Sunday Whoever – The Art of Leila Allison or The Inimitable Authoress by Dale Williams Barrigar

This interview was conducted via email between Bremerton, Washington, USA, across from Seattle, and Berwyn, Illinois, USA, next to Chicago. The interview occurred on twenty consecutive days in the winter of 2025, starting in January and stretching into February. Leila Allison, the subject of the interview, was never given any heads-up on what the question for the day would be ahead of time.

All of her answers were spontaneous, produced during the evening on the day the question was sent to her. The questions were also produced spontaneously on a daily basis, each succeeding question after the first one being some sort of riff, or leap off of, Leila’s answer for that day. Remarkably (you will see after reading it), nothing has been changed in this interview, not even a single word of either the questions nor the answers.

There was never any friction, resistance, or irritability on the part of either the interview subject nor the interviewer, either; the whole thing was conducted with the utmost sympathy and empathetic spirit that it is possible to imagine. The interview was born out of my (DWB’s) deep, abiding respect for the writing work of fictionist, essayist, and poet Leila Allison.

I first discovered her work perhaps two years ago. I began to read much of it in earnest, and with the deepest appreciative critical eye of a professionally trained literary analyst (PhD in English and Creative Writing, University of Illinois Chicago), in the summer of 2024. I knew immediately upon discovering Leila’s work that she was somehow an extremely special, unusual writer. After delving more deeply, I came to the unerring conclusion that she is, by far, one of the most talented, original, and lasting creative writers at work in America today. I’ve never met Irene Leila Allison (what a name) in person (yet), but to say that I know her through her work would be an accurate statement. Everything that she has created has come through loud and clear for me and reading her has been an experience like no other in my life.

My essay “Leila and the Mimeo Revolution” further explains and defines Leila’s place in contemporary writing. This interview explores Leila’s thoughts on the art of literature, an art that she, as inimitable authoress, has become, and is, a true master of. I urge anyone who doesn’t believe me to begin exploring (that is, reading) her work in depth.

It is, literally, not too much to say that Leila belongs in a literary lineage that includes Elizabeth Barret Browning, Emily Bronte and sisters, Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, H.D., Dorothy Parker, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Carson McCullers, Flannery O’Connor, and Grace Paley, among others (read on to find out more).

I hope you enjoy this interview/dialogue on the works of a truly great writer who is quietly, remorselessly doing two things that absolutely need to be done: keeping the human (not robot) tradition of literature alive while also reinventing it and extending it into the future. As things become more and more inhuman, we will need, as a species, as Philip K. Dick pointed out in his writings, and his life, the human tradition of literature more and more, not less and less. (The Herd People need to hold steady a little bit instead of chasing after the latest fad the moment “They” tell you to.)

I can also opine humbly that this interview approaches an intriguing dramatic and poetic quality, not unlike a scintillatingly brilliant comic play (Oscar Wilde) or a benevolent, life-affirming, long poem (Walt Whitman). (Read it aloud and see.)

This interview also shows what human (not robots, who can’t feel pain, and can’t create beauty) literature can do for you (for all of us) as individual human beings, whether we be primarily deep reader, or primarily creator, of it (neither one can at all exist without the other). Thank you!

Dale: You’ve mentioned in your writings that you keep a picture of William Shakespeare on the wall in your workspace. You’ve stated (metaphorically, symbolically, literally, or all of the above) that his eyes have a habit of sometimes following you around the room while you’re working. You’ve consistently demonstrated, in your writings, a knowledge of Good Will that can be called both comprehensive and profound. I don’t know of any other contemporary writers who’ve made such a successful, full-on engagement with the writings and life of Bill Shakespeare as you have, at least not since the passing of the great Harold Bloom in 2019.

Since other writers of the past who’ve made this kind of engagement with Shakespeare include Herman Melville, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Ernest Hemingway, this is a massive achievement. Can you expound upon, expand on, and/or explain your relationship with The Bard for the enlightenment of other creative writers, now and in the future?

Leila: Humble Answer:

First, thank you, Dale, for the comparison which is a high compliment. For me Mr. Shakespeare is a real human being (or “living personality,” as the wise Mr. Bloom put it). Being such I’ve done my best to understand what he must have been like–skipping the limited facts and bountiful “traditions.” 

Something tells me that Falstaff is the character most like him. Falstaff was so clear and dominating that he had to omit him as a participant from Henry V, because he had taken over both parts of IV. I can imagine Will as a witty and even tragic observer of the human condition, lingering about in London taverns, drinking sack, laughing and gambling even though he knows that the Chimes at Midnight can be rung only once (Orson Welles was Falstaff–the best film interpretation of a WS character ever). The limited minds that claim he wasn’t up to the task due to his humble background make me angry. I don’t compare myself to the Bard, but I come from a humble background and that has not prevented me from thinking. Mainly, I think he lived, and you don’t get much of that in the classrooms at Cambridge. 

