K-Ming Chang Interview, plus links to author biography, book summaries, excerpts and reviews

An interview with K-Ming Chang

The author speaks with Saturn Brown of SUNHOUSE about her novel, Cecilia.

Saturn Browne (SB): So just, first of all, thank you for accepting this interview. And also, congrats on your new novel. And also your I think Lambda. Was it a Lambda Award today?

K-Ming Chang (KMC): Yeah, I'm honored that you reached out to me, it means a lot to me and I'm excited.

SB: So the first question that I had was what events or people sparked the foundation of this book for you? And were you influenced by any other works?

KMC: So Cecilia, it's really interesting, because it sprung from a short story that I wrote, that was also titled "Cecilia", that was published in Hyphen magazine, which is a journal for Asian American writers.

What was interesting about the whole process is I was solicited to be part of the Coffee House Press NVLA series. So they reached out to me asking me if I was working on anything of novella length, and if I was, if I would be willing to submit something for consideration. So that's a very reversed process. I've never had a publisher reach out to me, and asked me for something I hadn't yet written. So I think I wrote back saying, like, oh, yeah, I'm totally working on something. But it was really exciting to think about being part of a novella series with Coffee House, especially because the form of the novella had been very much something that was inspiring me, and really exciting me. I read a lot of novellas and translations around that time. And all of that work was so invigorating. And the idea of getting to be a part of a series was also really, really exciting. So it was a brand new form and a brand new project.

And as I was writing, originally, I wrote this sci-fi novella about aliens, and I'm not discounting that project, because I definitely want to return to aliens. But the thing that emerged from that original draft that I never showed anyone because it was awful, it was genuinely terrible, was the image of crows and crows being repelled by green light, and which was a fact that I learned from my mom, because she was at the time like in conflict with the neighborhood crows like they had been in a locked in a battle, and that fascinated me so much. I also learned that crows and people have kind of a similar population growth in an urban area. So we grow along with them, and they grow along with us, and were these kind of like symbiotic species in cities I was really, really fascinated by.

So I combined the fact that I had written about crows and didn't really know where to put it. And then a short story I had written called "Cecilia," were the characters even after I published that story, the characters continue to live on in my mind, and that really did not happen to me were short stories, I very much exercise everything in the story. And then I have no desire to ever read anything I've ever published. Like, I don't want to touch it with a pole. But this time, I felt like those characters continue to kind of play out movie-like scenes in my mind, which had never happened to me before. I felt like I was being possessed by the spirit of these characters and these two girls I was writing about. So I kind of fused those two, and it became Cecilia, the novella.

SB: Cecilia uses this extended metaphor of crows. So you explained how that came about, but how did you find ways to include crows throughout the novella?

KMC: I'm really interested in city creatures, like raccoons or crows, possums and squirrels, and especially animals that we consider—rats as well, animals that maybe we consider very everyday, mundane or even pests, I find really fascinating.

Crows are oftentimes considered a pest or nuisance in some way. And I was really fascinated again, by this idea that our presence feeds their presence. And the more that a city grows in population, the more its crow population grows as well. And it's interesting, because we don't—at least I didn't—expect them to be pastoral creatures, when I imagine the wilderness I don't just imagine crows in the wild, you know, I think of them very much like solving puzzles and stealing people's garbage, riding garbage trucks, and just interacting with the city in some way. So that kind of image I had of crows is really interesting.

There's also, in Chinese mythology, and also across East Asian mythology, generally, there's the idea of the three legged crow that pulls the sun across the sky. So that mythical figure of the crow, being this chariot for the sun, was also mythically really, really interesting to me. So I thought a lot about having this story about girlhood and toxic homoerotic friendships and what it means to be what it means to find value within girlhood friendships, when the world does not value you at all. And then backdrop that with the crows, who are seen as pests that have to be driven out of the city. And I thought that could be an interesting play between the story of these girls and the story of these crows.

SB: Something else that I noticed, as a huge part of Cecilia was this idea of birth and death, almost a creation myth, but a lot of it being associated with water. So how did that symbol come about as well? And how did you use them in parallel with the crows?

KMC: That's a beautiful observation. I realized, kind of earlier in the writing process, that whenever I read about a birth, I tend to always have to write about a death. And then whenever I write about death, I also have to write about birth. Those two things for me, are of one, one material, of one study, of one substance, life and death not really being diametrically opposed, but of being of overlapping presences constantly, and really kind of the same presence as well.

