An interview with Caroline Hagood
by Lisa Marie Basile
Lisa Marie Basile: Can you tell us all about Weird Girls: Writing The Art Monster? I am so intrigued by it (as a self-professed weird girl, of course) and so excited to read it. I’m also excited to read with you (and so many other incredible talents) at your reading event, Weird Girls Con.
Caroline Hagood: WEIRD GIRLS: WRITING THE ART MONSTER is an essay collection or book-length essay, depending on how you see it. It's a collection of different essays, but they all overlap, and circle back on one another. I was inspired to write the book since I've always been a weird girl, haha. But, seriously, after reading Jenny Offill's Dept of Speculation, I saw that so very many women writers were suddenly writing about the "art monster," or the writer who gets to focus monomaniacally, monstrously on his or her own work—but the catch was that the ones who usually got to do this were men. I have always been obsessed with the topics of creativity and monstrosity, and so this book came to be.
Ah! I'm so interested in the inner art monster — how it shows up, how it's praised, how it's rejected (so oft by men), and why it's so alluring. Sometimes, I think the inner monster is the only thing that keeps me writing — that fiendishness, that obsession. I especially sync with the art/creativity monster as a Capricorn Rising, the archetype that is often associated with obsessive Doing. It's interesting because on one hand, there's the oft-critiqued "girl boss" archetype — yet on the other, the obsessive, frenzied woman who wants to learn and do more is something that should be embraced. Why do you think so many people are exploring woman as art monster?
I love these questions so much. Yes, I absolutely share your fascination with the inner monster/the obsessive and passionate pursuit of art. It’s at the core of my writing practice. I think the woman who has had to fight tooth and nail for her creativity, and even the concept of the art monster, is as old as time, but I think Jenny Offill put a name (and connected story) to it in her 2016 novel Dept of Speculation.
Since 2016 I’ve been seeing women/femme/nonbinary writers grappling with this concept constantly. Then I think movements such as #metoo and sociocultural situations such as the way women and mothers have been impacted by COVID-19, for instance, coalesced with the whole art monster narrative to form a super-monster that’s trying to claw its way out of every text I pick up these days. I always pull this art monster out of there, and I’m so happy to see her.
Who are some of your artistic influences, and how do they appear or work their way into your own work?
I guess I would say I'm a fan of the obsessives when it comes to literature and creativity in general—the creators who just don't know where to stop, who exist in ways that are determined to be "too much," who write or film or paint in ways deemed to be "too much," and so forth.
I also love my hybrid people, those who write things where you go, "wait, is this a poem, a novel, an essay, and do I even need to know? Nope!" Those are my favorite works of art. I used to co-run a reading series called Kill Genre, and I have an upcoming panel with the same title because I guess that's my thing. :)
I also love hybrid people. I'm over strict genre separation and definitions, although I see why people often turn to them. What would you tell a writer who is anxious about or hesitant to cross-play or blend genres?
I would be like, “Wait, what is this genre you speak of? I’ve never heard of it.” Then I would quote Lady Gaga, “So there's nothing more provocative than taking a genre that everybody who's cool hates—and then making it cool.”
But seriously, I would invite this writer to step out of this limiting way of thinking of writing. I would say not to worry about playing with genre and, ideally, to focus on inventing her/his/their own new genre.
How does lineage or culture shape your work? It’s a question I ask every writer. I love to see how the threads come together.
My mother is a very powerful, wonderful, difficult woman who worships literature, and I really do think of myself as carrying on this piece of our family heritage. She was a businesswoman who wrote and painted on her own time and would take me outside to look at the moon at night to get inspired. I love her for this.
Can you share with us some of your writing rituals? What are the little things you do to collaborate with the Muse?
Well (and I'm pretty sure nobody at all will care about this little detail) I absolutely must have my hair up. I can't explain it, but I cannot write without this whole situation being taken care of. Then I really like to listen to weird jazz without lyrics because it inspires me without distracting me with words.
Then I know it always sounds creepy, but I like to look at the photographs I have of women writers around my work area, such as the one of Mary Shelley writing with a quill. If I don't feel in the mood to write, I just look over at them and it gets me going. They are my coven, and they don't even know they serve this purpose for me (the living ones I mean). I promise I"m not as creepy as I sound.
Um, looking at women writers. NOT CREEPY AT ALL. Gasp! I love it. This is a certain kind of summoning, an odd little ritual where you call forth their essence. Can you tell me why the Mary Shelley image speaks to you so much? Paint the moment for us.
I just love the concept of Shelley being dared to write a ghost story and creating this book about a monster who epitomizes the way I view creativity itself: monstrous, sewn together from the “bodies” of so many different artifacts, well-read, obsessive, creative, poetic, tender, full of longing, misunderstood, comedic, lonely.
Who are some contemporaries who have inspired or helped you in your creative journey?
When I was at Fordham, I felt very inspired and supported by what I called my creative writing ladies, professors who participated in the dark arts of, well, creative writing: Elisabeth Frost, Heather Dubrow, and Sarah Gambito.
Then, lately, I've been working with Patricia Grisafi on some really fun witchy projects. I was also recently bowled over by the kindness of Erika Wurth. I've never met her in person (we are "social media" close), but she was still incredibly generous with literary advice and contacts because that's what she believes in. And it's what I believe in, too, very much so.
Join the WEIRD GIRLS CON event
Saturday, October 8th from 5-7 PM EST
Pacific Bears Community, Brooklyn, NY
Caroline Hagood is an Assistant Professor of Literature, Writing and Publishing and Director of Undergraduate Writing at St. Francis College in Brooklyn. She is the author of the poetry books, Lunatic Speaks (2012) and Making Maxine’s Baby (2015), the book-length essay, Ways of Looking at a Woman (2019), and the novel, Ghosts of America (2021). Her book-length essay Weird Girls is forthcoming from Spuyten Duyvil Press in November. Her work has appeared in publications including Creative Nonfiction, LitHub, the Kenyon Review, Hanging Loose, the Huffington Post, the Guardian, Salon, and Elle.