I believe that character is the most important thing in writing–even over story. If your people are engaging enough, they will be remembered. For instance most readers remember the things Falstaff said, but his actions are secondary to memory. And humor. So many well done things are torpedoed by a dour writing continence. Old Will is the best inspiration around–his stuff is still alive.

Dale: I like how you focused on Shakespeare’s actual (“real”) life and drew the original parallel with Falstaff. I agree with you that Good Will probably put a lot of himself into Fat Jack. Any thoughts on Prince Hamlet, who always dressed in black? Who’s your favorite female or woman character in Shakespeare? Why?

Leila: Great question–actually questions. I’ll answer the second first–unlike many writers, Shakespeare excelled at female characters. There are two main types, in my mind. First you have the young, fair lass of position. Of those I like Portia best–the way she coyly flipped suitors shit about her “riddle,” and anyone who says this and comes off like she means it has my vote:

“The quality of mercy is not strained.

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.”

But the other type of female is equally brilliant, though seldom young, fair or set high in society. The “Nurses” and people like Cleo’s Charmaine stand out here. But for me it is Mistress Quickly. Everything she says carries more and of course she gave us this:

“A’ made a finer end and went away an I had been any Christom child; a’ parted even just

between twelve and one, even at the turning o’ the tide: for after I saw him fumble with flowers

and smile upon his fingers’ ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a

pen, and a’ babbled of green fields.”

I suppose that Lady MacBeth and Cleopatra have their own categories, but they get lots of press so I’ll stick with Portia and Mistress Quickly.

Hamlet is brilliant. I find him the living embodiment of the Fall of Man. He was simply too intelligent and thoughtful for revenge. What is seen as his weakness was really his strength. He wasn’t going to take a ghost’s word for it. Humankind refused to do as told either, thus damned. Thank you! Look forward to more.

Dale: Your knowledge of Shakespeare is truly, deeply impressive and something other writers should think twice about at least. In another place, you’ve said that your favorite writer or one of your favorite writers is Shirley Jackson.

In her underappreciated novel WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE, she creates an amazingly subtle, multilayered, complex, believable, unreliable, symbolic, female, first-person narrator. Like many writers, or all good ones, Jackson lived a hard, difficult life, yet through it all she continued to create (and creation is always a joy no matter how unbelievably painful at times too). Can you tell readers what you like/admire/respect about Shirley Jackson? Both her writings, and her life. 

Leila: Writers of any depth use their pain the same way comics do. Everyone has pain, but some people are able to throw it in a cell, lock the door, throw away the key and whistle as they walk away. Gotta feeling that Hitler, Leona Helmsley and all politicians have that ability.

But human beings of an acceptable stripe cannot. But then there’s the choice of running or confronting. Jackson turned on her pain and faced it bravely. She was exquisitely aware of what was happening to her, and her only power against it was to call its bluff. In Hill House, the protagonist Eleanor has all kinds of mental problems. Mainly she is insecure and has a form of PTSD. She is wonderful and witty when she feels wanted, but when she invents slights against her she reacts poorly. She does odd stuff like mentioning that sleeping on your left side wears the heart out faster during dinner and adds two years to her age (from 32 to 34) just to make herself seem worldlier. Jackson was very insecure about her appearance (mainly the weight she gained after having four children), her marriage (her husband was one who taught and dated his students) and her sanity.

She took all that and invented this incredibly calm, soothing yet extremely disturbing voice that is in all her work–especially in Merricat of Castle. She had a gift of adding a bizarre twist of humor to her creepiest scenes. And yet, to make money, she wrote several family articles for stuff like Redbook–witty and sort of like life on the Dick Van Dyke Show. And yet reading those after reading her biography one may see her disdain for her husband because he is the butt of every joke.

Anyway, before I knew anything about her, I admired her narcotic prose. So careful, and not one word out of place.

Dale: I love your phrase “narcotic prose.” Oscar Wilde said, “The artist is the creator of beautiful things.” Jackson also has an extremely strong sense of place in many of her best writings. The great psychologist Carl Jung wrote a famous essay where he said that Americans are much more strongly affected by the sense of place than Europeans are. Writers like Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and William Faulkner are powerful, symbolist regionalist writers. D.H. Lawrence was also fascinated by American place and had much to say on this issue, not to mention moving to New Mexico to try and be “a cowboy and an Indian.”

