When you’re a kid, you tell stories in this sort of organic way, and there’s no distinguishing between the rules of world building and things like that. Sometimes that’s what I need to tell the story. I guess I like having all the tools of storytelling at my disposal, and historically that has included things beyond human perception, or entering the surreal realm-so I enjoy using those elements. What attracts you the most about speculative genres?Ĭarmen Maria Machado: Oh goodness…. Some of her stories, creative nonfiction essays, and blog posts can be read at, and her excellent novella Especially Heinous: 272 Views of Law and Order can be read online here.Īmandine Faucheux: You don’t exclusively write speculative or horror stories, but you do use a lot of these tropes. Her Bodies is Machado’s first book, though she has been widely published in The New Yorker, Granta, The Paris Review, NPR, and VICE, among others. As I set my recorder to begin my interview, the author of the forthcoming short story collection Her Bodies and Other Parties (Graywolf Press, Fall 2017), a friendly dog puts his nose on our laps. One of the modern-day greats, Carmen Maria Machado's work has and continues to innovate conversations surrounding racial, gender and sexual equality.Carmen Maria Machado and I sit outside Simple Joe’s Café in Baton Rouge for brunch-shrimp and grits for her, blueberry quinoa yogurt for me. Her sponsors include the Michener-Copernicus, Elizabeth George and CINTAS.

Well practiced in her craft, Machado has been awarded numerous residencies and fellowships. Machado expertly weaves themes of loss, emotional intimacy and consumerism together, tying it all off with a sci-fi, thriller twist.Ī fundamental voice in 21st century feminist, queer and BIPOC literature, Machado's prose, poetry and essays have been published by household names such as The New Yorker, Tin House, Grunta, Guernica, VQR, and Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, to name a few. The story follows a girl in her mid-20s as she confronts the reality of her world, as well as her girlfriend's increasing decorporialization. Published in Carmen Maria Machado's collection of short stories Her Body and Other Parties, 'Real Women Have Bodies' depicts a world in which the commodity and consumer are doomed to become one in the same. Content Warning: descriptions of sex and body horror.

Her body and other parties