Lars Horn Interview

Lars Horn’s memoir workshop is going to be incredibly exciting. I got the chance to do an email interview with them to find out more about their process of writing and why they were excited to teach the workshop. Immediately, I could relate to their process, and by asking four questions over email, I learned a lot.

First and foremost, I think this workshop is for everyone, even people who don’t usually write memoir. I feel like fiction or poetry writers might dismiss workshops that don’t immediately relate to their favorite genre, but that would be a huge mistake. Don’t let labels like “memoir” and “experimental nonfiction” intimidate you. Lars pushes back against these definitions by saying, “I am fascinated by the very definition of nonfiction—a fatally fraught, even flawed exercise—as any definition essentially revolves around the idea of ‘truth.’ What writing do times, people, and places concede as truth?’ and asks provoking questions like ‘What power structures inform these choices, and who or what gets excluded from nonfiction?”. They directly relate this to memoir, “…a genre in which definitions of truth and fact blur considerably as perspective and memory come into play.” The manipulation of the relativity of truth is a hard but intriguing skill. Lars’s ability to ask deeper questions about the foundations we write with, like perspective and memory, means that this workshop will be an incredible learning experience.

I also think there is a lot to learn in the way that other people write. The way Lars Horn writes feels very relatable to me. They say, “I think in images, textures, movements. Language always exists at distance—elusive. Consequently, I wrote in ways that felt intuitive, centring physicality or organising essays to a visual, gestural or spatial logic”. The way they organize their writings feels very instinctual, and it makes reading their essays very smooth. Their first book, Voice of The Fish, mixes personal memoir with stories from history, creating something bigger and deeper than personal memoir could have done alone. The book works because when we see our body flowing into the world it complicates how we view the truth of ourselves. The book flawlessly switches in a way that I’ve never encountered before.

While how they write feels very familiar, they also do techniques I’ve never thought of. Personally, I get stuck with feeling like I need to write chronologically. What I learned in the interview though, is a completely different approach to creative writing. The reason their book can pull connections from what seems like completely unrelated ideas is because, “Obsessions, impulses, hunches—in the initial phase of a project, I follow them all. Curiosity dictates what I write about and, in those beginnings, I favour expanse over focus, variety over harmony.” This freeing idea has fundamentally changed how I approach my writing, and I hope it has changed the way that you think about writing too. Writing can feel very solitary, but we need other people to do our best.

I hope to see you at the memoir workshop soon, and keep writing!

The Interview

1. Why did you choose to write literary and experimental nonfiction?

I never set out to write in a particular genre. Instead, coming from a fine arts background, I approached writing as I would mixed-media visual art. I think in images, textures, movements. Language always exists at distance—elusive. Consequently, I wrote in ways that felt intuitive, centring physicality or organising essays to a visual, gestural or spatial logic. It was only after I finished a body of nonfiction work that the labels “literary” and “experimental” emerged as fitting descriptions of what I’d created. In this sense, genre was more a retroactive classification than a conscious decision.

2. How do you figure out an angle or a focus for your essays?

Intuition plays a significant role in the genesis of my work. Obsessions, impulses, hunches—in the initial phase of a project, I follow them all. Curiosity dictates what I write about and, in those beginnings, I favour expanse over focus, variety over harmony. Only after considerable time and writing do I begin a process of curation, searching for patterns of cohesion and tension in the work until an essayistic focus emerges organically from the material I’ve gathered.

When it comes to literary craft, intuition, even superstition, are productive writerly impulses—strange elusive techniques that, though difficult to quantify, remain central to engaging with and creating broad horizons of intellectual curiosity—the bedrock for a dynamic essay. Where curatorial and editorial revisions crystalise an essay’s direction and conflict, giving full reign to one’s early, often absurd interests, will lay the foundation for a work’s unique vitality.

3. What do you think your first book taught you about writing nonfiction?

Voice of the Fish taught me patience or, perhaps, faith—to have faith in a project when it refuses to cohere. It also taught me the value of second readers, especially where recurring edits are concerned. When multiple readers picked up on the same issue in the manuscript, it helped me immeasurably. Their combined insight illuminated the direction of my edits and, ultimately, the shape of the book as a whole.

4. What do you like most about teaching memoir workshops?

I am fascinated by the very definition of nonfiction—a fatally fraught, even flawed exercise—as any definition essentially revolves around the idea of “truth.” What writing do times, people, and places concede as truth? What power structures inform these choices, and who or what gets excluded from nonfiction? This polemic of “what is nonfiction?” or “who speaks truth?” fuels the genre from its core and, for good or ill, provides a live, if volatile subject matter. The question is also central to memoir—a genre in which definitions of truth and fact blur considerably as perspective and memory come into play. I enjoy engaging participants in conversations around the “truth status” of nonfiction and memoir, especially when those conversations see memoirists write into the productive contradictions of the genre.