Interview with Alisa Kwitney
Q: Where do you find inspiration for your novels?
Sometimes life throws me a plot. There was a year where I kept getting calls from men who thought they were dialing an escort service. That became the genesis for On the Couch. Last spring, I started thinking about the strange circumstances surrounding the death of an ex-lover, and how I wound up cleaning out his apartment with two other ex-girlfriends of his. That became the seed of a book I’m writing now.
But other books start out as daydreams, like The Dominant Blonde, and the YA steampunk I’m brewing.
Q: Your father is a writer and your mother is a journalist. Did you ever feel any pressure to be a writer?
None whatsoever. I started writing at age six, because I was an avid reader, and what Sue the cheerleading coach on Glee calls “a scab eating mouth breather.” Books were my glee club. And comics, too.
Q: You write in a variety of different genres, do you have one in particular that is your favorite?
I don’t really think my range is all that wide – I write in a variety of subgenres, which is kind of like making a lot of different kinds of pasta, as opposed to being a master of wildly different cuisines. But some things remain constant in my writing. I like the battle between the sexes a lot, and I like humor that reveals things, and I love how desire can unsettle people in profound and fascinating ways. I believe that people reveal themselves the most when they believe they are concealed by a lie.
Q: Who is your favorite author/or favorite book?
I can’t just name one, but I do have a particular love for Thorne Smith – he wrote sophisticated supernatural screwball comedies like Topper and the Passionate Witch, which eventually turned into Bewitched.
Q: You worked as an editor for many years with DC Comics. How did being an editor impact your writing skills?
Wow, there are so many, many ways. To begin with, I learned how to work up an idea into a proposal, and how to estimate whether the idea would require 20 pages or 100 pages or 300 pages to execute properly. I learned how to write action scenes. I learned to check to see if the ideas in my head had actually made it onto the page.
I also learned a lot from the fact that I was reading and editing comics – I think it made me a more visual writer. The books I write after writing comics or graphic novels are always more visual.
Q: Which part of the writing process do you find is the most difficult for you?
Getting a book to the point where I can start writing it is the hardest. By the time I actually begin my first page, I’ve usually spent months figuring out the whole book in my head. And the first five pages always take me a while to get right. Once I have those, the rest of the book usually flows pretty easily. I rewrite as I go along, so once the book is done, I don’t usually have a lot of editing to deal with.
Q: Does She or Doesn’t She has some hilarious fantasies dreamt by heroine Delilah. How were you able to come up with those scenarios?
Those were the easiest things in the world to write! Most of them were inspired by books and movies I have loved for years, like Shanna and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. My favorite one to do was Bewitched – I’ve always been obsessed with the television series. I could have just gone on and on with the fantasies.
Q: You have been teaching a course on Graphic Novel Writing in New York City. How excited are you to be teaching this class?
It’s been a lot of fun teaching, and I’ve learned a lot in the process. Last week we talked about exposition, and the ways in which you want to leave your reader guessing, and the ways in which you don’t. Tomorrow I’ll be talking about world building.
Q: What advice do you have for aspiring writers?
Read a lot, so that you know what you like to read, and keep trying to write what you want to read. The path to the universal is through the specific. And for God’s sake, don’t start smoking while you write, because it’ll be hell to get back to work once you quit.
Q: What would be or is your favorite place to travel?
Ooh, this is like naming my favorite author or book – I can’t decide on just one place. I love walking, though, in the wilderness or through old cities. And I’m very, very fond of cheese. Any place that combines walking and cheese works for me.
