art by Sarah Shields
This fall, flash fiction writer Cathy Ulrich released Ghosts of You, her debut collection of short stories. Distributed through Okay Donkey (their first book), the collection is made up of stories that all begin with ‘Being the Murdered ____.’ The murdered mermaid. The murdered muse. The murdered hermit. The murdered witch. Along with repetition found throughout the titles, the opening sentences always proclaim cohesion by stating how the dead character in question is poised to ‘set the plot in motion’. It’s this formula and rhythmic style that makes this collection feel like a haunted chant. Like a mantra at a seance, a whisper near a grave. Dreamspeak postcards. I spoke with the Montana artist (who is not only a prolific writer but also a social media cheerleader for the literary community at large) and we talked about Buster Keaton, failed (dead) escape artists, casket company notepads, and so much more.
snippet via Okay Donkey
Let’s begin with an icebreaker. If you could visit any time period for a three-day weekend, which would you choose and why? What would you do during your visit?
If physical travel as well as time travel is a possibility here, then definitely early 1920s Hollywood, when Buster Keaton was making his shorts. I’d love have been able to just sit back and watch him hammer out a film. That would be amazing! And, you know, if he wanted to meet me for a drink afterward, then, yeah, I think I could probably force myself to spend time with the best actor who has ever existed.
Congratulations on your debut short story collection! What was it like working on this for 2019 (and earlier years as well?)?
Thanks so much!
I’d been writing stories as part of this series for quite a while, but there was no plan (on my end, anyway) for a collection until Eric and Genevieve of Okay Donkey approached me about putting together a chapbook. They thought I had, maybe, 12, 13 stories in the series, but when they reached out to me, it was more like 25. I ended up writing a few more — I think the collection has a total of 40 pieces. But for me, it was a really nice process because Eric and Genevieve handled all the hard stuff — I just threw a bunch of stories in a document and sent it their way!
You told The Rumpus that your oldest piece in this collection is from 2015. How new is the most recent piece and which one is it?
It looks like the newest is probably “Being the Murdered Hitchhiker,” which has a final draft from the end of August of this year sitting in my files. There’s been more Murdered Ladies stories written since then, but eventually Okay Donkey needed me to stop adding on to the book, so they gave me a cutoff date!
snippet via Passages North
You often work with connected stories and concepts, like your Japan series and your Astronaut Love Stories. Does it feel more natural for you to be placed within one world/reality? Is it rare that you write something that is a one-off?
I’m not sure that it feels more “natural,” just that some forms/characters/realities keep speaking to me after I’ve written what I thought was a stand-alone story.
It’s really not rare that I write a one-off story...but then again, maybe they’re all just waiting to become part of a series too?
I initially read various pieces in Pithead Chapel, Cheap Pop, Cleaver Magazine, and others. With half previously published, and half available for the first time in the book, were there many pieces you didn’t submit strictly for exclusivity?
Yup! There were a few out on submission when Okay Donkey reached out to me that ended up not finding homes outside the collection, but there were a lot of stories I wrote with the intent of them being for the collection only.
Speaking of new stories in the collection, I think, ‘Being the Murdered Muse’ is my personal favorite and I love the concept of the sculptor destroying the other statues. Can you speak on this story a bit?
Thank you so much! This one started out — I had the idea that the muse was just a model in general, but eventually it just got too convoluted, so I kept it pared down to the relationship with the sculptor.
A lot of women in the late 19th century/early 20th century worked as in-house models for artists. Some of them ended up going into silent films, some got married, some disappeared and some were killed. I was thinking of that sort of arrangement/relationship as I was writing this piece, but it’s set in modern times.
In a lot of these stories, I don’t really have an image of the “woman,” but in this one, I really do. I don’t want to say too much because I suspect how I picture her isn’t how a lot of readers picture her, but I’m really curious what kind of woman readers are thinking of here — what race, what height, that sort of thing! I tried to give hints in the description, but I also try to leave things open-ended enough that people picture what they want.
snippet via Bad Pony
The repetition of your titles and opening sentences are so refreshing, and make for such a cohesive collection. You previously stated, “...a feature of my writing is repetition: in form, language and rhythm, and with these stories, especially, I think that opening really focuses the attention—both for the reader and for me as the writer—on what comes next.” That being said, I imagine many similar ‘scrapped’ pieces were drafted. Did any murdered ladies not make the cut? Would that technically make them murdered murdered ladies? (horrible joke, I’m sorry)
There’s only two I can think of where I started writing the story and trashed it — “Being the Murdered Fiancée” and an earlier version of “Being the Murdered Girlfriend.” They both actually told the same variation of a story, something about how the fiancé/boyfriend was left behind and used the fiancée/girlfriend as an excuse for many of his own failings, and it was just terrible and heavy-handed and I scrapped them.
