FICTION | Margaret Koss & Alyssa Natoci The Cusp of Magic, An Interview

INTERVIEW

THE CUSP OF MAGIC

An Interview by Margaret Koss and Alyssa Natoci, Both Born on June 20th

Alyssa: I was thinking about the first time we ever really interacted. I noticed right away that you were very communicative, which I really appreciated, because as a fellow Gemini I’m always wanting to be in contact. So I thought to myself, “okay, cool, Margaret Koss is on top of shit.” But [our first real interaction] was during the January 2021 residency. Margaret: And we found out we both had the same birthday. A: And that we’re both from the Midwest.

M: I once read about our birthday week (and I also love that we both knew it was called “The Cusp of Magic” without even needing to talk about it) that it’s described “as an interesting blend of logic and feeling” and I thought that was so interesting because I definitely think that applies to myself. But I was wondering if you think that it applies to you, too, and especially with writing? A: Oh, definitely. To me writing itself feels like that perfect blend of logic and feeling. There’s this sort of intellectual, strategic, craft-focused element, but at the end of the day, at least for me, what I try to achieve in my writing is just kind of…

sublimating human experience, which is very emotional, almost purely emotional. I definitely resonate with that definition. And also, as Geminis, we’re ruled by Mercury, and communication is supposedly our strength. I wanted to ask you—do you feel like communication and writing has always come really naturally to you? Do you think that being a Gemini, and being a cusp, even, is part of what led you to writing in the first place? M: Probably. Communication has always come naturally to me, especially in humor/being funny, which feels very Gemini. But I think for our cusp, specifically, it’s almost like we’re able to communicate with feeling. And I feel like that’s what makes a good writer. Like, you’re eloquent, but also there’s a reason to care about what you’re saying. What’s weird is that I have struggled with communicating my feelings with people before and I think that’s part of why I like writing so much. A: Does writing feel like a safer outlet to be more personal? M: Yes and I don’t know why. Even talking to friends of mine, sometimes I’d rather them just read what I wrote and then I know that they’d understand. I can’t really say it as well as I can write it.

A: That’s interesting. We’ve talked a lot before about how your work seems to draw from personal experience. Have you always written that way? Or has that style emerged more recently? M: I would say so, because even when I was little, I would read something and then write a copy of it, basically. So, even if I wasn’t experiencing it, it was coming from something I just consumed and was trying to replicate. I also think that’s part of the Gemini thing, too, because I’m really interested in other people, and I love talking to other people and love hearing them

tell me stories about their lives, so that’s what I want my writing to feel like. Do you feel the same way? I guess I’m curious about the question of what brought you to writing? A: I don’t know, I think that when I started writing it felt more escapist. Maybe less related to my world. But I think our goals are similar—you mentioned that you’re interested in other people and their lives, and I am, too, but I think for me writing is a chance to inhabit other lives, and not to display my life for other people’s benefit. Well, I do. I do and then I translate them into other situations. So, a lot of the subject matter I deal with is about me and my life, but I like to explore other contexts for that to live in.

M: Sometimes, I feel like the writing part is almost like my truest expression of self. And I do think that when I’ve read your writing, I can tell that it’s you. A: When I read your writing. It feels very Marge. M: [laughs] A: You have a distinct voice and way of looking at the world and moving through the world. It’s very thoughtful and observant, there’s a lot of humor to it, but also there’s this devastating, raw look at the truth of what surrounds us, you know? You’re not afraid to see things the way that they really are, which I think a lot of us are.

M: Thank you for all the compliments. A: [laughs] Of course, of course… You’re the youngest in your family, aren’t you? M: Yeah.

A: Same.

M: I’ve always felt like I’m not a great family member. I don’t know how you feel about that statement. A: Definitely! I mean, it’s complicated. I feel like a black sheep. M: Right. I’ve often felt that way, too. A: Yes, and I think I’m definitely more of a… spacey type? M: Oh my god. When I was little, my parents were always calling me oblivious. Like always. They were like “you’re not… you don’t know what’s going on.” A: “You’re not here.”

M: Yeah.

A: That’s sort of how I feel, though. I’m not here. I tend to occupy a more conceptual realm, day to day. M: Right. Same. A: It’s easy for me to forget about the reality of life and the people in my life. And it’s not something I’m proud of… I don’t know, I’m interested in family dynamics and I write about them quite a lot, but I’m not interested in accepting that the nuclear family is this given source of comfort. M: Right. What you said about being spacey is so funny. That’s so true. And that’s probably a big part of it. Like, I’ve joked with friends before about how it’s like an input problem, where it’s like I just don’t keep it in at all, it just goes in and then right out. A: But I feel like you’re observant! And you retain a lot of information.

