Scott Heim is an author, poet, screenwriter and K.U. alumnus living in Boston. His first novel, "Mysterious Skin" has been adapted for the screen and opens tomorrow at the prestigious Venice Film Festival. Rather than tour Italy with the glitterati, Scott agreed to answer some questions about his K.U. days for this blog.
FJ: Did you attend any of the events during the River City Reunion in September of 1987? What are your memories of that time?
SH: Unfortunately, I didn't go to any of the events, really. I was immersed in school then, starting my junior year and getting pretty involved in a double major of English and Art History, and at the time I wasn't as interested in a lot of the performers and artists and writers who came to Lawrence. It's something I regret now.
FJ: There's a nice snapshot of you with William S. Burroughs and James Grauerholz on your website. Describe your Burroughs visit/experience.
SH: My first book Mysterious Skin had just sold to HarperCollins. My agent worked for an agency that had various dealings with James. I'd met him a couple of times in Lawrence, but had never met William. A friend of mine, Brad, also used to be friends with, and work for, William. So, through a few odd connections, my agent got James an early copy of the novel, and William read it. They contacted me, and the next time I was in Lawrence, James and Brad invited me over to have dinner with all of them.
It was a really great experience. William was charming and polite and lucid and pleasantly cranky. He made me feel very comfortable, and chatted a little about details in the book, which of course thrilled me. After dinner, he took me on a little tour of his backyard, with its goldfish pond. He showed me his cats. I can remember the odd crookedness of his bony body and his clean, starchy clothes and of course his voice. He actually reminded me of my grandfather, who had died twenty years earlier. I was actually sad when he died that I hadn't spent a little more time getting to know him, but I'm grateful for that one evening. It was certainly an experience that very few people can say they've had, I suppose.
FJ: According to the Lawrence.com website, Burroughs sometimes referred to Learned Avenue as "Learn Hard" avenue. What's the hardest lesson you learned while living in Lawrence?
SH: That's a tough one... honestly, I can't think of a suitable specific answer. I think, though, that whatever the true answer is, it would probably be a lesson I learned from Carolyn Doty, who was my mentor and writing teacher during almost all of my years at KU. I still think she's the person who made me become a writer, the first person who really believed in me and could point out the good things and the bad things about what I was doing at that time.
FJ: Kellie Wells and I used to work together at KJHK. What are your memories of the mid to late '80s Lawrence music scene?
SH: It seems I was usually into more of what was happening with music in Europe than a lot of the US indie scene in the 80s. I had one of the world's hugest collection of albums, I think, which gradually turned into a collection of cds, but during the 80s, very little of that was domestic. I had a connection to the Lawrence scene in a peripheral way-- I played drums in a couple of bands from '85 through '88 or so, and both of them also featured Marc Tweed, who was in the band the Drowning Incident. Plus, I lived in Hashinger, where a lot of Lawrence musicians lived, too, and hung out. I really loved playing in the bands-- and I think I'm actually a pretty good drummer-- but at some point I had to make the decision whether to pursue my English / teaching / MA / writing career, or take a bigger chance and give more attempts at playing music. Obviously, I chose the former over the latter.
FJ: Various bios for you mention your Kansas origins. Looking back, how has your perception of your Kansas years changed since you left for New York in the early 90s?
SH: I like and respect Lawrence more on all levels. As for the rest of Kansas, I admire its geography and landscape and history in many ways, but its politics, and often the beliefs and ways of a lot of its people, scare and anger me.
FJ: What do you miss most about Lawrence?
SH: Besides Carolyn, I'd have to say my sister and the good friends I made while I was there-- a lot of whom have also gone their various ways. Cheap Free State beer, too. Nights in autumn, when it's not so hot, and you can hear the cicadas and the wind in the trees. That's something you just don't get anywhere else.
FJ: Some of my friends who've moved to New York enjoy a certain esprit de corps with other Kansas ex-pats in the area. Have you found this to be true?
SH: Yeah, a lot of my closest friends in New York were Kansans. They'd been friends of mine back in Lawrence, too, so we all kind of emigrated at different times and wound up keeping together in a lot of ways.
FJ: I've never been to Boston. Where should I go to hear some live music?
SH: Two places in Cambridge are good-- the Middle East, and a place called TT the Bears.
FJ: IMDB says Mysterious Skin is in post production. What's the status of the movie?
SH: Right now, at this date-- the first of September, 2004-- things are happening at a rather furious pace. It debuts tomorrow, actually, at the Venice Film Festival. In two weeks, it plays at the Toronto Film Festival. After that, we'll find out all the necessary information about a distributor, release date, and that sort of stuff. It's a beautiful and challenging film. I'm really, really, really happy with it, and I think it stays marvelously faithful to the goal I wanted for the novel. I'm honored at what the producers, director, actors, and everyone else have achieved.
FJ: Half serious question: You've been writing some text-book text. Care to share a passage that might otherwise not reach the extra curricular set?
SH: Lord... I can't do this because I'm under contract with them for everything I write. Let's just say that I usually write English / language arts / reading comprehension passages, both fiction and nonfiction, for grades 5 through 8. So I can't take many chances with either material or artful language and style. I try to divorce myself from any sense of artfulness; if I treat it as my job, a kind of mathematical detachment, then perhaps I can still have some zest and creativity left for my own work when all the freelance textbook writing is over. That said, it's funny sometimes when I realize I've written some 800-word fiction piece for 6th grade or something and, oddly, it has some kind of parallel plot or imagery that an old story or novel also had.
FJ: What are you working on now?
