Writer Mother Monster: Elle Nash, “I loved being pregnant in Arkansas.”

“I loved being pregnant in Arkansas.”
Elle Nash is the author of the novel Animals Eat Each Other (Dzanc Books), hailed by Publishers Weekly as a “complex, impressive exploration of obsession and desire.” She lives in Colorado with her husband and 3.5-year old daughter, and she describes writer-motherhood in three words as “boundary-building, productive.” In this episode, Elle talked about witchcraft, being pregnant in Arkansas, transgressive fiction, magic, mountains–and more! Find out if Elle can do magic, what she sacrifices for art, and why she doesn’t want to peak until she’s 60.

Writer Mother Monster is an interactive interview series devoted to dismantling the myth of having it all and offering writer-moms solidarity, support, and advice.

Transcript

Writer Mother Monster: Elle Nash

January 18, 2021

Elle Nash is the author of the novel Animals Eat Each Other (Dzanc Books), which was featured in O – The Oprah Magazine, and hailed by Publishers Weekly as a “complex, impressive exploration of obsession and desire.” A small collection of stories, Nudes, is forthcoming from SF/LD Books in spring 2021. Her short stories and essays appear in Guernica, The Nervous Breakdown, Literary Hub, The Fanzine, New York Tyrant, and elsewhere. She is a founding editor of Witch Craft Magazine, a fiction editor at Hobart Pulp and Expat Press, and runs an annual workshop called Textures. Elle has one child, and she describes writer-motherhood in three words as “boundary-building, productive.”

Lara Ehrlich  

Hey everybody, welcome to Writer Mother Monster. I’m your host, Lara Ehrlich, and our guest tonight is writer Elle Nash. Before I introduce Elle, I want to thank you all for tuning in and let you know that you can now listen to Writer Mother Monster as a podcast on all major audio platforms, or read the interview transcripts at your leisure, all on writermothermonster.com.

If you enjoy the episode, please also consider becoming a patron or patroness on Patreon. Please also chat with us during the interview. Your comments and questions will appear in our broadcast studio, and we’ll weave them into our conversation. 

Now I’m excited to introduce Elle. Elle Nash is the author of the novel Animals Eat Each Other (Dzanc Books), which was featured in O – The Oprah Magazine, and hailed by Publishers Weekly as a “complex, impressive exploration of obsession and desire.” A small collection of stories, Nudes, is forthcoming from SF/LD Books in spring 2021. Her short stories and essays appear in Guernica, The Nervous Breakdown, Literary Hub, The Fanzine, New York Tyrant, and elsewhere. She is a founding editor of Witch Craft Magazine, a fiction editor at Hobart Pulp and Expat Press, and runs an annual workshop called Textures. Elle has one child, and she describes writer-motherhood in three words as “boundary-building, productive.” Welcome.

Elle Nash  

Hi, thanks so much.

Lara Ehrlich  

Thank you so much for joining me. I’m excited to talk with you about writer motherhood and about Animals Eat Each Other, your amazing, tight, vicious novel. So, let’s just get started. I want to ask you, who lives in your house?

Elle Nash  

I currently live with my parents and my partner and my child. We moved here right at the beginning of the pandemic. I didn’t think it was gonna be a long-term thing, but, you know, unfortunately, we’re still here.

Lara Ehrlich  

And how old is your child? You said you have a daughter? 

Elle Nash  

Yeah, she’s toddler age. She just turned 3 this year.

Lara Ehrlich  

And before the interview, we were comparing notes, because my daughter’s 4 and I remember the 3-year-old period pretty well, that sort of wild time when they’re learning that they have a willpower, and they start expressing themselves. You’re kind of right in the thick of that toddlerhood. 

Elle Nash  

Yeah, definitely. I think the thing with toddlers is that they’re just learning that there’s things they can control about their world, and they really want to do anything to exert that control. It can be tough, but I spend a lot of time really pushing her to be as independent as possible, because I think that really helps temper a lot of that desire, when she feels like she can control certain parts of our world—because there’s a lot that kids can’t control, which is super frustrating. I think that’s where the brunt of a lot of that difficulty comes from.

Lara Ehrlich  

Yeah, I think you’re absolutely right. It must be so hard not to be able to control your surroundings, to eat when you want to eat or go to the bathroom when you want to go to the bathroom. It’s the most basic human rights that you kind of have to learn how to do as a child. 

Elle Nash  

Yeah, definitely. And I think it’s tough, too, because they’re just learning how to communicate, and they don’t necessarily have all the words or the nuance to communicate exactly what they’re feeling. Like there’s so much inside them that they’re just trying to get out. 

Lara Ehrlich  

Yeah, oh my gosh. Did you always know you wanted to be a mother, or was it something that snuck up on you?

