9/11 was just an enormous event in so many senses of the word - I mean, we are still in the "post-9/11 era" and perhaps will be forever? Sometimes it seems like it. It was such a monstrous act of imagination over anything else - the actual fatalities, while awful, were not what distinguished the event from others.
Porochista KhakpourIn South Pasadena, artists were around but invisible somehow. Even though it was just a fifteen-minute drive from Downtown LA, it felt worlds apart. That suburban American experience can both protect and stunt you. I couldn't wait to move to New York to become the person I've always wanted to become.
Porochista KhakpourI guess none of the sides of my hyphen are particularly subtle cultures. But perhaps there is also a sense that these characters are all parentless - every character in this book is feral in some way - without any guidance in their upbringing. They find no choice but to seek refuge in extreme behaviors.
Porochista KhakpourBecause for me to go fully experimental, it would turn into an artist book actually. And I'm not opposed to that. But I wanted to toy with the conventions of traditional narrative and sometimes to do that all the way, you have to actually utilize traditional narrative, I think - or it's one way to do it.
Porochista KhakpourI write very raw, ugly, illiterate first drafts very quickly (novels are always in first draft in under a year) and then I spend years and years fine-tuning, revising, editing, etc. What inspires me? Who knows. I am not inspired that much. That’s why I write long form fiction - I am not much of a short story writer. Ideas come seldom, but when a good one comes, I really stick to it and see it out. I’m a problem-solver - I've never thrown out an entire manuscript; I've always forced myself to repair it until it was a lovable thing again.
Porochista Khakpour