In many of your stories the sense of place conjures up that American sense. Your place is the farthest northwest corner of the lower 48, an area famous for both culture and wilderness. Can you explain, reflect upon, or comment on how you were and are influenced in your writings by the place you come from and still live in? Why is the northwest corner of Washington state such a strong “character” in so many of your writings?

Leila: That is an interesting question. Naturally we are affected by our surroundings, and according to Will “small experience grows” (paraphrase) in those who remain in one location. But those of us who do such sometimes build a strong imagination to escape. The Puget Sound region is foreboding and dark and it is also beautiful and vibrant. But, really, that can be said about anywhere. For me it is more about how a person evolved than where. Creative people seldom come from calm backgrounds. Chaos creates friction, and as Burroughs often stated, nothing happens without friction. And there are those who would blame their parents for their friction-thick childhoods. I never do, though I certainly could. Because they were made from similar circumstances, and I know that they did the best they could. Sometimes alcoholism, mental illness and poverty are as good as it gets. You adapt.

But I can and do blame our social and education structures for overlooking children of certain economic backgrounds. Poor kids are idiots, of course, or they would not be poor. And even though both my brother and I posted the two highest IQs in our school, twice, nobody cared. No one ever spoke to us about college, nobody spoke about the future. Nobody asked why we changed schools three times a year due to our mother’s hectic life. In fact I was so ignorant of possibilities that I did not know that anyone could go to college until I was in my twenties. Thus I have an incurable disdain for people who are in charge of things. Can’t trust a system in which “If we had more money” is the mission statement. To be brutally honest, they are self-serving fuckers and I hate them. No need to sugarcoat hate.

Still, the area does breed people like Cobain and Carver–in fact Quincy Jones lived here for awhile, and we once rented the house next to the one his family had rented on 4th Street. I’d say, from what I’ve read, I had an upbringing similar to Cobain’s–cast adrift, never what you’d call abused, but mostly raising myself.

All in all, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Dale: A. Your family sounds fascinating on many levels, and reminds me of mine in many ways. Can you tell us more about them?

B. Can you say more about how a hatred for authority can and does fuel the creative process, often or sometimes or mostly? This has been true at least since William Blake, Lord Byron and the Shelleys on through Shirely Jackson, Bob Dylan, Bukowski, Hunter S. Thompson and into our own times.

C. Can you expand on how an acceptance of adversity can and does fuel the creative spirit? There’s nothing more positive than accepting, and embracing, one’s fate.

Leila: A.) All families are interesting. The main thing about mine is the scarcity. Other than my brother, we are the only blood relatives still living. I have an aunt and a few nieces, but all of them were acquired during various marriages. I used to criticize my mother in print, but no longer do so. I was wrong to do that; she did the best she could. But it was a bit tough when she did stuff like getting married to six different men in the space of five years, during my childhood–plus she might have been crazy. All of her fellas were harmless, but it got to the point where name tags would have been helpful.

Only saw my father sporadically. He was a good guy, a Korean War vet who died with shrapnel still in his knee. Drank a bit, but was one of those happy drunks. Yet prone to depression. He committed suicide when I was nineteen. Children of suicides always feel guilty; it is required. Still, life is supposed to mark you up some.

B.) It is not as much a disdain for authority as it is a deep-seated antipathy toward the plethora of managers and priests and reporters and teachers who get between you and the truth. You know you are up against a bad one when they get mad at perfectly reasonable questions. Along with judges and senators and the surly chick who works for the cable company–the one who always answers my complaints, these people are supposed to help other people. I’d say that about half understand that and that they are hampered by the other half who are there just to make life annoying and even painful.

Rage is good for the creative process. But, to be honest, being and experiencing these are what fuels the creative (or lack thereof) process. Pettifogs and religious despots possess neither imagination nor a sense of humor.

C.) Good question. There are times when everything stops and God watches you only. You are presented with a problem in which there is no good solution. Only bad ones, and doing nothing is not allowed. I see salvation being dependent on making the least shitty choice possible. In the end, you keep moving. It will stop soon enough. Thank you.

Dale: Thank you for your honesty. This next question is a tough one, not that any of them are easy. First let me make a prediction. Your short story “The Endless Now,” as one example, will survive in time through the English language; or will survive in the English language through time; like, as five examples, “Eveline” by James Joyce; “The Use of Force” by William Carlos Williams; “In Another Country” by Ernest Hemingway; “Fat” by Raymond Carver; and “Car Crash While Hitchhiking” by Denis Johnson.

Harold Bloom called it “the saving remnant,” and these will be the readers who will always keep literature alive, as long as there are humans who know how to read (no matter how much AI kills off the rest of them). The question is this. How are you able to create characters of such psychological depth and complexity in such few words?

