I talked to Melissa Broder about certitude, meditation, and an eight-year long MFA.
So some of my first questions are just about Milk Fed. I heard that Milk Fed took longer to write than other things you’ve written so I was wondering why that is and what aspects of it made you take longer in writing and in editing?
It was really the editing process that took longer I feel like I edited it like a thousand times I just really treated it like poetry and went over every single sentence many many times. And I don’t know whether that’s where I am as a writer or whether it’s just what the book demanded and The Pisces maybe just more of like some kind of gift not that I didn’t edit The Pisces but I definitely um Milk Fed went through a lot more edits
Cool yeah that makes sense. I know you also talked about like your interest in this idea of certitude as far as Milk Fed goes and I was wondering how that interest first developed and why it feels especially relevant for you to write about it now like what first got you interested in it
Yeah so um I think I definitely tend to dwell in the world in a realm of … doubt and I think im a natural sceptic, I’m very gullible but I think I’m a natural sceptic at the same time and so you know certitude I think has probably always been trendy so to speak, but it feels particularly, right now it feels particularay, like I feel like im asked to basically… Given the nature of social media that it’s like there’s a speed with which opinions are solidified and takes are issued that maybe things move faster now, and the haste from private thought to public declaration moves faster and so but I don’t feel that my mind moves any faster toward coming to any sort of conclusion. And in fact I feel like it kind of does the opposite and makes me feel like no not that not that not that not that not that, right? Like. And I just tend to see… I don’t know it’s just the way that my mind works and so, um, you know in Milk Fed, um, I wanted to, or I feel like I did just naturally explore that, um in terms of the question of like what Rachel the protagonist has been fed right? So things that we believe are truth that we then come to see, oh, this is just a familial opinion. I thought this was the world, but actually it’s not a monolith at all. Um and that’s really fascinating to me the way that things that we think are truth, we can then come to see them as an opinion or a perspective and I think it can really shake your world you know. And I kind of feel like if that’s the case it’s hard to, you know, declare certitude on a lot of things
Yeah or to know how you feel. My next question was just as far as like addressing or talking or writing about eating and disordered eating, are there any books that you really like that handle eating or food really well?
Well I would say that like some north stars for me like probably the biggest north stars were like Portnoy’s Complaint just because the food and the mother and spirituality and sexuality are so inextricably connected in that book and I think also to an extent Goodbye Columbus. both by Phillip Roth. And it’s like for me in writing Milk Fed I really was looking at the ways that these appetites are inextricable, like you know I can’t separate physical hunger form sexual desire from familial yearning from spiritual longing you know my relationship with food is my relationship with god and my mother was my first god so you know it’s all in there. And um I felt that Portnoy’s Complaint did a good job of reflecting on the interdependence of all of these elements, um, so I wouldn’t say portonys is my favorite Philip Roth book but I think that’s a book that definitely, and of course it’s very Jewy, so you know.
I was also wondering I know that I feel like you tend toward writing like in the first person a lot and in gnereal I was wondering I you would ever write a novel in the third person or if you have ever written fiction in the third person?
I did I wrote a novel in the third person and it’s really bad, it’s in a drawer. It’s like, yeah so that one didn’t work out but sure I would be open to it again
And then also just sort of shifting and talking about writing about sex. I was wondering how you approached writing the sex scenes or sort of sexual parts in Milk Fed and also more broadly how do you usually approach writing a sex scene in your fiction?
Yeah so I just write to turn myself on. And then later in the edits I work on making it legible. But if I can turn myself on in a sex scene then I feel pretty, I feel like it’s a good start.
But that’s a part of it like it should be like a turn on.
Yeah I mean and then sometimes a bad sex scene you know it’s just humor.
Yeah.
But I think if it’s a sex scene that’s considered a quote unquote good or hot sex scene right like cause I definitely love writing bad sex scenes too where like it’s just like the character is completely um, like why am I doing this, like watching themselves do it you know. But so that’s a little different but yeah if it’s a sex scene you know where I wanna change the reader’s body temperature I kind of just work on changing my own first and then I edit it for legibility and things like that. And rhythm and music. But I want that sort of spark to be there.
I was also wondering just as far as writing about sex in general, I know like a long time ago you mentioned in an interview you were talking about So Sad Today and being on the fence about certain parts being included in it, specifically about the fetish chapter. I think that’s my favorite part of the book so I was just wondering if you are conscious at all anymore, like self-conscious about writing personally about sex if that matters to you still or if you’re experience with that has changed since then. Do you have any thoughts about writing personally about sex anymore?
I have a lot. Yes. Publishing sex.
Yeah.
