“Why is it so fucking true that the minute you make a playlist for an idea, it becomes a book? I was in denial for a long time that I was writing a novel, the novel that would become Housemates, but then I added a song and then a second and then a third to a playlist that I was calling at the time just “Bernie and Leah,” the names of my main characters, and the novel was, irrefutably, real.”
“Here are some of the songs that helped me slip out of my obtuse consciousness while I worked on Mood Swings.”
“As I listened to old murder ballads and stories of love lost, I discovered features like irony, understatement, and rising action.”
“Other than in all the ways, I can’t really say I’ve changed that much from when I was thirteen. I still collect comics and lurid old paperbacks, I still watch anime, I still write weird-ass novels, and I still make soundtrack playlists for those novels.”
“Although the band is not directly mentioned in Shae, I had to put a little Black Sabbath in here both because they are quite possibly the best band that has ever existed and because bands like Neurosis, Wolves, Tool, Amenra, Drudkh, Isis, etc. would not exist without the influence of Black Sabbath.”
“The sound of snow falling on snow. The sound of a pencil moving across paper. The sound of walking. Of a child talking to herself under her breath. Of water – as it bubbles up from a spring or laps against rocks. These more than anything else make up the would-be soundtrack of To & Fro.”
“…in my novel, characters do not know why they’re doing what they’re doing, not really, and the mystery of their own unexamined motivations propels them forward.”
“My taste in music changed drastically as I changed my lifestyle. My music habits once reflected a woman who partied a lot and smoked a lot of weed and now reflect a woman in a serious relationship who stays home most nights.”
“I listened to music more or less continuously as I lived through these events, while simultaneously writing about them in real time. I think that the music gave me a kind of psychic protection, in order to write from such a direct and potentially vulnerable position.”
“Fun fact: Sufjan and I went to grad school together, and I’ve always found his music to be A++++ to write to.”