Interview with Georgia Bellas

Georgia is a baller. In addition to writing the poem “you taste like smoke and scotch” and contributing the artwork for Issue 3, she also did a ton to get the word out about Bop Dead City. So yay for her, and yay for us. Keep the submissions coming, people, so you can be cool like Georgia. I’m told that her cover art “I Scream” is actually a self-portrait, but she sent this picture along as well:

 

Describe your work in 25 words or less.

My work explores the liminal world: where what is obvious is mysterious, where things are both whimsical and creepy, and where fantasy meets reality. 

Tell me about your poem “you taste like smoke and scotch.”

It’s about how we can know people in all these specific, personal, concrete ways, possess intimate details, and yet not really know each other at all.

 

Who or what inspires you to write?

Unrequited love. Loss. Memories. My childhood self. Specific people sometimes. 

 

What authors have influenced you as a writer?

I don’t know if they have directly influenced me but some authors I love: Roald Dahl, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Ray Bradbury, Flannery O’Connor, Frank O’Connor, Eudora Welty, Madeleine L’Engle, William Trevor. My apologies to all the other amazing writers I left off the list whose names will come to me in the middle of the night crying, “Why didn’t you include me?”

 

Which passion came first—writing or photography?

Writing — in third grade I had a teacher who made us write stories every night for homework and I decided I wanted to be a writer when I grew up, ha! But then I took photography in college and loved it and moved on from there to mixed media and other art, and that passion sort of took over, at least in a public sense of what I shared and put out in the world. I used to exhibit pretty regularly whereas I kept my poetry very private. I’ve only recently started not just writing more but actually trying to get it out in the world via places like Bop Dead City 🙂 But I’ve always loved reading, language, words, dictionaries and a lot of my artwork involves text, so the passions are intertwined I’d say. I love the visual and the verbal, especially when they are together in a tactile object: As a child I loved to write and draw and make books out of my stories, and as an adult I’ve taken book-making and letterpress classes. I’m passionate about both words and images.

 

You live in the Boston area. What was it like being there for the whole Boston Marathon bombing thing?

It was terribly sad and scary. But one of the worst things about it was the media coverage and focus on ethnicity and religion, and the anti-Muslim and racist reactions that still occur. One of the good things to come out of it though is the renewed sense of community and the reminder of the goodness of people, and people’s willingness to help others. I feel for all the victims and injured and suffering — not just in the marathon attack but around the world. My wish is for people to be filled with compassion and forgiveness and hope instead of revenge and hatred and violence. I’d like to think that good still trumps evil.

 

Do you have a blog/website?

Not really. I have a website, georgiabellas.com, but it’s embarrassingly undeveloped.

 

What are you reading at the moment?

Love: An Index by Rebecca Lindenberg and Chris Mattingly’s Scuffletown, which are both really beautiful books of poems Just started Kirstin Scott’s novel Motherlunge, which was recommended (and given) to me. Lots of literary magazines and blogs, print and online, including, in no particular order, Gigantic Sequins, Whiskey Paper, Treehouse (which I especially love because it sends me new places to read awesome stuff), The Cupboard’s tweets, The Lumberyard, Paper Darts… I have serious crushes onThe Cupboard and Typecast Publishing.

 

What are you working on right now?

Sending out more poems and artwork and dealing with rejection. Learning how to use Twitter. Planning a sequel to Mr. Bear Gets Drunk. Blowing the lid off the Internet world through The Secret Lives of Stuffed Animals.

 

Any advice for other writers?

I feel completely unqualified to give anyone advice but I’ll say just keep writing and don’t let the bastards get you down.

 

Anything else you’d like to say?

You should be a guest on The Secret Lives of Stuffed Animals. By you, I mean Bop Dead City but also anyone else reading this who wants to be interviewed by a stuffed bear and midget marsupial tiger with the pocket in the back.