What was the original inspiration for “Geology in Motion”?
I was originally inspired by a kayak trip in Alaska. I purposely take trips that push my limits—a felucca cruise down the Nile, opal mining in Australia, camping on the Tibetan plateau. I keep detailed journals and then when I return home, I figure out what the “story” is, then create the fictional connective tissue. I read (in Bruce Chatwin’s Songlines, I think) that Australian Aborigines believe your spirit requires catch up time when you return from a trip. The soul walks. You can’t just take a plane and expect your experience will follow at the same speed.

What was the process of writing the story?
This story rolled out pretty early after the trip. The panic attack and the boys playing ball were actual events that I knew I wanted to use. I met an obese housebound owner of a B&B who endeared herself to me. She was a secondary figure in the original version, which was rejected by several journals. It took a few years before I realized that I wanted to see that owner in the kayak. The image of heaviness and buoyancy allowed me to play with ideas of balance and seesawing friendship.

One of the reasons I was so drawn to “Geology in Motion” was that it addressed the issue of obesity with light, gentle humour instead of the serious, tortured way that it is often approached (I’m thinking of films like Catherine Breillat’s “Fat Girl,” and novels like Mary Gaitskill’s “Two Girls, Fat and Thin,” among others). Why did you choose the tone that you chose? Did it just happen organically, or was it something you were conscious of as you were working on it?
Humour creeps into much of my writing. It’s how I make sense of things. In this piece, I was conscious of not being mired in the seriousness of food addiction. I think levity is the only way. To write a humourless, claustrophobic version of fatness would miss the mark, though I think that ultimately for me, the real issue of this story is fear. Lorrie, in particular, is trying desperately to break out of seeing the world through that lens.

I love the scene at the end when Katie throws the ball at the boys. What is up with that?
In a way, this scene is a metaphor for the Alaskan sun and the “self” each woman discovers on the trip. The boys threaten all that with one shameful word. Kids learn early that fat equals shame and the ball is Katie’s belly-full of anger at the world for oppressing her. She knows she has to reject that view, to let it go, in order to protect her desire for a different life.

Your prose is quite poetic. Why do you think it’s like that?
I started writing poems when I was nine and continued into my late 20s. I read anyone cross-pollinating prose and poetry: Ondaatje, Ann Michaels, Jayne Anne Phillips. I’m only interested in narrative fiction now but I hold onto that love of a snappy phrase or metaphor that inserts an image directly into the reader’s mind.

This story was shortlisted in our 2009 Fiction Contest, and you’ve just received an Honorable Mention for “Huck,” in Prairie Fire. Do you enter contests more than directly submitting to literary journals? What do you think is the role of literary contests in the Canadian writing scene these days?
Since I’ve begun entering contests, I’ve had much more success than submitting directly. My strategy: know thy judge. If it’s someone whose style I admire, I think I have a better chance that he/she will ‘get’ my stories. I think the role of literary contests is to give new writers a leg-up because the anonymity eliminates bias, whether conscious or unconscious. The advantage of winning, besides money, is that it often alerts other editors to your whereabouts. John Metcalf read ‘Huck’ and chose it for Oberon’s ‘Best Canadian Stories’ Anthology. Barry Callaghan saw the press release about the Writer’s Union Short Prose Contest, and asked to publish the winning story ‘Every Good Boy’ in Exile.

Tell me whatever you want to tell me about your book Silver Hearts.
In 2005, someone found my short story collection, Silver Hearts, on the Metcalf-Rooke Award shortlist on the internet. No one ever contacted me, even when I didn’t win. Silver Hearts was twenty years worth of stories – everything I’d ever written. The other writers nominated all had books under their belt, and the winner, Patricia Young, is an amazing writer. To be on that list gave me hope.

In your mind, what is the biggest joy and/or challenge of being a short-fiction writer in Canada today?
I’m a short lady — I have a toy poodle, I drive a tiny car, I live in a row house, I teach small children. I’ve trained myself to see the world with a short arc, nicely contained. That’s the joy. The challenge is that short stories don’t sell!! I hear it over and over. I spent this past year in the Banff Wired Writing Program, asking every writer I met, including my mentor Alissa York, how do you write a novel? The best advice I got was to begin with a collection of linked stories. That’s what the publishers want, with the promise of a novel you’ve been simultaneously gestating. I finally have a plan but I’m still going to approach it in segments.

What are you reading these days? Any recommendations for PRISM readers?
I gravitate to writers that remind me to tell the truth — the short stories of Lisa Moore, Grace Paley and Lorrie Moore. I am completely enchanted with Miranda July’s collection, No One Belongs Here More Than You.

– Interview conducted by Rachel Knudsen, September 2009

Julie Booker’s writing has appeared in an anthology published by Coach House Press, as well as in The New Quarterly, Descant, The Windsor Review, and upcoming issues of Prairie Fire and Exile. She won First Prize in The Writers’ Union on Canada 2009 Short Prose Competition for Developing Writers. Her short story collection, Silver Hearts, was shortlisted for the Metcalf-Rooke Award in 2005. Geology in Motion was shortlisted for the 2008 PRISM international Fiction Contest.