I remember reading this Buddhist text that was describing death as a season, which I thought was so beautiful, because it unwinds the linear way that we think of death as the end of life, but to think of life and death as seasons, it was something so mind blowing to me, and reoriented the way I wanted to write about death as a season in life also as the season.

In relation to the crows, there are quite a few there like little mentions of crows being vengeful, oftentimes in our lore in our conception of crows, that they have very long memories. There's also a phrase that I bring up in Cecilia a lot: the crow's mouth or wu ya zui, which is basically something that my mom would tell me a lot which basically meant that you say bad things, or speak ill omens that come true. And that was really fascinating that like across cultures, the crow is kind of seen as not like a harbinger of death and ill omens and misfortune. I thought that was such a fascinating idea, and a form of projection that I thought was really, really interesting.

I wanted to maybe delve into what the characters assign meaning to throughout their lives. And I think that's related to how they assign meaning to how Seven, who's the narrator, assigns meaning to her friendship and to her relationships, because I think that's constantly fluctuating throughout the novella as well. She's being forced to re- encounter the past version of Cecilia that she remembers, and to reckon with and contend with what it means to have separated from her, what it means to have attached herself to Cecilia at some point in time. And whether a relationship that is considered, you know, one defined by brevity, this girl had friendship that she holds on to almost religiously; what does it mean for her to have such an intense and life changing meaning to that friendship? When I think the world around her would probably have dismissed it or belittled it? And maybe Cecilia too? She's not sure yet, because you have to find out.

SB: Something else that I really admire about Cecilia, which that you just brought up, was the rawness of the queer relationship within this novella. How do you think queerness interacts with aberration and obsession, because Seven assigns a lot of meaning to Cecilia as a person, but also their relationship as a whole? And how were you able to channel this through your depictions of both their past and present?

KMC: Aberration and obsession is a pretty good subtitle for this whole relationship, and this entire work. I'm really interested in the relationship between attraction and repulsion. Again, going back to the idea that we typically conceive of life and death as being opposite things or two sides of a coin, and I'm kind of interested in collapsing those ideas. And, to me repulsion and attraction, especially in the context of this queer relationship are experienced oftentimes, simultaneously or as one substance, one thing.

I think, for Seven, she actually experiences this simultaneous attraction and repulsion or, like you said, aberration and obsession. And I think that's a very deeply queer thing as well. Oftentimes, I'm in conversation with other queer literature as well. And I'm really interested again, in this collapse of boundaries. I feel like in the hetero patriarchal world, there are these very strict boundaries around relationships, and then also a hierarchy of importance. Your romantic relationship, or marriage is like the most important thing, and then you have these other relationships that are friendships that maybe are not so important anymore. When you're an adult, there are these very strict borders around each kind of relationship and a lot of rules defining what constitutes those relationships. And I feel like queer literature is often about dissolving those boundaries, dissolving those hierarchies.

Thinking about a broader and more expansive way of loving and the way that that form of love can contain so much, including contradictions as well. So I was really interested in Cecilia and Seven's friendship not just being a friendship. Maybe outsiders would look at it and see, it's a friendship, but it's everything. It's a romantic entanglement. It's a familial attachment. It's a coming of age story, but it's also this continual touchstone for the narrator, she never really leaves that relationship ever. In some ways, I think that it's a relationship that defies time, and also disrupts the temporal idea of what women should be. That you should grow up, and then you should get married, and then you should leave behind your friendships, and then you should have your own nuclear family. There's this idea of what it means to be a proper woman, socially bound and defined. I think this relationship very much disrupts that, and it destroys any possibility of that for her.

SB: Another thing that I wanted to bring up was the idea of bodily expressions and consumption, Cecilia is definitely one of the first and were the only books I've read that brings into this idea of consumption so bluntly, for parts of the novel, it's something lighter. But then for other times, especially towards the end, the situation becomes more dark and explicit. So how were you able to structure these like pieces and ideas into the novella? And how do you think they added to the story of not just seven, and Cecilia's relationship, but also to the book as a whole?