Elle Nash  

No, I never grew up having these thoughts of being a wife or a housewife or getting married or even being a mom or anything like that. I think around the time I was 26, I remember I was doing yoga a lot, and I was really burned out in my job, and one of my friends was a nanny, and I was like, man, that would be a really nice job to have. That just seems so much easier than what I’m doing with my life. Nannying is also really difficult, but it was like the “grass is greener” syndrome. Then, I don’t know. I just started to have this really strong drive for that. It felt right. But of course, I think I was still scared for a couple of years before I really jumped in and was ready to be a mom.

Lara Ehrlich  

Do you remember what the turning point was? Was there a specific instant that you knew that it was time? Or did that kind of creep up on you as well? 

Elle Nash  

No. I think if I had waited to be ready, it probably never would have happened. I think it was just one of those things where I kept thinking, “When is going to be the right time?” It was like, maybe I should have my finances in order, or should wait until this or that. And frankly, it’s never gonna feel that way. It never felt that way. I just had to jump into it.

Lara Ehrlich  

We did the same thing. My husband and I were married for eight years before we finally had a child. I’m a planner, so I was like, I don’t I don’t know how to plan for this. I don’t know when the right time would be or what needs to align in order for this to make sense. Every mom I knew said the same thing that you just said: there will never be any right time, we just have to jump in. 

Elle Nash  

Yeah, and it was tough, because at the time, when I was wanting to be a mom, I was having such a hard time with work. It was really affecting my mental health. I had made the decision to change my profession, right after my book got picked up. Mentally, I could not handle working in an office environment anymore. I quit my job and started going back to retail. I worked at a grocery store for a while. We just tried to make ends meet, because I was like, I just can’t do this. While I was working in the office, I was like, I can’t imagine being a mom this way. I can’t imagine working full-time and trying to manage a household and a relationship and be a mom all at the same time. It just seems so difficult. I don’t know how working moms keep it all together. Although now I am a working mom, and you just figure it out. But at the time, I definitely did not feel ready for it.,

Lara Ehrlich  

Was that right around the time that your daughter was born, that your book was picked up? What was the timing?

Elle Nash  

No, that was 2016. We ended up moving to a really small town in Northwest Arkansas to scale back on our living costs, because we had been living in the city and we weren’t getting anywhere. We’d decided to restructure and live smaller, and I wanted to focus on my mental health and writing and my husband wanted to find a better job. When we moved there, I was working as a barista, he was job hunting, and we were scraping by. I had to go on Medicaid, and we would go to food banks and stuff occasionally. But we made it work. And I actually think I was happier. I think that I turned in the final draft of my manuscript for Animals a year later or so later, like the day before I went into the hospital to give birth.

Lara Ehrlich  

Oh my gosh. It’s interesting to look back, too, because now you have the benefit of hindsight and you can sort of see how things aligned in order to make it possible for you to do all of these things, but I’m sure at the time, it felt overwhelming. What were you doing before the grocery store? You said you were in an office job?

Elle Nash  

Yeah, I was working as a marketing manager and a proposal manager for a construction company. They would do civic contracts, like people who build light rails and that kind of thing. It was proposal writing and a decent-paying job, but it’s very tedious, and it’s very “feast or famine,” and you’re writing these proposals where it’s upon you to win these, like, million-dollar contracts, so it’s a lot of pressure. And it’s not commissioned, so you’re not even getting to see the amount of money that you’re putting in for this company, it can be very tough to do that kind of job.

Lara Ehrlich  

Yeah, and try to write as well, right? You were writing your manuscript at the time. What was that balance, before your daughter came into the picture? What was it like balancing that full-time job and the novel that you were working on?

Elle Nash  

It was a lot different. I think I spent time allowing my inspiration to come to me, or I would write when I felt like it, or if I didn’t feel like writing, I wouldn’t work on it. It took me five years, I think, from beginning to end to write that full first novel. It’s a really short novel anyway, so it was kind of like this on and off thing. 

It’s funny, when I look back on it, when I was working full-time and trying to write, I was like, this is so hard. I’m never gonna want to really do my full-time job. Writing is what I truly want to do. I want to write full-time, etc., etc. I was always saying my job was in the way of it. But after having been through multiple iterations of organizing my life, honestly, it doesn’t change. Everything feels like an obstacle, even when you have the time for it. So now I’m like, “Well, it wasn’t that bad”—in comparison to like, the type of schedule that I experienced, like now.

Lara Ehrlich

Yeah, I feel the same way. I look back at when I was working full-time and writing a novel that didn’t end up selling many years ago, and now I’m like, Oh, I was sitting at coffee shops for hours, writing and reading, and my life just doesn’t look like that anymore, especially not with a pandemic. Walk me through then, once your daughter entered the picture, you finished the manuscript of the book and sent it in, then she was born; what was life like after that?

