DIANE SCHOEMPERLEN was born in Thunder Bay, Ontario, in 1954 and lived for 10 years in Canmore, Alberta, before moving to Kingston, Ont., in 1986. She is the author of four collections of short fiction: Double Exposures (Coach House, 1984); Frogs and Other Stories (Quarry, 1986); Hockey Night in Canada (Quarry, 1987); and The Man of My Dreams (Macmillan, 1990). The latter was nominated for a Governor General`s Award as well as the Trillium Award. Larry Scanlan spoke with her in Kingston. In Diane Schoemperlen`s fiction, it`s taking pleasure in small things that can really help BiC: Someone once compared your fiction to the music of k.d. lang, and cited "the spiritedness, irreverence and unpredictability" that both of you display in your work. If that musical metaphor ever applied, does it still? Diane Schoemperlen: 1 like to think so. 1 liked that comparison; 1 always have. I`m sure you noticed my publisher put the quote citing the comparison on the back cover of The Matt of My Dreams. 1 think the sorts of things that both k.d. lang and 1 are doing are different; they really don`t fit into any one particular category. And what you said about the irreverence is appropriate, although she`s more brazen, and I`m more a private person. 1 don`t know how k.d. lang would feel about the comparison. I`ve often thought 1 should send her the book. 1 like her music very much and 1 went to see her quite a while ago. 1 had hoped to get my nerve up and talk to her but never did. BiC: Some critics are not much taken with the way you play with form in your stories: all those numbered lists, recipes, parentheses. One critic dismissed them as "literary gimmicks." Help me understand your aim in all of this. Schoemperlen: I`m not sure I do it for a particular reason. I`m sure that`s a dissappointing answer. I`m more conscious of doing it now simply because of having had reviews, and people paying attention to that and saying things like "She`s challenging the short-story form." That`s probably true. But I can`t say I`ve ever sat down and said "What can I do to challenge the short-story form this time?" Its partly because I like playing around with the story. A lot of my stories are in short sections because that`s the way my mind works. The form is meant to emphasize the content, not just be a gimmick BiC: My sense is that you, or your characters, or both, are dividing life into manageable parts as a survival strategy. Schoemperlen: I think- thats true. The list-making thing is a way of trying to create some sense of order within the general chaos of life. That`s something that comes from me. I make lists a,,, a way of trying to get thing,, done and it) feel I`m in control --- even though I`m nor. It`s a way of getting along. As you say, of surviving. BiC: In your fiction you bear witness to our time I could put your work in a time capsule to help future beings understand the way we were. You specifically mention the names of TV shows, commercial products, franchise restaurants, malls. Is this cluttered background or is there some larger purpose at work here? Schoemperlen: There is a purpose. A lot of the humour in the stories comes from pointing out those specific things that as we go along day to day are simply there, but if you really stop to think about them are ridiculous. Totally ridiculous. "The Price is Right," for example, in the story "How Myrna Survives": all these probably perfectly normal people going into frenzies over major appliances. I love it. I really do. I hope that the humour is not sarcastic. I hope nobody feels I`m pointing my finger at the people on "The Price Is Right." Or the people who go to malls, and that I`m saying "Aren`t they stupid!" That`s not what I mean at all. This is how we live. In terms of survival strategies, a sense of humour is right up there with making lists. It saves us more often than not. Humour makes you laugh, because what else can you do? BiC: Do you have a fixation on detail? Schoemperlen: Yes, 1 do. It`s because most people don`t pay attention, or enough attention. We get into our own little corners and most of what is going on around us is just a blur. And when you really take the time to stop and pay attention, it`s illuminating in some ways. It`s also somewhat depressing. BiC: Some critics have commented on the relentless pessimism in your work. Myrna in "How Myrna Survives" says that life only gets harder as you get older. What do you say to those people who read your books and say "My God, it`s so depressing. " Schoemperlen: 1 use humour a lot because deep down it is bleak. But 1 don`t think anyone wants to be hit with total bleakness. It is too depressing. BiC: What is too depressing? Schoemperlen: Life. It`s too hard. As a friend says, "My life is not working" A lot of people in our society have that feeling. Part of it is that we are taught as kids to believe that we will be happy some day, whatever that word means. That happiness is out there somewhere if we can only figure out how to get to it. A lot of people never get to it. Or they get to it and are not satisfied. That`s why some of my fiction comes out bleak. I`m not sure that happiness is as obtainable as we have all been led to believe. I don`t say this just for women. I say it for everybody. Many people waste their lives, looking forward to that time when they will be happy, and that`s part of the reason they don`t notice what`s going on around them. It`s like when you drive the same stretch of road every day: you don`t see it any more, you don`t see the scenery. It all circles back to why I focus so much on details. Maybe if we paid a little more attention as we went along we might be more satisfied. It`s a mistake to be always looking forward, much as looking forward is exciting and hopeful. If it means that the present is a blur because you`re always projecting to the future, then you`re not getting the point ... Annie Dillard in The Writing Life says something about "the way you spend your days is how you`re living your life" It sounds very simple. But most people don`t realize that. They`re just passing the time trying to get somewhere else. Finding a way to take pleasure in the small things can really help. Lifes not so bleak, and it`s certainly not pointless. BiC: Certain writers may be said to have a constituency. A particular group or class of people tend to recur in their fiction. I`m wondering if you have a constituency. Schoemperlen: 1 suppose 1 do. Most of the characters I`m interested in are ordinary working-class people. Not many have high-paying jobs. Not a lot even have a good education. BiC: In his diaries, John Cheever says something like, "Writers pay a personal price for the privilege of writing fiction." Do you believe that? Schoemperlen: That`s a big question. He certainly paid some pretty high prices in his life. There`s an element of truth in what he says. Writing is hard work and it makes you crazy. It makes you see the world in a different way horn most "normal" people. So that no matter what is going on around you, there`s also part of your brain with a notepad or a tape recorder saying, "Wow, would this ever make a great short story!" Even when you`re in the midst of some terrible personal crisis. After a while it gets to be not only tiresome, but it makes you crazy. There is this constant chattering in your mind and you just want to shut it off. Sometimes wanting to live and wanting to write get in each other`s way. BiC: What provokes stories in Diane Schoemperlen? Schoemperlen: Oftentimes it`s one small thing, like something someone has said, or occasionally I get characters saying something. This voice in my head. It`s one of the mysterious parts of writing: hard to say where the ideas originate. BiC: I have a mini-series of questions taken directly from phrases in your stories and Id like to put them to you - is truth stranger than fiction? Schoemperlen. Oh, yeah. Look at "The Price Is Right.