Interview with"Ponyboy" Author Eliot Duncan š
Interview with"Ponyboy" Author Eliot Duncan š
Do we have the PTK takeover of all takeovers for you
šIntro:
Dear readers, do we have the PTK takeover of all takeovers for you. We are SO pleased to announceā¦ our next PTK squatter: Eliot Duncan š¤© š
Who is Eliot? Well, according to his āofficialā author bio, Eliot is "a US-born writer and artist. He is the cofounder of the international queer collective Slanted House and a graduate of the Iowa Writersā Workshopā.
And by āofficialā author bio we mean like, official official because ELIOT IS PUBLISHING A BOOK. PONYBOY is coming out June 13th, 2023. Itās āan evocative debut novel of trans-masculinity, addiction, and the pain and joy of becomingā.
Larissa and Kelly have already read it and oh man, are you in for a treat! Not to girlboss too close to the sunā¦ but for the next month, there are going to be: book giveaways!! exclusive poems! visual content!! and journal entries from Eliot / PONYBOY! every Friday leading up to the book launch on topics such as:
the homoerotic clench of punk
itās not that deep: polemic on first person āiā in fiction, ontological cages, my scorpionic plea to be just some guy
raw dogging: a text on how being sober is hardcore, notes on recovery and writing
We cannot wait. In the meantime, letās get to know Eliot with an excerpt from PONYBOY read by him in the video at the top of this post ā¬ļø and an interview with him down below ā¤µļø
šļøInterview:
PTK: Hiii! Welcome to your PTK take over! Who are you?? HOW are you?
Eliot: hey! iām eliot thanks for having me. itās 3:33pm in chicago. itās pretty sunny here and i just ate lunch. having a day totally void of gloom so itās all vibes rn. iām a transmasc, gay writer and neuroatypical freak but i promise itās really not that deep.Ā
PTK: Youāve written a whole ass book!! And itās coming out in June!! Before we get into the book itself, what was the writing process like for you?Ā
Eliot: i wrote PONYBOY so that i could live. it was a really dire experience, i started around 2013, just writing letters to historical figures that i wanted to hangout with and piecing together fragments of moments and poems. i guess i was trying to write myself into the world because i couldnāt see myself anywhere, not even in my reflection. the writing process was mainly about collecting the moments i had documented and wedging them together to form a narrative, or letting the fragments show me the narrativeāi still write this way. kind of like the feelings are first and then the story comes from them. a really smart writer once told me that experimental literature is like that, that the language is the event of the story. someone else told me once that the story can emerge from the language, like, the story doesn't proceed the language but that the story comes from the act of writing. i love this because it makes me feel wide open. i donāt have to know whatās going to happen when i write, i just get to do it and see what emerges. iām not the kind of writer who maps out whatās gonna happen, i donāt really think about plot! itās cool to see people do that, and i think thereās a lot of strength in it, a lot of conviction. for me though, i just sort of trust that the story will emerge if i just keep going.Ā
PTK: Ok, now tell us about your book!Ā
Eliot: PONYBOY is hot, i think. itās speedy and contemplative and messy and hinged on the idea that everything has a cost. itās about the monotonous dread of addiction and how that can dismantle all frames of reference. itās about being a trans guy, itās about sex and itās about family. i hope too, that itās about joy, recovery and language.Ā
PTK: As a raw portrayal of addiction, your book can be just as brutal as it is beautiful. Are there any trigger warnings readers should be wary of? And how do you feel about trigger warnings, as both writer and reader?
Eliot: I mean basically every trigger warning, probably. Definitely, addiction, dysphoria, sexual assault, disordered eating. I think they can be helpful but I havenāt used them in a while. Probably because the back of the book tells readers whatās ahead.Ā
PTK: PONYBOY is a work largely inspired by your own experiences, could you describe yourself at age 13?
Eliot: i feel like i have to text my mom because i donāt remember a lot from that time of my life. she just said i was really into tight polos, lip gloss and boys. she also said i was closed off, strong willed and laser focused. i think i was trying to get as many juicy couture outfits as possible and i remember straightening my hair and loving eyeliner. wait my dad just responded too, he said āfrenetic, determined, chaosā.Ā
PTK: You also write poetry and have poems interspersed throughout the book, can you talk about that decision? And also, YOUR GRANDMA WROTE POETRY? Thatās so cool! Tell us more.
