Ask The Author: Gwen Mullins

Gwen Mullins’s great work of fiction, “Domestic Violence”, was published in the January Issue.

1. What do you need to sleep?

Two full glasses of wine (but no more than that), a list of things I have to do so that I don’t replay them in my head and try to remember in the dark, a quiet heart. I often do not have those things, so I don’t always sleep well. On most days I make do if I have my own foam pillow and comfortable sleeping panties.

2. What faulty birth control method would you name your rock band after?

Rhythm Method seems too obvious, and I’d consider Aspirin Between the Knees, but I’d most likely go with Prayer or perhaps even Abstinence since I’m a sucker for mild sacrilege.

3. Where did “Domestic Violence” come from?

I was stuck on a scene in a completely unrelated story and working toward a deadline to get some pages finished, so of course instead of re-working the scene for that almost completed story, I wrote a whole new disturbing little story because that first image of “Domestic Violence” wouldn’t get out of my head. In revision, I removed the word “cock” because I’d overused it, dissolved some of the less sexy backstory, and started trying to introduce the moral ambiguity inherent in both characters but especially in the protagonist.

4. What would you stab someone with?

Thank you for not asking what I have already stabbed someone with.

I think I would stick to kitchen utensils – a meat thermometer to the ear or eye would likely be very effective, but it would also work if inserted in a less yielding place like a leg or shoulder. If I were cutting rather than stabbing, I’d use an ulu knife (Inuit “woman’s knife”) because it has a nice blade and good fist grip. Getting a good grip is important – that’s the advantage of the meat thermometer as well.

5. How would you escape?

Access my cash in reasonably small bills (all of it, which isn’t very much), put my clothes in a backpack, gather my license and passport, then take public transportation to the edge of a place (Niagara Falls, Cuba, Key West) where I’d get a job waitressing under an assumed name. I think I’m answering how I would disappear rather than escape, but maybe I think disappearing and escaping are the same.

6. Why does everyone run away to Florida?

For the spray-painted T-shirts with unicorns and rainbowed hearts and elaborate cursive lettering. And also perhaps for the anonymity – since there is no particular look or accent associated with Florida; everyone and no one looks like they belong there.