Elle Nash

Newborn life is really hard. I have a lot of sympathy and empathy for new parents who are really excited about having a baby and then kind of go through the first few weeks, because it’s such a huge adjustment. I just don’t miss it at all, even though babies are really cute. I remember, I think it was the fifth night where I hadn’t slept—really, literally, had not slept for like five days—and it was, like, four in the morning and my daughter woke up and she’s crying and hungry, and I literally burst into tears. My husband ran into the room, and he thought something terrible had happened, because I just cracked. I literally lost my mind. It’s kind of funny to think about now. Having the ability to stay home with her has made things so much easier. 

I went on maternity leave from the coffee shop I was working at, and by the end of the six weeks, I was like, this is not enough time. Like, it’s really not. So again, we were like, we’ll just work to make ends meet and do whatever we have to so that I could stay home and take care of her.

Lara Ehrlich

Yeah, six weeks is not long enough. And neither is 12 weeks. Maternity leave in this country is just miserable. But I’m glad you were able to figure out a way to do what you wanted to do. Were you writing during that time? Or if not, at what point did you start writing again?

Elle Nash

Yeah, that’s a good question. I really can’t remember at what point I started writing regularly. I think maybe she was like six months old. 

I had been working on this manuscript, and I was kind of in the fog of breastfeeding and stuff, too. There’s just something hormonally about it that made me feel not as sharp, like I just didn’t feel as with it as I used to be, and that was a combination of exhaustion and having this new person always around you. There’s this weird mind-melding thing that happens, where your identities kind of fuse, which I think is on purpose, so you can understand and know what your baby needs. I kind of had trouble breaking out of that when I was working on this manuscript. 

Then I remember I’d send it to a friend, and she said she didn’t like it very much. I was like, I cannot be intellectual, so I sat down and told myself that I was going to write my basic bitch novel—like I was just gonna write a mainstream novel. I’m gonna learn how to do it. I’m gonna learn how to write something with plot from beginning to end. I like started doing that, and I planned it out. 

In December of 2018, I sat down and wrote that novel in, like, 11 weeks. I just woke up around four or five in the morning, and she was starting to have more regular naps, so I would write every time that she was asleep during the day, too. I just committed to it. And that’s how I got my first draft. It was definitely a lot of not sleep.

Lara Ehrlich

And that was the first draft of which book? 

Elle Nash

That was the first draft of one that I actually have sent out on submission right now.

Lara Ehrlich

Oh, wow.

Elle Nash

I guess it would still be considered a work in progress, because it’s not out in the world yet.

But I was just determined to try and get it done.

Lara Ehrlich

You say that that book was one that you planned in advance to have a plot and so on, but I would say there’s certainly a plot in Animals, although I see what you mean that it’s certainly not mainstream. Like you said, it’s slim, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not a complex and thought-provoking story, which I found it very much to be. Could you tell us a little bit about Animals? And do you think you could have written this book today, now that you’re a mother?

Elle Nash

Animals Eat Each Other follows an 18-year-old narrator who has just graduated from high school, and she enters into a relationship with this couple. And then the whole thing goes terribly wrong. That’s the basic gist of it. It’s a little bit like a coming-of-age story, because of the time it takes place. As far as writing it today, that’s a good question. I don’t know. I haven’t gone back to read it or read parts of it in quite a while, but I think, yes, I could, and I would actually do it better.

Because of the process that I’ve gone through these last two years of getting this next novel ready, I’ve learned a lot more about writing and how I look at my writing, so I think it would be better.

Lara Ehrlich

I have so many questions, but I’ll start with, what would you write differently? What would you do differently?

Elle Nash

I don’t know. Maybe I would expand it more. Maybe I would’ve written it with a better voice. It’s hard to say. My stuff now feels more polished, and maybe that’s the difference. Sometimes people prefer stuff that’s more raw and gritty, so it’s hard to say.

Lara Ehrlich

Something I really loved about it is that it’s raw and gritty and it doesn’t—this is gonna sound wrong, but it doesn’t feel polished. Not that it doesn’t feel literary or that you aren’t an exceptional writer, but it feels like the character is searching still and doesn’t have that polish that comes from experience. I think it felt right for the character. The voice felt appropriate to me. 

Something that you explore through this book and that the character thinks a lot about and even speaks about is identity and what it means to be an individual or a self, versus an other. She allows this couple to rename her Lilith, and she sort of erases herself or lets herself become subsumed into this relationship. I’m interested in the fact that you mentioned that motherhood is kind of like that, like you become merged with this other identity. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Elle Nash

Yeah, I don’t know why with motherhood, but it does seem like that’s the case. I don’t want to speak to it as if it’s a universal experience, but it does seem like new moms really struggle with identity and feeling like their own person, and some moms struggle with this for a lot longer. Part of this is when moms feel guilty for taking time out for themselves or that sort of thing. I do see that a lot, and personally, I experienced that, where I felt bad for asking, for example, for time to write on the weekends or something like that. 