` BiC: Is there nothing to fear but fear itself? Schoemperlen: No. Fear can magnify itself but the bottom line is there are a lot of things to be afraid of. My characters are afraid of things happening that they can`t control. Sudden death. Terrible injuries. It`s a fear of randomness more than anything. In the novel I`m working on, one of the characters thinks about this and she comes to the conclusion that the reason why random death and these other things are so scary is because we are brought up to believe if we do all the right things at all the right times, then everything will be fine. And that`s not true. It`s the realization that no matter what you do and how careful you are about everything in your life, there`s that element of chance. We are naive, but in order to keep from being totally paralysed by fear, we have to be naive. And that again circles back to making lists and all these survival strategies. BiC: In a love relationship, does someone have to love more and someone love less? Schoemperlen: Yes, I think so. BiC: You use the Alex Colville painting, Horse and Train, to make a point about just such a love relationship. The two seem bent on a collision; would you rather be the horse or the train? Schoemperlen: I`d rather be the horse. Because the horse has the freedom of choice, even though the horse in that picture is not taking the choice. You see, the train - as 1 interpret it is the one who loves more. The train is the obsessed person because that train is stuck on that track. The horse, who may be wild and going headlong into destruction, still has the freedom to get away. BiC: Male characters don`t fare well in your fiction or that of half a dozen other Canadian women writers I could name. Is this a coincidence? Schoemperien: No, 1 don`t think so. I`m not a man-hater. If I really hated men 1 wouldn`t write about them so much. Some men have taken offence at this aspect of my stories. My response to that is, `Well, think about it!` I`m not trying to slam men, but the characters 1 write about are realistic men. I don`t think the female characters are all that perfect either. Maybe female writers are being more direct about what it is they would like to say about some men. Maybe women writers feel they can now do that. Maybe male characters were always like this, but that`s not the way they were portrayed. BiC: You`ve been nominated for a National Magazine Award, the Governor General`s Award, and the Trillium. So far, close but no real cigar, aside from a silver at the magazine awards. That must be frustrating. Schoemperlen: Sure it is. It`s wonderful to be nominated and to be on those short lists, but it would be nice to win. I`m learning a certain detachment. 1 really felt it was The Man of My Dreams being nominated for the Governor General`s Award and not me so much. So when I didn`t win, 1 didn`t feel particularly depressed or devastated. It doesn`t mean I`m not a good writer. It just means that book didn`t win. BiC: You once told an interviewer that despite writing four books and being nominated for a handful of literary prizes, you feel like an impostor. Is that still true? Schoemperlen: Yeah, it is. That`s part of my own personality. 1 certainly don`t walk around thinking - great Canadian writer. 1 feel very proud of the things 1 have written but to have written four books is no guarantee of anything. just because you`ve written one story doesn`t make the next one go any easier. It`s not a cumulative process, especially with short stories because each story is different. But as far as feeling like an impostor ... I`m not pretentious. I`ve known some writers who seem absolutely sure of their own importance and I`m not. I`m not sure that this really counts for a whole lot in the big world picture. Sometimes 1 think, `What does this really amount to?" Maybe 1 should be doing something with my life that is more directly helpful to other people. But mostly I do feel good about what 1 do, but it doesn`t make me somebody important necessarily. A lot of other things take up my time, like motherhood. just stuff. BiC: Tell me about the project that occupies you now. Schoemperlen: It`s a novel written in 100 short sections, which is my way of tricking myself into writing a novel, something long. 1 am not going to tell you very much about it because I`m superstitious. 1 actually have a title for it. I`ve called it In the Language of Love. It`s very much in keeping with my other work. It`s about relationships. BiC: The women in your stories seem torn between the domestic duties that burden them and the self-realization they dream about. Is this positive tension leading to a feminist ideal? Is it destructive? Or both? Schoemperlen: 1 think it`s positive tension depending on how the character handles it. The sort of struggle to balance things is a major part of self-realization, but it doesn`t necessarily lead to a feminist ideal. It leads to a humanist ideal. We are all torn in more than one direction, and in an effort to integrate all of those different directions there is some hope of becoming a selfrealized person. 1 do think it`s positive, but in certain characters and in real life it becomes negative because it`s too hard, so people self-destruct rather than self-realize. BiC: Is that tension at the heart of your work? Schoemperlen: I think so. I also think it comes out in the stories, for example, the one called "What We Want" That story is about advertising and the things we are told were supposed to want. What I tried to juxtapose is what we want and what we have. For lots of people the difference there is really just an unbridgeable gap. They are the people who fall between the cracks. Because they car* see that what they are told to want is no good anyway, and secondly, they just can`t find a way to live that makes them feel good about themselves. All the characters in that story are sad. If you don`t have all those things and you don`t want them, then it doesn`t matter. But it`s not "Life is hard and then you die" It`s "Life is hard but it sure is interesting." As I told a friend the other day, "I`d just like one day that isn`t challenging in some way." It never happens.