1. Vickie, how would you describe yourself in a personal ad?
Deceptive blonde waitress seeks timid men. Yes, plural. You will need to know how to use a steam iron.
Or if that doesn’t answer the brief:
Waitress, dyed blonde. Interested in and simultaneously repelled by torchbearers, church musicians, moral compasses… I have inherited the family secret, and my womb is a dark and looming octopus, full of explosive nervous conditions. I like cheesecake and am pretty much drunk after half a glass of wine.
2. You used to run the cult website Vicksie's - now offline - in your late teens and early twenties, and many of the pieces found on Tearoom Books have their origin there. Why did you stop maintaining the site? Would you ever consider starting it up again?
It started out as Vicksie (2001) – not Vicksie’s – then progressed to Vicksie-Again (2005), or to give it its full title, RT Web-Site No.7386: Vicksie-Again. I think the last post came in 2006. I stopped maintaining it because, to cut a long story short, there was a horrible breakdown of a relationship that of itself had a pretty horrible underbelly, and by the end we had both read a little Freud and were like two bad-tempered psychoanalysts shining mirrors in each other’s eyes. ‘Projection!’ was the war-cry. Anyway, I was quite miserable for about two years, and my inclination to write sort of petered out. I wouldn’t start it up again purely because I think I write at a different pace and in a different way now; I haven’t quite made sense of the last four years yet, and I’m not prolific enough for the internet anymore.
3. What are currently working on, writing wise? And what are you reading?
Last week I was reading My Childhood by Gorky, before that I was reading some Dostoevsky, before that Turgenev. All the Russian wasn’t intentional; I picked the titles at random from a mug. This week following the same method, I am reading A Woman’s Experience of Sex. Writing wise I have an elaborate plan for some very short stories concerning the same group of characters: a jeweller and a doctor who together steal and sell the jewellery of the dead, a typist with a missing finger, and the jeweller’s tenants who live upstairs where the ceiling leaks. I have to be careful though because elaborate plans usually kill the story before I’ve even begun it.
4. Name five geniuses.
I'd rather not do that.
5. Paul Wessels, the South African writer, poet and publisher, in an email to me, commented on your remarkable ability to balance wit, calmness, and intelligence in your writing. Is this something you think consciously about? How close is your writing voice to your everyday voice?
Ok here is the least pretentious explanation: I wouldn’t call it an ability; I don’t quite have direct control over it. It’s more like a certain note I’m straining to hear and I know when I hit it. It usually requires that I rearrange the words in a sentence a few times before it hangs together in the way I want. That’s about all the insight I have into the mystery at the moment. My everyday voice is quite high and annoying and tries too hard to be nice. I make a sharp distinction between speech and writing. The reason I started writing was my complete dissatisfaction with communicating via speech and body language. I actually prefer post-it notes, though obviously in some situations there is a risk of paper cuts.
6. Could you recommend an album and film for Tearoom Books “readers”?
Probably not, in all honesty. The last movie I saw was Up and I was crying into my Ben and Jerry’s within 20 minutes. I know, I know.
7. Coke or Pepsi/Tea or Coffee? Elaborate.
I used to drink Coke, but switched to Pepsi when Coke was declared illegal. And if anything can make a cup of hot water taste worse than it already does, it’s tea. I stick to coffee. Besides which, not drinking tea is a form of social self-sabotage here, which I find myself powerless to resist.
There is no question 8! Is this some kind of mind trick…?
9. Give us a good pickup line.
Sometimes I feel sorry for people who aren’t your friend.
10. What are you doing tomorrow?
A nine hour shift.
11. Why does everyone suck?
There was a meeting; we all agreed it was more effective than blowing. At the moment everyone sucks but you.
12. Draw a self portrait.
13. What question would you like to ask yourself?
Where did you leave the keys??
~Pravasan Pillay