Leila: Thank you Dale! I blush at your appraisal! Anyway, I believe that reading good work by good writers (including those you have mentioned) is very helpful, at least it is to me. Each one used only “the good parts” and eschewed the rest. “A&P” by Updike is another fine example of that. He could have gone on and on about the girls in the store, but he kept only the best descriptions, the ones that grabbed attention. When I do something I throw everything I can think of at it and then start cutting away. Sort of like Holmes’ method of locating truth. To paraphrase “It’s what’s left when everything else has been eliminated, no matter how unlikely, that is the truth.” I guess it is a matter of taste and trusting yourself.

Dale: As a reader, an editor, and a writer, can you comment on what you see as the state of contemporary writing and writers? Is it in a bad place; a good place; both places; or none of the above? Also, how do you see the future of writing – and writers?

Leila: I imagine that the percentage of people who can write, who are willing to dig in is probably the same as it ever was. A person can always improve, but I feel you have to be born with something to be special. Naturally, as the world’s population expands, the amount of good writers gets larger, but so does the other number. The ease of modern technology has been a boon to bad writers. Even in my time it took determination and expense to print paper manuscripts, and the postage added up. That served to trim the herd some.

And I imagine that you really had to want it in Twain’s and Shakespeare’s times. I imagine using a quill was a real drag–and Twain had to learn to write with his left when his right arm became too arthritic. No…hacks are not that determined. From what I see the ability is widespread and favors neither age nor gender, nor race. I’d say it is as encouraging as ever (also meaning the level of despair is the same). The talent will always be there. We have had phenomenal submissions from teens that are remarkable for any age. I just hope that the cacophony of bad voices doesn’t discourage anybody. Still, like anything worth doing, it’s supposed to be hard. Thank you, Dale.

Dale: You mentioned Cobain earlier, and Quincy Jones. Northwest Washington has also been the home of at least a few other musical greats I know of. Hendrix, Eddie Vedder, and Chris Cornell spring to mind. True music is always beautiful. Even when it’s meant to be harsh or discordant (ugly or dirty) on the surface (see Lou Reed, for example; or, frequently, Dylan; or, often, true folk music or the blues).

In the DIVINE COMEDY, Dante calls his personal guide and favorite writer’s work “a fountain of pure speech” (Virgil). For me, your prose style is often akin to (or can be compared with) music. Can you talk about how music has influenced you (your life or writings), how you create a prose style of beauty, and/or (to re-phrase) if you yourself sense any influence of music on your own prose style?

Leila:

The first thing I wanted to be (for real, other than the usual childhood stuff) was a singer-songwriter. I taught myself to play a guitar my brother bought but lost interest in. It was one of those Monty Ward catalog jobs, one step above shit. But it served me well. Fortunately, my brother (older) and mother had great tastes in music (Mom was married to a working C&W musician for a time–got a half brother out of the deal–never met the guy). My brother was into the Beatles and Dylan–bigtime on the sixties. Mom had Johnny Cash, the various Carters and the usual suspects on eight tracks (she and my real father met Lorretta Lynn at some honky tonk early in her career–”a very nice and funny girl”). There was also Hank Williams and Jerry Reed stuff too (Jerry was underrated–but a great guitar picker).

And somehow I lived through watching Hee Haw. Like many I got into bands–some small successes, and I wrote a couple of songs that were not too bad–juvenilia. But music attracts weirdos, broken deals and cocaine. I was one of those people fired from a band that I began. Actually, I had it coming. But after that I began writing prose. Just fell into it, no plan. A natural occurrence. I’ve always been hypergraphic. I’d write and draw stuff on paper bags and blank spots in the newspaper. Still, I am always inspired by good music–I listen to it when I write–right now Bowie is singing his version of The Alabama Song. Even though nothing in the world takes inspiration better than a fifteen-year-old, the little fire begun then still burns, even now a half century later.

Dale: Many, many, many writers are and/or have been animal lovers. Just a few examples: Virginia Woolf, Jack London, John Steinbeck, Robert Frost, Kurt Vonnegut and Bob Dylan with dogs; Shirley Jackson, Jack Kerouac, Ernest Hemingway, TS. Eliot, Charles Bukowski, William S. Burroughs with cats; Flannery O’Connor with peacocks; Mary Shelley with a boa constrictor; Henrik Ibsen with a scorpion; Hunter S. Thompson with a wolverine; Dracula with wolves; Emily Dickinson, Emily Bronte, and Lord Byron with dogs. (Most of these folks were also extremely fond of animals in general.) Can you talk about your relationship/s with animals, both in the “real” world, and in your writing worlds?

