The Storyteller: An Interview with Emily Gould
Hi and welcome to Issue #7 of The Storyteller!
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Today's guest is Emily Gould, whose second novel, Perfect Tunes came out earlier this year with Avid Reader Press. From working in publishing to becoming infamous on the internet via Gawker in the early days of the internet to returning to publishing and founding Emily Books, her own independent publishing venture with friend Ruth Curry. And somewhere along the way becoming a publisher author thrice over (the third being an essay collection).
Over to you, Emily! Thanks for your time.
AN: What kind of a reader are you? Have your habits changed since you were a child?
EG: I used to be able to effortlessly immerse myself in books and read daily for hours at a time, and I’m sad that as adult that ability seems to come and go! But lately I’ve found that switching genre sometimes helps–like, if I can’t read fiction I’ll pick up a graphic novel, or poetry. I am usually in the middle of a book. If I’m not, something’s wrong.
AN: How did you become a writer? Your journey from being in publishing to Gawker to eventually finding your way back to publishing is a fascinating and unconventional one. I'm sure my subscribers are as interested as I am in reading about it in your words. Are there any major takeaways? If you could go back and advise your younger self, what would you say?
EG: Ha, thank you for finding my litany of mistakes interesting!! I think there are two bookend essays that I’ve published that describe this “career arc” well -
https://humanparts.medium.com/how-much-my-novel-cost-me-35d7c8aec846
https://www.thecut.com/2020/02/emily-gould-gawker-shame.html
Though the first one, about how I squandered my first book advance, might “hit different” right now as so many people are struggling financially. If I could advise my younger self–this is a question I get asked a lot. I sometimes say “fire your therapist and hire a therapist who is closer to your age and understands the Internet.” The other thing I really wish younger me had understood is that I should have done whatever I needed to do to buy an apartment in NYC before 2008.
AN: What draws you to write the things that you do, whether fictional or otherwise? Are your approaches different between all the different forms you have so far juggled? Any advice for creatively and mentally switching between them?
EG: I’m always trying to challenge myself to learn, to try new things and get outside my comfort zone, and that initial period of being bad at something is never pleasant. I am trying to train myself to think of that discomfort as a sign that I’m doing something right, rather than a sign that I suck and always will and should just give up!
AN: Was the considerable time gap between your two novels planned or did it just happen that way? I'd love for you to talk about the process of writing both the novels and anything you'd like to tell my subscribers about them.
EG: I finished my first novel, sold it, and then got a full-time job to pay back the debts I’d incurred while writing it. After about a year I got laid off from that job and it coincided with the book’s publication, and a few months later I got pregnant with my first child. I was working on Perfect Tunes then, but it took longer than I would have liked because I had to work on it on and off – I had two kids by the time it was done, and also published a lot of other people’s books via Emily Books and taught myself how to write magazine profiles and did some teaching in undergraduate writing programs. I didn’t really get any periods of time when I was working exclusively on the book except a few long weekends away from my family. While this was going on it was often frustrating, but I think it’s also just how I operate–I always have several projects going on simultaneously, some of them writing-related and some of them more durational ongoing art projects like having a family!
AN: Has being a mother changed you as a writer in any significant way?
EG: I like to joke about how much early motherhood has given me access to writing lots of different characters because it truly is amazing how much the extreme hormonal shifts of pregnancy and postpartum are like being several different people. I wish it had made me more focused – whenever people talk about that I get really jealous. I’m the kind of person who needs big chunks of unstructured time to mess around before I get down to work.
One cool thing that I feel like motherhood has brought into my life recently is that I get to read childrens’ books aloud and study them. It helps me think about narrative in new ways. Even the most basic board book is an opportunity to think about how to tell a story. Also my older son is into Roald Dahl right now and I’m loving the opportunity to revisit those books as an adult.
AN: Releasing a book during the pandemic. What has yet another different experience in a virtual, online space been like? I know many have been talking about the changes and difficulties about virtual events, but I want to know about the good. Any favourite parts, any unexpectedly enjoyable ones?
EG: I threw a virtual “afterparty” after my Harvard Bookstore that I invited the people in the Boston area who I’d been hoping to see IRL to come just hang out on Zoom afterwards. I’m really glad I did that. I wish I’d thought to do it for all of them. It helps mitigate the sadness of the Zoom goodbye where you go from being incredibly “on” to like…incredibly alone.
AN: You have lived your professional life in the public space long before the lines between professional and personal became blurred and through everything since. What are some of the impulses that attracted you to it to begin with?
EG: Honestly I think I didn’t really understand what I was getting into–I came of age online at a time when it seemed like there was so much exploration and connection and good weirdness and mutuality and potential. So much of that has been sacrificed so that a tiny handful of people could make a profit, and it really, really, really sucks. Two recent books that I thought did a great job of describing this are Joanne McNeill’s Lurking and of course Anna Wiener’s Uncanny Valley.
