Floating on Fiction
STUART ROSS INTERVIEWS KATE SUTHERLAND
Kate Sutherland’s first book, a collection of short stories called Summer Reading, won a Saskatchewan Book Award in 1995. Her second collection will be published by Thistledown Press in 2007. Born in Scotland, Sutherland grew up in Saskatoon before moving to Toronto. With work that has appeared or is forthcoming in Kiss Machine, dig and Grain Magazine, fiction & poetry editor Stuart Ross thought it time to talk shop with Sutherland.
Is there any role for truth in fiction?
I’m more interested in the capacity of fiction to explore truth than to reveal it. Fiction is a perfect vehicle for looking at a single incident from multiple viewpoints, each of which may feel just as true as the last, even when they contradict one another. I’m fascinated by multiple, contradictory truths. What really happened is seldom a central question for me.
How does running your popular book blog (http://www.katesbookblog.blogspot.com) affect your writing?
Certainly blogging can distract from fiction writing, but mostly I find them to be complementary pursuits. Blogging about books compels me to read like a writer. I’ve become less prone to mad reading binges and more likely to take the time to puzzle out what is and isn’t working in a given book.
If one is in danger of drowning in books, what makes the best life jacket?
Books are my floatation devices; they don’t drag me down. (Unless I’m moving house and there are a lot of stairs involved…)
What writers would you most like to play mah-jong with?
It’s very cool to meet writers that I admire in the ordinary course of things. I don’t know if I’d want to be matchmade with a crowd of them over mah-jong though, not least because I don’t know how to play mah-jong. I’m content just to spend my time with their books.