Leila: Well, it is pretty simple; you have to go a long long way in life before you meet a bad Dog, while every third person you run into is trouble. Actually, all Dogs are good, but the few off-key ones were made bad by stupid, mean people.

I’m sure you have noticed that I capitalize animal names. I’ve always done that because I consider them no less worthy of life and respect than I would an Italian–or made up people such as Klingons. I’d have a Dog around if it was not for work and all the Cats. Dogs require as much attention as children, and it is tough on them to be alone for long periods of time (as I’m sure you know). Homeless Cats have an unerring way of finding me. I’ve never selected one from a litter box, I just wait and one shows up. Both my House Cats turn fifteen this year (a low estimate with one). They arrived in the courtyard alone in 2010 and 2011. All animals more complicated than a Dragonfly have distinct personalities. Thus they have been naturals for cartoons of every level of sophistication since the start of tale telling.

Cats are fascinating beasts, maybe a bit too close to human-like in their arrogance, while Dogs make people feel guilty because most people fall short of the Dog standard of loyalty. The inspiration I get from them comes naturally. As I once wrote, there needs to be a word that somehow captures the elusive expression on a Dog’s face when the DIY project you have pissed away an afternoon on goes horribly wrong, reducing you to a blithering mess. A strange mixture of pity, affection and, yes, disgust that no word I know of can nail down.

Dale: All true writing (and art) is considered new and unusual when it’s first seen. Dylan has been confounding his audiences since the beginning of his career; Vincent’s paintings were considered the horrendous works of a madman by many when they first appeared. (This contemporary reaction to VVG’s work is portrayed vividly in the 2018 film AT ETERNITY’S GATE.) Shirley Jackson’s hybrid of literary and speculative fiction is misunderstood; Flannery O’Connor’s short stories cause many mainstream readers to scratch their heads (or turn away) to this day; H.P. Lovecraft was never able to support himself as a writer. CITIZEN KANE, when it first came out, was hooted at by many, walked out on by not a few, and was a box office flop in general (only to fade away almost completely for at least fifteen years before being rescued/resurrected by a French critic).

Lewis Carroll (as many artists do) thought more about the future than the present. And yet the present very much exists. Predictability and “I’ve seen this a zillion times before” don’t do well in historical terms. It has to move the needle, one way or another, a little (or a lot). Any thoughts?

Leila: In each of us lies a built-in trap. Most people are afraid to like new things unless they have the support of others. Claiming that one thing is a work of genius while everyone else says it is shit (vice versa) is a lonely position. Vincent could have easily made a living painting portraits and landscapes in the popular style of his time. But there was something inside him that prevented it. The something turned out glorious, but Vincent had to pay full measure for it. I see him as a martyr.

I believe that the key to seeing ahead lies in understanding then and now. Not in a scholarly way, but in gleaning the feel of how things were/are; in that sense we tend to repeat ourselves. Orwell, I think, did that best. And although 1984 was not the correct date, specifically, it’s still coming, and if things do not change for the better soon, it will get here by and by–And the hammerheads will cry “Why didn’t someone tell us?”

The pressure to create what is expected is immense on known artists. The larger public doesn’t give a damn about what people like me do, but when someone such as Dylan plugs in, or seeks God, the “customers” freak out, and not usually in a good way (poor, otherwise admirable, Pete Seeger looked like a fool soon after he tried to cut the power). Truth is courage, but like church, many seek the truth, few understand.

Dale: I recently watched an interview with the brilliant podcaster and thinker Andrea Chalupa in which she said three things I think go a long way toward exploring and explaining what creative writing/literature is for. Her quotes were these: “Empathy is the ultimate act of rebellion.” “Everyone should have a historical mentor” (one of her historical mentors is Joan of Arc). And: “Everyone needs to start resisting the AI Prison NOW.” Scientific studies have repeatedly proved that reading fiction increases empathy in the reader. America has entirely lost the sense of the historical past which leads to mass confusion, societal decline, and a repeating of all the worst things that have already happened in history. Resistance has always been a key part of literature, from Lao Tzu and Jesus on to William Blake, Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson, Emily Bronte, Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski and Kurt Vonnegut. Also, literature creates human connections through time, bridging the past, present, and future. If this is utterly lost civilization itself is also lost. You have obviously dedicated a massive part of your life to literature and have already made your (ongoing) contribution. Can you reflect on how literature has changed you as a person? Considering everything I just said, what has literature done for YOU as an individual?

