10 Questions for Katherine Vondy
- By Franchesca Viaud
At first just one or two people watched the bears. Then they shared the bears with some of their friends and the friends started watching the bears. The friends told other friends who told other friends, and friendly acquaintances, and even strangers. These people told other people. After a while, everybody was watching the bears.
The bears were not really there. Or actually they were, but only if “there” was Alaska. Not the city where all the bear-watching was happening, which was many of thousands of miles away. The people in the faraway city watched the bears via a webcam that live-streamed a salmon-filled river 24/7. Because there were so many salmon, there were also bears. The bears feasted on the salmon.
—from "The Bears," Volume 65, Issue 1 (Spring 2024)
Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
In elementary school, around 3rd or 4th grade, one of my classes was assigned a big project in which we all had to write and illustrate our own books. I think my book was called something like The Duck and Trumpet Fight, and as I recall, it was a pretty shameless rip-off of The Trumpet Of The Swan. Even as I was working on this project, I remember feeling disappointed that I couldn’t come up with a more original idea, and for its duration I lived in fear that my teachers would call me out for copying E.B. White. I was very relieved that it never happened, though in retrospect I understand it’s probably not pedagogically advisable to criticize an eight-year-old’s storytelling instincts too harshly. I likely needn’t have worried so much.
What writer(s) or works have influenced the way you write now?
When I first read Salman Rushdie, back when I was in college, I was very taken with his use of language; I’d never read anyone who was so playful while simultaneously exploring ideas that were so serious. Kazuo Ishiguro’s ability to convey emotion using a detached narrative voice, particularly in Never Let Me Go, is another writerly skill that’s extremely impressive to me. I also love Susan Choi’s Trust Exercise, and the way the story reframes itself as it progresses. I’m not sure if I can cite specific examples of how all these works have influenced my writing, but they each made lasting impressions on me, so I figure they must be shaping my work in some way.
What other professions have you worked in?
My day job for the past fifteen years has been in the legal department of a TV studio. I’ve also been a freelance writer and director of educational videos, a background performer in television and movies, a script reader and coverage-writer, and an administrative assistant for a number of different businesses (i.e., a temp). Right out of college, I worked for two years in financial communications in New York. And my first real job, during the summer after I graduated high school, was working as a cashier at a grocery store, which was a great job for me, because I was very good at memorizing produce codes (a skill that seems irrelevant now, given the proliferation of self-checkout registers).
What did you want to be when you were young?
When I was very young, around three or four, I had a fascination with cement mixers and I think I said I wanted to drive one. The fascination did not last, however, and after that, I don’t believe there was a job I specifically wanted when I was a kid. I know that in 4th grade, we had to write essays about what we were going to be when we grew up, and I wrote that I was going to be a teacher and a writer in the summer. I don’t think I actively wanted to be a teacher, but it seemed like a logical choice that could co-exist with writing. While I’m not actually a teacher now, part of my day job requires me to teach training sessions for TV crews, and a lot of the freelance work I’ve had has been for clients in education—so maybe my fourth-grade self wasn’t too far off-base?
What inspired you to write this piece?
During the pandemic, I stumbled upon a livecam of brown bears feeding on salmon in Katmai National Park. I found myself spending way more time than I would have previously expected watching this bearcam. When I felt like it was time to start writing a new short story, bears were already on my mind, and they naturally ended up on the page. I didn’t have a plot or characters planned out; the story really just followed the bears and the feeling of comfort they seemed to offer during a time of instability.
Is there any specific music that aids you through the writing or editing process?
In general, I listen to a lot of indie rock. Sometimes I’ll create a specific playlist for a project comprised of songs that I feel evoke the tone of the story; for example, for a play I wrote last year that was set in Italy, I ended up exploring a lot of contemporary Italian rock and pop in order to create a playlist. I especially enjoyed the music of Calcutta, Pinguini Tattici Nucleari, and Motta.
Do you have any rituals or traditions that you do in order to write?
I’ve become one of those people who likes to take my laptop to a coffee shop and sit amongst all the other people with their laptops as I write. When I try to write at home, I often get tempted to procrastinate by doing little chores—or, if I’m being honest, by taking a nap—so being out of my apartment makes it easier to focus. I also like that, when I work in a coffee shop, I’m around other people, but I don’t have to interact with them. It feels less oppressive than working in solitude while still allowing me to remain my naturally introverted self.
Who typically gets the first read of your work?
I’m very lucky to be a part of a writing group comprised of some of the most thoughtful and talented writers I’ve ever known, and they are always the first people I send my new prose to. We met in a writing workshop in 2016, and have been meeting regularly for the last eight years!
If you could work in another art form what would it be?
I actually do work in a few other art forms! I jump around between literature, theater, and film projects. But if I were going to pick something brand new to do, I’d love to explore more visual art. I’m not great at drawing (my skills never progressed much past what I demonstrated in the aforementioned The Duck and Trumpet Fight), but I like to sew, and I have a lot of fabric scraps left over from clothing items I’ve made. Sometimes I think about trying my hand at textile art, and seeing if I can turn the scraps into something cool rather than throwing them away. But I think I need to have a few more free hours in the week before I take on a new hobby…
What are you reading right now?
I haven’t stopped thinking about IN ASCENSION, by Martin MacInnes, since I finished it two days ago. I also loved TRUST, by Hernan Diaz, which I read at the end of last year; I really admired how elegantly the book was structured and how (in a possible double-meaning of its title?) it trusts the reader to understand the story based on what is unwritten as much as what is written.
KATHERINE VONDY is a Los Angeles-based writer working in film, theater, and literature. Her writing has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and has appeared in journals including the Iowa Review, Potomac Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, Worcester Review, Beloit Fiction Journal, Briar Cliff Review, and Quiddity. She is also the recipient of writing residencies from the Vermont Studio Center, Hambidge, Dorland, Wildacres, Tyrone Guthrie Center, Faberllull, and the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow, among others. Kat currently heads the new play development program of The Vagrancy’s LA chapter.