KMC: I think for me, it was almost like this desire the narrator Seven has, this desire to be consumed by this relationship. And I think that part of that obsession is that she wants to feel and be consumed by this relationship for both of them to kind of be consumed and obliterated by it together. And then to rise from the ashes of it and build a life together, essentially, is what I've always considered Seven's ultimate goal is—to really hold on and cling to this relationship very, very, very hard. And I think what eventually that darker turn that comes is her reckoning with the fact that Cecilia is a different person, and maybe doesn't want to be as wholly consumed in the same way that Seven wants to be. And so the narrator then feels okay, we've wanted different things out of this relationship, and maybe I've been blaming Cecilia for not wanting the same things as I have wanted, maybe we're kind of destined to fail, maybe the separation is actually a form of mercy. But then she still has this unfulfilled desire to continue that process of being totally consumed by this one person and by this one relationship.

I think that this consumption is almost like a sinkhole at the center of the story. At the center of the story, I don't know if you would call it like an existential void or death or desire to be consumed with another person. But I think of it as a mouth at the center of the story. And the narrator is looking for a companion in exploring that, in diving into that process. But ultimately, I think it was what I wanted to establish near the end of the book. That there are divergences between them. And part of that comes from things like internalized homophobia and just being different people. But other things are maybe a little darker. I don't know, maybe it's more avoidable. Who knows.

SB: There was a lot of play, I think, for when I read the book, between space and intimacy. So at the start—am I allowed to talk about the story if the story is not out yet? Like plots of points within the story?

KMC: I think you can!

SB: Haha, I'm like, wait, I don't want to spoil it for the people reading. But, for example, Seven sleeps with both her Ama and her mother, in one bed, so there's that relationship, but also the relationship between her and Cecilia where, you know, she works at a place that is supposed to be very intimate, a chiropractor's office, but then she takes the gown of Cecilia and wraps it around herself, and also just the physical closeness between seven and Cecilia on the bus ride. So how did you play with the idea of intimacy and also the idea of distance in the book?

KMC: Yeah, there are a lot of forms of intimacy and proximity in this book, some are more obsessive and maybe creepy than others. I guess I wanted to tangibly show how Seven relates to her body and how her body is in relation to other bodies, and to show the forms of intimacy within the women in her family. And the way that then she seeks intimacy with Cecilia to varying degrees, but ultimately, there's an emotional barrier. Just wanting to play with the dials of physical closeness with someone and emotional closeness with someone. And at various points in time, both of those things could be opposites, they could be united, they could be in flux at the same time. I thought it'd be interesting to play with those dials and knobs a bit more. And then also wanted to show how she's very, very grounded in history, in the bodily histories of the women in her family. There are a lot of birth stories. A lot of honestly, the older women in her family, essentially recounting either things that are ecstatic or traumatic to Seven at a very young age, and a lot of folklore and mythologizing of their personal histories as well. I wanted to locate her within a sense of lineage, within a sense of inherited violence, but also inherited love as well, and how there's always like a complicated, precarious balance between those two things.

SB: One of the symbols of lineage that you used was the liver. So I think it was too old to pass on the liver to seven as an heirloom. How do you feel that heirlooms played into just your work with Cecilia?

KMC: Yeah, I very consciously wanted to write about what we inherit through the body, and the idea of bodily knowledge and intergenerational trauma, and through the transformation of the body, and what is passed down from generation to generation. And I think the liver was a very literal, and at times, gruesome representation of what kind of histories are passed down body to body, sometimes without even consciously knowing about it or without deciding. How histories are collected, and how bodies are actually collected as well. We typically think of our bodies as individual bodies. But I was really interested in the way that Seven conceives of herself and her body as an amalgamation of so many of the women who came before her, and how she feels like she carries their histories within her as well, that she herself. She's not only just a receptacle for own personal experiences, your inner present, but she's also contained and embedded. Or she's also containing all of these histories that she's inherited, a lot of which are unresolved. And that is something that creates a lot of conflict within her.

SB: Cecilia, stylistically, toed a lot of the lines between memory, fantasy and reality. And I know we previously kind of discussed the differences and the dissolving of these lines. But how did you balance the idea of surrealism and or fantasy with the realities?