I think especially because it was easy for me to consider that I’m staying at home and don’t have a job, even though I’m literally running an entire household, and I’m taking care of like a tiny human, it was easy for me to think that I didn’t deserve the time, because there’s all this time already, even though that time is actually spent. I had to go through this process of seeing my alone time as valuable and important for me and setting those boundaries. 

With Animals, what I was exploring is people not being able to set boundaries. There’s a gray line there. I believe in everyone’s personal agency and a person deciding what is right for them and what their boundaries are, but in a coming-of-age story or this life experience with a new human, those boundaries can become really blurred. It can be difficult to figure out where that boundary really is or asking for that extra space.

Lara Ehrlich

How, logistically, do you do it? How do you carve out the time for writing or claim it as your own, for people who are listening who maybe are struggling to do that?

Elle Nash

Before the pandemic, it was definitely a lot of waking up at like four or five in the morning and writing whenever she was asleep. I would just keep my laptop open on the kitchen counter, too, so if she was eating breakfast, I would just be typing, because I had my goal and I had my plot that I had written. My goal was just to get it done. 

I guess the first step is to have really clear goals. And the second step is not having excuses, being able to write whenever you can. And the third thing was making it known to my partner where I was, like wanting to write for four hours on Saturday morning and trying to negotiate that and making it known that it’s important for me on multiple levels—mental health, happiness, life goals, all those things. It also means being pragmatic about like your time. 

For example, this year, I’ve been doing a lot of writing and also a lot of teaching and editing, so I don’t have time for other self-care activities. I haven’t gone running or done anything like working out in like an entire year, but that’s just going to be how it is some years. I also need to spend time with my daughter and be sure I’m still there for her, and I also need to manage other aspects of my living situation.

Lara Ehrlich

I think that’s so smart. I love the idea of prioritizing, because I think we hear so often that we can do it all. We get that message, and then when we can’t, it feels terrible, and we wonder, what’s wrong with me that I can’t manage to do all of the things that I want or feel I should be doing all at the same time? I love just knowing that maybe sometimes we will not exercise for a year. I certainly have not exercised for a year. And that’s just how you get things done sometimes. And maybe other times, you won’t write for a month, but you’ll exercise and feel a little better in your body. It’s hard to reconcile them.

Elle Nash

Yeah, it definitely requires a balance. But it is tough, because it’s very easy. For me, personally, it’s very easy for me to put a lot of pressure on myself for not meeting my personal goals. And that was one of the things that I learned when I was in that 11-week process of finishing that first draft. I was like, I’m gonna do this. I felt really strongly about it, but some days I would literally only get maybe a paragraph down, and I just couldn’t get any further. I had to just sit and say, okay, it’s fine that you didn’t do this, just wake up the next day and do it again. 

You have to have a good balance of being disciplined and being clear with what you want. But also, not beating yourself up when you don’t do it. I think that the beating yourself up part of it can contribute to having low self-esteem, and then it can impede you from being able to reach your goal overall.

Lara Ehrlich

Yeah, to let yourself spiral into feeling like because I didn’t write today, I’ll never write again, or I’ve failed the project in whole, when really, it’s just one day and you go on to the next day. Can you tell us anything about the books that you finished in the 11 weeks?

Elle Nash

I don’t want to reveal too much about it. I kind of want to keep the excitement.

Lara Ehrlich

I know the feeling. Yeah, that’s totally fine. Can you tell us, is it very different from Animals Eat Each Other? You mentioned that it’s a more plotted novel and more mainstream?

Elle Nash

Yeah, I know I said it was like writing this mainstream novel, but when I look at it, I don’t really think the finished product is mainstream, per se. I’ve been getting some mixed feedback from publishers who have been rejecting it. But it is a lot different. It ventures into new territory. It does have something to do with motherhood, to a degree, and pregnancy, but it’s definitely a bit different than what I normally write.

Lara Ehrlich

I’m also interested in that word mainstream, and from the publishing side, because I feel like Animals is such a distinctive piece. There’s a great comment here from a listener, who says, “I think your writing in Animals has a very intimate voice that almost feels like I’m walking beside them and part of the circle as a reader. I love feeling like the characters are three-dimensional right away.” And I totally agree with that. That’s a great comment. 

I want to ask you about what your goals are when you set out to write a book, whether it’s Animals or a book that’s forthcoming or the novel that you just finished. I know some writers set out to write a book that will make the New York Times bestseller list, right? And other writers feel more like they have a story they just really need to tell, and they don’t care if it’s something that would make the bestseller list or not, and hopefully it would resonate with a group of like-minded people. So where do you fall on that spectrum?

