Libba Bray
What is it about writing an author bio that gives me that deer-in-headlights feeling? It's not exactly like I'm going to say "I was born in Alabama…" and somebody's going to jump up and snarl, "Oh yeah? Prove it!" At least I hope not.
I think what gets me feeling itchy is all that emphasis on the facts of a life, while all the juicy, relevant, human oddity stuff gets left on the cutting room floor. I could tell you the facts–I lived in Texas for most of my life; I live in New York City with my husband and six-year-old son now; I have freckles and a lopsided smile; I'm allergic to penicillin.
But that doesn't really give you much insight into me. That doesn't tell you that I stuck a bead up my nose while watching TV when I was four and thought I'd have to go to the ER and have it cut out. Or that I once sang a punk version of "Que Sera Sera" onstage in New York City. Or that I made everyone call me "Bert" in ninth grade for no reason that I can think of. See what I mean?
God is in the details. So with that in mind, here is my bio. Sort of.
TEN THINGS YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT ME by Libba Bray
1. I lived in Texas until I was 26 years old, then I moved to New York City with $600.00 in my shoe ('cause muggers won't take it out of your shoe, y'know . . . riiiiight . . .) and a punchbowl (my grandmother's gift) under my arm. I ended up using the punchbowl box as an end table for two years.
2. My dad was a Presbyterian minister. Yes, I am one of those dreaded P.K.s–Preacher's Kids. Be afraid. Be very afraid . . .
3. The first story I ever wrote, in Mrs. McBee's 6th grade English class, was about a girl whose family is kidnapped and held hostage by a murderous lot of bank robbers who intend to kill the whole family–including the dog–until the 12-year-old heroine foils the plot and saves the day. It included colored pencil illustrations of manly-looking, bearded criminals smoking, and, oblivious to the fact that The Beatles had already sort of laid claim to the title, I called my novel, HELP. My mom still has a copy. And when I do something she doesn't like, she threatens to find it.
4. My favorite word is "redemption." I like both its meaning and the sound. My least favorite word is "maybe." "Maybe" is almost always a "no" drawn out in cruel fashion.
5. My three worst habits are overeating, self-doubt, and the frequent use of the "f" word.
6. The three things I like best about myself are my sense of humor, my ability to listen, and my imagination.
7. I have an artificial left eye. I lost my real eye in a car accident when I was eighteen. In fact, I had to have my entire face rebuilt because I smashed it up pretty good. It took six years and thirteen surgeries. However, I did have the pleasure of freezing a plastic eyeball in an ice cube, putting it in a friend's drink, ("Eyeball in your highball?") and watching him freak completely. Okay, so maybe that's not going down on my good karma record. But it sure was fun.
8. In 7th grade, my three best friends and I dressed up as KISS and walked around our neighborhood on Halloween. Man, we were such dorks.
9. I once spent New Year's Eve in a wetsuit. I'd gone to the party in a black dress that was a little too tight (too many holiday cookies) and when I went to sit down, the dress ripped up the back completely. Can we all say, mortified? The problem was, my friends were moving out of their house–everything was packed and on a truck–and there was nothing I could put on . . . but a wetsuit that they still had tacked to the wall. I spent the rest of the party maneuvering through throngs of people feeling like a giant squid.
10. I got married in Florence, Italy. My husband and I were in love but totally broke, so we eloped and got married in Italy, where he was going on a business trip. We had to pull a guy off the street to be our witness. It was incredibly romantic.
“Did they find something wanting in you, Gemma, at the party? You didn’t speak too freely or behave…strangely?”I grew claws and bayed at the moon. I confessed that I eat the hearts of small children. I told them I like the French.”
“Why does everyone want to own me?" Pippa mumbles. She's got her head in her hands. "Why do they all want to control my life -- how I look, whom I see, what I do or don't do? Why can't they just let me alone?""Because you're beautiful," Ann answers, watching the fire lick her palm. "People always think they can own beautiful things.”
“May I suggest that you all read? And often. Believe me, it's nice to have something to talk about other than the weather and the Queen's health. Your mind is not a cage. It's a garden. And it requires cultivating.”
“Everything is randomly connected.”