I like the version of “Girlfriend” that ended up in “Ghosts of You.” It was loosely inspired by a local murder, but also by someone I saw run over an animal on purpose while I was driving my daughter to school.
Since the collection, there’s been one more murdered lady story that has gotten off to a false start: “Being the Murdered Escape Artist.” There’s something I want to do with it, but I was forcing it, so I had to give up. Maybe someday it will work. Maybe not.
Your book is just barely out in the world, so maybe it’s too early to ask, but what are you currently working on?
Actually, I just accidentally started yet another series. I wrote one story that was meant to be a stand-alone piece, and then another similar story and then another, and I just couldn’t stop myself. I’ve got a bunch out on submission now with no answers yet, so I hesitate to jinx things by saying what the series is (because what if they never get published? Then there’s no series, except in my little folder!), but I will mention the words “post-apocalypse.”
Outside of your own work, who/what have you been reading recently? I’m also a music nut, so what albums/songs/artists have you been enjoying?
Oh, gosh, I try to read as much as I can. I went on a book-buying frenzy recently, and picked up all sorts of amazing things from people like Melissa Goodrich and Dana Diehl, Darren C. Demaree, Francine Witte, Dan Crawley, folks like that. Sadly, I just had to pay a ton in car repairs, so I’ll have to hold off on buying books for a while.
I’m really particular about music — no matter how much I love a musician, or a composer, or a band, I rarely like an entire album by anyone. I don’t even like every movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and I love the Ninth Symphony. So I haven’t been listening to any albums, but some of the songs I’m digging right now are Kitten’s “Memphis,” Manx’s “Shell,” Generationals’ “Xeno Bobby,” Sampa the Great’s “Final Form,” and this whole year I’ve been basically in love with timecop1983’s “Girl.” I adore that song.
If you can, provide a photo of your workspace (or describe with words). What are some essentials while you create?
I’m attaching a photo for you — I write on lunch break at work, and yes that godawful pattern is our amazing tablecloth!
As far as what I need when I’m writing, I like to have music and my little casket company notepads, but all I really need is for my coworkers to please answer the phones when I am “in the zone,” because, omigosh, nothing wrecks a story faster than having to deal with my job for five minutes. I nearly lost the ending of one of my favorite stories that way!
For this ongoing author interview series, I’m asking for everyone to present a writing prompt. It can be as abstract or as concrete as you choose.
Write a ghost story from the perspective of someone who doesn’t realize they are telling a ghost story — preferably not from the PoV of a ghost who doesn’t realize they’re dead, though.
In closing, do you have any advice for writers trying to grow and/or make that leap into publication? Or rather, what’s something you would have liked to have known when you first started taking your writing seriously?
My advice would be less about taking writing seriously/publication and more about using social media to promote your work.
When I started using social media, I went into it thinking every single person was as excited about reading and sharing work as I am. So when a couple of guys approached me about my writing, pretending to be interested in what I was doing, I completely fell for it. They turned out to be a pair of serial predators who both pretended to be friends with women writers, showering them with compliments, offering prompts, that sort of thing, then slowly growing abusive. One of them, when I gave him feedback on a story that he didn’t feel was fawning enough, “joked” that he would change the name of the story from “F--- You, Character Name” to “F--- You, Cathy.” Plus both of them liked sending nasty messages to women and just being total creepers. I don’t really want to go into it, but they spent a lot of time breaking me down and doing the same thing to other women writers I really admire.
It’s something I’ve had a hard time coming back from, actually. I still struggle with trusting people on social media now. There were people I went to about these guys’s behavior who decided to ask them for their perspective — which was, of course, very self-serving! So there are some folks who decided that I was the bad guy, just trying to ruin their reputations by warning people about their actions.
So my advice is to be careful of people. There’s a lot of lovely folks using social media who do love your work and want you to succeed, and then there’s creeps like this (and their supporters!) who just want to drag you down to make themselves feel better.
And if someone is doing something that makes you feel uncomfortable, don’t dismiss it like I kept doing! Look at how they’re treating you. If you feel terrible after interacting with someone who is supposedly your friend, there is something really wrong there.
Any final thoughts / words of wisdom / shout-outs?
I’m not particularly wise, but I want to say thank you again to Eric and Genevieve of Okay Donkey for believing in me and my work; to everyone who said they wanted to buy a copy of this book; to everyone who did buy a copy of this book; to everyone who has reviewed it or interviewed me; to the amazing writers who wrote blurbs (Kathy Fish, Jacqueline Doyle, Kendra Fortmyer and Amber Sparks); to everyone who has supported me.
Thank you all.