Elle Nash

I would say that my goal is to be able to make a living and support my family. I think I would be lying if I said I didn’t have some kind of dreams of having my book be really big or go really far. But at the same time, I know that most bestsellers don’t tend to outlive their generation, and I’m also really interested in legacy, to a degree. It’s hard for me to look 10 or 20 years down the line and say, where exactly do I want to be? I would say I really don’t want to peak until I’m, like, 60. And if it’s gonna be a slower path, or maybe my book isn’t gonna break out right away, then I just have to keep working at it. 

Honestly, I’m okay with that. I just want to be able to eat and have health care. I would hope that I am a good enough writer that I my book doesn’t become the kind of overhyped sort of thing that I tend to see where people really hype up a book, and then they end up reading it and are like, this is not very interesting or good. I want my work to be interesting. I want my work to be compelling and speak to people. 

When I was setting out to write this mainstream novel, I wanted it to be traditionally plotted, and I wanted to have an agent and see if I had a chance at landing at a big five, but I just don’t know if it’s going to end up being that way, because I also want to stay true to what I think is interesting about the story itself and like what it says about power and violence and motherhood and all kinds of things. I don’t want to change those things.

Lara Ehrlich

I love all of the themes that you just mentioned, power and violence and motherhood. I think we’re alike in that way. Those are themes that drove the book that I just finished up over the holidays and is now with my agent. I had this just urge to write something that was violent and powerful and about motherhood, and I wonder if it’s the same for you and that’s where the book started, where you needed to sort of give voice to those feelings. Where did the novel begin?

Elle Nash

In 2015, when I was living in Denver, there was this crime that occurred, just north of where I lived. I don’t want to give away too much about it, but apparently, the person perpetrated the crime for a really long time, and I just couldn’t understand how the people around that person were able to not suspect what was going on in the person’s mind, like what they were struggling with, mental health-wise. That’s what I really thought about for a while. I couldn’t get the story out of my head. For me, that’s kind of what germinated it. 

And the other thing was being pregnant in Arkansas. I loved living there, people were really wonderfully nice, and what was fascinating was because it’s very family oriented and a bit more traditional and conservative there, people would treat you like a very high-class like citizen when you’re pregnant. People would let me cut in line at the DMV. Everyone’s just really nice to you when you’re pregnant. And they’re also really nice to you when you have a brand-new baby, but it drops off when the baby’s older and no longer cute. 

I just find it very interesting, how society treats pregnancy and pregnant women and what kind of pressure that can put on a person who wants to be pregnant but isn’t. So that’s really what drove me to explore that. I also am really interested in the psychology of killing because I don’t feel like it’s explored very much in fiction at all. Just in terms of this crime I’m talking about, I just wanted to understand it more.

Lara Ehrlich

Yeah, and that combination of factors and elements just sounds fascinating. It sounds like an awesome book, even though I don’t quite know what it’s about! I want to read that right away. And congrats on finishing. That’s awesome, especially with everything else going on in your life. And where are you living now?

Elle Nash

Oh, my parents live in Colorado.

Lara Ehrlich

Was that a culture shift, moving from Arkansas to Colorado?

Elle Nash

No. I grew up here, but the first few months being back in your hometown that you left after high school is definitely really freaky. It’s almost like people still dress like it’s 2005 here sometimes. It did feel a little bit like going back in time. I also forgot just how powerful mountains are. Growing up, I never really paid attention to them, and now, every day, I stare at this mountain and I’m just like, holy shit. It’s majestic. I don’t know why I didn’t care about it before.

Lara Ehrlich

Has moving back to your hometown inspired you in some way or changed your craft or led you to think about writing different themes or stories that you might be interested in telling?

Elle Nash

Yeah, I’m actually writing a manuscript about the mountains. My schedule definitely changed because of the pandemic in general, and I’ve been working a lot more and working from home, so that’s been a bit of a balance.

Lara Ehrlich

Tell us more about how the pandemic has changed your life. Luckily, my family moved six months before the pandemic, from Boston back to Connecticut, about 15 minutes from my parents, so while we don’t live with them, we see them every day, we have dinners together. They’re downstairs watching my 4-year-old right now. I also moved back to my hometown area, and it has been interesting to see what the pandemic has done particularly with families. It feels almost like a return to that primal family unit of grandparents and parents and children. But what has the last year been like for you?

Elle Nash

Yeah, it’s been pretty similar, and I’m really grateful that my mom has been around to watch my child a lot more. I’m actually really happy because I want my child to experience her grandparents as much as she can, as well. My husband also has been spending a lot more time with her, too, which has been great for both of them, I think. Also, it’s given me a lot more time to be able to make more money and focus on teaching and trying to finish up the two manuscripts that I had this year, which was the novel that I was telling you about and then also finishing the short story manuscript. That aspect of it’s been really good. I’ve probably been working too much, because it feels a little escapist, to be able to just go work in these other worlds that aren’t pandemic worlds, which has been nice. It’s definitely been a struggle to readjust to being in the same vicinity as my parents and readjusting boundaries and trying to focus on good mental health. That’s been a pretty big struggle this year.