Leila: I recall the public service ad in which “Reading is Fundamental” was the theme. And it was right on the money. People like Stephen King do literature a great service by bringing people back to books; people who haven’t read since they were in school. It gets them back to the bookstores (real and virtual), at which other voices get a chance to call out.

I find resisting the AI valid. But since real literature tells the human experience and the good stuff states feelings never said before, I fail to see a machine (which, despite all the hoo-haw, AI is) knowing how it feels to betray someone or what it means to carry the guilt, which changes and ferments ever more throughout the years. I resist it by ignoring it. But I will say that the Big Brains behind it who are obviously grasping for money should be ashamed of themselves. If you are gifted, you have a moral obligation to improve the world: Help, don’t help yourself!

Literature has changed me because it makes me think. Plenty of people decide how it’s going to be in their minds, shut down that part of their thinking process and recite what Cohen called “slogans.” They do that because it is easier that way. They still breathe, but an essential part of living has fossilized between their ears. Gotta keep moving and thinking. Without the arts, I would have checked out a long, long time ago. Existence can get awfully boring after you have experienced enough of it.

Dale: Marianne Faithfull passed on yesterday, which reminded me of Kristofferson, which reminded me of 1977 when I was ten and my father and I were riding in the car and we heard on the radio that Elvis was “gone,” which reminded me of three years later and John Lennon; and a long list of people since then. Marianne Faithfull’s “The Gypsy Faerie Queen” from 2018 (co-written with Nick Cave) joins Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights” and Annie Lennox’s “Love Song for a Vampire” as one of the most uncanny pieces of modern art. When I say “pieces” of art, I mean that all three of these works exist as poems, songs, performances, and short films (videos) and the cumulative impact is what makes them truly uncanny and great, although all three are also great just as songs, too. In all three of these videos, these artists brilliantly perform, or play the role, of a character from classic literature, Shakespeare in Marianne’s case, Dracula in Annie’s case, and Wuthering Heights in the case of Kate Bush, who created not one but more than one truly great short film, or video, for her song. (Her dancing is truly uncanny as she plays the role of Cathy.) One can immediately be struck by these pieces the first time; but to truly understand these works, a reader needs to be familiar with the source material, needs to read the lyrics repeatedly, needs to watch the videos at least twenty times, needs to creatively STUDY these works (to get their maximum impact) even though they make an impact the first time. All three of these works are pure genius. Your ghost stories, for lack of a better name, are just as uncanny as these works, and in some ways more uncanny. Two examples are “Olivia and the Oraclespector: A Feeble Fable of the Fantasmagorical;” and “Fiona and the Footfallfollower: A Feeble Fable of the Fantasmagorical;” and there are many others. From now on, I will reread these works every year around Christmastime (and other times); they can stand next to Dickens in such a new way. Can you talk about these stories, how you created these, “what they are about,” what were the inspirations, imaginations, or perceptions that led to these, etc.? And, maybe especially, are these stories autobiographical in any way, or not? Also, can you say a few things about what I call “creative studying” of art, which is so at odds with the fast-paced, distracted, minimum-attention-span, on-to-the-next-thing-before-we-finished-with-this-thing nature of modern US/UK life as a whole, which is the death of art everywhere it exists?

Leila: Dale, Marianne was first rate, and too many dismiss her as a pretty face of yore. She lived, paid and returned great music. She also rates high for not blaming anyone else for her addictions. She said that it was her own hedonism that led to them. Bravo, Marianne. She fearlessly became a female version of Leonard Cohen, in her way.

Kate Bush is also brilliant and refuses to follow the rules–even her songs are wildly structured to her own tastes. Using Wuthering Heights and the orgone box for inspiration isn’t something you will find in K-pop. I feel that both were inspired by Dylan, who, along with the Beatles kicked aside the “rules.”

My ghosts came from the idea of having the dead communicate with the living, but via only one method. My ghosts can manipulate the ancient Earth elements, Earth, Fire, Air, Water and match them with the physical senses of the living. And each one is “assigned” a title by an unknown power, an ironic office due to the way the person had been in life. I toyed with this basic idea for years and began making a list of ghosts–which I will dig up and publish on my site this spring (if I can find the damn thing).

For example: The Judge is a Quillemender. He can move ink about on paper and change words. Quills were usually practical jokers in life. The technological revolution has been a boon for Quills. They claim responsibility for unique texts and emails.

But over time, it got more evolved. I explained how Quills worked, using the physical laws of the universe. The Judge story (stories) are the clearest about my one trick Pony spirits. But Wishingwellwraiths are fun as are Footfallfollwers and Tipplegangers. All are gregarious Falstaffian types (male and female)–except for one, a Mirrorglimmer, who I have yet to develop to my satisfaction, but she is different–dangerous.

