I interview one of my favorite authors — my mom.
Ki Longfellow is an American novelist. Her first published novels China Blues (1989 Doubleday) and Chasing Women (1993 Harper Collins) can be described as historical mystery thrillers. They both deal with strong women in a man’s world. She is best known, however, for The Secret Magdalene (2005) which explores the divine feminine through the lens of a gnostic version of the Christ story. She has gone on to write more novels of the divine feminine as well as a mystery noir series Sam Russo, a ghost story Houdini Heart (2011), Walks Away Woman (2013) as well as an illustrated memoir of her late husband The Illustrated Vivian Stanshall (2018) with art by Ben Wickey. Most of her works have been optioned for film. Ki is one of those writers that is hard to categorize. Her flexible mind is curious about so much that she cannot, will not, stick with just one genre or writing style. This last attribute is perhaps one of her greatest assets as well as her biggest stumbling block. Publishers and readers like to know what to expect from a writer. With Ki you ‘expect the unexpected’. One common thread in her work, however, is the power of the feminine and strong female characters.
Ki Longfellow is also my mother. I decided to ask her a few questions about writing and being a writer. I found her answers illuminating as she dances from belief in herself to self-doubt.
1. When did you first start writing, and did you know you were going to be a writer?
I knew I was an artist from the moment I first knew anything about myself. That means beginning about the age of 8. Before that I have so few memories I might as well not have existed. But after 8 I was the class artist. Wonderful. It got me out of so many math lessons. I thought I would become a painter. The idea I could or would write came later. But sitting down to write anything at all came so much later than the idea, I despaired of ever producing a thing. For ages, I told people I was a writer when I hadn’t so much as penned a poem because I believed then and I believe now if you pretend to be a thing, other people believe you, and their belief supports yours until it all comes true.
2. What were you most interested in writing when you first started?
I have no idea. Novels I suppose. I read everything from philosophy to all the classics. To imagine a world into being, one that absorbed others as my favorite writers absorbed me, was a wonderful pretense. I wanted that. I wanted to create something that would live apart from me, longer than me, open a door into a world that took people away into a dream so vivid they would be like I was as I wandered through OZ. I never believed I would achieve something so sublime but oh, I so wanted to.
3. Name your top three must read books for any writer?
Oh lord. This is impossible. Every writer finds that well by themselves. Which ocean would you swim in? Which fantasy — all books, even nonfiction, are fantastical — calls to you? I can only answer this one for myself and three is not enough. For me, I think of Vladimir Nabokov, of Flann O’Brien, of L. Frank Baum, of Zola and not Flaubert, of Dostoevsky, of Kafka, of Talbot Mundy, of…good gravy, must stop. I have work to do. (Ki means this literally — she works at her craft for 8 hours a day at least)
4. I know you chose not to go college — so how did you learn to write?
I believed long ago and that belief remains that taking a class in writing only serves to fill your mind with the thoughts, ideas, and beliefs of other minds. When you begin to write from the heart, all you’ve been taught must be erased. So why bother letting others write on your mind only to spend ages removing what they’ve scribbled? The answer is simple. You learn to write by sitting down and bloody writing. Throw yourself in and swim. In the beginning, of course, you’ll splutter and wheeze, even drown. But if you really try, and keep trying, something magical happens. It gets easier, smoother. Like a dancer, less and less conscious thought is involved. Worlds flow out from under your hand fully formed. Even you wonder where they came from. No need to wonder. They come from you, the writer, and are no longer blocked by the tedious process of thought.
5. I think my favorite book you have written is Houdini Heart, or maybe it’s the Secret Magdalene, but which one is your favorite, and why?
I have no favorite. Odd, really. I have reached that place where what I write is as natural as sight, as movement, but I have not reached that place that tells me I am any good at what I do. Nothing I’ve written will live on, nothing will take a reader into another world, a world that fully absorbs them. This is a sad belief, but I hold it. I think most artists believe it as deeply as I do. I would like to think that I might be wrong. But I don’t. I do wonder who does believe what they do is wondrous, magical, bound to survive through time. Does anyone recognize their gift? Does anyone flatter themselves into such a pretense? I think of Dali. He acted out the part of a genius. He seemed arrogant in his belief. But did he, in his heart of hearts, truly believe it? Picasso seems to have believed himself a genius but found it so easy to do what he did, he did not value it. I’ve known a handful of artists thought to be geniuses. Each one suffered a shamed sense of being over-rated, of doubting their reputation. Doubt is a gift. It keeps an artist trying to make that one thing, only that one thing, that transcends the simple human we each of us are.
6. What is the hardest thing about being a writer for you?
Believing in myself.
7. If you hadn’t chosen to be a writer, what would you have done instead?
A painter. I still intend to be a painter. A dancer, but only if I could dance for Bob Fosse.
Afterword: Houdini Heart is my favorite because it is a ghost story of a love story gone bad. Ki used a lot of autobiographical detail that made the story so believable it gripped me from beginning to end. As her daughter it was a harrowing experience because it was so personal. This is a wonderful example of a writer being fearless. If you hold back because you are afraid of exposing too much, you lose opportunities to create something rich and truthful.
What questions would you ask a writer?
