They’d come out and you’d have to walk so carefully, otherwise you’d step on them. Then I went to Hedgebrook, this beautiful residency in the Pacific Northwest. There’s a lot happening in the landscape that’s very surreal if you’re not used to it. There’s this crazy dried-up lake, and dust devils, and a lot of intensive wildlife action. That landscape is super alien, at least it is to me. I did a residency last year called Playa, which is in eastern Oregon. Does traveling to a new space influence the uncanny aspects of your fiction?ĬMM: I think there’s something about being in a new space-especially a natural settings that’s new to me-that’s helpful for the sense of disassociation or the uncanny. Specifically “Inventory”-we’re seeing a wasteland as it’s in the process of becoming a wasteland. HL: Many of your stories have very surreal environments. My dream one day is to have a home with a big, outdoor space and a mesh screen. I love being outside, but the bugs love me more. Right now it’s mosquito season, and I was out answering emails all morning, and my legs are so bitten up. There’s a table out there and I really like it.
I’ll write in my office, or on the front porch. I’m also very productive when I have large swaths of time in front of me. I think it’s because when I’m at home I’m thinking, “Oh, the garbage has to go out.” There’s always something else you can be doing at home, fussing around, and when I go to residency all of that is taken care of. Do you work here?Ĭarmen Maria Machado (CMM): I write all over the place, but I get my most work done at residencies. Hilary Leichter (HL): Since we’re in your home, I thought we could talk a little bit about where you write.
This summer Hilary Leichter met with Machado at her home in Philadelphia, where Machado is the Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania. Carmen Maria Machado will be at Amherst College on March 1st at 7:30 for a National Book Awards on Campus Conversation, which is a part of LitFest 2018. Her memoir, House in Indiana, is forthcoming in 2019 from Graywolf Press. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has been awarded numerous fellowships and residencies from organizations that include the Michener-Copernicus Foundation, the Yaddo Corporation, Hedgebrook, and the Millay Colony for the Arts. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction, and the winner of the Bard Fiction Prize and the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize. H ILARY LEICHTER interviews CARMEN MARIA MACHADOĬarmen Maria Machado’s debut short story collection, Her Body and Other Parties, was a finalist for the 2017 National Book Award, the Kirkus Prize, and the PEN/Robert W.
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