emusic q&a: haven kimmel

You might recognize Haven Kimmel from her ridiculously adorable baby photo, which became the cover of her mega-bestselling memoir, A Girl Named Zippy. She’s also written some incredible novels (The Solace of Leaving Early changed my life, truly) that reveal her wonderful contradictions. Haven is girlishly charming, but her writing is both worldly and thought-provoking. She’s hilarious and bubbly and fun, but her intensity is undeniable. Haven recently spoke to eMusic’s Elizabeth Gold in what has to be one of my favorite interviews ever.

You can find the full Q&A here, but see below for a few choice Havenisms.

On the process of writing fiction:

At a critical moment in The Solace of Leaving Early I realized, after probably an hour of writing, that I’d been sitting on the very edge of my desk chair, and I’d been frantically bouncing my knees against the bottom of my desk, which is just crazy behavior. Of course I continued to do it until I finished the chapter, and then I laid face down in the dirt and wept until the authorities arrived. Naturally, I would choose to do this sort of thing over the joy of non-fiction, every day, no doubt about it.

On researching (or over-researching):

How heavily do I research my fiction? I’m imagining what would happen if I tried answering, “Just, you know, the normal amount.” Everyone who knows me would riot. Augusten Burroughs is my partially-absorbed fetal twin, and has known my comings and goings every day for the past eight years. We recently did an event together, and he was trying to explain to the audience that I might appear to be a normal person but actually I’m freakish and terrifying — I think those were the adjectives he used. He said, “Take this for instance. She decides to write a book about pool, you know, green felt, balls, a stick — anyone with a penis can play it. So she learned string theory.”