I am not me

Thanks for agreeing to interview me. I may be a woman, but I think like a man.

When I write I am not myself. I am twice removed from me. First I erase my identity,

Then I erase my gender. Am not the first to do this. Heard of George Eliot?

What I write is not what I would have written were it just me.

Please, wait. I will answer your questions; first I must clear the space from where

I acquire my voice, which as you know, is really not mine.

An only child, have drawn everything from a scholarly father;

He lived for me. He still speaks through me, though ten years dead.

Spent my childhood in a virtual hovel, I know what life is from inside.

My novels contain this truth, this life, this vision as it comes from within.

But I am intellectual, not emotional; I think if I ever do anything.

Signed a contract for four novels. Single encounter with an editor at my mentor’s place.

I charmed him; or perhaps my language did. He soon was eating off my hands.

Novel came out after novel. My language struck the reader dumb, even when

He failed to understand it. That James Joyce situation, you know.

But you know these days novels have a short shelf-life.

Only the story-teller sells. I never stoop to that level,

I damn care if just three or four novels are yearly sold.

I know that inside them is encaged pure literary gold.