Eliot: well i actually really wanna be a poet and writing poems comes more naturally to me. i have continuously gotten the feedback that my prose are stronger though, so i keep doing both. and yeah, my grandma jean lives on a farm in nebraska and writes poems all the time. and having poems in the book just felt necessary, i donāt know. there are some ideas where i feel like, oh, babe, this can only be said in a poem. i like that, this idea that a short poem can contain the weight of an entire novel. poems are tough like that. they are so hardcore. a poet i dated once took lines from PONYBOY and made it into a poemāi wonder if i still have it. i loved that.Ā
PTK: PTK was started as a love letter to un-precious poetryā. What does āun-precious poetryā mean to you?
Eliot: omg, wait. i love that. i learned from an early writing mentor that itās important not to be precious about your work. i think itās easy to feel guarded and separate while youāre writing, and in some ways thatās important too but i think calling something un-precious is to relax a little. itās like, hey, i made this thing and i like it and i wanna share it. itās gracious actually. to be like, i like this thing i made and itās not perfect but thatās okay too because it doesnāt define me. itās an offering. in my heart, iām just a punk kid, so off the cuff, ragged, raw and snarled feels like truth to me. being precious about my writing would mean no one would ever read it because, honestly, nothing is ever really āreadyā. itās just gone far enough where i feel like maybe something interesting is happening. maybe someone smarter than me will make some meaning or have some feeling from this. i also wanna hype the un-precious as a kind of creative ethos. makes me think of frank oharaāhow he wrote these stunning poems about simple, grounded things. i think un-preciousness, also focuses on the tangible, day in day out of being alive and says, hey this is definitely art. i write and make art because i feel like i have to, i donāt know, it doesnāt feel like an option. itās just something i do and i will always do and that doesnāt make me special or interesting, i just mean itās a practice. i just show up and do the thing and what happens after isnāt actually my business. un-preciousness, to me, is like making the art and not being imprisoned by the outcome.Ā
PTK: We are so happy to have you here with us for the next few weeks! Youāve been following PTK since the start because you have know Larissa for quite a while, is that right?
Eliot: yes, larissa and i met in paris where we both were doing our undergrads. she was making art and i didnāt really know a lot of artists at the time. she was really intense and free and challenged me a lot. even though we fought a little when we first met, i had and still have the feeling that iām encountering an entire creative force when we talk. i love her.Ā (Larissaās note: š„¹ ilyt )
PTK: How did you meet?
Eliot: the first night we hung out at my tiny chambre de bonne in the 1st. we did blow and drank till the sun came up and then ran around on the roof of the building. i think we kept hanging out that day but i donāt really remember. she wore this like dark blue chiffon robe thing with huge pink flowers and spoke with authority and laughed with abandon. (Larissaās note: they were lips, not flowers. I still own it and itās my favorite untitled garment, there are photos of it below. We also got yelled at because we were stomping around the roof at 7 am and I thought I was gonna die, cause Iām terrified of heights, and then I thought Eliot was going to die, because he wasnāt. On the way down the ladder we broke the window that we had pried open to get up there and glass rained down over our heads; itās how I remember our years in Paris: careless, selfish, free).Ā
PTK: Do you have a favorite Eliot & Larissa anecdote you would like to share ?(Kelly really wants to know!)
Eliot: on valentines day she went with me and my partner at the time to a sex store and helped me choose a dick. then we all went for drinks in pigalle and i think larissa brought flowers. it was sweet. (Larissaās note: the dick had red straps. The flowers were stargazer lilies that I proceeded to hand out to strangers at the bar after everyone left to be with their valentines).
PTK: And finally: Marry, fuck, kill - Paris, Berlin, Iowa?
Eliot: marry paris, fuck iowa, kill berlin
PTK: Thank you again for being here! Where can people find you online (other than taking over PTK for the next month)?
Eliot: my ig is @semantic_rush, twitter is @semantic_rush
š¬Preorder:
ā¤ļøāš„ thank you for joining us! Keep your eyes peeled for more of Eliotās work and a chance to win yourself a copy of PONYBOY! š
Interview with"Ponyboy" Author Eliot Duncan š