“I’m fine, how are you?” An Interview with Prose Prize Winner, Catherine Pikula

I recently got the chance to speak with author Catherine Pikula about her prose work, “I’m fine, how are you?, which won the 2018 Newfound Prose Prize and Chapbook Contest.

Intrigued by her work, I wanted to find out more about her writing and personal journey. Catherine describes herself in the following way:

Originally from Springfield, Massachusetts, I attended Catholic school and earned degrees from Bennington College and New York University. I’m a failed au pair with teaching experience. The only male psychiatrist I’ve met with asked me if I aspired to be anything more than a secretary.

If I ever pay off my student loan debt, I’d like to move closer to the forest. 

On Thursday evenings, I take Japanese classes.

Rebecca Henderson: Why did you choose to write this piece in short sections, rather than a traditional long-form story? 

Catherine Pikula: The smartphone is a kind of phantom and complex character in the background of this piece. It provides connection to the absent lover and thus comfort, but it is also a source of anxiety as well as a means of searching for answers. I wanted the form to mimic the kind of disruptions that have become more common in every day interactions.

It’s a product of the instinct, “Wait, let me Google it,” and the nervous checking of one’s phone. The piece is also very self-reflective so while the section breaks mark associative leaps allowing the speaker’s mind to wander, I hope they also welcome the reader to interject and have a dialogue with the text.

Henderson: Did you write each short section individually and focus on one particular theme, or did you write a span of them?

Pikula: This piece first materialized as a diaristic purge over the span of a few weeks. What resulted was a tangled ball of anxiety from which I tried to cull what felt like the most cohesive and also necessary threads. (CA Conrad’s (soma)tic exercises come to mind as note-taking is utilized there as a means and not an end in itself—though I wouldn’t say my goal was to create an end but another means, if that makes sense.)

Shaping the piece took place over three years. Much of what fell away was the more poetic associations and sections that felt too musically, imagistically, or referentially self-indulgent that they began to stray too far from the main themes.

Henderson: What themes in the piece most resonate with you personally?

Pikula: All of it resonates. It is all me and also not me. It is me in flux.

On a macro level, the over-arching inquiry for me is: What does it mean to understand and exist in a grey area? In some way, all of the themes return to that inquiry and the image of the Venn-diagram.

There are a lot of dichotomies at work. To name a few: How does one define self in the face of the all-consuming loved other? What is healthy and self-destructive?  Right and wrong?  What is an orgasm during rape? What makes a “woman” a “woman” before a human? (I use quotes here to express unresolved discomfort.) And in what ways does language fail or succeed to offer a way out?

Henderson: Why did you choose to represent other characters with just capital letters, rather than full names?

Pikula: I should acknowledge that this is nonfiction. While it felt important to my version of truth-telling to preserve reality, I wanted to respect their privacy. Sure, people who are close to me will be able to identify some of the people but that is very much beside the point. I’m not interested in placing blame or casting judgement.

To the extent that it is possible or not, my intention was to aim toward the objective while using the subjective as the springboard.

Henderson: This piece discusses a lot of relevant topics on today’s social sphere. Did you hope to contribute to the discussion, or what was your intent with this piece?

Pikula: This goes back to existing in grey areas. How can one write about gender and sexuality in a way that is true to their experience but also inclusive? I don’t think I have the perfect answer to that, but I think it begins with respect, putting one’s ego aside, making room for others, welcoming critiques, offering critiques, recognizing faults and failures and trying to do better. My intent is to say we can communicate better, especially about things that are difficult to talk about.

Henderson: Love and sexuality certainly seem to be concepts the speaker has trouble defining and/or interpreting. Do you feel that as a society we need to have more open discussions about these ideas?

Pikula: Absolutely. Global media and art are teeming with examples of toxic love and these examples should be constantly examined, deconstructed, and built anew.

Sexuality is largely misunderstood, I think, like most things as something fixed. That’s not to say everyone is queer—though, that would be great!—but rather, even within heterosexuality there are elements of desire in flux.

I think our societal discussions should be better understood as dialectical in that there is all this history that has come before and the differing forces and opinions at work are not occurring within a bubble but within the dynamic global environment of which our actions, beliefs and words are all a part. And what’s more is that all of these elements are connected and changing—

Henderson: Is this piece part of a larger work? If not, do you think you’ll expand it?

Pikula: The piece fits thematically with a lot of poems I began around the same time and was a part of my thesis manuscript at NYU. While I can envision reworking the poems and including this longer piece into a full-length text, I am somewhat hesitant toward the necessity of expansion at this time—partly because I want to move on to other things.

Henderson: What projects are you working on right now? What can we expect to see from you in the future?

Pikula: I’m very much in a gestation period, reading widely, playing the sponge, taking notes. It’s daunting to begin new creative projects while working a full-time office job. I’d like to take a stab at sci-fi short stories or micro fiction as well as more formal essays on some of the themes here.

Henderson: Is there anything we didn’t talk about that you would like to mention? Any final words?

Pikula: I just want to express a lot of gratitude for all of the kinds of mothers, soon to be mothers, mothers that can’t biologically be mothers, mothers of every shape, size and color everywhere—as well as for acts of mothering.

You can find out more about Catherine Pikula on her website.

 

Rebecca Henderson holds a Master’s in German and a Bachelor’s in Creative Writing. Best expressing herself through the written word, she enjoys the smell of burning rubber and can recite the ABC’s of the automotive world upon command. Rebecca hopes to shift your world perspective through her words, because looking out the same window every day hardly makes for an interesting life.