Lara Ehrlich

Yeah, I’ve heard that from so many guests, too. I’ve only been talking to writer moms, of course, but I think the pandemic has been particularly hard on mothers, as we’ve seen from articles everywhere, from the New York Times and Washington Post, and that women are leaving the job force to become teachers of their children. I’m certainly grateful that my child isn’t kindergarten age yet, and your daughter, too—we don’t have to put them in the classroom and deal with that side of things. But it’s been hard. I wanted to ask you about your teaching. Tell us about Textures and your annual workshop. And then I also definitely want to hear about Witch Craft Magazine.

Elle Nash

Sure. Right now, I envision a six-month workshop and we meet on the internet once a month and trade feedback with other peers. In teaching it, I really tried to focus on teaching indie lit fiction stories or novels, that sort of thing. I haven’t prepared my elevator pitch for it yet, but it’s been really wonderful this year, because I’ve had this small cohort of students that I’ve been working with for a long period of time. We have a server where we chat about literature and that sort of thing, and it’s really made the year a lot better, just to be able to keep focus at least once a month on fiction, what we think about it, why certain things work and other things don’t, and seeing students learn how to edit other people has been really wonderful, too, because you learn and become better through doing that. I’m really happy to be able to foster that kind of environment. I ran it twice this year, but I think I may run it only once next year.

Lara Ehrlich

Last week, I had a special episode about community for writer moms, and we can expand that a bit and just talk about community for writers. Why do you think it’s so important? And you talked a little bit about this just now, but can we go a little bit deeper into why it’s so important to have a writing community as a writer?

Elle Nash

First, it’s good to know what other people are doing and writing because I think that can inspire you. It also can teach you more about your tastes as a writer, which will help sharpen how you write and be more attentive to how you’re writing things. 

The other thing, too, is that the real world kind of sucks. Like, the world is not very nice. It can be really harsh, so I think having a community of people who are interested in the wonderful aspects of art that you’re interested in can make things feel less lonely. I’m always learning about new writers who write the most amazing stuff that you would never find in a bookstore like a Barnes and Noble. There’s just so much interesting and experimental and transgressive stuff that comes out of the indie community that I find wonderful and fascinating. I think that aspect makes it really special, too.

Lara Ehrlich

Yeah, definitely, I echo that. And our listener’s comment is “Hell yes to indie publishers.” Absolutely. And we have a question here from Tyler Byrne, who asks, “How do you feel about being defined as a cyber writer sometimes?”

Elle Nash

Tyler, I do not like being a cyber writer. I am not a cyber writer. You can tell Jake Blackwood that.

Lara Ehrlich

What is a cyber writer? Who called you a cyber writer? And why don’t you like being called that?

Elle Nash

You’re gonna have to ask whoever invented it. Like, Cory? I don’t even know if he’s watching. Or Jake Blackwood. They will know. There is a cyber writing manifesto somewhere out there.

Lara Ehrlich

I think this is homework for everyone listening. Let’s talk about Witch Craft Magazine. When did you found the magazine and what is it?

Elle Nash

I think in 2014. I went to this reading to see Chloé Caldwell, and I met a poet there, Catch Breath is what she goes by. And we both were really wanting to start a reading series or do something in Denver, because we just didn’t know a lot about the lit community out there. And I really wanted to start a zine. But then I realized that I could find a printer and print actual perfect-bound books, instead of doing a zine type of thing. I was a fiction writer, and she was poet, and it just seemed natural for us to team up, so we teamed up and started Witch Craft. It’s been really wonderful to be able to create this platform for people. We wanted work that was a blend of somewhat witchy writing or darker writing and also stuff that was more gritty and more raw, or work that was more transgressive, which is what I really like. I enjoy good, transgressive fiction.

Lara Ehrlich

For anyone watching who doesn’t know what transgressive fiction is, how would you define it?

Elle Nash

Oh man, this is such a hard thing to say. You can totally write an entire philosophical paper on exactly what transgressive fiction is. I would say the easiest way to define it is stuff that generally explores taboos, or it breaks normal boundaries of what you would consider normal life. It takes the reader to a new place where they wouldn’t expect necessarily to go. Transgressive fiction can make the reader question their own morals or the morals of greater society, that sort of thing.

Lara Ehrlich

Would you define yourself as a transgressive writer?

Elle Nash

I don’t know. I would say I look up to transgressive writers, but maybe I’m just not there yet. I don’t know.

Lara Ehrlich

Are there some writers you could mention who you admire—particularly, let’s say, transgressive writers?

