Amal El-Mohtar is joint Queen of Goblin Fruit. She’s a poet, writer, and PhD student in Cornwall (a small envious voice in my head screams “Tintagel” every time I think of that, accurately or not). Her short fiction and poetry have been published in places are varied as Shimmer, Cabinet des Fées, Strange Horizons, Sybil’s Garage and Ideomancer. She won the 2009 Rhysling Award with “Song for an Ancient City”, and she’s in her first year of eligibility for the John W Campbell Award. He collection, The Honey Month, is available from Papavaria Press. And she is also the woman responsible for this line:
“See how swift and clever are their feet, how their lips are sewn with tiny golden bells, how their very breath chimes and shines, the better to spell out the hours of the day in brilliance worthy of the Sun!” (“And Their Lips Rang with the Sun”)
1. You’re being held at gunpoint and forced to choose: poetry or prose?
I’d furiously declaim such a combination of Shakespeare’s plays, Keats’ letters, and Catherynne Valente’s everything that the gun-holder would be forced to stagger back beneath the weight of my refusal to acknowledge hard differences. Then I’d knee him in the nads.
2. Do you ever hate being a writer?
No – but I frequently hate being a lazy writer, or a procrastinating writer, or an inadequate writer.
3. You get to be any fictional character you want for a day, with no consequences – who do you choose and where do you go?
The Doctor – and I’d go everywhen and where, leaving silly messages in the past that show up as doorstops or graffiti in my friends’ haunts, en lieu of postcards.
4. You first decided to be a writer when …
… I was seven. I wrote a poem to the moon that rhymed “light” with “plight” and haven’t looked back since.
5. Donuts or danishes?
Donuts if they have a jelly filling; otherwise, danishes, unless the only filling available is lemon. Basically, give unto me the red and purple jams.
She blogeth here.