Elizabeth Gonzalez James

Elizabeth Gonzalez James's stories and essays have appeared in The Idaho Review, The Rumpus, PANK, and elsewhere and have received numerous Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations. Her debut novel, MONA AT SEA, was a finalist in the 2019 SFWP Literary Awards judged by Carmen Maria Machado, and is forthcoming June 2021.

Twitter: @unefemmejames

Instagram: @unefemmejames

Is there a work of art that you love. Why? Have you ever visited it in person?

I was an art history major in college, and I fell head over heels in love with The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hironymous Bosch. I love everything he ever painted actually, but that painting in particular was so fascinating, not least of all because my professor, Dr. Laurinda Dixon, had an interpretation of the painting that ran contrary to centuries of conjecture: she believed the painting was a big coded message about alchemy, and Bosch's own dalliances in trying to create the fifth element. I was so taken with Bosch's work, and with this theory, that I fully stopped paying attention in class, and would just sit there thinking about how badly I wanted to write a screenplay based on the painting and alchemy. I never did write the screenplay, but I did realize that I really wanted to write, and years later I finally did.

I saw The Garden of Earthly Delights at the Prado museum in Madrid in 2018 and it was as glorious as I'd always imagined. It made me want to resurrect that old screenplay idea again!

Is there another profession you would like to try?

I would really love to be the mayor of my hometown, Corpus Christi, TX. I don't particularly think I have a good disposition for politics, but I love my hometown intensely, and I get very frustrated by all the mismanagement I see happening at the city level. I don't live there anymore, but my parents and brother still live there and, pre-pandemic, I was there quite a lot. And I think it's precisely because I've lived away so long, and traveled so much around the country, that I've had a chance to see how different cities are run, what works, what doesn't. I'd love to bring some new ideas and some new energy into the city. But alas, I think this one will remain just a fantasy.

If you could create a museum exhibition, what would be the theme?

So remember when I said I was an art history major? I actually got to put together a photography exhibit in one of my classes and it was so, so much fun. I also got to help out with a Louise Nevelson exhibit at an internship, and she got me really jazzed about different things that can be done with found objects and collage. I would love to put together an exhibit of contemporary collage artists, with an emphasis on garbage, upcycling, and repurposed objects. I hate how much we throw away, and I'd love to put together an exhibit showing all the ways garbage could be made beautiful.

Is there a genre of music that influences your writing/thinking? Do you listen to music while you write?

I listen to music constantly, and when I don't have music on I always have something playing in my head. When I write I can't listen to anything with words, and so I listen to a lot of classical music. My favorites are Debussy, Rachmaninoff, and Satie. YouTube has these great 2-hour playlists of each that I play in the background, and I think they absolutely do influence me while I'm working. If the music is sad and I happen to be writing a sad scene, the music can help me find little nuances in the scene I might have missed, little gestures or undercurrents. I even have a scene in my novel, Mona at Sea, where she goes to an event and there's a piano playing something grand and sweeping, and I was absolutely describing the Rachmaninoff piece I was listening to at that moment.

Are there particular films that have influenced your writing?

I love the zany, colorful universe Baz Luhrman creates in his films, especially Moulin Rouge. I don't know if I've yet figured out how to do this, but I would love to have my writing have that same frantic, glittering, pop-culture disco effect that he creates in his films. It's the best.

On the other end of the spectrum, visually at least, are the Coen Brothers, who I also love to death. I watched Fargo at least six thousand times when I was a teenager, and I've loved almost all their subsequent films as much, especially A Serious Man. Their characters are delightfully weird and full of verbal quirks ("I'm a Dapper Dan man!"), and I have no doubt that their influence is in my work, just because of how often dialogue from their movies pops into my head throughout the day. I involuntarily replay entire scenes from The Big Lebowski about once a week - it's a blessing and a curse!