Jill Soloway is the author of “Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants,”an autobiographical collection of essays. She was a writer and co-executive producer on HBO’s “Six Feet Under”and has also worked on TV sitcoms such as “The Oblongs,” “Baby Blues” and “Nikki.” Soloway recently finished writing the screenplay for “Pledged”, a comedy about sorority life, and she is in pre-production to direct her first feature film, “Tricycle.” Along with her sister, Soloway created the play, “The Real Live Brady Bunch,”which has toured the world. She’s also the creator of “Sit n’ Spin,” a twice-monthly night of comedic monologues and music that runs at the Comedy Central Workspace in Los Angeles. Soloway, the mother of a son, lives in Los Angeles with her family.
MWLM: You are an Emmy-nominated television and theater writer and producer, as well as the author of“Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants,” a funny/dirty/sad collection of personal essays. You are also a mother. How has motherhood influenced your writing? Has it made it more or less edgy, rebellious and manic? Has it changed your sense of humor?
JS: Becoming pregnant was the very first reason to take my writing seriously. I had been having fun writing essays and doing theater, but it was the knowledge that I was going to have to support someone that made me want to be not just a writer, but a successful writer. Within that dedication, I found that authenticity and honesty are the key to good writing. So in a way, having a kid didn't do the expected (i.e. make me worry about what my kid would think). It did the opposite. It forced me to want to blast off in the strongest way possible, which meant being fearless for the first time and probably causing my writing to be even less "appropriate" then before I had been a parent.
MWLM: How do you manage being a mother and an in-demand writer? Do you have a writing schedule?
JS: When I'm writing, I wake up at 6 a.m. and write until about 11 or 12. If everything is going exactly my way, I have someone get my son up and get him to school. I miss being with him in the mornings, but the schedule allows me to pick him up at 3, hang out after school, have dinner together and watch “American Idol” – so if I'm writing at home, it actually is a very child-friendly schedule. If I am in production, there are definitely a few weeks here and there where my schedule is less than desirable for parenting. But for the most part, the TV producers I've worked with have shared my opinion that a full home life (being at home by dinner and not working on the weekends) makes for a better life, a happier writer and better writing.
MWLM: Do you have a favorite medium – writing fiction or non-fiction, for television, stage or movies? If so, what makes it your favorite?
JS: I really don't. Give me a flawed, root-able female protagonist who makes choices and faces consequences and I'm happy – be it on TV, movies, fiction or nonfiction.
MWLM: What writers (and others) have most influenced your writing, your comedic style, your feminist beliefs?
JS: Daphne Merkin, Naomi Wolfe, Phoebe Glockner, Michelle Tea, Lisa Carver, Andrea Dworkin, Judy Blume and Paris Hilton.
MWLM: You've said that the piece that "launched" your career was a short story you wrote called “Courteney Cox's Asshole.” What made you write that story? Do you know if the real Courteney has read it?
JS: I originally wrote the essay as a comedic monologue for my best friend, Becky Thyre, to read at a performance series I created called “Sit n' Spin.” I wasn't thinking about how to be a good writer. I wasn't thinking about getting a great job. I was immersed in the very simple task of stringing together words that would humiliate my best friend on stage and make me laugh the hardest. It was like, what can I make Becky say that will be impossible for her to deliver with a straight face, and I guess within the formalism of that particular assignment, the usual self-doubt was erased and out came, what was for me, a seminal version of my writers voice.
Strangely enough, Courteney and I had our first meeting – she as producer, me as writer – a couple of days ago. It was pretty ironic to both of us that this piece would go from monologue to a short story selected for the Best American Erotica compilation to being nominated for the Pushcart Prize, getting to Alan Ball, garnering me a job offer on “Six Feet Under” and turning me into a writer with the kind of career and work that would make Courteney's "people" let her know I would be a great person to meet.
She had a sense of humor about the whole thing. Although now I look back and realize that it may not have been judicious for me to make such base humor out of a human being's name – a human I didn't know. At this point, Courteney and I have much the same interest – creating great movies and television about compelling female protagonists to indulge, amaze and entertain audiences.
MWLM: Were you a bookworm as a kid? An outcast? Or one of the popular crowd? What made you the writer you are today?
JS: As a kid, I was a bookworm but it was all trash. No Salinger or Vonnegut. Just Judy Blume, Jackie Collins and “The Flowers in the Attic” series. I wrote tons of short stories for my friends, but they were always about us going to the mall and making out with Matt Dillon.
MWLM: You have a bit of a "blue" reputation for writing that is very frank, even raucous, about sex, but also about politics and feminism. Does your son read your writing? If so, how does he react to it? What kind of reaction do you get from readers?
JS: Jonathon Ames told me something really interesting when I asked him the same question about how his writing affects his son. He said my son doesn't need my writing. He has me. My writing is for everyone else I don't live with.
MWLM: How do you pass your values on to your son?
JS: Hopefully, my son will grow up to be a passionate artist who, if he ever does read my work, will at the very least, be aware that he was raised with the legacy of self-acceptance.
MWLM: You are working on your first feature film. What's it about? When will it be released, and what other projects do you have in the pipeline?
JS: “Tricycle” is a dark comedy – or a light dramedy – about an affair from the point of view of three different women: wife, mistress and daughter. It is being produced by Marc Platt at Universal and hopefully will begin shooting this summer, with me directing. And, if all goes my way, “Pledged” will also start shooting this summer. Based on the book by Alexandra Robbins, “Pledged” explores the secret world of sororities and more importantly, the sometimes skewed notion of "sisterhood." Angela Robinson is set to direct.
MWLM: What advice do you have for mom writers who aspire to break into television/movie/stage writing?
JS: It's not about the sample. It's about doing great work that gets you noticed – so write a play and earn a great review. Make a short film and get a prize at a film festival. Representation and a career will come naturally from those things. It's a much better way to think than all those networking seminars and making contacts and breaking in. And truly having a writing schedule, forcing all of my writing into four or five hours of the day, was a revelation for me. When most people talk about a writing schedule, all they focus on is this idea that they "have to" write during a specific set of hours. Actually, the inverse is just as important. By not being "allowed to" write the rest of the day or on the weekends, it smashes all of my ambition and adrenaline and creativity down like a trash compactor, so that when I finally hit my computer again, I'm bursting with ideas. In other words, don't just focus on when you have to write, remember there are times when it is just as important to not write.
Jackie Papandrew is a freelance writer, wife, mother, and coffee addict living in Florida. Her syndicated humor column, Airing My Dirty Laundry, tickles the funny bone with tales of troublesome teenagers, the agony of aging gums, laughing llamas and bizarre Blackberry behavior – and that’s just for starters. Her work appears regularly in a variety of publications, including the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, The Oklahoman, and Hybrid Mom magazine, as well as on several Web sites. You can read more of her work at JackiePapandrew.com
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