30 Questions with Thirty West
Featuring Beryl Cooper
In November of 2023, Thirty West Publishing House embarked on its most ambitious #AntiWriMo project to date: The Ternion. This three-novel series is written by 9 authors, all written in one month. The Ternion is an experiment in creativity, community, adaptability, and stress; and it was successful.
Today, we are proud to take a moment to highlight one of the many people behind the pen involved in this incredible collaboration.
Beryl Cooper is a mystery. He is a character, a pseudonym, an obvious and marvelous fiction. Today’s interview is an attempt to get to know both the towering persona of Beryl Cooper, and the man who hides behind the mask. All questions will be answered honestly, but he won’t tell us by whom
1. In your opinion, what is the best piece you’ve ever written?
This is Beryl Cooper’s first work. Beryl’s ‘minder’ can’t give up that information without revealing the very name Beryl was conceived to conceal. You won’t trick us that easily!
2. What project should you be working on right now?
A lawsuit the details of which remain confidential before filing.
3. What did you want to be when you were a kid?
Retired. I’ve always wanted to be retired.
4. What kind of writing is your favorite? Why?
I prefer writing in English because I can read it.
5. Do you have one word that you always misspell?
No. I have many words I butcher on occasion. In fact, ‘occasion’ is probably the word I most frequently and consistently misspell.
6. Which point of view is your favorite to write from and why?
One is always writing from the first person whether or not one pretends otherwise.
7. Are there any major themes that span your work as a whole?
Blood and coyotes and the impossibility of meaning.
8. What media besides books inspire you?
You can guess. I live in the US in the 2020s.
9. How has your writing changed over time, and what do you attribute that to?
Writing as a pseudonym is freeing, I guess. But the bigger change is that I am well into the middle-third of my expected lifespan and am just slower and duller and more time-constrained than ever before.
10. What would your teenage self say about your writing now?
I get it.
11. Is writing your full-time job?
No. I have a mortgage.
12. What does your editing process look like?
I typically change the words I don’t like into words I like, and then a few months later I change some of them back, and then I realize I’m not sure if I like any of the words at all.
13. What was your biggest fear when you were 8?
Mass extinction, probably.
14. What is your third favorite dinosaur?
15. What is your least favorite part of being an author?
The obvious answer is rejection, but the better answer is the utter lack of response when something is published.
16. What was your first writing rejection like?
It was via email.
17. In your opinion, what classic novels are overrated?
The British ones.
18. What are the top five books on your TBR list?
Thomas Burns Robinson, a mid-century British, best known for satirical science fiction that would gently insult the aristocrats on whose patronage he depended, wrote only five books, so those five must be the winners, in this order: My favorite ‘The Final Loo’; His most popular ‘The Mammal Planet’; the very odd ‘Green Ivory’; and then the pair of minor works ‘Stomachs I’ and ‘Stomachs II’.
19. What was your favorite class in school?
The proletariat.
20. How does writing intersect with your personal life?
When writing, I have less time for a personal life. This may or may not be a comfort.
21. What was the hardest part of working with multiple authors for the #ANTIWRIMO project?
Aesthetic disjunctions.
22. What does “made it” look like to you?
Whatever level of success is two to three rungs ahead of wherever I happen to be.
23. When do your best ideas come to you?
I’m hoping they’ll come while I’m still young enough to use them.
24. If a witch was going to turn you into an object beauty-and-the-beast style, what would you want to be?
That candlestick one.
25. How do you deal with critics and trolls?
I don’t typically write conventional fantasy so trolls are not part of the world. Critics I depict as effete and self-doubting, often as stand-ins for myself or my own critique of the work in which the critics themselves appear. A sort of chorus, I mean, or chorus-equivalent, a cheap laugh.
26. What book do you wish you could read again for the first time?
I am afraid I have so little faith in the stability of identity that if I were to read any favorite book again for the first time it would be the wrong time and I would ‘miss’ the magic of reading the book when I did and so lose forever the relationship with that book. So this question is unpleasant to me. It is horror. I do not want to read anything again for the first time.
27. What are some of your favorite writing-related resources, that you would recommend to aspiring writers?
Microsoft Word & the library & a few friends who like strange and difficult things so you can get recommendations. Donald Barthelme said that everyone should have a little philosophy, and I suppose he’s right.
28. How do you keep yourself motivated to write on those especially blocked days?
Oh, I would never do that. No need to force anything; the world is not terribly impoverished if I occasionally privilege some activity other than writing.
29. What is the biggest challenge you've overcome as a writer?
Readers.
30. What was the first book you ever truly loved?
Keeping this a secret.
Want to hear more from Beryl? He can be found somewhere, doing something–but you can read his novel, JULIE, OR SYLVIA, this June.
Want more #AntiWriMo content? Stay tuned for more interviews, events, and announcements about The Ternion. Can’t wait that long? Westies get exclusive behind-the-scenes content, early access, and invites to special online and in-person events.
In the meantime, peruse the shelves of the Thirty West Book Shop and find your next favorite read.