AN: How has your approach to navigating that world changed over the years? Any tips to young writers navigating those online spaces today and those boundaries between their personal and online selves?
EG: Recently I sent one of my editors an email I received in response to something I wrote, basically asking, “Why do people feel like they can talk to me like this?” It wasn’t hostile, it was just really intimate, and that happens to me kind of a lot.
If you have a “public self” as a writer (hard not to?) I think it’s worth doing some planning in advance about how you want to respond to people who take your writing as an invitation to have a relationship. Set boundaries and check in with yourself about whether it’s working for you.
This might seem cold–I’m not at all saying that I’m some famous person who doesn’t have time to read her fan mail, I’m so thirsty and I love hearing that people enjoyed my work. I’m more talking about people who write to me saying “here is my perspective on how you should feel about a thing that happened to you, based on something similar that happened to me.” It’s taken me years but I now feel okay about ignoring those responses, even when I think it comes from a good place. It doesn’t actually have to do with me–sometimes people write to me or respond to me and it’s more for themselves. It’s not actually a conversation I need to participate in
AN: Has the pandemic changed any of your habits and the advice you might have given someone prior to it?
EG: Uh yes I spend a ton of time on Twitter and I need to scale it back. More time in the group chat and less time on Twitter, would now be my advice! (To myself.)
AN: Do you feel like you process your life differently through the lens of someone in your position? (Someone used to narrativizing parts of their personal life) Do you feel like it affects your decision-making in any way, however subconsciously?
EG: I used to worry about that a lot!! But now I’m really never thinking about writing about something WHILE it’s happening. I’m so sleep-deprived and busy and mostly just fumbling through my life. Maybe that’s another way that motherhood has changed me–I don’t really have time to narrativize!
AN: Emily Books - what was your driving force behind starting it? Do you think the motivations changed during the course of the journey, and what you ended up with, until its closure a few months ago, was very different than what you intended? How did you go about picking the books for it?
EG: I think at the beginning of Emily Books I was working with a very limited definition of “women’s writing,” and of feminism. All I really knew was that there were books and writers who had historically been suppressed, and I thought I could help to un-suppress them. I didn’t really think about structures, in terms of publishing or larger political forces. And most glaringly, I don’t think I understood anything about intersectionality, and that’s one of my biggest regrets about the project. Ruth and I initially focused on writers who reminded us of more extreme versions of ourselves, and we’re both white women.
Definitely, definitely the motivations changed during the course of the journey, and the books themselves and the writers we worked with helped to educate us. So what had started as a project that was pretty egocentric, in a way, began to become about collectivity. I’m sad that it had to end! But we were pretty burned out by the end. We did it for almost ten years, which is a long time to work on a passion project. I am eager to help anyone who wants to continue the work we started in any way I can!
AN: What's in the works going forward?
EG: Ha, I really don’t know!! I had thought I would turn back to nonfiction this year, and also try to teach myself to be a better reporter. I don’t have much pull towards fiction right now; the world is too in flux and so is my life. But I also think I’m lucky to have a group of readers who are interested in following me around through all my different interests and modes of writing, and I hope they’ll bear with me while I figure out what to do next.
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1. What's the last book that you read that you'd recommend and why?
Wendy, Master of Art by Walter Scott was so much fun to read and actually made me LOL which is so rare. I have never gotten an MFA in fine arts in a provincial Canadian town but if I had I feel like I would say "this is EXACTLY what that experience is like." Even though the artists and art world portrayed here are hilarious caricatures they're also so real and resonant, and I think this book made me appreciate art, of all kinds, in a new way.
2. What's the last TV show or movie you watched that you'd recommend and why?
What is a "movie"? I saw a video on Twitter of birds shaking their little bird butts this morning and I really enjoyed that. Oh wait, I just remembered that I watched the entire Netflix Eurovision movie on my phone at night after my husband and children were asleep and I feel like it was kind of made for me. I love Eurovision, cheesy Euro pop, parodies of music genres, ABBA and Dan Stevens, so it was really a match made in heaven for me. Your mileage may vary!
3. What's the last song you listened to that you'd recommend and why?
For some reason when I need to remind myself how to feel feelings the song that works for me is "Don't Change" by INXS - it's like, very pure and young and emotional. Seriously, put it on and walk around and experience the frozen sea inside of you melting! Or maybe it's just me.
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Thanks, Emily. for that insightful chat!
I've shared all her relevant social media and buying links below—please go check them out. I'll see you again for issue #8 on September 1 which features an interview with Romina Garber (Russell) who's recently released Lobizona, the first book in a new YA series inspired by Argentine folklore.
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Buy And the Heart Says Whatever
Friendship: A Novel