What Are You Working On?
Writers on their works in progress

Stephen Elliott

author

Stephen Elliott (website) is the author of four novels including Happy Baby, as well as a book of stories, and Looking Forward To It, a campaign memoir of the 2004 presidential election. He is also the editor of two anthologies of political fiction and the curator of the Progressive Reading Series in San Francisco, which raises money for progressive politcal candidates.

 
I just turned in a book of short S&M erotica, mostly stuff published in Nerve and other places. To me the book -- called My Girlfriend Comes To The City And Beats Me Up (to be published by Cleis Press) -- is very political. I think it's important that we be open about our sexuality in order to decriminalize it. I think sex is tremendously important, whatever your preferences. It drives people. S&M, despite how we have fetishized it in dance clubs and in fashion and film, is still considered very "other."

Now I've started a memoir, kind of -- a memoir which is not really a memoir. I've started interviewing people I grew up with, comparing their memories with my own, seeing where they are now. These are kids who were homeless, like I was. We all had bad situations. It's fascinating so far.

 
How did you decide to work this way? Was your intention to write something autobiographical?

The point of the oral history is several-fold. One is to understand where I came from, because I don't have that good of a memory. The second is to understand the different way people process the same experiences. It's much more about the exploration than the biography.

 
What are you trying to do that you haven't done before? What has been challenging?

Research is new. Most non-fiction I've done has been immersion. Now I'm getting into research and interviews. Still, there's no truth. There's no such thing.

 
What do you mean by that?

What I mean by no truth is that people have such entirely different memories of the same events that reality becomes impossible. Reality is interpretation. I mean, yes, there are certain truths. For example, I went to four high schools. My father has disputed that in a letter to an editor, stating that I went to only two high schools. I can prove that I went to four high schools. But when I say he shaved my head and he says he gave me a haircut, it's not so cut and dry.

 
When do you expect (or hope) to finish, and what prospects do you have for the book?

I don't like to contract a book until I'm well into it. I don't want to contract for something and then change my mind. The problem of course is that you start something, spend money and time on it, and then realize it's not what you thought it was. That happens to me a lot. I'm having a hard time making ends meet. I'm going to have to get a job. I was thinking of applying at Mr. S Leather.

Links

Chicago Tribune, 18 March 2005: profile ("A disturbing past left Steve Elliott intriguingly damaged")

Just Always Be Good, a non-fiction piece on sex in the current issue of Tin House

Links to excerpts and reviews of Happy Baby on the McSweeney's website

SF Weekly, 8 August 2001: The Making Of Stephen Elliott

See more What Are You Working On? interviews.

published 1 Feb 06 on Too Beautiful. email copyright 2006 Mark Pritchard, Bernal Heights, San Francisco