AN INTERVIEW WITH KATE EVANS
by: Annie Tobin

Kate Evans is a faculty member in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at San Jose State. Kate’s stories, poems, essays and book reviews have appeared in more than 50 literary magazines and anthologies such as the North American Review, Santa Monica Review, Seattle Review, Cream City Review, and ZYZZYVA. Her novel For the May Queen was published in September by Vanilla Heart Publishing of Seattle who will also be releasing her second novel, Complimentary Colors, in Summer 2009. Her previous books include a collection of poems (Like All We Love, Q Press) and a book about lesbian and gay teachers (Negotiating the Self, Routledge).

In 1991 she received an M.A. in English Literature from SJSU. She then went to Yokohama , Japan, where she taught English for a year. When she returned to the Bay Area, she took a poetry class at SJSU from the poet Virginia de Araujo—a class I was also taking. That is where we met, and we’ve been together now for 15 years. During that time, we’ve lived in Santa Cruz and Seattle (where Kate received her Ph.D. in Educational Philosophy at the University of Washington). We now live in San Jose. I’m currently working on my MFA in Poetry and Creative Nonfiction while also teaching Art at Gilroy High School. Kate and I recently married on a boat off the coast of Santa Cruz. When it was suggested I interview Kate it seemed like an interesting angle—being an insider and all.

Annie: How has graduating from San Jose State’s MFA program affected your career as a writer?

Kate: Applying to the program was a great way to signal to myself and others that I was making a commitment to writing. When I decided to apply for the MFA, I was teaching at San Jose State but in a different department, in Education. I was feeling restless, feeling like I wasn’t really doing what I wanted to do in my life. So when I decided to go for it and do the MFA—you were there, you remember because you’re the one who suggested it!—when I made that decision I knew I was veering my life in a new direction, toward what I truly wanted to do. I’d been writing my whole life, starting as a kid. But I’d never fully focused my life on it. So deciding to leave my full-time job and return to part-time teaching while doing the MFA was a huge life decision. That was more than, what—six, seven?—years ago, and I’ve never looked back. So graduating from the MFA has affected my career as a writer by allowing me to devote myself to writing, to say I am a writer, and to truly be one.

How does teaching at San Jose State influence your writing?

I have less time to write! You know how time-consuming teaching is.

And how much energy it takes.

True. After a full day of teaching it’s hard to even think sometimes. And for you, even more so since you teach high school. I don’t know how you do the teenagers thing.

I guess I never grew up myself.

No comment. (We laugh.) But of course there are advantages to teaching English. I’m surrounded by colleagues and students who value the arts. In preparing to teach, in teaching and in reflecting on my teaching, I’m always learning new things about writing and literature. There are so many great literary events happening on campus that I learn from and that keep me fired up.

Why do you write in so many different genres—fiction, non-fiction, poetry? Are you drawn to one genre more than another? Is there a common thread that runs through all of them?

For as long as I can remember, I’ve written stories, poems and essays. Each genre has its own power. I like to read writers like May Sarton, Margaret Atwood, Mark Doty, etcetera who write in multiple genres. I like to see how they treat their obsessions from different directions.

That’s one thing, by the way, that I like about San Jose State’s MFA program is the requirement to focus on two genres. If I could have, I would have done three. When I came out of the program I’d completed a story collection and a poetry collection. Do you like being forced to focus on two genres in the program, Annie?

Actually, yes. I think poetry and memoir are related—at least for me. The autobiographical component of both appeals to me. Sometimes only a poem takes me deep enough to express certain things; I guess that’s why poetry is my primary genre.

What inspired you to write your latest release For the May Queen, a novel about a 17-year-old woman’s first year away from home, living in the dorms?

Everyone leaves home at some time and has to make decisions about how to live life away from their family. That’s a meaty topic, filled with lots of built-in personal and social conflict. Also, I’d been wanting to write about the world of the dorms for quite some time. I think it’s a unique culture. It doesn’t hurt that in the dorms there are a lot of sex, drugs and rock and roll.

Although people don’t have to live in dorms to experience that life.

Right.

Advertisement