#Final fantasy ct markster series#

Towards the end of writing Billie, when I was in review mode, I randomly came across something on the Internet, as one always does, that talked about bullfighting and it clicked with the theme of the book. The bullfighting excerpts were a last-minute lightbulb. I loved how the Collector’s obsession to possess completely ruled him, and how his lack of caring/empathy for the unique things he found began to be offset by the conscience of his Finderman. I came across it when I was still in the “churning” mode, and I realized that these characters could be included in the book. The Collector and the Finderman came from a story I had already written but never placed. I think that’s how I discovered the different ways to tell the story.

#Final fantasy ct markster series#

To make it less intimidating, I decided to approach the book as a series of flash fictions that all would work together as a whole. But I knew it was time to start pushing myself as a writer. When Reynard asked for at least 8,000 words, I panicked. XTx: Before Billie, I had really only done short, flash pieces. How did these voices bubble to the surface? When did you realize that you wanted to tell this story through so many different lenses? And there are a few other random lists scattered throughout. And then there are the dreams-those are technically still Billie, but they’re really a different style, almost prose poetry. There is also the story of the Collector and the Finderman.

Then there is, of course, Billie’s story. You have the story that is in italics, almost a journalistic voice the history of bullfighting, told in a neutral voice, but one that definitely shows how barbaric the sport is, how unfair it is.

I’m trying to count them, and I think there are five. Rumpus: There are several different voices, or narratives that break up this story. He liked the story I wrote for him. He suggested maybe the story could be about a giant woman. I sat with that idea for a while. I am always fascinated by mothers, so I started wondering what a story could be about a mother who is also a giant. Then I came across that TLC show and was like, stunned, that a little person could give birth to a set of twins that had one little person twin and one “normal”-sized twin. Kind of blew my mind. I sat with those things, letting them churn until the churning started thickening to cream. Then I started writing Billie. XTx: Reynard wanted to do an e-book with me. He liked giants. Can you elaborate on the genesis of this book, and how it expanded to become Billie the Bull? You also mentioned a show on TLC about “little people,” and how they had one “little” child and one “normal”-sized child. The Rumpus: I know this book started with the story “Shopping” that you wrote for Reynard Seifert at Ha Ha Clever, and the idea of a giant as your prompt. Madore, entitled Nobody Trusts a Black Magician, and various stories scattered across the internet and in print, including Monkeybicycle, Dogzplot, and PANK. In addition to Billie the Bull and the aforementioned Normally Special, there is also the collaboration with P.H. Billie the Bull is a startling unique story-partly because of the way the various voices come together, the ways these stories are told, and partly because of the way the story ends, and then ends again, and then finally ends-never having really ended at all.

We talked over the past couple of weeks about her latest novel, Billie the Bull, a collection of different narratives that revolve around Billie, a giant, and her children the suffering she must endure and the brutality of bullfighting, and how that translates to the rest of the world with our judgments, and expectations, and greed. There is beauty in between the pain, there is hope glimmering just out of your reach, and there is a sacrifice that was the only decision that could only be made because it came from a place of love, a center that cannot be moved. And that’s what keeps me coming back to her work: the layers of honesty that are stacked on top of the humanity we all exude on a daily basis-when we are naked, when we are filled with rage, when we are cowering in the corner begging for it to stop. A mixture of Mary Gaitskill and Kelly Link, she isn’t afraid to write about sex, violence, loss, or desire-no matter how dark it gets, or how real it feels. I first ran across xTx when I picked up her thin volume of short stories, Normally Special (Tiny Hardcore Press), back in 2011.