Welcome to my stop on Pillow Talk, the offical blog tour for Fucking Daphne.
When Daphne Gottlieb first found herself the character in someone else’s story she was intrigued; over time, as she appeared in more and more stories, she started to wonder about the implications of what was real and what wasn’t. Did it matter that there were published stories of her having sex in bathrooms, vacant parking lots, on the balcony at a party in an old bordello? Did it matter whether or not they were true?
This question sparked the idea for Fucking Daphne, a collection that blurs the lines between reality and fiction and begs the question “who is the real Daphne?” A pill-popping wild child? A soft place to fall with a broken heart? A dreadlocked vixen?
And so, the book was born.
To celebrate, I’ve decided to give away a copy of Fucking Daphne to a random commenter who posts a comment here on spitkitten dot com today.
This giveaway is totally unassociated with the tour or anything. I’m just so excited about what a fabulously filthy-smart book this has turned out to be that I want to share the love (heh).
How will I choose? I don’t know. Will I be swayed by the content of the comment? Probably. Are there ways to better your chances? Be funny. Be insightful. Make me laugh and/or swoon. Get a free book.
Are there any rules as to who can win? Only that you’re over 18, please, and leave an email address as part of your comment so I can contact the winner.
I got to ask some of the contributors a question for the tour.,and they were generous enough to answer. I posed this:
Writers are known for cannibalizing their own lives for material (using lovers’ quarrels word for word in a poem, for instance), and in the case of this book, spinning out a character from bits and pieces of the real Daphne Gottlieb. Do you have guidelines from stealing from life in your work? Boundaries? If so, what are they…and if no, how do you get away with it?
(I asked this because I have a huge issue with this. Even when I write sci-fi, everyone I know finds themselves in it)
Their answers:
Jamie Berger
When I write from life and call it fiction, I show the victim the story and ask if he or she is okay with it. So far, they all have been. I’m not sure what I’d do if they weren’t. When I write nonfiction, I try to get as many parties mentioned to vet for accuracy as I can, and ask for their approval. I don’t think of writing from life as stealing, per se, but I also am not willing to take down relatives, friends, lovers, in the name of literature or literary success. That is, I worry more about the insult or hurt I could cause than the theft.
Hanne Blank
I generally don’t kiss and tell. It’s an ungentlewomanly habit. There have been a few exceptions when it was impossible for me to get a story to do the work I want it to do without getting autobiographical in some
degree. My piece in Fucking Daphne may or may not be one of those exceptions.
R. Gay
One of my most successful stories is about one of my worst relationships. My ex, and the woman she left me for, who are prominently featured in the tale, have actually read the piece, recognized themselves and not hired an assassin, as far as I know. They were not, however, thrilled and they felt there were inaccuracies (which is entirely possible given that anger clouds memory) and the confrontation was pretty damn awkward, particularly because (overshare) I was thinking, you bitches had an affair and you are angry with me? But you know what, if you don’t want me to write about a shitty break up, don’t contribute to a shitty break up because you knew I was a writer when you started dating me. That story was written and published nearly seven years ago. These days, I do mine my life, but I also try, as I grow older and somewhat more mature, to be discreet about the imperfections and failings of those I love or once loved. I also am pretty circumspect in any details I might include about family because I actually like them. And when I do think something treads that fine line, I allow the subject to read the piece before it is published and if there are any strenuous objections I address them. I’d like to think I’ve learned a thing or two.
Marlo Gayle
My only guideline is that it’s interesting. My boundary it that it doesn’t have hurtful effects to the person I wrote about.
Sarah Katherine Lewis
I change everyone’s name. That’s how I keep from being punched out constantly, though I’m still watching my back from my first book (“Indecent: How I Make It And Fake It As A Girl For Hire“). Also, I’m a big fat liar when it comes to a good story: I exaggerate and change details to make the story more interesting. This drives the people I write about crazy, but I just tell them to write their own damn books. Until then, it’s my version that’s on public record.
Jared Jacang Maher
I think authorial objectivity is an illusion and that every piece of writing, from a news blurb to experimental poem, is to some degree shaded in tones derived from the author’s life. That said, there certainly are boundaries every writer sets for themselves when it comes to how raw you’re willing to go. My main mode of writing, Non-fiction narrative journalism, is similar to novel writing in the sense that both are convenient ways to explore the author’s inner demons through the vehicle of outside characters, whether they be real or made-up. The times that I have written about my own life, I think I’ve consciously avoided scenarios were I might hurt the feelings of someone close to me. Other times, I’ve tried to do it the way all good writers do it – by employing scenes or metaphor to suggest to the reader what’s going on rather than swinging a bat with sentences like, “My father was a wicked, rapist asshole.” I mean, not that my father was a wicked, rapist asshole. Shit. He’s a very, very nice man!
Nick Mamatas
No guidelines, no boundaries. I’ll use anything and everything that comes to mind, and I often don’t get away with it. There’s been a number of angry phone calls, broken friendships, huffy declarations, and all the rest. But it is not as though people who encounter me don’t know what, and who, they are getting by this late date. Caveat emptor.
Lori Selke
I always try to change the names, and I usually chop the real-life bits up finely enough as to be unrecognizable to anyone but me. I hope. I have been known to write complete fiction that’s so convincing, though, that everyone is sure they know exactly who I’m talking about – and I’m not sure what to do about that!
Eric Spitznagel
I have no guidelines or boundaries. Anything that’s happened, either to me personally or on the periphery of my life, is fodder for writing. And as you might expect, I don’t get away with any of it. Remember how Augusten Burroughs was sued by the foster family he wrote about in “Running With Scissors?” Yeah, that’s totally going to be me in the next few years. Did you know I have a cousin who’s dating the granddaughter of Adolf Eichmann? Seriously. Adolf fucking Eichmann. The guy who came up with the “Final Solution.” The dude who thought concentration camps would be a swell idea. I find it a little disturbing that pure evil might be introduced into my family’s gene pool, and I have no problem expressing my reservations in print. That just goes to show you how much I’m lacking in the “maybe-we-shouldn’t-share-this-with-the-outside-world” department. And as long as I’m being completely honest, I should probably admit that roughly 85% of what I wrote for “Fucking Daphne” is true. Sadly, not the part about fucking Daphne, but the rest of it, particularly the bits about my dead father possibly being reincarnated as a dog. There are those in my inner circle who don’t agree with my decision to share these far too imitate details in an anthology that contains the word “FUCKING” in the title. While I may agree in principle, I happen to believe that sex and death are wrapped up in a big burrito of emotional complexity, and I enjoy that I’ve finally written about my dad in a context that most people might perceive as completely and utterly inappropriate. I like that my family will have to read the honest account of my feelings of loss about my father alongside a pretty lurid account of my sexual relations with a woman I’ve never actually seen naked.
Carolyn Turgeon
Oh, I think I have some big boundaries when it comes to writing about my own life. In fact I usually write so far outside my own experience – I wrote a novel about a 4 foot tall trapeze star and another about a centuries-old fairy godmother – that it’s not an issue. Or at least I didn’t think it was. I worked for many years on my first book, convinced that it had sprung up straight from my glorious imagination, before realizing in a moment of profound horror that the story I was telling had everything to do with my own life. I guess you can’t change the basic fact of what writing is. But at least I ain’t offending anyone other than myself along the way.
Be sure and stop by Sarah Katherine Lewis’ blog tomorrow for more of the tour.
Missed yesterday’s questions? No worries. You’re not too late.