Back with (Hell’s) Bells On: Catching Up with Author m. m. garcia
Published by Jen on 26 Feb 2010
by guest writer Eric Blockland
The birth of m. m. garcia’s Hate Mail (Dame Rocket Press, 2007) goes something like this: first, garcia impressed her instructors at a high school math and science program—or “nerd camp,” as she calls it. Then she was selected to attend NASA’s Space Camp, where she trained as an astronaut for a week to prepare for a simulated space flight. When her crew finally launched, she recalls, they all died “within seconds of departure.”
Undaunted, the instructors insisted the mission go on. By the time they returned to Earth, garcia and her crew died a total of twenty times (forgetting to turn the oxygen on seemed particularly unfortunate). “I concluded that I never wanted to go into space,” she says. “Shortly after that, I started to lose interest in math and science, and started writing. So, I blame Space Camp for making me a writer.”
Thank you, Space Camp.
Now in its third year in print, Hate Mail is getting a face-lift, and I took the opportunity to interview m. m. garcia on her writing, her simulated death, and her mail. It seems an apt preface to note that, despite the bristling observation, “The greeting card industry knows you’re a chickenshit,” garcia has yet to receive any hate mail. “I’d really like to get one in the mail though,” she says. “That would be cool.” (Readers take note.)
For those who noticed a glimmer of that blunt, lovable, acerbic candor reminiscent of Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye, you’re in good company. “I would say Salinger was the single biggest influence as far as helping me find my voice,” says garcia. She also notes Sherman Alexie’s influence on her writing: “I had the chance to hear him read from The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian, and he made the comment to the audience that he hates it when writers try to tell you what a tree looks like, as if you didn’t already know. I couldn’t agree more. I realize some description is necessary, but I hate to get in the way of my reader’s imagination.”
I asked the garcia, whose book is filled with adages such as “Embrace your anger” and “Everyone has a nemesis,” about her relationship to Hate Mail. “I’m still proud of it and love to hear from random readers who say they’ve enjoyed it,” she says. “Like most things in my life it’s mostly love peppered with a bit of hate at times,” which is as good a reminder as any that garcia’s aspersions-filled writing is not without compassion. In her story, “D is for Discrimination,” she confesses that she’s working long hours at a school with little pay: “The teachers I bonded with were the ones who seemed to genuinely love their students. Like me, they lived for the little breakthroughs and shrugged off their defeats.”
The soul of Hate Mail can be traced to garcia’s relationship with her friend Jen Magill, who recently passed away after a long battle with cancer. After the book’s publication, garcia followed a lifelong dream and moved from Portland to London, a decision complicated by Jen’s diagnosis. Garcia describes her move this way:
Jen had already been diagnosed with terminal cancer, so from the beginning it was a difficult decision. Jen and I talked about it back then and I told her that one thing I had taken away from her experience with cancer was the notion that you have to live your life while you can, and do all the things you really want to while you still have the chance. In the weeks before I moved, I spent nearly every day with Jen, and I suppose I naively thought this would make it easier to be so far away from her.
It wasn’t easier. In fact, almost from the time my plane landed at Heathrow, I was pretty emotionally wrecked at the thought that I might be missing my last chance to be with my best friend.
Returning to The Dalles, garcia did have the chance, and has spent much of the past year at Jen’s side. “She was super laid back,” garcia remembers, “…she was very snarky, witty, and downright hilarious…. I think that subconsciously as I was writing, I was channeling all those characteristics. When I published the book it was natural that I dedicate it to her.”
For those of you waiting for garcia’s next book, there’s hope. “There is another major project in the works as well,” she says, “but it’s a bit too soon for me to talk about that.” While she remains close-lipped about what we might see in the future, she’s certainly not given up championing the wronged, and passed along this account of peddling Hate Mail and homemade Love-/Hate-frosted cupcakes at the Portland Zine Symposium.
“I’m a terrible sales person,” she says, and when a potential buyer approached her display, garcia let her glance through the book uninterrupted. “Then a few minutes later she walked by again, lingered, and then paused to pick up a copy…. Then she said, ‘Well, I think I’ll spend my money on something a little less hateful.’” Apparently garcia occasionally needs a Hate Mail card to say what she means, too. “My mouth said, ‘Suit yourself,’” she remembers, “but my brain said, ‘Really? You’re going to get snarky with someone who wrote a book called Hate Mail? Either you’re really hardcore, or you’re not that bright.’ Come to think of it, I should make a card for that.”
Readers might find that card in the near future on garcia’s new website, an in-the-works project to refurbish Hate Mail and add some fresh (and free) e-cards. “I’m still writing,” she promises. Check the Dame Rocket Press website for updates, and in the meantime, try garcia’s comics collaboration with her partner, Steve, at doodism.com.
Eric Blockland is a 2006 graduate of Oberlin College (BA in English) who recently moved to Portland from Vermont to pursue a career in writing and book publishing. He’s currently working as the publishing assistant at Dame Rocket Press and can be contacted at eblokland@gmail.com.
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