but her senses seem to blend and work together in lending sound to the world. My personal favorite example: "Hugs felt good and sounded like a heartbeat." Can you describe your process of writing about senses and sound in this piece?


EE: I'm so happy to hear that the senses and sounds in "Noise" work effectively—it's one of the things I love most about this piece. I've had a few quiet times in my life—periods where, for one reason or another, I went days without holding a conversation. Even in limited doses, this changes how one thinks about the sounds and senses that do occur. Because there are so few of them, any sensory inputs are magnified and free-associated with their metaphorical next of kin. Writing this story was like cleaning out that closet: I threw everything on the floor in a big messy pile, and sorted and cleaned until I had the most interesting and evocative remaining ensemble.

"Noise" also had a solidly bizarre research component. I spent a not-insignificant amount of time walking back and forth on gravel, shaking rocks in a mason jar, holding hugs and listening intently. And I wanted to make sure that the words supported the senses they were describing, so I repeated words like "hug" endlessly to myself, listening to the way the syllables themselves round and squish.



2.

HK: What would you set on fire?—OR—What makes you nostalgic?


EE: As a kid, I had a fascination with catastrophes: I wanted to chase tornadoes, and secretly thought it would be pretty exciting if the house burned down. I made a variety of contingency plans—down the drain pipe, running leap to the tree, pillows on the bottoms of my feet.

I maintain this fascination was un-perverse; I had no sense of the reality of catastrophe at the time, and pictured disaster as an adventure story with a satisfying conclusion. Now, my desire for fire has become perverse after all: I don't want to clean the kitchen, I want to burn the apartment building down.

(Is this about fire or nostalgia? Who knows.)



2½.    

HK: Things have their way of...


EE: Staying put against all odds. Why are you ensconced? Why did you rebuild in the same spot after the earthquake knocked your house down? What makes this dim place feel warm and safe? What's holding you here?



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Read EE's fiction.

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