Ambiguities intrigue me and inspire me so I wanted to practice staying in the so-called gray area for as long as possible, knowing that sustaining that would be a challenge and good practice not just for art but for life. WCO: I forced myself to be honest to the adolescent I once was and the young woman I became who wrote the bones of the book while she struggled with what was “right” and “wrong.” I didn’t listen to the voices (most of the time) that tried to tell me what I was attempting was going to make people angry or upset. What did you do you to ensure the narrative remained in that gray area? JB: You do an excellent job at creating and maintaining the gray area this memoir exists in. WCO: I survived mine by moving a thousand miles north to a forest with a great college and eventually finding an excellent therapist.

Memories of the past are not memories of facts but memories of your imaginings of the facts.” Doyle, whose email signature line contains this quote by Philip Roth: “Obviously the facts are never just coming at you, but are incorporated by an imagination that is formed by your previous experience. This makes me think of my friend and one of my favorite writers, Sean H. There are, of course, some gaps my journal doesn’t cover, so in those cases I’ve had to rely on the slippery tendrils of memory I’ve managed to hold onto.

Then I looked at the journals and the gaps in my memory were largely filled in by what was in those pages. I began writing the first draft when I was 27 and my task was to write it all out as I remembered it chronologically. Jesse Bradley: In the Author’s Note at the beginning of Excavation, you write, “I’ve relied on handwritten, detailed journals from the period of time that this memoir covers, as well as my own memory.” Did you ever question your memory when using it to fill in the gaps your journals didn’t cover? If so, what did you do to get your memory back on track? Ortiz about her incredible memoir, Excavation, her next book, Hollywood Notebook (Writ Large Press, 2015), her writing process, and whether Robert Smith made Siouxsie and The Banshees a better band.

Excavation ortiz