Marge Ballif Simon is an artist and poet who is as talented as she is prolific in a number of different fields and genres, including flash fiction, poetry, short stories, oil painting, watercolor, and oil pencil. Her work has graced the pages, both paper and digital, of a number of print and online publications, including Goblin Fruit, Strange Horizons,Dreams & Nightmares, and The Pedestal Magazine. A past president of the Science Fiction Poetry Association and the current editor of its publication, Star*Line, her written work has won the Bram Stoker Award and SFPA's Rhysling Award. Her haunting and often surreal illustrations have graced the covers of several of her own books and the work of other poets and short story writers, including many who have published with Sam's Dot Publishing.
Marge Simon.
JoSelle Vanderhooft: Marge, you're one of many writers currently working in the field who moves between poetry, short stories and flash fiction with ease. Can you speak a little about what draws you to each of these fields?
Marge Simon: I'm not a "long writer," and have never wanted to write a novel or even a novella. Poetry, like flash fiction, provides a readily accessible canvas to play with. Whether to express an emotion or share a vignette, these forms are often interchangeable. They say that Grandma Moses had several canvases going at the same time. Maybe it was a way for her to catch up with the time she missed while raising children and tending the farm. Like Grandma, I tend to have more than one poem or fiction going at a time. For me, it's just the way I think.
Melville locked himself away in his room for months while working on Moby Dick. If I ever decide to write a novel, I hope someone will take pity on me and take me out to dinner, instead.
[As for] flash fiction and poetry: You can make an idea work either way, but I strive to make the best choice. Short stories require more time for me. Jo, I know you love words, love to make them sing in incredible ways. Like you, I feel the same—but I'm not as steeped in the craft of literature as you and I have only written and published one long poem to speak of: "Variants of the Obsolete," which won a Rhysling Award in 1995. It's composed of short lined stanzas and contains no frills. I don't know any better way to answer your question.
JV: Although the term "genre" is often a very slippery thing today, with hybrids of fantasy, horror and science fiction becoming increasingly more popular, it seems to me that the bulk of your work is in horror and dark fantasy. But is there a specific genre in which you prefer to write?
MS: I tend to write dark or introspective stuff. Sometimes it's a story capsule. It doesn't matter what aspect of the genre it is.
Like Birds in the Rain was published by Sam's Dot Publishing in 2006.
JV: Even though your writing goes into several dark places, both supernaturally and psychologically, much of your work ends, if not happily, then with some measure of hope. I'm thinking in particular of your flash pieces "The Piano", "Origami Swans", and "The Moon Complements My Shadow", which was my favorite of your collection Like Birds in the Rain. What is the appeal of hopeful endings?
MS: Thank you, I'm glad you liked that one. Appeal? If you mean what appeals to me, stories with hopeful endings sell. But that doesn't mean I write to publish. I write because it's what I do.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, VECTORS: A Week in the Death of a Planet (written with Charlee Jacob), won the Stoker in 2008. Working on that was a very heavy trip on the downside. To balance the dark with light, thank goodness for Mary A. Turzillo, who has become my accomplice in quirk: dragons and the like, for instance. We've collaborated on two collections: Dragon Soup and The Dragon's Dictionary [forthcoming this year from Sam's Dot Publishing].
But I believe my best work to date is an open-ended poem or story, and that's harder to place. Some excellent markets for my sort of poetry, such as Helix, have folded in the past few years. Yet others have opened up, including themed collections edited by Richard Ristow, John Irvine, and Chris Conlon. I am honored to be among their contributors.
JV: You've been involved in the Science Fiction Poetry Association for much of its history, as a former president and now as the editor of Star*Line, its publication. How did you get involved in SFPA and what, would you say, is its importance to the field then and now?
MS: Back in the 1980s, I came across Star*Line, thanks to Janet Fox's Scavenger's Newsletter. I was brand new to science fiction poetry, had no sure idea what speculative poetry was, either. I became a member of the SF Poetry Association so I could cunningly get published in Star*Line. By and by, a need for an editor came up and I volunteered and long story short, I got the job. About two years later, with help, we organized things so there was a president, secretary, and treasurer (not for the first time or second time, as it so happens—volunteers fell off along the way. I didn't know the history). Then we drafted and passed a constitution. That stuck. Our current president, Deborah P. Kolodji, is doing a fantastic job at moving it forward as well as increasing the membership.
As for its importance to the field, that seems self evident with the rise of interest in SF/genre poetry and, thanks to the help of many talented volunteers, SFPA has found its own voice in contemporary poetry that ranges worldwide. Our Rhysling winners are published annually in the Nebula Awards Anthology.
Yet who knows how or when this would have come about, without the vision of Suzette Hayden Elgin, who founded the SFPA in 1978.
Marge Simon and Charlee Jacobs shared a Bram Stoker Award in 2008 for their poetry collection VECTORS:A Week in the Death of a Planet..