SH: I've been writing the same novel for the past 7 years. I'm still not done, which is very frustrating, but it's still coming along. It will happen someday. The book is called We Disappear.
Find out more about Scott Heim at his website.
FJ: Did you attend any of the events during the River City Reunion in September of 1987? What are your memories of that time?
SH: Unfortunately, I didn't go to any of the events, really. I was immersed in school then, starting my junior year and getting pretty involved in a double major of English and Art History, and at the time I wasn't as interested in a lot of the performers and artists and writers who came to Lawrence. It's something I regret now.
FJ: There's a nice snapshot of you with William S. Burroughs and James Grauerholz on your website. Describe your Burroughs visit/experience.
SH: My first book Mysterious Skin had just sold to HarperCollins. My agent worked for an agency that had various dealings with James. I'd met him a couple of times in Lawrence, but had never met William. A friend of mine, Brad, also used to be friends with, and work for, William. So, through a few odd connections, my agent got James an early copy of the novel, and William read it. They contacted me, and the next time I was in Lawrence, James and Brad invited me over to have dinner with all of them.
It was a really great experience. William was charming and polite and lucid and pleasantly cranky. He made me feel very comfortable, and chatted a little about details in the book, which of course thrilled me. After dinner, he took me on a little tour of his backyard, with its goldfish pond. He showed me his cats. I can remember the odd crookedness of his bony body and his clean, starchy clothes and of course his voice. He actually reminded me of my grandfather, who had died twenty years earlier. I was actually sad when he died that I hadn't spent a little more time getting to know him, but I'm grateful for that one evening. It was certainly an experience that very few people can say they've had, I suppose.
FJ: According to the Lawrence.com website, Burroughs sometimes referred to Learned Avenue as "Learn Hard" avenue. What's the hardest lesson you learned while living in Lawrence?
SH: That's a tough one... honestly, I can't think of a suitable specific answer. I think, though, that whatever the true answer is, it would probably be a lesson I learned from Carolyn Doty, who was my mentor and writing teacher during almost all of my years at KU. I still think she's the person who made me become a writer, the first person who really believed in me and could point out the good things and the bad things about what I was doing at that time.
FJ: Kellie Wells and I used to work together at KJHK. What are your memories of the mid to late '80s Lawrence music scene?
SH: It seems I was usually into more of what was happening with music in Europe than a lot of the US indie scene in the 80s. I had one of the world's hugest collection of albums, I think, which gradually turned into a collection of cds, but during the 80s, very little of that was domestic. I had a connection to the Lawrence scene in a peripheral way-- I played drums in a couple of bands from '85 through '88 or so, and both of them also featured Marc Tweed, who was in the band the Drowning Incident. Plus, I lived in Hashinger, where a lot of Lawrence musicians lived, too, and hung out. I really loved playing in the bands-- and I think I'm actually a pretty good drummer-- but at some point I had to make the decision whether to pursue my English / teaching / MA / writing career, or take a bigger chance and give more attempts at playing music. Obviously, I chose the former over the latter.
FJ: Various bios for you mention your Kansas origins. Looking back, how has your perception of your Kansas years changed since you left for New York in the early 90s?
SH: I like and respect Lawrence more on all levels. As for the rest of Kansas, I admire its geography and landscape and history in many ways, but its politics, and often the beliefs and ways of a lot of its people, scare and anger me.
FJ: What do you miss most about Lawrence?
SH: Besides Carolyn, I'd have to say my sister and the good friends I made while I was there-- a lot of whom have also gone their various ways. Cheap Free State beer, too. Nights in autumn, when it's not so hot, and you can hear the cicadas and the wind in the trees. That's something you just don't get anywhere else.
FJ: Some of my friends who've moved to New York enjoy a certain esprit de corps with other Kansas ex-pats in the area. Have you found this to be true?
SH: Yeah, a lot of my closest friends in New York were Kansans. They'd been friends of mine back in Lawrence, too, so we all kind of emigrated at different times and wound up keeping together in a lot of ways.
FJ: I've never been to Boston. Where should I go to hear some live music?
SH: Two places in Cambridge are good-- the Middle East, and a place called TT the Bears.
FJ: IMDB says Mysterious Skin is in post production. What's the status of the movie?
SH: Right now, at this date-- the first of September, 2004-- things are happening at a rather furious pace. It debuts tomorrow, actually, at the Venice Film Festival. In two weeks, it plays at the Toronto Film Festival. After that, we'll find out all the necessary information about a distributor, release date, and that sort of stuff. It's a beautiful and challenging film. I'm really, really, really happy with it, and I think it stays marvelously faithful to the goal I wanted for the novel. I'm honored at what the producers, director, actors, and everyone else have achieved.
FJ: Half serious question: You've been writing some text-book text. Care to share a passage that might otherwise not reach the extra curricular set?
SH: Lord... I can't do this because I'm under contract with them for everything I write. Let's just say that I usually write English / language arts / reading comprehension passages, both fiction and nonfiction, for grades 5 through 8. So I can't take many chances with either material or artful language and style. I try to divorce myself from any sense of artfulness; if I treat it as my job, a kind of mathematical detachment, then perhaps I can still have some zest and creativity left for my own work when all the freelance textbook writing is over. That said, it's funny sometimes when I realize I've written some 800-word fiction piece for 6th grade or something and, oddly, it has some kind of parallel plot or imagery that an old story or novel also had.
FJ: What are you working on now?
SH: I've been writing the same novel for the past 7 years. I'm still not done, which is very frustrating, but it's still coming along. It will happen someday. The book is called We Disappear.
Find out more about Scott Heim at his website.
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