Elle Nash

Sure. This year, I read a ton of Dennis Cooper, and I’m absolutely amazed by what he’s able to do with fiction. I read Frisk, in particular, which blew my mind. I rarely feel uncomfortable or shocked by anything I read or watch or anything that I find on the internet, like nothing is generally that surprising to me or offensive, but when I read Frisk, I really did take pause, and I was questioning myself, reading it. When I got to the end, I was blown away, because it was very well done. So: Dennis Cooper’s one. I read Maryse Meijer for the first time this year. I read her short story book Heartbreaker, and it was really good, too.

Lara Ehrlich

This is sort of a tangent, but what is Frisk about? Something that managed to shock you when nothing else has?

Elle Nash

I would say that Frisk is about a person who was exploring their penchant for violence without necessarily understanding whether or not they were violent.

Lara Ehrlich

Wow. Okay, I’m gonna have to go find that immediately, I think. We have another question here from Tyler. “Could you talk about some of the logistics of putting out the first Witch Craft Magazine, the cost or the steps to put it out there that you hadn’t expected? Anything you want to share?”

Elle Nash

I’m trying to think about how much it costs. I think maybe we put in $1,000 total, when we were first setting up, and that was for the website and some screen-printing materials, because we did merchandise. Then, it was a couple hundred dollars to do the first print run. The thing that caught me off guard, actually, was the cost of shipping. We didn’t realize how expensive it would be to ship each individual magazine. It’s hard to think, because now we’ve been doing it for so long that I feel like I have it down pat.

I think the other thing that always takes longer than expected is gathering everything. We put it out once a year, so it feels a little bit like a yearly anthology, but gathering every single piece that we put in, and then pairing it with art, doing layout, making sure all the bios are correct, making sure everyone’s name is spelled properly. And then when we do promotion, I have to make sure that I’m capturing everybody on social media and stuff, so no one’s left out. I just always forget how long and detailed that process can be. And it’s a bit stressful, because you don’t want to leave anyone out. You don’t want to spell anyone’s name wrong. You don’t want to have typos in someone’s work, because it’s really special. It means a lot to them, and that could be disappointing, right? If someone finds a mistake in their own piece in a print magazine?

Lara Ehrlich

Yeah, and as someone who was in marketing, I am sure you are exceptional at it and paying attention to all of the complexities. I have a question from my 4-year-old for you. When I told her that you’re coming on today and that you have a magazine called Witch Craft—she is obsessed with witches and wants to be a witch—she asked if you can do magic.

Elle Nash

We can all do magic. It’s pretty practical. I think everything that we do in terms of ritual is a form of magic. Even when you’re writing, and you’re creating a particular atmosphere in another person’s mind, that’s magic. It’s a very practical type of thing that we do every day. The simplest definition of magic is putting your will out into the world. And, you know, we do that a lot with art, we do that with our intentions, and a lot of different types of things.

Lara Ehrlich

Putting your will out into the world, what have you gotten back from the world from your writing? How have people responded to Animals, to your presence through social media, through all of what you put out there? 

Elle Nash

I have a lot of people tell me how much they related to my narrator. I guess whenever people say really nice things about my book, or when they connect with things that I write, I feel really lucky and special, to be able to have that happen. And it always means a lot to me. Even though I think I say that every time someone compliments me, “Thank you, that means a lot to me,” it really does. Like every time. It’s been really encouraging and really validating to spend a lot of time putting work into the world and just to have people read it. I think I would keep doing it if people didn’t read it, but to get that kind of feedback has been really encouraging. It pushes me forward.

Lara Ehrlich

Absolutely. Do you hope that your daughter reads your books someday?

Elle Nash

I don’t know. It’s hard for me to imagine what she’ll think when she’s older, whether she’ll be like, “Oh, my mom is a writer. This is so lame.” Or if she’ll think it’s really cool. I don’t know. I’ve never really considered it. I’ve never thought of her as a part of an audience. I’ve never been exposed to a creative parent, so I don’t have a baseline for what that experience is even like. But I hope that seeing me doing something that I love, even when I go back to a having a full-time job and have to change my schedule, can demonstrate and encourage in her that she deserves that type of space, too. My parents kind of discouraged me from pursuing a creative career, so, for me, I’m kind of clawing my way back to trying to see it as valid. I want her to see that it’s a valid thing you can do, that you can balance it, you can have a job and pursue your creative pursuits.

Lara Ehrlich

Tell me a little bit more about how you clawed your way back to creative pursuits. Did you know you wanted to be a writer when you were young and then pushed it aside for a while? Or how did that come about?

Elle Nash

I think I was like 14 when I discovered LiveJournal. I would write poetry every day, like really bad poetry. I even found an early community of poet girls on this website called DiaryLand, and we would just write and poetry and share poems with each other and stuff. This was in the early days of internet, before social media. That was a really special time for me. I always like to think about it. I’m actually still friends with one of them. I found and became friends with a girl that I had known from that age, who was a poet, and she’s still writing poetry. Her name is Katie Raddatz. It’s kind of cool, looking back and being like, “That was a long time ago, and we’re still doing it.” 