JV:Let's talk about your art career. In 2004, Strange Horizons published an online gallery of your work. In the preface, Charlee Jacob said of your work—after being asked about the place of illustration in speculative fiction—"What use have I for artists? I wish I had that sumptuous talent. To render into concrete but psychic images with the ectoplasm of ink or paint. Alas, I'm forced to putting only into words what I see in my head and dreams. Of course, these images often come in words—but I wish I could do as Marge does and be able to do both." What are the advantages of being a writer who is also able to manipulate the "ectoplasm of ink or paint?"
MS: It's a hell of a lot of fun. I'm a happy camper when I'm doing both: writing and art every day, along with a dose of reading and adventures into what else is being done by other artists/writers and poets. Like breathing.
I've written poems or fictions to go with a painting. The source for the inspiration of the art often eludes me. I find images in the way the paint falls such as in the background wash. An example of this appears in the Spring 2010 issue of New Myths, titled "The Green Bird." The art came first, the poem followed.
One drawback I've found is that my illustration for a certain poem sometimes clarifies the poem; if an editor doesn't want illustrations and if I can't place them together, I have to revise the poem and scrap the art. But that doesn't happen very often.
JV: Going back a little bit further, how did you first become interested in drawing and illustration? Did you begin in childhood, or was this a skill and a talent you discovered later in life?
MS: Yep, as Bill Cosby said, "I began as a child." Never had any doubt about my talent or my potential. Those things, however, were governed by what my father had in mind for me to do as I grew up and what I was supposed to achieve with a college degree. Art, writing and poetry were all very fine and well in their place, but as a sound basis for a career, unacceptable by his standards.
JV: Although you are accomplished in charcoal, color pencil, watercolor, and oil paint, you have often said that oil pencil is your preferred medium. What's it like working with oil pencils, and what attracts you to them?
MS: Glad you asked. I loved painting in oils and acrylics. In time it became a matter of economy because what the heck are you going to do with X amount of canvases if you don't want to start exhibiting them regularly? Worse, I had to control my media. I'd be repainting one over and over. Eventually I "downsized" to something I couldn't mess with further. I wanted to illustrate, to heck with those Bierstadt majestics of my mind. Hence, back to black and white, pen and ink, watercolor and prismacolor. Found markets, found work, found audience. Of course, all these changes came about over three decades.
Oil pencils and watercolor pencils work just as well for me as brushes. I do mix the two mediums, for it can be done with a good grade of watercolor paper. I can work in details with the oil pencils. Then there's pen and ink, which I don't do as much of as I used to in the early 90s.
JV: Throughout your long career, you've illustrated a staggering number of poetry and short story/flash fiction collections, including those by Bruce Boston, Charlee Jacobs, Malcolm Deeley, and a number of poetry collections for Sam's Dot Publishing. What is the appeal of collaboration?
MS: Absolutely nothing. I don't like other talented people. It's a pretense. OK, seriously, I enjoy working with others of like minds, poets and writers that I admire. It's a most rewarding experience and I am still learning new concepts by working with other talents. If you stop learning or asking questions, you may as well stop all together.
JV: Does creating illustrations for another's book differ from illustrating your own books?
MS: When working to illustrate someone else's work, I want to please them. But I let the author know I'm not a digital artist. I ask them what they would like to feature in a cover before doing a preliminary work-up and explain that once things are firmed up, I can't subtract from the original. If working on my own, it's a natural extension, like dancing to inner music. Covers for my own work don't require a preliminary sketch.
JV: How would you say that art and the scope of art history have influenced your writing? Beyond the obvious differences of pictures versus words, what are the differences between art and writing? Do the two have any overlap?
MS: That would make a good thesis. Of course art and creative writing overlap! Art history is a great resource for inspiration, and I've composed poems in response to art — not only by the masters, but by contemporary artists exhibiting at conventions. I'm not alone. Besides my husband, Bruce Boston, two poets I admire in particular who write poems inspired by artists are Ann K. Schwader and Mike Allen.
But while I'm at it, I have to say that history itself is my workshop for creative impetus, and I've published many poems that extrapolate from history. For example, "A Stone in the Sand" is about a young English woman who was accused of theft and sent to the "lands beyond the seas" (Australia) in the 1800s.
Accompanying illustration for Simon's poem "A Stone in the Sand."
JV: You've got several poetry collections in the works now, both individual and collaborations. Can you tell me a little about these? And are there any future projects you can talk about at this point?
MS: A new dark poetry collection, Unearthly Delights, is forthcoming from Sam's Dot Publishing this year. The City of a Thousand Gods with Malcolm Deeley will be published shortly, also from Sam's Dot. We are already talking about a sequel. Mary Turzillo and I have another idea for expanding on a character, Zazor, the cross-dressing dragon, who we introduced in our Dragon's Dictionary.
JV: What artwork are you working on now?
MS: I'm a staff artist for Damnation Books and Cyberwizard Productions. I also enjoy illustrating covers for Wolf Moon Productions, and what really makes my day is when the author likes the cover and I can sell it to them at a very low price. To me, the art belongs to their story. That also goes for Niteblade, edited by Rhonda Parrish. She's gone overboard to let authors know they can buy the originals from me for "peanuts." Why not? What good are all these inspirations doing sitting in my file drawer?
Marge Simon's Web site can be found here.