KMC: Yeah, I actually often think that in order to get at the heart of reality, I have to approach it metaphorically or approach it as at a slant. And I find that oftentimes, the most exaggerated or the most surreal things gesture at a truth in a way that feels right to me or write to the narrator. I think a lot about how I'm often writing narrators whose experiences might very easily be dismissed, or might very easily be trivialized. And or who's been told,you're exaggerating, you're blowing this up to proportions that don't make sense. And I wanted to write about an emotional reality that reflects an absurd and violent and patriarchal reality. That could be very totally dismissed as, Oh, this isn't real. This is exaggerated. Do I think exaggeration is a tool? It's a truth telling and restorative tool sometimes.

SB: Thank you so much for all the time that you spent, because I feel like you put a lot of emotion and thought into the responses, which I really appreciate. So the second half, it's just a little about your writing journey. And just more lighter questions, I think, and advice that you may have. So first of all, how does your experience and other genres kind of influence your work, especially with Cecilia? So for example, like your previous novels, Bestiary, and Organ Meats, and also different forms, so Bone House and Gods of Want? And you know, other poems and stuff and collections that you may have put out in the past?

KMC: Yeah, thank you for this question. Also, your questions were so thoughtful and so insightful and lovely. So I really appreciate them. They were truly beautiful. I really hope I could do them justice. They were incredible.

I very much consider my style to have a kind of a poet's interest in language. And what I love so much about poetry is how it can center play with language, with irreverence toward rules that I love so much. To me, poetry is such a liberating form. And I always joke to people, I always feel like poetry is like couture and prose is like ready to wear.

It's like the Devil Wears Prada moment where I just want to go to all prose writers and say, you think you're making all these decisions because it's the craft of fiction, but did you know, the poets are the ones who chose this for you? That's how I feel about it, at least for my own process. Maybe that's just me! It's pioneering the very boundaries of language and what language can do.

I tried to bring some of the fearlessness or a sense of adventure that I used to feel when I was writing poetry and to incorporate that into my fiction practice. And it really doesn't feel like oh, here's my poet brain. Here's my short story brain. Here's my novelist brain. It does feel like one substance, one part of me. But I'm just drawing from the spirit of each thing. And what always grounds me again is interesting language, which I think is very much a poet's obsession. I think really, these forms are not as divided as people think. And I think it's very much possible to write prose in a way that allows language to lead you through the process.

SB: When I first found out about you, I literally went through the internet trying to find all your pieces. And I was very obsessed, to the point where I found your old poetry collection. And I read that, but even when I was reading Organ Meats, which, thank you so much for giving me an E-Galley, I was just really drawn in by all the beautiful prose that you included within the book. I feel like it was just so gorgeous. And it definitely had aspects of poetry to it, where I was reading it and it didn't feel at times like it was prose. I felt like I was reading a poetry epic.

KMC: Oh, thank you. That means a lot to me coming from such a wonderful poet. Maybe this is just how all of us poets are. There's just something about poetry. It hits, it hits differently. It really does.

SB: This point you bring up is interesting because I was thinking about that. And I was gonna ask you this, but how did you kind of transition from poetry to prose? Because most of your recent words have been novels and or short stories. So like, how did you make that transition? Was it a conscious or subconscious choice?

KMC: Yeah, it actually happened very unconsciously, because I started writing poems that were super, super long and very narrative and exhaustive in a lot of ways. I realized that I was heading more and more in a narrative direction, and that I was increasingly interested in storytelling. And poetry can definitely be a storytelling medium. Some of the poetry collections I love best are narrative. But I just felt like I was really, really wanting to, to feel liberated and being able to pursue narrative and, and character and things like that. I also think that sometimes my reverence for poetry, I have such a deep reverence for the form, that sometimes it can be more difficult or intimidating for me to approach poetry because I hold it in such a scheme. So I feel that the stakes for me—like writing a bad poem— can be really crushing for me. But if I write a bad piece of prose, it doesn't feel as high stakes to me.

I just felt I think I just reached a point in my poetry practice where I started to have expectations for myself. Actually, I think that is what it is. I started to have expectations for myself when I was writing poetry. And I found that if I could chase the feeling of being a beginner and being an amateur, I would feel so liberated and free. So even now, when I'm writing, like fiction, or short stories, or novels, I'm always trying to sidestep into other genres. Recently, I've been playing with lyric essays, and bringing that into fiction. Because I like chasing the feeling of being a beginner. It's before you have expectations for yourself, before you totally fully understand the rules of that form, and what you can or cannot do, getting to dive into and explore it without any of your anxious mind telling you: "that's not how you write a poem. That's not how you write a story!" It's just the greatest feeling ever. And I started to have that voice in my head that was like, that's how you write a poem. But I didn't know anything about prose. So I felt like I couldn't fail. So now I just seek whatever form where I feel like I can't fail.

