Photo by Sandro Pehar
Interview by Chimedum Ohaegbu
Téa Mutonji’s debut Shut Up You’re Pretty is the first book out of Vivek Shraya’s Arsenal Pulp imprint, VS. Books. In rhythmic prose, the collection follows Loli’s journey as she deals with the difficulties and joys of daughterhood, friendship, and growing up as a young Black woman in the Galloway neighborhood of Scarborough. In this interview, Mutonji discusses her writing process, the ways self-care and research factored into the book’s creation, and what question she wishes interviewers wouldn’t ask her.
One thing I enjoy about this collection is its humor. Some lines made me chuckle out loud, like in “The Waitress” (page 93)—“Then the girl I was serving asked me if we had washrooms inside the building. I answered, ‘No. As an establishment,’ I said, ‘we don’t believe in facilities’”. What’s the importance of levity in literature for you?
It was a matter of balance. [The protagonist] Loli’s immediate response to anything that gets thrown at her is to accept it and move on. So putting humor in was my way of keeping the reader entertained/involved—Loli has a monotone way of looking at the world, desensitized if you will, because she saw so much havoc at a young age.
You’ve expressed skill or interest in other forms—poetry, filmmaking, novels. Did you find that aspects of this multimedia viewpoint influenced Shut Up You’re Pretty?
I watch a lot of television, so I wrote this like a limited series. Even the way I introduce characters without unpacking them or breaking them apart, that’s been entirely based on being a humongous TV and film-watcher. And that was my approach to telling the stories: I wanted them to exist beyond my own engagement and beyond Loli, her opinion of everything. She was a camera observing the world. My writing practice is very shaped by that idea.
Relatedly, Vivek Shraya, your publisher/mentor, is a renowned multimedia artist herself. How did working with her inform your writing?
I was used to crafting a story, mainly because I studied writing from a critical standpoint as an English / Media student. What I really got from the internship with Vivek was on a personal level, because she is a very courageous, passionate, and aggressive person in the way she chooses to express herself. I became a better artist, being surrounded by an artist that wasn’t ashamed or afraid of claiming artistic expression. By the time I was doing my last few rounds of edits, I was doing it with a lot more confidence, a lot more assertiveness. I could tell that the work was getting stronger, and that my relationship with it was getting stronger. That’s what I learned working with Vivek—she’s very trusting with herself. I had to step out of myself and evaluate who I wanted to be as an artist, who I wanted to be as an individual, and how those two people could become one. I think if you want to have a successful career in any art form, you have to sacrifice the person you were without the art.
I found the rhythm of your prose warranted reading aloud. Was music involved in the process of writing Shut Up You’re Pretty?
I listened to SZA’s entire album [CTRL] over and over again. It focused on the Black woman’s body as it’s going through this journey. But I think for the most part, the sound and the repetition in my prose, that’s mostly influenced by poetry.
Who supported you during the creation process?
Professor Daniel Tysdal and Professor Andrew Westoll both had such a big role in shaping me as a writer. They sat through a lot of developing questions about Shut Up You’re Pretty and they were the first people I went to when I considered submitting to Vivek. Beyond that, they created this “workshop out of the classroom”, and we have a little group of writers who I rely on to be my rock. And of course my parents, you know, they’re going to love you no matter what, and they’re your biggest fans. And then obviously, Vivek—we often talked about being an artist, and those were some pretty important conversations.
Often this collection is thematically intense, dealing with things like mother-daughter alienation, objectification from an early age, and more. How did you as a writer maintain self-care while exploring these stories?
With this collection, I don’t feel that I participated in self-care at all. That was difficult for me to realize, and I only paid attention to that after I was done. When I first finished the book, closed my laptop, and sent my final manuscript—it was like we’d gotten divorced. I felt almost like I was trapped in a ongoing cycle of trauma, both in my personal life and in my professional life, because I was engaging with these stories, and my relationship with writing is very immersive.
In retrospect, I think that was a good thing, but I wouldn’t do it again. And I would never suggest this as a form of practice.. But I think because I had such a dramatic relationship with my book, opening it for the first time really did feel like somebody else had written it. Having such an intense relationship with the book, and then having to force myself to take my hands away from all of it, was good, because I healed from these stories.
On U of T’s website you mention that the inception for this collection was a poem you wrote, “Pretty Woman”. What made you decide to write Loli through a collection of shorts rather than poems, or even a novel?
I wanted everything to exist without the reader, to exist before and after the reader. And I wanted that effect to be obvious, so that when you start reading the stories, it feels like you’re opening the curtains onto somebody’s life, as opposed to starting a journey with them. I felt that poetry didn’t give me that space to cover what I wanted to cover, whereas I thought that a novel gave me too much space, and the happy medium was a short collection.
I love the title of this collection, especially its lack of comma, forcing a reader to say it all in one breath. Is there a reason for that lack of comma?
The no-comma thing was totally pioneered by Vivek. My friend had yelled it [“shut up, you’re pretty!”] at me at a bar. And I thought, Oh, that’s funny, this is what Loli might feel like in her life—and I loved the sound of it, but I also didn’t take it seriously. Then Vivek replied back, that’s it, that’s the one. I actually needed to be convinced! Then Vivek was just kind of like, let’s drop the comma, that sounds like “shut up? you’re pretty” versus “shut up you’re pretty.” The effect of it being a double-edged sword commentary worked better without the comma.
What’s a question that you wish interviewers would ask you?
I have a question I wish they wouldn’t ask me, which is pretty much: is this book is fiction or nonfiction? Because a lot of research went into this. I think the whole debate of whether it’s a work of fiction or nonfiction has sparked a hatred for that question in me, because then I have to like, negotiate how much capability I have, and how distant I can create a character from myself—it denies my ability to create. And I really did spend a lot of time re-immersing myself in this community, which I left at the age of 12, 13—I spent a lot of time talking to people who were homeless, or women who had been assaulted. Hearing their stories is kind of how I pulled a lot of my themes. I wish that I was asked more about that, about how the creation process, because I think it’s fascinating.
What are you looking forward to?
I have a novel on the way, which is fun—and yes, I am doing self-care with this one. Beyond that, myself, Adrian De Leon, and Natasha Ramoutar are doing an anthology called FEEL WAYS. We’re getting the opportunity to create some visibility, so we can all walk the room together, because it’s a lonely career.
Téa Mutonji is an author of poetry, prose, and essays. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Feel Ways: An Anthology of Scarborough Writing, Joyland Magazine, Unpublished City II, The Puritan, Bad Nudes, Minola Review, The Temz Review, Train Poetry Journal and The Scarborough Fair. Mutonji’s debut collection of short fiction, Shut Up You’re Pretty (Spring, 2019) is the first title published under Vivek Shraya’s newest imprint, VS. Books, in association with Arsenal Pulp Press. Téa lives, writes, and gets lost in Toronto, Ontario.
Chimedum Ohaegbu attends the University of British Columbia in pursuit of hummingbirds and a dual degree in English literature and creative writing. Recently her short story “ToothsomeThings” was longlisted for the Nommo Award for African speculative fiction. Her fondness of bad puns has miraculously not prevented her work from being published or forthcoming in Strange Horizons, Train: A Poetry Journal, The /tƐmz/ Review, and The Capilano Review. Website: https://chimedum.wordpress.com. Twitter: @chimedumohaegbu. Instagram:@chimedum_ohaegbu.