“The uncertainty of our future is nothing more than a fog of breath on a windowpane.”
“He plants his feet stubbornly, adopting what he must think is an heroic post. He's just begging for a pigeon to fly by and relieve itself.”
“We're all looking glasses, we girls, existing only to reflect their images back to them as they'd like to be seen. Hollow vessels of girls to be rinsed of our own ambitions, wants, and opinions, just waiting to be filled with the cool, tepid water of gracious compliance.”
“...because really, sometimes the irony gods just get drunk.”
“She never utters a sound even when she's crying, and that makes me a little sad. Doesn't seem right. When you cry, people should hear you. The world should stop.”
“- So my own sister will not promote me? Speaking of which, weren't you supposed to find me a beautiful future wife with a small fortune? Have you had any success on that front?- Yes - I have warned them all.”
“I'd like to thank readers. Every time you open a book, it is a strike against ignorance. Unless you're reading Sarah Palin.”
“Can we talk about the miracle that is the Small World ride? It's like an acid trip drag show.”
“Our mouths and bodies speak for us in a new language as the trees shake loose a rain of petals that stick to our slickness like skins we will wear forever. And just like that, I am changed.”
“Dude, this is a stoner conversation and we're not even high”
“It's possible to pretend I'm someone other than who I am, and if I pretend long enough, I can believe it.”
“I'm sorry, Gemma. But we can't live in the light all of the time. You have to take whatever light you can hold into the dark with you.”
“Tonight, she went into the woods, and I fear she shall live in the woods of my soul for the rest of my days.”
“Come on, Father. Stop me. Tell me to behave, to go to hell, something, anything.”
“And now I understand that truth casts a spell of its own, one I'm not sure of how to hold on to, though I'm desperate to try.”
“Warning: If you are insufferable, do not walk here. We shall eat you down to the marrow.”
“How I'd love to get away from here and be someone else for a while in a place where no one knows or expects certain things from me.”
“When the music is over, she keeps her head down till she finds her seat again, and I wonder how many times each day she dies a little.”
“No? Part girl, part wolf? Do they lick their butter knives?”
“I am dying a thousand cruel and unusual deaths as fifty pairs of eyes take me in, size me up like something that should be hanging over a fireplace in a gentleman's den.”
“I refuse to let the past find me here.”
“The beast attempts a beautific look that could be mistaken for a bout of painful wind.”
“They don't know what they're in for at Spence, getting me, a ghost of a girl who'll nod and smile and take her tea but who isn't really here.”
“And yet, you're still alone. All that trying and still you stand apart, watching from the other side of the glass. Afraid to have what you truly want because what if it's not enough after all? So much better to wrap yourself up in the longing. The yearning. The restlessness. Poor Gemma. She doesn't quite fit, does she? Poor Gemma--all alone.”
“Perhaps this is how girls fall -- not in some crime of enchantment at the hands of a wicked ne'er-do-well, a grand before and after in which they are innocent victims who have no say in the matter. Perhaps they simply are kissed and want to kiss back. Perhaps they even kiss first. And why should they not?”
“Dammit!""What?" Gonzo sounds panicked."We're out of gas.""You're Shithenging me.""I Shithenge you not.”
“Time has no meaning. I feel as if I have been left in the desert to die and am eagerly awaiting the vultures to begin their work and end my misery.”
“I do not want to pass the time. I want to grab hold of it and leave my mark upon the world.”
“Wow, you're awesome and The universe loves a winner, so the universe must really love you!”
“I don't know. Sometimes, I feel nothing, and I'm so afraid. Afraid I'll stop feeling anything at all. I'll just slip away inside myself...I just need to feel something" A Great and Terrible Beauty, Page 177, by”
“I'm floating inside my skin. I could go on floating like this for days. Right now, the real world with its heartbreak and disappointments is just a pulse against the protective membrane we've drunk ourselves into. It's somewhere outside us, waiting." A Great and Terrible Beauty, Page 141, by”
“People aren't always what you want them to be”
“To live is to love, to love is to live.”
“- 'Music opens your soul, makes you ready.'- 'Ready for what?'- He smiles big. 'Exactly.”
