Q:  First off welcome to Gaelick! Are you a fan of LGBT websites, blogs, the internet in general?
A:  I’m a fan of the internet in general because it’s made research on any topic so much easier, and because it lets me hear from readers all over the world.  The other day I learned that I have one assiduous fan in South Korea! I look at LGBT websites sometimes, but blogs almost never… the internet for me is all about work, I just don’t have the time for fun browsing.

Q:  One of the reasons we’re delighted to interview you is that you are our foremost Irish lesbian writer! How do all those labels sit with you, do you still feel ‘”Irish” despite your home being Canada for the past decade or so?

A:  Oh yes, spending your first twenty years in Ireland shapes you for life.

Q:  How do you view the changes in Ireland since you’ve left, specifically regarding Gay and Lesbian rights, but also this so-called Celtic tiger which has been on the rampage for a while now?

A:  With very mixed feelings.  In the 1980s I would have said I’d like nothing more than for Ireland to modernise, but some of the side-effects (stress, rudeness, speed, racism) have been downright ugly.  On the whole, though, I’m glad Ireland has changed, because otherwise it would have been the land that time forgot.  And some of the novelties, like a few civil rights for queer folks, have been wonderful.

Q:  What is Ontario like as a place to live, work, raise children?

A:  For me, as a lesbian mother - one of the best places in the world at the moment.  Chris and I are both legal parents of our children and treated with respect by every professional we come across (school, health, government).

Q:  How are you finding the life-work balance with motherhood and writing? Has it changed your approach to writing in any way?

A:  It’s always a bit of a strain - a tightrope walker wobbling and wrestling with her pole! The moment when I look at the clock and realise I have to shut my computer and scurry off to pick up the baby… I always briefly think damn, why did I have children?!  But at calmer moments I remind myself that I seem to get as much done in limited hours as I used to in unlimited ones.  I think it’s the relaxed leisure time to myself that’s gone out the window - my writing itself seems to somehow squeeze into the available hours.  I do avoid really elaborate research like the kind I did for LIFE MASK, though; I just can’t spend day after day in the library anymore.

Q:  Could you tell us a little about your new book ‘The Sealed Letter’ and how you came across the 19th Century scandal it is based upon?

A:  This one was suggested to me by a footnote in a collection of Victorian women’s poetry, that mentioned that leading feminist publisher Emily ‘Fido’ Faithfull was dragged into her beloved friend’s mucky divorce case in 1864.  ‘The Sealed Letter’ is research-light, by my rather strange standards, because it only covers a period of a few months and a few social circles (military, legal, feminist). It’s mostly based on the detailed daily reports on the divorce case in The Times. I deliberately didn’t include long descriptions of Victorian London or multi-course dinner parties, because I wanted this novel to move swiftly and ruthlessly towards the courtroom drama.  My weakness as a writer is plot - I tend to let it give way to character and dialogue - so with this novel, I really pushed myself to give the story clarity, suspense and momentum before I began writing it.

Q:  As a writer of both historical and contemporary fiction, how does the process compare?

A:  Ooo, they’re my two loves, I wouldn’t want to badmouth either.  After a long period with one it’s always refreshing to move to the other.  But I will say that the historicals (especially because they have been based on real cases) there’s a primal excitement at working with such life-or-death situations, whereas with the contemporaries (which are often more autobiographical) I find it a lot easier to make jokes.

Q:  Were you tempted with ’The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits’ (short stories based on a variety of fascinating historical characters) to devote a novel to each one?

A:  Good question - and in fact my radio play ‘Trespasses’ (about a witch trial in Youghal in the seventeenth century) and my novel ‘Slammerkin’ (about an eighteenth-century murder) both began as story ideas, then leapt into a larger form.  Some of the story situations were quite interesting enough for a novel - or instance, the one about the eighteenth-century doomsday cult starving themselves - but just too grim for me to want to spend that much time with!

Q:  ’Touchy Subjects’, your collection of contemporary short stories, came out in 2006.  Some were stories which had appeared before and some new, do you often write a story on the side when you are midway though a novel? Or do they punctuate your lengthier writing projects?

A:  Oh yes, I often stray in the middle of something bigger, that’s how I write my stories.  If I wrote them all in a clump I fear they would get more samey; I really like my stories to be different miniature worlds.

Q:  What is your opinion of the smaller publishing houses and their chances of survival in this publishing industry today?

A:  Smaller publishing houses actually have a good chance of thriving, I think, because they have the flexibility to take on titles the big conglomerates wouldn’t, and publish them faster too.  The same goes for independent bookshops - we’re finding that they’re actually better able to compete with
Amazon than the big chains, because they offer something distinctive.

Q:  Do you worry about the future of literary or so-called niche fiction?

A:  Absolutely: the trade is more and more skewed towards shifting huge quantities of a few bestsellers, selling books as if they were toilet rolls.  Those of us who are ‘mid-list authors’ (as the polite phrase goes) have many reasons for insomnia.  I’m just glad Chris has a tenured university job, so the mortgage is covered!

Q:  How do you find the necessary public aspects of being a writer - do you enjoy participating in readings, conferences, literary festivals?

A:  I’m embarrassed to admit that, unlike the many writers who are intense, deep, private, and shun the limelight, I love every bit of it.  Especially now I have kids; getting to go off on my own and talk about my books (often with a free lunch thrown in!) is bliss.

Q:  You’ve written for film, theatre, radio and recently directed a documentary on lesbian motherhood (‘Immaculate Conceptions: Inside the Lesbian Baby Boom’).  How do you find writing and working in these very different media?

A:  Very pleasurable.  Though with my limited hours these days, I’m having to focus on fiction (my favourite) and sadly haven’t had time for theatre.

Q:  Your documentary will be screened at the forthcoming GAZE film festival. What prompted you to make the film, and have you had much response to it so far?

A:  It was seeing a rather feeble documentary on the same subject - all very much ‘we’re just like normal families’ - that made me think I could do better, if I just asked myself, Chris and a bunch of our friends some probing questions.  Everyone was wonderfully honest with me, and even just
within our social circle there was a great range of family structures, not just two mums (with either or both getting pregnant) but involved donors, a gay man and a lesbian co-parenting, fostering and adoption…

Q:  Has it tempted you to make more documentaries- an Irish version perhaps?!

A:  Yes, I’d like to do it again sometime, maybe a follow-up in five years, as already there’ve been interesting changes: a couple who were on the point of giving up have had their first child, and another couple has broken up and are sharing custody harmoniously.  An Irish equivalent would be fascinating, if one could find enough families willing to risk the publicity…

Q:  Who are enjoying reading these days, any recommendations?

A:  Barbara Gowdy, ‘Helpless’, brilliant Canadian novel that rethinks pedophilia.

Cormac MacCarthy, ‘The Road’, added to my insomnia but it’s still the best
book of last year.

Alison Bechdel, ‘Fun Home’.  Talk about the benefits of shifting genre! - this
cartoonist has produced a thrilling Proustian graphic memoir about her
closeted homo dad.

Q:  What are you working on at present?

A:  Finishing up a big history of lesbian-themed literature for the general reader, to be published by Knopf.

Q:  Lastly, for someone new to your fiction, where would you suggest they begin?

A:  ’Landing’ (only available in North America, but can be imported or bought online) is extremely approachable - a post-closet romance about a long-distance relationship between an Irishwoman and a Canadian.
www.emmadonoghue.com
‘Immaculate Conceptions: Inside a Lesbian Baby Boom’ screens in Project Arts Centre on Friday 1st August 2008 as part of the Gaze festival.