Interview with Ellen Forney

Hugo House:  You’ll be debuting a brand-new piece at Hugo House—have you started working on it yet?

Ellen Forney:  Yes. I'm being kind of secret about it, though - except I'll say this: it's autobiographical.

HH:  What were your first thoughts on receiving an invitation to write to an assigned theme?  Any regrets on saying yes?

EF:  Oh, it's an honor, from the first!  This year I was invited to be a writer-in-residence for the P.I. and for Hugo House, and what struck me most is that I'm finally being regarded as a writer.  Not too long ago, a person would look at my comics and see that I can draw, but not really be conscious of my writing and storytelling.  I'm proud to be a writer, I work hard at it, and it's wonderful to have that recognized - and by esteemed organizations, at that.

For the Hugo House presentation, I knew what I wanted to write about right away, and am approaching it from the angle of the given theme.  I'm glad to have been handed a focus, some parameters, or I think the subject would have been unwieldy.

HH:  Can you give us a hint of how you’re approaching the theme of “We Might Be Heroes?”  Literally?  Figuratively?  Prose?  Poetry?  Interpretive Dance?  None of the Above?

EF:  I can say this: yes, I am a cartoonist, but no, I'm not dealing with superheroes!

HH:  Could you tell us a little bit about your process—how you approach writing something new?

EF:  I'm working differently from usual this time, with much more focus on my writing. I mean, writing-writing, on the computer, without taking visuals into consideration (yet).  My usual process is to brainstorm the text and visuals on paper, with a mind to interweaving the two.

Subjectwise, I knew my starting point, and I've been following from there, just seeing where the story goes.  It's been pretty intense and interesting - it's taken me places I hadn't expected.  I guess that's practically a cliché, but it's true!

HH:  Tell us 3 non-literary things we don’t know about you.

EF:  I'm an avid swimmer and yoga practitioner, I have "LED ZEP" tattooed on one of my teeth, and I recently bade a sad goodbye to my sexy '68 Mercury Cougar and sang a happy hello to my adorable '71 BMW 2002.