“Ain't that a sight? With all the things we know and learn, we still ain't touched the big mysteries -- where we come from, where we go next, why we even her. And when something truly miraculous happens, we run and hide in our caves. We deny.”
“Writers are also sort of like vultures, but with fewer ethics.”
“The only thing I don't divulge is the truth about Mother killing little Carolina. I don't know why. Perhaps I sense he's not ready to know that just yet. Maybe he never will. People can live with only so much honesty. And sometimes, people can suprise you. I talk to my brother as I never have before, trusting in him, letting the river listen to my confessions on its path toward the sea.~pg 693”
“The ladies pass the timee with gossip and hearsay. This is what they have in place of freedom- gime and gossip. Their lives are small and careful. I do not wish to live this way. I should like to make my mark. To venture opinions that may not be polite or even correct but are mine nonetheless. If I am to be hanged for anything, I should like to feel that I go to the gallows on my own strength.”
“It is how it has always been. We will accept the legacy of our ancestors,' Asha says, smiling, and in her smile I do not see warmth or wisdom; I see fear.You're afraid of losing your hold on them,' I say coolly.I? I have no power.'Don't you? If you keep them from the magic, they will never know what their lives could be.'They will remain protected,' Asha insists.No,' I say. 'Only untested'-page 569”
“I don't think you should die until you're ready. Until you've wrung out every last bit of living you can.”
“We fall into the great continuing circle of dancers. Some leave the floor, tired but giddy; others have only just arrived. They are eager to wear their new status as ladies, to be paraded about and lauded until they see themselves with new eyes. The fathers beam at their daughters, thinking them perfect flowers in need of their protection, while the mothers watch from the margins, certain this moment is their doing. We create illusions we need to go on. And one day, when they no longer dazzle or comfort, we tear them down, brick by glittering brick, until we are left with nothing but the bright light of honesty. The light is liberating. Necessary. Terrifying. We stand naked and emptied before it. Adn when it is too much for our eyes to take, we build a new illusion to shield us from its relentless truth.But the girls! Their eyes glow with the fever dream of all they might become. They tell themselves this is the beginning of everything. And who am I to say it isn't? ”
“I know it. I know I shall make beastly mistakes, Father-""The world does not forgive mistakes so quickly, my girl." He sounds bitter and sad."If the world will not forgive me," I say softly, "I shall have to learn to forgive myself."He nods in understanding."And how will you marry? Or do you intend to marry?"I think of Kartik, and tears threaten. "I shall meet someone one day, as Mother found you.”
“It is a giggle full of high spirits and merry mischief, proof that we never lose our girlish selves, no matter what sort of women we become.”
“I will tell you the story of how we found ourselves in a realm where dreams are formed, destiny is chosen, and magic is as real as a handprint in the snow.”
“Gemma~Was he really looking at me that way?Kartik~What way? Gemma~Like a piece of ripe fruit?Katrik~You'd best be on your guard with him.”
“She wants me to take what magic I have left and blot every memory of this evening from their minds. To make them forget so that they can carry on as before. There will always be Cecilys, Marthas, and Elizabeths of the world - those who cannot bear the burden of truth. They will drink their tea. Weigh their words. Wear hats against the sun. Squeeze their minds into corsets, lest some errant thought should escape and ruin the smooth illusion they hold of themselves and the world as they like it. It is a luxury, this forgetting. No one will come to take away the things I wish I had not seen, the things I wish I did not know. I shall have to live with them.I wrench away from her grip. "Why should I?"I do it anyways. Once I am certain the girls are asleep, I creep into their rooms, one by one, and lay my hands across their furrowed brows, which wear the trouble of all they've witnessed. I watch while those brows ease into smooth, blank canvases beneath my fingers. It is a form of healing, and I am surprised by how much it heals me to do it. When the girls awake, they will remember as strange dream of magic and blood and curious creatures and perhaps a teacher they knew whose name will not spring to their lips. They might strain to remember it for a moment, but then they will tell themselves it was only a dream best forgotten.I have done what Mrs. Nightwing said I should do. But I do not take all their memories from them. I leave them with one small token of the evening: doubt. A feeling that perhaps there is something more. It is nothing more than a seed. Whether it shall grow into something more useful, I cannot say.”