Book Everything is Flammable is an odd format though, not quite a diary and not quite a memoir. I was working on it as it was happening. This was gratifying to me.

Gabrielle Bell

Categorized in : Book Odd Memoir

Everything is Flammable was the first full-length book I was able to finish. I started a couple others, but ran out of steam. This one had momentum, I never got bored or discouraged. It is made up of short pieces, which is where my comfort zone is. I'm more of a sprinter than a long-distance runner. When you do a short piece, you get in and get out; you don't linger.

bored couple book

Anxiety is so pervasive in my work, it's like it's not even a thing because it's always there. Like air. I have to work through a layer of anxiety to get to anything else. It's embarrassing to me when people point out to me all the anxiety I portray in my work. I don't ever want to write about anxiety again but it'd be like leaving a huge gap in the picture.

anxiety writing people

There are a zillion possibilities that you can do on a piece of paper; there is no rational way to choose. So you have let something else speak... so I can't really remember which comes first, the dialogue or the pictures. It comes from that place where it sort of all comes together on its own.

speak together remember

I wanted to be a "serious artist." Serious artists didn't tend to be funny. But that didn't get me a lot of attention. And just growing older, you can't help it, you take things less seriously.

serious artist attention