Jemiah Jefferson Interview

You started writing from an early age. What was it that drove you to it?

I have always made up stories; that was how I played as a child, as most kids do in some ways I guess - they make up dialogue for their toys or their play characters. Or do they? I really can't say as I would know; I didn't really have too many friends, usually only one at a time, and they were creative oddballs too. I've been obsessed with language, with reading and penmanship (and how that moves into typography) for as long as I can remember; I used to write commentary in the margins of all the books I read. As I got into adolescence, it became a compulsion that I had, literally, almost no control over. As I became more and more isolated from society I became more and more engaged in the world of fiction, through sci-fi and horror novels, cinema, and in my own writing. I wrote pornographic stories to entertain my best friend, and when she dissed me and I had no friends, I kept writing them for myself. I had been reading so closely since I was a toddler that grammar and dialogue were second nature to me, and I liked my own writing better than almost anything else that I had ever read, and I always wanted to get better - stylistic accomplishments, really extreme situations, deeper insights into character - simply to please my own demands as a reader.

Besides your chapbook, you've done all sorts of zines, web sites, and even mass market vampire books. Where do you get the time and inspiration for these?

Again I think "compulsion" plays into it in a very big way. When I'm at work, all I can think of is how to tell a better story than the last one, and if I have an idea, I have to deal with it immediately. Web sites were absolutely misbehavior. When it comes to novels, I'm drowning in constant inspiration, and the hardest part is to exercise discipline as to what I'm going to put in and what I'm not. And time? Well, you'll notice that most of the things I wrote were before I had full-time jobs; therefore, I'm producing a whole lot less these days, which is a source of CONSTANT FRUSTRATION. The compulsion to force the images in my head to become words and paragraphs and stuff is still there, driving me slowly insane.

Your sex scenes are always fun and sexy, but still smart and revealing. Were there any authors who influenced you in this area?

Tons and tons - certainly "Pleasures", a book of women's erotica edited by Lonnie Barbach, influenced me tremendously at a young age. A story by actress Grace Zabriskie, who was so fabulous as Laura Palmer's mom in "Twin Peaks", showed me how funny, and profound, but mostly funny, sex writing could be. Clive Barker's got a tremendous sense of the sensual. George Bataille's "Story of the Eye" gives me a girly-woody every time I read it, and it's a different perversion each time. I also read a lot of Penthouse Letters, and hated them, and thought "I'm a better writer than they are! Hey, I bet I could write about sex better than they have, and I haven't even HAD sex!" Of course, now that I have had, I feel even more confident that I am better than Penthouse Letters.

You're also a music buff. What are your favorite releases lately?

Well, one of my crush objects just got me hooked on Super Furry Animals; they're absolutely brilliant.I know this crush object because I'm obsessed with Gorillaz. Sunset Valley just put out another brilliant record, "Icepond", and I can't stop recommending it. Mostly, other than that, I'm wasting all my money on Blur.

When you do readings from your vampire books, are the audiences noticably different than say, a reading from your chapbooks?

It's a little bit different, but not too terribly much; folks who go to readings go to readings. The most recent reading I did, where I read a chapter of "Voice Of The Blood", was a generally younger audience, but only in terms of the median age. At this point, my appeal isn't necessarily age-specific; it's more about what you're willing to accept.

What are the best ways to cure writer's block?

Watch a movie with someone gorgeous in it. Get into a band you've been putting off for a while. Go ride the bus for two hours and listen carefully to everything that goes on. Drop acid.

David Lee Roth or Sammy Hagar?

DLR all the way, though Dee Snider kicks both their asses.