SINCERITY PLUS ABSURDITY: AN INTERVIEW WITH VENITA BLACKBURN BY ELIJAH SPARKMAN
Split Lip’s tenth anniversary year has come to a close, but we are still interviewing SLM FAM because we’re having too much fun to stop! This week’s interview is with Split Lip contributor, Venita Blackburn, whose flash fiction, “Smoothies,” appeared in our January 2020 online issue. Her work has also appeared in the Atlantic, thenewyorker.com, Harper’s, Ploughshares, McSweeney’s, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. She received the Prairie Schooner book prize in fiction for her collected stories, Black Jesus and Other Superheroes, in 2017. Blackburn’s second collection of stories is How to Wrestle a Girl, 2021, which was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Prize. She is founder of the literary nonprofit Live, Write, which provides free creative writing workshops for communities of color, and an Associate Professor of creative writing at California State University, Fresno.
I first read “Smoothies” in October and was immediately mesmerized by the concision of Venita’s writing. Her ability to take a single moment—when a guy in a Jamba Juice line tells the narrator that she “looks like a man”—and blow it up into such a deep and expansive meditation: on gender labels and performances, identity, really, a little bit of everything. It felt like floating. To be invited to so much revelation in such little space. It felt like I was in the hands of a true pro. The brilliance of the writing maneuver, the usage of refrain. Below, in response to a few email questions, Venita offers big insights into the making of the story, the making of art in an absurd world, and the making of smoothies—and/or smoothie-adjacent drinks—which I think, yes, do count.
Elijah Sparkman: Can you tell us about the process of writing “Smoothies”? How long did it take to write? Did it go through a lot of changes?
Venita Blackburn: “Smoothies” was intended to be a part of a micro novel that followed characters from my first book Black Jesus and Other Superheroes. The character in the story felt a little more broad than the one I initially had in mind. The moment in the story where the character feels judged for their perceived gender presentation is somewhat autobiographical. I had a moment when I was around that age when someone close to me said my clothes were too much like a boy. I always say that now I dress like a dad on vacation. I don't consider myself non-binary, but there was this space of prescribed identity that I didn't know existed that I was expected to slip into without question. On top of that, any bozo could decide one day that my choices were wrong. The nerve lol. I wanted to write into that moment and out of it.
ES: I really enjoy the humor in your stories, in the characterizations, surreal plot twists, and off-kilter details. What does humor mean to you while writing?
VB: I hear people say that humor is hard to do. I don’t get that. It’s a pretty straight forward formula: sincerity plus absurdity. Whenever someone is taking themselves seriously while doing something out of order, we’re gonna laugh (as long as no major crimes are in progress). Sometimes when I write the funny parts aren’t visible to me until I read it later. There is just so much absurdity in this world one can’t help but laugh a little.
ES: What do you think makes a great piece of flash? What draws you to the form? Who are some of your favorite writers of short prose?
VB: My favorite kind of flash is the kind that really takes audacious risks with time, goes very small or very very big. Flash that can cover a lifetime or more plus flash that stretches seconds and extracts profound meaning from the minutia of ordinary living dazzles me. I’m drawn to the form for the efficiency. Every line matters. Every sentence needs to thrill. Flash is not poetry, but really good flash fiction takes the thunder of poetry and tells a cohesive story of a life. I highly recommend the new Flash Fiction America anthology for the range of short form authors included.
ES: Lastly, what’s your favorite kind of smoothie? What are your go-to ingredients?
VB: Does boba tea count? I’m a Thai tea addict lately. Oh, anything with mango too. :)
Elijah Sparkman is a Teaching Artist for 826 michigan, where he facilitates creative writing workshops in Detroit and Ypsilanti schools. He is a member owner of the Hamtramck bookstore co-op Book Suey and is a Memoir Reader for Split Lip. He also serves as the Literary Editor for his sister’s sustainable fashion magazine, Clearline. He has been published with Cheap Pop and Wayne Literary Review. He holds an MFA in fiction writing from Northern Michigan University.