An interview with Among Animals 2 contributor Carmen Marcus about her story “Bight, Tomcat, and the Moon”
Q: What inspired you to write this story?
A: The story was inspired by a prompt by a British writers’ organization called “Word Factory.” They’d asked Neil Gaiman for a story starter for a modern fable that went, “Long ago, in the days when there were still fish in the oceans and cars on the road, there lived a woman who was not afraid of governments…” So I treated the starter as a puzzle – what if the oceans were gone and the roads were the only place left for the fish, and what kind of woman could survive there? Never underestimate the power of a good story starter to invite you beyond your comfort zone.
Q: This story, set in a future world, contains language and settings that are exotic in their novelty. What was your writing process like?
A: This story involved a wondrous research phase, my favorite part of story creation. First, I researched the form and scope of fable to understand the conventions I was about to play with. Fables often involve animals as characters, and this opened up opportunities for me to create the Purrman and creatures with personality. The language for Bight and her world came from free-writing exercises which were prompted by questions about her world and her desires. For me, detail is everything, so I researched sailing and nautical language, Bight didn’t have a name until I was researching knot making – then I discovered the word bight. It means the loop before the knot is made – it is pure potential, just like her. Finding the right name informed her character, her trajectory, and her world.
Q: Which writers inspire you the most?
A: So many, but for this piece I read and re-read Lucy Wood’s Diving Belles. Wood took Cornish myths and made them into contemporary stories, perfect for modelling modern fables. I read Karen Russell’s St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves – Russell effortlessly weaves the real and fantastical, disorientating her readers. Orkney by Amy Sackville is an intense story set in the wilds of Orkney, a brilliantly and darkly narrated tale of obsession. Finally, I turned back to Virginia Woolf’s Orlando to understand more about nascent identities and sumptuous sentences. Each of these writers consciously creates a voice within their stories for the environment to speak; it’s that luscious breathing world that draws me.
Q: What relationship do you envision in the future among humans and animals?
A: As a fisherman’s daughter, my relationship with animals has always been complex. The sea provided food, but the pursuit of that food became a sacred act in its own right, with rules which restricted excesses and exploitation. My father told me a story when I was a child – that my great grandfather pulled up a sea god in his nets and, realizing what it was, cut the net and lost the catch to set it free. From that moment our family was protected at sea – so the story goes. This relationship of mutual protection is founded upon wonder at something unknown, and because it was unknown it was possible for a deeper form of communication than spoken language to emerge – a sacred connection. We seem to live in a world that abounds with “knowledge” about animals, but little wonder. The more knowledge we have of animals, the more potential for exploitation. But wonder is the foundation of respect and that sacred connection which invites compassion. It is my hope that we allow for a greater sense of wonder about those we share the planet with and that we learn that knowledge isn’t the boundary at which true understanding lies.
Q: What do you hope readers will take away from your story?
A: I would like readers to experience how hard it is to protect what is precious to us, even when it seems futile and without hope but to still want to endeavour to do so.