I believe in asking yourself “what if?” when you have an idea–so many stop at the surface. I say go for it–no matter how silly, don’t let conventions deter you. I believe humor touches on the great meaning of life and that laughter is a sort of mad response to something so wonderful that we cannot comprehend it. I’d say Heaven would be more like a Comedy Club than clouds and harps.

Hmm, how about everyone getting five minutes to wow God, who looks like Johnny Carson. He will either invite you to the great couch or you get the hook. Hey there’s another idea.

Dale: Ralph Waldo Emerson, who Harold Bloom called “the mind of America,” pointed out that writers, artists, and “creatives” LOVE The Buzz, whether it be from smoking, alcohol, other drugs, walking, food, nature, or love. On some levels, this almost seems to be a prerequisite for the condition of creating art. For years, Sigmund Freud (the psychologist as artist) famously used cocaine while working, and he always said he couldn’t write without smoking (twenty cigars per day, except during periodic down periods). The Buzz can inspire, but it can also enchain. A great high of almost any kind is always followed by some kind of low, just like night always follows day.

Mary Baker Eddy wrote, “Love enriches the nature, enlarging, purifying, and elevating it.” MBE herself used laudanum. Jesus used wine for his first miracle, and for his last supper, and at all points in between (he said of himself, “The son of man comes eating and drinking”). Any thoughts on this?

Leila: Life is tough and we are not born with an ability to just accept things. Ironically, the cataclysmically dumb and the sociopaths are probably the best adjusted people. A lot of drinking and drugging (I see a difference caused by society, not by science) is due to a reality inferior to one’s imagination. The brighter the fantasy world the duller the real one. Some people, a few, can sustain that fantasy world for a very long time–but it wears off, and the let down is brutal.

And it cannot be cured by material possessions. Wealth does not prevent addictions, mostly it underwrites them. Look at recently passed Marianne Faithful, she had what many would say was “All”–but it really was not true. Some would scorn her for “wasting it”–but those people are assholes and are usually either one of the cataclysmically dumb or the sociopaths (which the US President appears to be a little of both–further shame on those clueless people who allowed him a path to the top. Not the voters, but the progressives who failed and caused the debacle).

The problem is twofold. Stuff wears off and it enslaves. Long term junkies often fix to avoid dopesickness first, before getting high. And of course, the mortality rate, especially amongst the young, is staggering.

Not to be cold, but as a person who has been on one thing or another for nearly half a century, I find that this sort of thing is necessary. And it should not just be made legal, but there should be medically supervised places you can go to fix where you will not die. Some might say we would all be high and nothing would get done. News Flash! It’s already that way.

Dale: Can you talk about your writing habits: where, when, and how?

Leila: I write every day. No set word limit, but I know when I am done (usually two, three hours). It’s always the first thing. I read that Hemingway (or maybe someone else) felt a “cistern” refilled. I think that’s a good analogy.

I only write at night, early morning, technically. A certain fantastic mindset comes at that time; if you write about talking Pygmy Goats you cannot be self conscious about it.

I used to be lazy as hell, but I finally forced myself into a routine when, at fifty or so, I understood there was only so much “later” you can push stuff into.

Dale: If you were heading off to a desert island and you could only bring five movies with you, and you had to decide today, which ones would they be?

Leila: I will answer without hesitation. When you think too much answers lose honesty and automatically become calculated. In no particular order:
1. Pulp Fiction
2. Casablanca
3. Wizard of Oz
4. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
5. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

Dale: If you were heading off to a desert island and could only bring five paintings with you, which ones would they be?

Leila: Here, I will choose items not currently on my wall because I would hope to return from the island and would want both places decorated differently.

1.) Self Portrait Van Gogh

2.) Metamorphosis-Escher

3.)  Mona Lisa

4.) American Gothic

5.) The Scream

Sometimes the classics are just that, the best!

Dale: Can you talk about when and how you first discovered Kurt Vonnegut and Mark Twain?

Leila: Vonnegut first appeared in my life in high school.  I somehow wound up in a science fiction as literature class and read Slaughter House Five. Alas, I was too young to “get” him. But the weird story about being unstuck in time never left me, and it was aided by the occasional rerun of the film with Valerie Perrine as Pilgrim’s highly improved mate.
Then I met charmingly dilapidated Mr Trout in Breakfast, at the right age, and it went from there and I read most everything.
Twain is like Lincoln, even my parents.  I do not remember first seeing him, he has always been with me. The American Shakespeare without doubt.

Coincidentally, it might be impossible to read everything that Vonnegut and Twain wrote because just when you think you have, someone digs up more. Especially true with Vonnegut stories in long, long out of print magazines.

