INTERVIEW WITH JD Glass

April Newsletter 2006

By Connie Ward, BSB Publicist/Author Liaison

What made you decide to become a fiction writer?

I started writing as a child; my first story was a kindergarten writing assignment called “A Mouse in the House.” It was a combination of truth and fiction, and my mother was not pleased that I shared it with the class!

After I’d read everything I could get my hands on, I started writing my own stories and reading them to my trapped audience, my younger brother and sister; I think I did no lasting harm.

I ended up joining the Society for Creative Anachronism as a teenager and became the Household bard, which required the creation of epic ballads, usually based on historical romances, to be performed at Household events. This, of course, was in addition to the typical angst-ridden poetry that seems to be required at a certain age.

After, way after, I started writing a comic book, and when I refused to “give it up” to DC and to “straighten out” my characters a friend of mine at what was then Del Rey suggested I turn it into a novel. What a mess! A novel? Me? I read novels, I didn’t write them!

I didn’t think I could do it at all, though, didn’t think anyone would be interested in anything I had to say until I read Susan Smith’s Of Drag Kings and the Wheel of Fate. She absolutely inspired me to just go for it.

What type of stories do you write and why?

I like to think that I write somewhat funny, somewhat bittersweet and sexy stories about “everywoman” in some way—the things everyone has to go through to become whatever the next phase is.

What does/do your family/friends think about your writing?

My friends are great; they’re mostly pleased and shocked. I think my family is mostly shocked, except for my partner. She’s my biggest supporter, for which I’m highly grateful.

Where do you get your ideas?

Nowhere, everywhere. Sometimes they come out of what I’m working on; sometimes something will just hit me in that right way. It’s a lot like writing music, actually. 

How do you write? Do you plan everything out or just write?

I start with a concept and mostly I follow it, but there are occasions where the characters dictate the course of events. One of the characters in Punk Like Me was actually part of something completely different, but at a critical point in the story she walked on stage and told me this was where she belonged; she demanded a place. I fought it at first, but…she was right, and it made the rest of the story happen in exactly the right way.

I find I have to actually become the characters—get into their heads, see things through their eyes. I even occasionally get up and “block out” a scene—walk and move through it—to make sure it works. 

What makes Punk Like Me special to you?

There are a couple of things, actually. To start, it is the first thing I’ve written (outside of music or articles or text) that doesn’t have any telepathy, vampires, swords, Celtic/Druidic anything, magic, etc.

Next, I never really expected to write a novel. This started out as something I did commuting to and from work, an exercise, almost, in something removed from the fantasy world and anchored in the one I know.

Finally, it is special to me because I think it tells a story we don’t really get to read a lot of within the context of the “lesbian world.” We have romances, which are cool, and we have all kinds of genre stories, also very cool, but we don’t really have a lot of those “everyday” sorts of stories that aren’t everyday to us—our coping and grappling with the issues of coming of age and coming out: the joy, the fear, and even the excitement of it all. 

How much of yourself and the people you know are in your characters?

Eesh! Ask an easy one, why don’t you? Everything. I put everything I have into all of them. I feel it through their skin, because I want the reader to feel it in theirs. Having said that, some characters are total fiction, some are inspired by memory (current or otherwise), but they’re all amalgamations of some sort. I only know that because I recently ran into somebody I hadn’t seen in years and realized I’d based a character partially on them. What a shock to me!

Which lesbian authors inspired you most?

We’re back to Susan Smith again (I can see her blush from here) for inspiration. My favorite lesbian author is Louisa May Alcott, actually. And can we count Marion Zimmer Bradley? She was politically a lesbian and, at the very least, a feminist.

Do you have any suggestions for new writers?

Absolutely and it’s this: write. Find ten minutes a day, every day, and just make yourself do it. Even if all you start out with is “this is stupid, this is a waste of time,” you’ll find that it just may be the starting point to something larger. And the ten minutes will become fifteen, then twenty, then your partner will start begging you to come to bed soon.

When you’re not writing, what do you do for fun?

I’m a voracious reader, and in addition to various fictional genres, I like to keep up with whatever is new in science: bio-medical and physics (I have what some would call an unnatural thing for quantum and astrophysics). I like to work on my theories and see how they stack up against whatever new gets published.

I work on music (which is actually my huge passion/obsession)—writing, performing, recording— with my partner, who is my absolute favorite person in the entire multiplicity of quantum probabilities to spend time with, so we also do photography together, and we’re cycling enthusiasts.

I generate a tremendous amount of manual and digital artwork, some paid, some just for pure personal joy. Projects—give me projects, or I’ll make them up for myself!