M: If I find it interesting. You know, it’s kind of toxic. Like, I can’t remember where anybody is working or what anybody is doing.

A: Totally. I’m the same way. I remember really strange details about people. And maybe that’s the selfish writer in me, where I’m storing these details for later. M: Right, like, “what could I use?” A: Definitely. So… We’re also both from the Midwest. M: Yeah! I have a lot to say about that actually. I just think [the Midwest] is such an interesting place to be from, and not to be like “nobody understands me” if they don’t come here, but… they kind of don’t. I don’t know… I’m surrounded by Republicans and corn, and then I go to a liberal school and just everybody talks about stuff that’s just really out of touch. It’s really important to me to write characters that are from the Midwest because I feel like the representations I’ve seen of where I live are super weird. A: I mean, the Midwest is the real deal. Midwesterners are… we’re down to earth! We’re literally of the earth. When you live a life that’s more connected to the seasons, I think you just have a different sense of what’s important in this world. M: I’m really glad you brought up the seasons because I think that is probably a really big thing that has to do with our writing. And my novel, right now, the way I’ve divided it is by the seasons: Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring. And actually, that kind of leads into a question I have about what you’re working on, because I know your book right now is called Green, and then you had mentioned last week that you had one that you were kind of having seeds about: Red. And I just thought it was interesting that you’re operating in these opposing concepts, a lot like, you know, the summer and winter solstice. So, I wanted you to talk more about that— if you operate in opposites.

A: That’s an amazing question. I think about polarizing concepts a lot and how they can reinforce one another. I don’t necessarily think that the Red project will be a companion to Green, but I do think overall I want the scope of my work to feel somewhat cohesive. I want to build a collection of writing that can be in conversation with one another, so in that way, I guess [they are related]. I kind of have this long-term goal that every book I write is going to be… M: Colors.

A: Yeah, colors. [laughs] Green started with a question of “what does the color green mean?” and it just sort of unraveled into something else. I created this character that, to me, embodied green. M: So, for you, then, what is green and what is red? A: I think that green, there’s like a purity, like an innocence. Green is the color of life, to me. And then I guess what I’m exploring within Green is kind of like: innocence, and the loss of innocence; life, and the loss of life; the ways we exploit the good sources of life around us, and like, sources of abundance and inspiration around us. M: Mmm…

A: And with Red—red feels super primal, it feels like the source of emotion and wrath. That’s still deep in the early stages, but I think it’s going to be pretty spooky. M: And sexy. A: And sexy! M: [laughs] A: You finished a draft of a novel already. Within three terms.

Do you want to talk a little bit more about how it came out of you? And what you’re doing with it right now? M: I’m now in the stage where I’m letting people read it and that’s awful. [laughs] I’ve shared it with two of my friends, who are two main characters in it. It’s really important to do that, because everyone is going to have to read it! A: That’s the thing about writing! Ideally, people will buy your book and read it.

M: I know…

A: How do you feel about that? I was actually reading something about our Cusp of Magic— “Persuading others, in and of itself, is extremely attractive to many June 20 people. Unfortunately, they may not have the highest tolerance for ideas contrary, or as they see it, threatening, to their own. In fact, some June 20th people wish there to be an unspoken feeling of consensus in their social environment which supports and sympathizes with their often extreme points of view.” M: Yes wow that is so true. “Often extreme points of view.” [laughs] Like, I’m not really going to tolerate [them] not liking it, so I want to talk about it, but I also don’t want to, but I have to, because I have to improve it, so that means I have to hear these things that I don’t want to hear. A: It’s interesting. I’m curious— well, I think I already know— but I’m curious to know who you write for. Because I know for me, I write for myself, and I really don’t consider the fact that other people are going to have opinions about my work. And it’s a blind spot for me, in that it’s hard for me to consider other people’s feedback, unless I really agree with it [laughs]. M: No, I’m glad that you asked that, because that’s kind of

something I explore a lot in the book, is like “why are you writing” and like “what’s this for.” I also write for myself, but I feel like when you’re doing that, you’re writing for your reader, and everybody has a reader, and that’s why you have to be so authentically yourself, and only write about what purely interests you, and like what you care about, because somebody else will [care] also, and you can’t let them down, basically. A: Mmm…

M: Not everyone’s going to read Mrs. Dalloway and be like “oh my god, yes!” but somebody will, and that’s important, because you can’t be everybody’s favorite, and if you try to do that then you’re just lukewarm. A: Definitely. So– back to that June 20 blurb, which is the “Day of Ecstatic Appeal” by the way– M: Wow, I never knew that, that’s awesome. A: It has a corresponding tarot card. It says: “the 20th card of the tarot shows Judgement or The Awakening,” and this just jogged a thought in my head about how you recommended The Awakening by Kate Chopin to me. I know that it’s a really important book for you, and it’s become an important book for me, too, and I want to talk about feminist influences in both of our works.