But yeah, I was always trying to explore creative writing. My parents really pushed me to choose a major that would make money, so I went into journalism. I had initially wanted to be a hairstylist; I wanted to go to cosmetology school. But my dad pretty much was like, “Well, you’re going into college or going into the Army,” and I really was not wanting to go into the Army, so and went to school for journalism. 

I got really into that. I did reporting for a weekly for a little bit, I did PR—all the journalism-related career fields. I just kind of forgot, like I stopped writing poetry and I stopped writing creatively, and I got swept up and was just surviving, trying to pay my rent. It wasn’t until about 2013, I think, when I was like, I want to actually write fiction. I want to actually try and do this. I want to learn how. So, I started taking writing workshops. I didn’t even know you could submit to literary magazines. I didn’t know how people tried to get published. I just didn’t think about any of that stuff. But once I started taking writing workshops, I started becoming more exposed to it. From there, I was like, I’m gonna be really serious about this.

Lara Ehrlich

You know, I remember something similar, in that I always wanted to be a writer, but it was when I started taking workshops and going to conferences and meeting professional writers and learning about the steps you need to follow—although everyone’s journey is different, of course, but there are some things that you need to do, like write a draft and have people read it for you and things like that—that it became tangible for me that it was something I could do for a career. It’s interesting to hear you say something similar. What was it about taking workshops that helped you to move toward a professional career in fiction?

Elle Nash

I think it was just seeing writers who had been successful in what they were doing, looking up to them and admiring their work and their passion for teaching other people. For me, also, I was like, I could probably do this. I just have to keep trying at it, you know?

Lara Ehrlich

My final question is just for listeners out there who are trying to balance everything and figure out how to devote themselves to a creative profession in the midst of child raising and working full-time, during the pandemic and all this kind of stuff. What sort of actionable advice would you offer a mother in that situation?

Elle Nash

I don’t know, that’s so hard to think about. I guess I would say to just continue to try, like every day, and whenever you find yourself comparing yourself to other people and where they are—like if someone has a book announcement and you feel saddened by your own lack of that—just try to recognize that you’re relating to that person because you want to be where they are. There’s a connection that you have. And also, it’s demonstrating to you that there is a pathway forward for you. Because you’re relating to that person, that means there’s a way that you can also be successful. 

You know, it’s hard. It’s a balance of not being too hard on yourself but continuing to show up and try to do the work as much as you can and accepting that sometimes you do have to sacrifice certain elements. Like, if you want that extra hour of writing time, make your dinner be as low effort as possible. Sometimes you do have to avoid sleep or something like that. 

I don’t know. It’s really tough. I hate giving that advice because I don’t like contributing to the narrative that women can and should do it all either. If you don’t want to, and it’s becoming too difficult, it’s okay to take breaks, especially when you first have a kid and they’re really dependent on you. They’re really little for a very short period of time. A human life is, like, 80 years, and they’re only little for, I don’t know, eight years, really. Or at least five, before they go to school. If you need to take that break and spend that time with them while they’re little, that’s 100% okay. 

I found myself, this year, realizing maybe I’m spending too much time working and not enough quality time with my kid. I’ve been thinking about that because I’m gonna have to go back into the workforce anyway, so I’m thinking maybe I should be taking this time to just slow down because she’s only going to be little for a very short period of time, and then I’m going to be, like, 50, and she’s not going to want to spend time with me or hug me anymore. And I don’t want to lose that. And that’s okay. You know? You have your whole life to work on your creative career.

Lara Ehrlich

I think that’s great. And I just love the message of it boils down to “it’s okay,” right? Like, whatever works for someone and whatever your passions and goals are, that’s okay. It’s okay to take the time. I also love that you mentioned finding or looking toward other writers and mothers you admire to sort of have a beacon toward what you might want to become. I think that’s so wise and particularly relevant for this podcast as well. I would encourage everyone to reach out to the writers they admire. That’s sort of why I created this podcast, so I could talk to people like you who have done things that I truly admire, people I want to learn. I think that’s a really great point.

Elle Nash

Yeah. That’s how I found my mentorships and friends, too: by reaching out to people that I admired. That’s what helped me see that way forward.

Lara Ehrlich

Yeah, that it’s actually possible. I think that’s a great note to conclude on. I want to thank you, Elle, for joining me and taking time out of the craziness of life with a 3-year-old in a pandemic. Thank you so much again, for coming on and talking about your work and in your life. And thank you all for tuning in. You can watch this video again, listen to the show as a podcast, or read the interview transcript on writermothermonster.com. You can also buy Elle’s book by visiting the bookshop link on writermothermonster.com, and there you will find books by all of our other authors for sale as well. And again, if you enjoyed the conversation, please consider becoming a patron or patroness on Patreon. That’s how the series becomes possible. Thank you again.