Interview: Wendy McClure
We've loved Wendy McClure almost as long as we've loved the internerd, from her appearances on the late, great Hissyfit site, to her recaps at what we now call Television Without Pity, to her personal site, Pound, to her column in Bust. When we heard she wrote a book we thought about hitting her up for a review copy, before we decided to go out and spend our own money on it, library-abusing cheapskate rep be damned.
That's what we'll be doing tonight at 7 PM at A Clean Well-Lighted Place For Books, where Wendy will be there to support her memoir I'm Not The New Me. Y'all should come out and see her, too, because she's funny, fresh, and a little bit brutal. She's our kind of people.
We know that you were a writer long before you were a blogger, so we're presumptiously assuming you had that whole Neal Pollackesque/Oprah-book-club "I'm a writer fantasy" (well, we do) long before you had any TWOP/karaoke in Vegas "I'm a blogrebity" fantasies. Which one of the realities is better?
It's kind of a toss-up. The Popular Blogger Reality can be cushier than the Writer Reality, because you aren't working under contract or deadlines, but then--the Writer Reality includes money. To be honest, I never had very glamourous Writer Fantasies because I began my career as a poet, where most of my fantasies were like, "and then I'll get a grant and teach community college only part-time." And the Blogger Reality is that you can be hot shit on the internet but then you have no idea how to explain that fame to your dear sweet grandmother, who would like to be proud of you but suspects that this whole business about the "people inside your computer" is some sad deluded bullshit. But in the Writer Reality, you can say "I wrote a book," no matter what kind of book it is, and people will be impressed for at least thirty seconds.
We know you've been touring to support your book a lot -- what has been your favorite moment on your tour so far?
I had finished my reading at the Printers Row Book Fair in Chicago and was taking questions from the audience when a little boy who was there with his mother raised his hand. He said, "why are the stories so short?" And it's a good question, because a lot of I'm Not the New Me is written in short episodes. I told him that even though we're all taught to pay attention in class, we never really learn, and I'm just making it easier for everyone. That seemed to satisfy him.
We know some of your blog-to-book colleagues have received interest from Hollywood -- have you? Are you interested in that?
There's a little bit of talk right now about media rights, but so far, nothing big. It would be great if something happened, but my book is about fat girls and the internet and I can't imagine Hollywood being terribly interested in either of those things.
Name: Wendy McClure
Introduce yourself in one sentence: No way. I DEFY the One Sentence Rule! Hi! My! Name! Is! Wendy!
Age and Occupation: 34, Writer and Editor
Home town: Oak Park, Illinois
What are you working on next?
Compiling even more of the scary 1974 Weight Watcher recipe cards into a book. Last year I bought a complete collection on eBay and found some really horrifying ones that I hadn't seen before--chicken parts in blobs of aspic, more insane main dishes made from hot dogs. We're hoping the book will be out in spring of 2006. After that, I don't know--maybe a novel?
Favorite website:
I don't know if I have an all-time favorite website; I just go through phases of love and fandom. The one I'm telling everyone to read lately is the Comics Curmudgeon, where this guy writes commentary on syndicated newspaper comic strips, especially the weirdly quaint ones like Apartment 3-G . And it's one of the few sites where the reader comments are truly entertaining, too.
What I'm currently reading:
This email, doy! And my own words! As they form letter by letter,
click by click, filling the electronic void the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy WPO4U903WUJ N OWIUR9W3UR90J(I answered that way because I don't much like the book I'm reading and don't care to plug it.)
Favorite mode of transportation:
Right now it's my rental car here in LA. I've never rented my own car before. It's better than my own car. It has one of those keychains where you can lock and unlock the doors! I guess I like trains, too.
You know, right now I'm trying to think of other modes of
transportation and really wishing I had a Richard Scarry book to refer to. I think my VERY FAVORITE mode of transportation would be a big ferry boat with lots of smiling cats and foxes and rabbits dressed in human clothes as my fellow passengers. That would rock!
I have found/sold/bought the following on craigslist:
I sold a mattress and boxspring, which made me feel incredibly
self-conscious. I mean, it was a perfectly good mattress but my
apartment came with a bigger bed and there was no sense in keeping it, but still--it's kind of strange to sell something you've been naked on. But then again, whenever I buy a chair at a garage sale I never think about how it's been repeatedly touched with someone else's ass, so maybe I just have issues.
I want all the SFists out there to know:
That they're my favorite Ists. I like them better than nudists, even!(The worst ists are Scientologists.)
Tell us a book tour story:
Once upon a time this fat girl came to San Francisco to read from her
book and lots of people came and they all clapped and clapped and then they bought many copies of her book and everyone lived happily ever after, and by that I mean personally fulfilled to an extent that would not be humanly possible if they had simply blown off the reading. The end!
Question you'd ask if you were doing this interview:
Do you like soft service ice cream? Why or why not?