I’m definitely a lot more fearless in the writing and it’s only when I realize that it’s in the world. Sometimes that’s fine too because in that context I’m dealing with you know an editor or I feel comfortable with other writers who are friends or people my age. But it’s always when someone, I think the areas that probably trip me up are when either a former boss who knew me in a different way tells me they’ve read it or an older aunt or a friend of my parents. I feel particularly exposed. So it’s more in the who reads it and sometimes I almost feel like, why did they read that. And then I remember it’s public and they’re allowed to. I almost feel infringed upon. So it’s actually, it’s more, yeah it’s when certain readers read it, that’s when I’m like fuck.
I was also wondering, do you ever feel that you have a preference between writing poetry or prose? And what are the differences in process for you and where does the difference begin? How do you know something is gonna be one or the other?
Well I haven’t written a poem that I like in like five years. Or tried to publish a poem or anything. I’m not saying I’ve lost it entirely but I also think part of it is because I read a lot more prose now and I used to read a lot more poetry. It’s just wherever my interests are. But what happened was I used to only write poetry, I never wrote prose, and I would write a lot in motion on the subway in new York and then when I moved to Los Angeles I couldn’t write and drive so I started dictating and my line breaks, like my first drafts, my line breaks disappeared and my language became more conversational and that’s how I ended up writing the So Sad Today book which I dictated it using Siri and a notes app. And then I got the idea for a novel and I was like, well I can’t write a novel. And I said what if I try to do it the way I did So Sad Today just like dictating. So I did that and I wrote The Pisces. Yeah so I don’t know if I’ll return to poetry. It is unclear at this point. Right now I’m very interested, I still feel like I have some novels and novellas in me I still have some stuff I wanna say in that form and who knows what’ll happen after that.
Sort of related to that I know you started writing at a pretty young age. When was the first time you started writing prose specifically? Was that when So Sad Today happened or before?
It was earlier. So I started writing poetry in third grade when I was eight and that was when I sort of realized it was something I loved and had a teacher that was really encouraging about it. Prose, I did write some prose. In high school and in my late teens. There was actually a version of Milk Fed very very bare bones that I wrote in college which was like a really bad short story. The spiritual elements weren’t involved but the skeleton of like two women one who is very comfortable with her body and one who has an eating disorder have an affair and fall in love or whatever. But it was really bad. The main character was named Gaia, like she was an earth mother. It was so crappy. Yeah I kind of stopped writing prose. I would say I stopped writing prose from my early twenties to my thirties, like at least ten years, maybe more actually.
I know also that you have your MFA and I was thinking what made you decide to do that when you did. And also what do you think about MFA programs in general? Did you enjoy being in one, what are your thoughts?
So I think an MFA is absolutely not necessary in any way to being a writer. When I was twenty-five, I got sober and kinda didn’t write for a year, my first year of sobriety, I just took that pressure off myself. And then when I started writing again, I was just like maybe I’d take a workshop like I did in college. So I started taking these individual workshops in mostly poetry. I took like Gotham writers, which is like a New York thing, I don’t know if they still have it, but I did like a Gotham Writers and I did like one at the New School and I did like one at NYU and I was like well if I’m taking these college classes maybe I’ll just get an MFA. But I didn’t wanna go into debt for poetry. And I didn’t think I could get a scholarship or anything in terms of like a merit or a fellowship. I kinda didn’t really know you could do that. I like never know these things. I’ve never even applied to a grant and I feel like I probably should. I’m always like last to know. But I was working and my company that I worked for was Penguin books, I was a publicist. They would pay I wanna say twenty-five hundred dollars of tuition a year and so I went to City College of New York and I only took one class per semester cause each class was a thousand dollars and it took me like eight years to get the MFA but I figured this way I wouldn’t pay for it, it would be a free MFA. That was how I did it. I mean I will say by the end I was ready to be done.
Yeah eight years is crazy that’s a long time.
Yeah it was really long I mean I was working full time but yeah I just did one class a semester and I mean at the end I was like in my thirties doing a paper on like Moby Dick and I was like ok this has to be done, this is crazy. And I finished right before I moved to Los Angeles. But I would say I feel like my real MFA was the internet. And I would say that the thing that’s nice about an MFA is having a context for your writing in terms of there’s always a recipient and there’s deadlines and that can be helpful but I in no way think it’s necessary at all.
But you said that your job paid for your MFA?
Well my job gave 2500 a year toward tuition imbursement.
Oh.
Which for most mfa programs…
Wouldn’t cover it.
Wouldn’t do anything. But I went to city college which is really inexpensive and I did two classes a year which at the time was about 2000 dollars. So I did it through my job.
That’s really cool.
But I did it really slow. Because I was like wait, going into debt for poetry seems insane.
Yeah I think paying for it seems crazy but I guess it maybe just depends on the person.
For me personally it seemed like why go into debt over poetry.
Yeah. I mean I agree.
