Photolog
|
|
Maggie Estep
Maggie Estep was born in New Jersey in 1963 and grew up moving around the U.S and France with her nomadic horse trainer parents. She attended the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics in Boulder, Colorado and the State University of New York.
Maggie has published two books: Diary of an Emotional Idiot, (Harmony Books 1997) and Soft Maniacs (Simon and Schuster 1999). She’s made two spoken word CDs, No More Mr Nice Girl (Imago 1994) and Love is a Dog From Hell (Mercury 1997). She is planning a third CD entitled 10 Poems About Sex and Death.
Maggie has performed and given readings in the US and Europe at venues ranging from Lollapalooza to Lincoln Center to the Frankfurt Book Fair. She writes a monthly column for SHOUT Magazine and has written for Black Book, Harpers Bazaar, The Village Voice, NY Press — and Elle and Die Zeit in Germany.
Her stories and rants have been included in many anthologies including The KGB Bar Reader, The Ex Files, and The Touch. Her books are published in translation in Italy, Germany and Israel.
Maggie has just finished her third book, The Woman Who Ate The Sun a crime novel involving Coney Island, horse racing, strippers and a pianist.
She lives in Brooklyn.
Fans always run into a problem of addressing the object of their adoration, not knowing how to do so without embarassment or pissing off the star. What do you prefer people to call you when you’re approached? Any suitable nicknames?
Uh, well, my closest friends call me THING. But maybe I shouldn’t be announcing that in public. Usually, Maggie gets the job done. But whatever you do, don’t call me MAG or MAGS.
I saw you perform at The Nuyorican in 1994, it was the pre-release of your spoken-word album No More Mister Nice Girl (Great show by the way!). Are you eternally perceived as the persona from that album? How has that persona changed since the release of No More Mister Nice Girl?
For a long time. Less now. I think my second book kinda started dispelling my previous persona. And now, there are actually people who know of me only from book and magazine writing and are sort of stunned to learn of my previous incarnations. I like to think I come off as a little more multi-dimensional now. I was always paranoid, when that record and its minor successes came, that I’d be labeled for life. I was labeled for a few years. But now, I guess I’m sufficiently genuinely odd and reclusive that THAT has become remarked upon. You know, studying Classical piano and having an alternate career as a horse racing handicapper. Things like that.
In 1997 you wrote Diary of an Emotional Idiot, a somewhat-autobiographical tale. I loved reading about Zoe hiding in the closet with a chain and ready to do some damage to her man - given the chance and a spare set of keys I would have done the same a few years back. Has this story been flushed out into spoken word (outside of No More Mister Nice Girl)? What the reaction from friends & family after it was published? Looking back on the story with hindsight, is there anything you would have wanted to add or subtract?
Uh, well it’s a story I stole from my friend Buddy. He told it to me one day. About this girlfriend of his chained him to a bed until he repented his errant ways and his nefarious drug habit. Buddy was pissed when I used the story. I didn’t find that out though til about 2 years after the book came out. It was a lesson though. I now ASK before using someone's story. They usually say YES but like to be asked. And yeah, I used same story on the song MASTER OF LUNACY on my second record.
You have a great website with all sorts of writings and random thoughts. How apprehensive were you approaching a live medium that didn’t provide an intimate environment?
Not at all. Seemed like a natural thing to do.
How does it compare to publishing your stories or performing in front of a paying audience?
To be honest, I don’t love performing at all. I mean, I like it when I’m actually up there, having an exchange with a group of people, but I LOATHE the build up of nervousness and the aftermath of regret ( that seems inevitable, even if the show went well) I am much more tempermentally suited to sitting home typing all day and then publishing the stuff. I like having the web thing because it gets seen with more immediacy than say, books, that take forever to find their audience.
The Latin poet Gaius Valerius Catullus created his identity through his poetry — without the poems we would have known nothing about him. After looking back through all of your spoken word performances, stories, essays and journal entries, how would people describe you after reading your work?
I really really don’t know.
Allen Ginsberg co-founded the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, a great Buddhist college in a town known for extremist environmental people wearing too much patchouli.
Yes! I attended. I’d never have gotten a degree if that place hadn’t gotten me started.
What sort of legacy would you like to leave for future poets and where do you see yourself in poetry today?
Uh, I’m not a poet. I USED to write very very short repetitive prose that sometimes was labeled as poetry. But technically, I’m not at all a poet. Maybe metaphorically. As far as legacies go, I dunno. I do my own thing, what I love, and manage to eke out a living and a tiny iota of recognition for it and thus am a reasonably content individual. If there's a legacy to leave, it would have to be some sort of example of How To Do What You Love And Pay The Rent And Keep Most Bitternesses At Bay.
Brooklyn, a great place to live but…
But what? I LOVE BROOKLYN. Brooklyn is a source of boundless beauty, radiance, and grime. What the Lower East Side was once.
Visit Maggie Estep at her web site to read book excerpts and selected articles.