Dale: Can you describe your experiences with LITERALLY STORIES, as both writer, and editor? You’ve done a fabulous job as reinventor of both.

Leila: Writing is a lonely thing. There are writing groups of course, and societies of working writers in big cities such as New York. But it is mostly a solitary task, and with the internet there appears to be millions of would-be writers wandering from here to there like Depression era Okies and hobos.

Even a basically insular person, as I am, longs to belong to something bigger than herself.

Aimless drifting the Duotrope plains has limited appeal. So when I found this most human of sites I kept coming back and got established via just hanging around.

I have nothing to compare it to, but with the high quality of people involved in the site (including you), LS inspires me to give something to it every day.  And I mean every day. I used to publish elsewhere, but that was out on the dusky plains.

All credit, however, should go to Hugh, Diane (and Nik who still stays in touch). I came on board as an Ed. in 2021; without them this thing would have been under a  cairn a long long time before that.

Dale: Judge Jasper P. Montague has rightly pointed out that all real literary artists (not want-to-be slackers) must somehow create for themselves a Personality Blackhole. Another way of putting it is to reveal and conceal simultaneously. This kind of magic trick makes the magic tricks of an ordinary magician look sad, transparent and pathetic by comparison, which is no doubt one reason why so few have been able to achieve this (or even come close). Any thoughts?

Leila: Ha!
The Judge says a lot of things, Dale–but you make a valid point regarding the magic of reveal and conceal.
The main thing is being the only one on the other side of said blackhole. To use Bukowski again, he often plainly said that the typewriter and booze time was it for him, but not once have I read HOW it happened.
But I get that because there are no words for it.
Excellent analogy, Dale!

Dale: Unbeknownst to many, what a real writer chooses to call herself, or not call herself, has tremendous importance if the writer is any good. H.D. is different from Hilda Doolittle as T.S. Eliot is different than Thomas Stearnes Eliot just as William Carlos Williams is different from W.C. Williams, and Mark Twain is different from Samuel Langhorne Clemens, just as Bob Dylan is rather different from Robert Zimmerman, Walt Whitman is different than Walter Whitman and Leonard Cohen called himself Leonard Cohen instead of Leonard Norman Cohen (his full name). Three of your names have a beautiful literary resonance. Irene reminds me of “Goodnight, Irene,” as performed by Lead Belly, Frank Sinatra, Tom Waits, Keith Richards, and Ken Kesey in his novel “Sometimes a Great Notion” (“to jump in the river and drown”: the part of the quote he left out of the title) and Irene Adler (not just in the short story from Strand Magazine, 1891, but also in all the other iterations and take-offs of her since then, including the two brilliant, hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking films with Robert Downey, Jr., etc.). Allison and Leila are also beautifully (and mysteriously) literary. Any thoughts (explanations), or comments, or not, on this?

Leila: Excellent question–my only problem is not to get windy with my reply. An interesting thing happened after my third LS story appeared. An author named Irene Allison emailed the site and asked if I could go by my middle name as not to confuse her with me. Looking back I should have asked her why she did not do the same, but I was meeker ten years ago, so Irene Leila Allison pulled the James Paul McCartney.

Irene is also the goddess of peace, which means she does not have much to do with the human race except hope that everything will work out all right. Such is the spirit behind this Irene. Such things are organic and have never been created by guile on my part. I see Penname as a class of person like a Cambodian or an Italian–capped, and just one word.

Everything I’ve ever written “reality wise” is true. It all happened around the same time but to different names and slightly altered situations. There are some events I will never share because the people involved are dead and I think it would be immoral to make use of those.

A lot of what I am began in the summer of 1978 when I discovered alcohol around the time of my father’s suicide. Nothing has been the same since.

Even Saragun Springs is an honest construction. A place where everyone is free, no need to worry about food or rent or getting hit by a bus, unless you are Beezer Baw, who shakes otherwise catastrophic physical accidents off like Wile E. Coyote. Almost everything can be funny at some mysterious level–one time on the ferry to Seattle I heard a distinctly southern female voice (like Vicki Lawrence as “Mama”) say “Never mind Roy, honey, he’s got the dementia.” Of course dementia is tragic, yet there was a little light in that statement that shone through. Somehow it located the essence of our mad, ephemeral lives.

Well, it looks like I got windy. Anyway, Dale, thank you very much for these questions. I’ve enjoyed them immensely, although I do regret that my answers have tended to deviate from the souls of the questions. Such is the essence of my own mad life.

Dale Williams Barrigar

Leila Allison

Image: Large Question Mark from Pixabay.com