kathryn regina

an interview with kathryn regina







hi kathryn. i like the spelling of your name. why not "katherine"?

Kathryn: haha i don't know. my mom liked the other way i guess.

do you remember when you started writing?

Kathryn: yeah it was my third year in college. i started out as a piano major but i hated practicing. my professor would make me practice four hours a day. so i started writing in the practice rooms instead of practicing. i didn't feel like it was 'serious' or anything. i just liked it.

that's good. do you still play piano?

Kathryn: no i don't have one in chicago. i wish i did.

do you have any sort of writing process, or does it just "come to you"?

Kathryn: lately i've just been "free writing" or whatever. i think surrealists call it "automatic writing." i just write really fast. i end up with a lot of stuff. i only like a little of it. sometimes i do automatic writing in stanzas which is weird.

you write really fast. do you prefer typing or do you write in a notebook?

Kathryn: i almost always type on my laptop
i used to use a typewriter in gradschool because i didn't have a computer
that was good too
except that i had to type and retype everything and i had a thousand papers everywhere
and i'm kind of compulsive or something, so i saved every single revision i did
now when i revise something the original words are usually just gone

what is venom literati?

Kathryn: venom literati is a "literary collective."
really it just started out as a book club but no one wanted to say book club because they felt like suburban housewives
personally i thought book club was funny
i would have kept it
so it started last summer
the first book we read was "falling man" by don delillo
i mean, it wasn't great
and then we read miranda july's book and it was good
and then we read tao's novel and it was good
and then we started a blog
and that sealed our fate
venom literati 4-ever
we are going to get tattoos.

what are the tattoos of?

Kathryn: well they haven't been designed yet
if it's like a snake in front of a book maybe i won't get the tattoo
it has to be menacing before i will consider it
not like a "book worm" logo

oh, okay. so what drew you to blogger / why did you get a blog?

Kathryn: we all like tao's novel and googled his name
i think we were at someone's house and doing this all together
and we found his blog and thought it was funny and interesting
and decided to start our own
at first it was just kind of like a joke
but now it is very very serious.

but venom literati is kind of interior. like, the blog is sort of internal in a lot of ways. i wanted a personal one to put my work on and things, so i started my own. i felt really silly about it at first.
now i don't care
also i remember
we wrote tao a letter on myspace inviting him to our meeting (we write letters to all the authors we read)
and when he wrote back i was really excited
it was the first time i felt that an author i liked was accessible. and then i realized that lots of writers are accessible through their blogs. i did not know this before. it was very exciting.

what can you see out of window closest to you?

Kathryn: i see downtown chicago. there are a lot of buildings. there is a giant ad very close to my head. it says "bye-bye black sheep." it is an advertisement for a hyundai veracruz.
i can also see the rock-n-roll mcdonalds.

i have noticed that mcdonalds have changed a lot recently. the interiors are "classier" or something. if you were a mcdonalds, what would the theme of your interior be?

Kathryn:
i think it would be spooky with lots of clouds and cobwebs but also glittery
like it would scare you and then lull you to sleep
and then pour a triple thick shake down your throat


Kathryn blogs here.