Yeah because it was a poetry MFA I’m not gonna hang this diploma on my wall and practice it and treat people in poetry. So this seemed good because I also liked working full time like I got to stay in the world and it was sort of a nice balance. Yeah I’m sure for some people going and being in the two year incubator and all poetry all the time, I’m sure that works for some people but for sure. I think it really just depends on the person. But for myself I would say I feel like the internet was probably my MFA
I also think I read or heard that you meditate and I was wondering, would you recommend it and how often do you do that and does it help you with your writing at all?
So I do meditate. I’ve been meditating probably throughout my whole sobriety so for like sixteen years. But I always used to just do the Melissa Broder method so I’d do ten minutes a day and then a couple years ago I decided for my birthday to invest in my education and I started doing this modality where now I meditate for twenty minutes in the morning and twenty minutes in the afternoon. That was actually really cool because it had a significant effect on my anxiety which I wasn’t expecting I just kind of felt like my mediation had hit a dead end. I mean yeah I definitely get flashes of inspiration while I’m meditating. I can’t imagine my life without it. Well I mean I can. But it gives me a little bit of pause in my life. So I recommend that you’re interested in it like there’s no reason not to try it. But you know everyone’s different some people aren’t receptive to it or don’t need it or that’s not their thing. But I really like it.
I guess it’s a matter of conquering that need to do something like sitting still. I don’t know. Getting past the threshold of feeling like you have to be active or thinking.
Yeah I mean half the time I’m mediating I’m thinking about cereal anyway or like worrying. I feel like it’s like the ocean, right, like the top can be choppy and the bottom can be deep and still at the same time so it’s like just because you’re thinking a lot or obsessing doesn’t mean there’s not this like still quiet place I’m able to access too, simultaneously. Just because you have the thoughts doesn’t mean you’re a bad meditator I mean who doesn’t. I mean there is no bad meditator. But yeah I think creatively it’s good to pause and a shift in perception can never be bad for creativity.
And then as far as Superdoom, I was kind of wondering, why did you decide to publish Superdoom and also how did you select these specific poems to be a part of it, if you, I assume it was you who selected them. I was just wondering about the process going into that.
Sure so I had three books that were out of print. Scarecrone is probably my favorite book that I’ve ever done and so it was a great opportunity to put my favorites from those books back in print plus some from last sex. The way I chose them was I picked the poems I liked the best and then worked with tin house. I sent them a list of what I thought was my best stuff and then they added some more and I okay’d some more and we sort of went back and forth like that but they were really wonderful and let me guide that process in terms of just the poems that I liked
That’s great. And then I also know that you’ve been working on the movie adaptation of The Pisces. And I was very excited about that and curious, what has it been like to work on that? And what’s been your experience navigating the difference between fiction and film potentially?
Sure well writing fiction and poetry is very solitary and obviously a production is called a production for a reason. There’s so many more parts. So it actually reminds me more of almost like being in the school play. But I’ll say my biggest challenge as a writer in doing screenwriting, because I also just wrote like a pilot for Milk Fed, my biggest challenge is probably I can’t believe how much has to happen. Like so much action has to happen. Like in a poem something happens, there’s the turn but it’s internal, but I’m like oh my god another thing has to happen? Like I don’t think my sensibility is naturally geared toward external action, I think it’s geared toward the internal. So that’s definitely my biggest challenge is just like, how much more has to happen? The happening of it all is probably my biggest challenge.
Yeah I feel like a lot of fiction and poetry writers potentially say that, different sensibilities. But is that the first time you’ve ever done screenwriting or did you ever do it before? Is it new to you completely?
I started doing it a couple years ago. I sold a pilot for So Sad Today. But prior to a couple years ago, I wrote plays in high school. But I’d never written a screenplay until a couple years ago. I sort of just fell into it. but I think actually the plays I wrote in high school, having that background was helpful.
Yeah I’m sure just as far as like basic structure.
Yeah and like raising the stakes.
Yeah. Could you say anything about what you’re working on with Petra Collins and how that got started?
Yeah so Petra and I were internet friends for a while and then she moved to Los Angeles and we just went and had coffee and we were talking about the spiral that one can go into when they don’t get a text back and imagining if that internal dopamine was rendered physically on the body and so we just started writing this thing in my backyard and we became really good friends in the process and yeah that’s how that happened. It was really organic, she came over to my house, we just were hanging out in my backyard, I remember I really liked her sneakers, I gave her a banana and we just started brainstorming.
Cool. I’m really excited to see how that turns out.
We shall see. Yeah.
And then my last question is, it seems like you’re always working on a ton of things at once so would you say that you like being busy or do you prefer it otherwise?
I think I really like being busy. Although I will say the past couple months, I’ve definitely been taking it a little easier. But I’m working on a new novel, we’ll see what happens with that, I’m in the very beginnings of it. But yeah I like being busy.
Aurora Huiza lives between Syracuse and New York. She writes fiction.