SB: Yeah, that's actually really good advice. I'm sure it's very helpful to other people who are going to be reading this. Just switching topics a little bit. This is something that you mentioned at the start of the interview, but Coffee House actually reached out to you and solicited you. What was it like working with a smaller indie press compared to, you know, the past few novels and our past three books that you've published? With bigger publishing houses? And how did the Novella series at Coffee House specifically support your visions for the book? Were they collaborative, or did anything remarkable happen on the journey working with them?

KMC: Yeah, I mean, I've had really amazing publishing experiences. And I'm very grateful to have gotten to work with people who I generally love and admire so much. I know what a privilege that is, and how lucky that is. So it's something I hold very near and dear to me, that my books found the right hands, the hands that they were meant to be in.

When working with Coffee House, it kind of reminded me of when I was working on my poetry collection all those years ago. Because you're not necessarily thinking, oh my god, how do I reach the broadest audience? How do I sell the most copies? And I often feel that can hinder what you really want to write and what you really want to say. The form itself is so freeing. I think novellas are inherently permission giving, it just gives you so much space to play with it. I feel like I was able to be inspired and informed by novellas in translation, which was, again, so liberating and completely redefined for me what a story could be, or what a book could be. There are always these anxieties that sneak up on me, at least personally, that are asking, am I meeting expectations? Will this fulfill what people want? And I think that voice was more absent when I was working on this novella, which was really wonderful. Because I feel with Cecilia, I could be super uncompromising with my style in a certain way. And I've since changed styles, actually, interestingly, so Cecilia was my last wild beast. But I got to let the wildness run free, which was really lovely.

SB: You mentioned you had a lot of novellas and translations that inspired you. What other kinds of things inspire you a lot right now? And both right now and for Cecilia while you were working on the project?

KMC: Yeah, so for Cecilia, again, novellas in translation and a lot of poetry I was reading at the time. A lot of small books, like Olivia by Dorothy Strachey and Sweet Days of Discipline by Fleur Jaeggy, which are both books about really obsessive homoerotic relationships, were really influential. And again, they're probably both 100 pages or something like that. Those were really inspiring.

As for what's inspiring me right now, I've been reading a lot of comics—a lot of Batman comics. I was a huge Wonder Woman comic book reader when I was a kid, I think, because there's something about growing up being shaped from clay and raised on an island of warrior women that just screams lesbian paradise. Though, as a child, I don't think I was consciously recognizing that. That was what really attracted me to her as a character.

I've been inspired by a lot of visual work, visual forms of storytelling. I'm really interested in tropes as well and the idea of the hero versus villain or a monster or an outcast. I'm interested in archetypes and how I might kind of reshape or repurpose those for my own stories or examine those archetypes or tropes. Also, a revenge story. I've been very interested in vengeance recently, which maybe goes along with the Batman obsession.

SB: I just have to ask, what were your thoughts on the very recent Batman?

KMC: Oh my god, that movie is so wild. I really just want to say first of all, Robert Pattinson as Batman is such a good choice. He's so emo in that movie. The aesthetic was great. And just the way they made Gotham City actually feel like Gotham City. There was something very realistic about it. But it also felt so mythical and it felt like it was out of the comic, so I loved that. I will say like the last 45 minutes in the movie, it felt a little like a dream sequence. Like, is this happening? Well, the last kind of 1/3 of the movie. I was just clutching my head in disbelief because it did not feel real. But I loved his character. I love the characterization of Batman. There were moments that were genuinely emotional. So I had fun, it was a noir and I had fun with it. It's very atmospheric which I enjoyed.

SB: It was a long movie too.

KMC: Yeah, it's really long. But I'm like, you know what? They had a vision. They went for it. And it was exciting. It was very exciting. I was a fan. And Twilight. I was such a huge Twihard as a child—I was like, the biggest Twilight kid ever. I did a whole podcast called Lez Beonest, where we talk about things that should have been gay and I went in and I talked about Twilight, and how it should have been gay and I mean, there's the Bella x Alice thing, but the Bella x Rosalie potential? That would be so good! Because Rosalie kills her husband in a wedding dress. So camp, so incredible. And they could be so good together and it could be enemies to lovers because Rosalie hated Bella at first!

