Ask The Author: Eliza Smith

We questioned Eliza Smith about “Little Beast,” published the June Issue. Ghost stories, hauntings, fear in writing, racing pulses.

1. Why are you fascinated with ghost stories?

Because everyone has one. My dad, who is one of the most level, rational people I know, has a story about a dark presence he met as a child in the closet of an antebellum home in Montgomery, AL. On the other end of the spectrum, I saw a self-proclaimed psychic acupuncturist for a while who frequently went on spirit journeys to commune with the spirits that haunted her home. Because everyone’s got one, it kind of makes you wonder: are they real or not? And in that sense, the line between the fictional and the nonfictional, between rationality and irrationality gets blurred. And that’s where the potential to write becomes the ripest.

2. Who would you possess? What would you haunt?

I’m less into demonology than I am into ghost lore, so I’m not down with possessions. But in terms of haunting, I would love to haunt places that should be haunted that aren’t. I grew up in Los Angeles, and would go to Disneyland every chance I got. Of course my favorite ride was the Haunted Mansion. Even though the illusions are marvelous and some of them still give me the chills, I wish there were actual ghosts there. So I would haunt the whole place. I would also haunt the Magic Castle, an amazing magic club in Hollywood. It’s this converted, rambling Victorian mansion-turned-magic palace, complete with theaters, bars, a restaurant, and a seance room. All the effects in that room simulate ghostly activity, but I wish there was an actual ghost in there. That’s where I would come in.

3. How do you use fear when writing?

I scare very easily. I like to feel fear in the moment of watching a scary movie or reading a scary story, or even listening to a spooky radio program, there’s something really addictive and delicious about that feeling. But afterwards I’m a total wreck. I have trouble sleeping and I psych myself out constantly. I use writing as a space to discuss and minimize my fears. If I discuss them, massage, them, they shrink and shrink until they barely exist. For example, I wrote Little Beast when I was working at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. It’s a very old building on the northwestern tip of the city that looks out onto the Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. They filmed some of Vertigo there- it’s really atmospheric, all foggy and grey and quiet. While I was working there, I learned a lot about the history of the building. I found out that hundreds of years ago, the site was a pauper-s cemetery. Poor people’s corpses would be interred there, without any headstones or markers. When they remodeled the museum a few years ago, they found tons of skeletons in the foundation. I always felt a bit strange walking in those hallways, and I felt compelled to get that fear out, get it on the page, talk about the history and the lore, and make a manageable story out of it. And after I was done with Little Beast, I felt more confident walking those hallways alone.

4. What would be the soundtrack for “Little Beast?”

While I was writing this story I was listening to a lot of Anni Rossi. She’s a violinist, so she’s got a bit more texture than your average singer/songwriter. She writes a lot about barren landscapes and lifecycles and sometimes, digging up bones. Plus, she’s got this fabulously rambunctious voice and she screeches and chirps and screams along to her strings. Mix that with some Alarm Will Sound doing Aphex Twin and you’ve got the Little Beast OST.

5. What have you dug up? What did you do with it?

I grew up in old house in Santa Monica. The former owner was the pastor of an all-black church in Santa Monica (which, by and large, is a very white city). When we bought the house, we explored the basement and found all the pastor’s old pictures. We had this amazing plate from the 50s that had a black-and-white photograph of the original congregation. We hung it in our kitchen. We also had a portrait of the pastor’s wife from the 30s or 40s that I’ve always had in my bedroom. My house is so important to me- both my sister and I were born there- and having those pictures and paintings reminds me of its history, its existence beyond my own lifetime. It’s nice, being connected to that sort of legacy.

6. What do you wish your pulse sounded like?

The bass line of Talking Heads’ Slippery People, but the live, Stop Making Sense version, not the album version. Something a little funky, a little sassy, a little David Byrne-y.