Annie McDonnell asks Kris Faatz

Annie McDonnell asks Kris Faatz

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

I’m not sure I believe in “perfect” happiness, but for me, safety and security are paramount. If I’m in a place where I feel safe, with people who are supportive and good to be with, that’s very happy. Another part of happiness for me is feeling secure with myself: able to count on myself, able to keep my feet on the ground and let my mind do its imaginative stuff. The work of the imagination is a big source of fulfillment and satisfaction. If I have security inside and out, that’s the best place to be.

What is your greatest extravagance?

Any time I can buy something for myself only and exactly because I want it, not because it’s a necessity. I’m not given to treating myself, so those occasions are special. Things like a flowering plant or some nice shampoo are very satisfying. Most recently, I treated myself to the entry fee for a wonderful generative writing contest (writing nerd here!).

What is your current state of mind?

Cautiously optimistic.

On what occasion do you lie?

If I make a mistake and don’t want to be found out, I’d definitely be inclined to lie. For me, lying happens because of fear. Usually, the fear is out of all proportion to whatever actually happened, but I’m hard-wired to avoid conflict as much as I can, and I get scared on a profound level if I think someone will be angry at me.

What is the quality you most like in a person? (note – I combined the “man” and “woman” questions, because for me, it’s the same answer)

Kindness. I’ve learned, especially over the past few years, that I respond deeply to real kindness, when it’s clear that a person has genuine empathy and caring for those around them. Sometimes this goes with “niceness,” i.e. good manners and getting along well with others, but not always. Real kindness impresses me like nothing else.

What or who is the greatest love of your life?

I’ll take both the who and the what! The “who” is my husband, Paul. He’s been the reason that I’ve been able to figure out who I am and dive so deeply into the kind of work I care about. He is my anchor, and has been my beloved and best friend through the almost twenty years we’ve been together.

The ”what” would have to be writing. I love to dig into story, especially a big project like a novel. No other work is as satisfying (though there are other things, like playing the piano, that I also love to do). Working on a project feels like the best kind of exercise, or like sitting down to a good meal, and it’s always solid ground underfoot.

When and where were you happiest?

This is a great question. My mind went right to a trip my husband and I took to Spain, back in 2015. It’s the only time I’ve been abroad. We explored the northwestern corner, mainly Galicia and Asturias. It was such an adventure; in fact, it was more than a little overwhelming, especially at first (and for someone like me with a wide anxious streak). There were many surprises. We quickly discovered that the Spanish I learned back in high school and college wasn’t just helpful/optional, as we’d thought it would be, but essential for getting by. Several of the hikes we took were quite a bit tougher and more daunting than we’d expected. Food could also be a surprise: I would read a menu and think I knew what a certain dish would be like, but what arrived wouldn’t be at all what I’d imagined. I had a kind of slogan while we were there: “Welcome to Spain, where nothing is what you think.”

At first, I had a really tough time enjoying it. Paul is much more intrepid than I am, better able to navigate the unexpected. When I did start to relax, though, I absolutely fell in love with the scenery, the history, and everything about our adventure. The northwest coast is incredibly beautiful; I still want to get back there and experience the turquoise ocean and the tide pools again. Also the churches, with their centuries of history, and the Iron Age settlements that gave me the trip’s biggest gift: the seeds of my novel Fourteen Stones. I came home with ideas for a setting, a storyline, and the character who would become my favorite and the driving force behind the book. All in all, when I look back on it, that trip was definitely one of my happiest times.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

I’d love to be better at trusting myself. I’m a highly anxious person, and I sell myself short a lot and hold myself back from trying things that scare me. I work on this all the time, but I do wish I could snap my fingers and fix it.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Building a life that matters to me. When I was growing up, I got a lot of negative feedback about being an artist and especially a writer. I’m very proud to have gone ahead anyway and built a writing life. Even the word “writer” seemed dirty to me for a long time, but now I own it, which makes me very glad.

If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?

I think it would have to be a sea bird: maybe a gull or a tern. I’d love to experience flying, and the ocean is my favorite place to be.

Where would you most like to live?

I’m very fond of where I do live, but if it could be anywhere, I think it would be amazing to be near the ocean: say within walking distance, or an easy drive, and able to get to the water any time I wanted. It would need to be quiet, too, more wild than settled. Assateague Island in Maryland is one of my favorite places. It would be lovely to live in or near somewhere like that.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Being lost from yourself, unable to connect with what matters to you or remember who you are.

Who is your hero of fiction?

I’ll go with my first fictional hero here, even though he’s not a human. When I was ten, I read Richard Adams’s Watership Down for the first time. It had a huge impact on me. I loved Adams’s gentle, meditative, descriptive style. I got lost in the world he created and the struggles and triumphs of his rabbit protagonists. Especially, I loved Hazel, who in my eyes was everything anyone could want in a leader and hero: strong, wise, thoughtful, compassionate. I often imagined what it would be like to know him, if a human child could talk to a rabbit; what it would be like to tell him about things that troubled me and have his advice and support.

Watership Down helped me through a lot of difficulty when I was growing up and did a lot to influence who I became as a writer. I think my style owes more to Adams than any other individual author. As I think about Hazel, too, I can’t help noticing the traits he shares with one of my own fictional creations, Ribas Silvaikas from Fourteen Stones. Even down to the physical weakness he has to contend with. That wasn’t deliberate, but Watership Down has remained a go-to ever since that first read thirty-five years ago, and those roots go deep.

What is your motto?

Working on this too, every day, but the motto I try to hold onto is “choose again.” I often feel as if I’m not allowed to make mistakes or fail at things, that failures are terminal and there’s no way forward from them. “Choose again” reminds me that I do have agency, that if something doesn’t go the way I’d hoped, I can try something else.

Kris Faatz (rhymes with skates) is a fiction writer and musician. Her first novel, To Love A Stranger, was a finalist for the 2016 Schaffner Press Music in Literature Award and was released May 2017 by Blue Moon Publishers (Toronto, ON). Her second novel, literary fantasy Fourteen Stones, was released in 2022 by The Patchwork Raven (Wellington, NZ), with an American edition forthcoming in 2024 from Highlander Press (Baltimore, Maryland).

Kris’s short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in journals including Los Angeles Review, The Baltimore Review, Kenyon Review Online, Streetlight Magazine, Potomac Review, and Reed, and has received recognition in competitions run by Philadelphia Stories, Uncharted Magazine, Dzanc Books, and others. Most recently, she received NELLE‘s 2022 Three Sisters Award. She has been a contributor at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and the recipient of a Peter Taylor Fellowship at the Kenyon Review Writers Workshops. In 2018, she served as a preliminary-round judge for the Flannery O’Connor Short Fiction Award. She currently teaches creative writing with the Community College of Baltimore County, Baltimore County Public Library system, and Baltimore Bridges, and is a regular presenter at the Bay to Ocean Writers Conference, run by Maryland’s Eastern Shore Writers Association. She is also a performing pianist.

As a no-holds-barred reader, Kris has special devotion to Barbara Kingsolver, Terry Pratchett, Richard Adams, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, Christopher Moore, and Neil Gaiman. She loves hiking and exploring the outdoors, especially if it involves lakes, oceans or streams. She lives in Maryland with her husband, jazz saxophonist and composer Paul Faatz, and feline contingent Alafair, Templeton, and Fergus.