SB: So I think I'm going to start looking out for Bella X Rosalie on AO3.

KMC: I'll let you know if I ever write something. I'll send you my secret fanfic name or something? I'll make one up.

SB: That actually leads me to a really good question that I did have, which was what's next for you and your writing along with the content you're consuming right now?

KMC: I'm actually in a kind of transition period in my writing right now, which is really fun. I'm exploring new styles and heading into a more horror genre direction, which I'm really enjoying. I've been working on a vampire novel. I'm working on a short story collection that I have been kind of chiseling away at. And a couple other ideas have been brewing.

I will say that the kind of vampires I'm writing about may not be recognizable to others. But to me, anything with the spirit of vampires is in itself a vampire novel. So I'm playing around with the kind of new creatures that I'm inventing. But to me deep down any paranormal creature that's vaguely sexy or vaguely awakens desire is a vampire. That's my hot take.

SB: Yeah, I don't think that's a hot take. Especially… okay, not to be like a film person. But when Emerald Fennell called Saltburn a vampire movie.

KMC: It totally is. You're right. Any story about a stranger is a vampire story. I feel like we as a literary community, our mission should be to expand the definition of what a vampire story is. And that way everything would be a vampire story and everyone can be writing vampire stories. That's the agenda that I'm proposing to the literary community.

SB: How has community affected your writing? Especially because you were part of both Kundiman and Lambda, and just all these different literary communities, how did those different being part of these different communities affect or impact your writing?

KMC: They've been hugely impactful. I'm constantly learning from other writers no matter what. I think there's something really beautiful about the abundance of the literary community as well. And just realizing that we're taught to be in this scarcity mindset, but there's so much space for all of us. And it's so much more rewarding. To feel like we were in conversation with each other's work. And it feels like we're building a cannon together with our very lives and our writing. And that's such a beautiful thing to realize.

SB: What advice do you have to, you know, rising or developing writers that you want to say?

KMC: That's such a beautiful question, because I feel like I need the advice. One thing is, someone once told me that writing isn't an identity, it's a practice. And I love that so much. First of all, I was like, wow, so called out. But also I love the idea, it reminds me of like martial arts films, where the characters are sparring with a wooden dummy. And I love that idea of writing as a practice, because I think oftentimes, we think so much about writing us production, that you have to make something in order to show for all of this process. And that is definitely really motivating. And I'm not discounting that as well. But I love the idea of writing being this practice for yourself. And making it really low stakes for yourself, I find that helps me enter into the practice a lot more easily and helps me cultivate my relationship to writing in a way that has been really fruitful. And then the second thing that I'm learning for myself is how much writing feels like having faith. And I honestly did not really, like get in contact with this sense of faith, in writing, and in my own writing, until honestly, like this past year, which sounds really absurd, because it's like, you've written books, but you don't have faith in your own writing. But it really felt that way. And it was not just relying on external validation, because that's a huge part. But there was always this sense of inadequacy, and that I was writing from a place of lack, and also writing to prove myself in a certain way. And I feel like I'm only now learning to let go of this need to prove myself and can really bask in having faith in something even through all the uncertainties, and taking pleasure in that sense of faith, if not in a particular project then in the writing practice itself, which is then a beautiful feeling I'm hoping to continue to embrace.

SB: I think this is probably the best ending question that I came up with. But Cecilia comes out in May, what is the best place or setting that you would suggest for readers to fully enjoy this book?

KMC: Oh, that's such a great question. Honestly, I feel like there are elements of gothic horror. So if you go to a haunted place, where there are ghosts and demons, like, a rotting manor would be fun. Another good place is to be around a trash can, because crows will absolutely be rifling through the trash. So to be in a place with ghosts or to be around to witness crows.

I also think in transit. A large portion of the book takes place during the single bus ride. So I think being in transit on public transportation or in the back of a car, reading it while moving and seeing the landscape pass by you. Moving at high speed through a city or landscape would be a good pairing. This is fun. It's like a wine pairing, but instead it's an environment pairing for the book. ✺

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