M: The Awakening is one of those books that I felt like it had been written yesterday. I love reading Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath, all these women who have had the same feelings as me way before I did. I hope that everything I write is a feminist homage to every woman I’ve ever read. I just think it’s so comforting that she [any of them!] didn’t have to write any of it down, and she did anyway, and now it helps me,

a hundred years later. A: I love that. I feel similarly that feminist literature is never irrelevant. Women and non-men will always be oppressed by masculine influence. I think it’s always going to be important to explore that experience, because every single non-maleidentifying person is struggling with it. This is also why I really love Elena Ferrante’s novels.

M: Mmm, mhmm. A: I love that she hasn’t deviated from her subject matter. Her novels are always about a woman who feels trapped. It’s amazing to me that she can write the same thing over and over again and they can all be, you know, different novels. They all deserve to exist.

M: Right. I also read [The Awakening] in the summer of 2020 and it brought me back to the project that became my novel, because the relationship between Edna and Robert really reminded me of one of the relationships that I wrote about in my book. And again, that’s what’s so crazy about it, how it feels so current because those feelings are still the same. A: Totally. It’s not like certain feelings are more modern than others, really. I think maybe our permission to feel them or express them maybe has changed over the years, but— M: Well, what do you think? Because I still think that women aren’t really allowed to have feelings, and I think that’s why I am better at writing than speaking, because I do struggle with explaining feelings a lot of the time, especially to men. And I feel like it’s because women haven’t really been encouraged to do that.

A: Totally. I agree. I mean I just wrote an annotation about

Rachel Cusk’s new novel– you haven’t read it yet, right? She’s addressing this character named Jeffers, and you’re reading it asking yourself, who the fuck is Jeffers? It’s never explained. But she’s writing to him, it’s like this one-sided epistolary novel, and we never hear from Jeffers, but the reader becomes Jeffers. What I argued in my annotation—what I “argued”—so stupid— M: What you uncovered— A: What I uncovered is that the character who’s writing to this man is a woman. But as a woman, she doesn’t feel comfortable, she can’t just write her story from her point of view, you know. She needs to be twice removed, and have it be acknowledged by a man for it to feel worthy of existing at all. M: It needs that authority. A: Yes, and I do feel that way. I feel like, so often I need to feel affirmed by a masculine presence in order to feel confident in my own feelings and my own thoughts. M: Right. A: And it’s fucked up! M: It’s kind of crazy because – there’s like these two men that Francine [the protagonist in my novel] has relationships with where she basically wants them to love her and they just don’t. But it’s crazy how even what you’re not to men, still becomes a way that you make your identity. A: Absolutely. Similarly, the novel I’m writing is about this woman who’s controlled by the men around her. Even though the men have purpose in this world because of her. Because she is successful, and she is the source of their identity. M: Don’t you feel that way with the Neapolitan novels also?

Where it’s like, Lila creates everything—her shoe designs become about what the men do with the shoes, and she is not even relevant anymore. It’s so frustrating to read it. A: She is the source of life. Women are the source of life.

M: Right. Oh cool. Green. A: Green!

M: I did have another astrology question. This can be the last one. I feel like obviously we are astrology stans because it’s what this interview is centered around. Why do you feel like astrology makes sense to you? And what do you think other people don’t get about it? A: I think the key is to know more than just your sun sign. I think between you and I, I’m very much a Cancer and you’re very much a Gemini.

M: Totally. A: Even though we’re born on the same day. But you know, I have a Cancer moon, and that’s important to me. It feels more like my identity. And you have an Aries moon, right? M: The Aries moon definitely brings out the scarier Gemini side of things. A: Totally. It makes sense. And fire and air for you makes bigger flames. And for me, water and air make—bubbles, I guess? M: Bigger waves! A: Bigger waves, yeah. *Both laugh about bubbles*