Ask the Author: Tracy Bowling

Tracy Bowling, chronicler of the Yeti, talks with J. Bradley about mythical beasts, current projects and how her writing journey began.

1. What made you choose the Yeti as the semi-antagonist for “Pink”?

A fellow MFA student, Natalie Day, wrote a poem involving a Yeti building a house. That effort to humanize a tall-tale character really appealed to me, and it struck me as a helpful way of addressing the kinds of relationships we are forced into, environmentally–relationships with our family, school friends, colleagues, etc., and the impulse we get to protect, to cling, and also to escape.

Also, there is very little literature on the Yeti. I mean that from the tall-tale perspective. The Yeti doesn’t really have a complete, coherent legend. So there was freedom there to make my Yeti do what I wanted.

This is always a little embarrassing for me. There’s a real answer and a fake answer. The fake answer is that I was always interested in writing from the time I was about seven. I started a lot of stories in imitation of my favorite authors–from Ann M. Martin to Victor Hugo–when I was seven. The real answer is that it was online message boards, and multi-author RPGs. Tell a little piece of the story from your character’s perspective, then wait for a response from another writer. That’s when I started to write things in a manner I’d consider serious, when I really started to work on language and character, and getting an effect. Those message board epics sort of force you to make your audience want to respond to your tiny take on the story.

Actually, Big may well be a Wampa. The image is very close, and Empire is probably my favorite of the original trilogy. I guess I imagine that Big is not as much of a predator, not quite as bloody. I see Big as somewhat careful of his flesh-and-blood prey, though not incapable of that violence. Also, Wikipedia tells me that Wampas “have limited intelligence and long-lasting memories.” Big is perhaps unintelligent, but not limited in his ability to learn. And I imagine, sadly, that he is no more capable of remembering a relationship with a lesser species than we are of recognizing a skunk we saw last week.

The chimera. It is one of the more unstable abominations I can think of, as I think it would be difficult biologically to support all those heads. I have great respect for the Kraken. I also love a lot of very improbable, but real, beasts: the giraffe, the camel. There’s a legendary turtle in Vietnam that shouldn’t exist, but does. The going theory is he’s over 500 years old and was responsible for hiding a king’s sword in a lake.

I tend to keep returning to stuff that was popular several months or years ago. So I’m still listening to The Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible; I’m listening to Beirut’s Gulag Orkestar and The Flying Club Cup. I feel like I will always be listening to Final Fantasy’s He Poos Clouds. It in itself has sparked several story ideas to date.

I suppose I would if it came down to it. I’m not much for contemplating great acts of survivalism, though. I think I’d be more likely to obtain a couple pills to carry around with me if forced into such a situation.

I’m working on a one-act play about a girl who wants to become a mime and a novel about a mother trying to provide for a painful and ill-advised wedding. I’m considering expanding a short story into a story cycle. The story involves a man sailing to find and inherit the world’s most renowned psychic shop. I’m not totally sure why, but I feel like I want to spend more time with a guy who makes that decision.