FANZINE: Perhaps an odd place to begin, but how do you support yourself?

Peter Sotos: I work. Not that I think it's such a good idea, but I always have. I don’t have a career. I do think it's important that the books have no great commercial requirements and that my work isn't split between lesser and greater degrees of seriousness — especially in regards as to who releases the material.

FANZINE: Any writing rituals?

PS: People sometimes ask if I write when I'm drunk. I do, sometimes, but it tends to get thrown out pretty quickly when I read it back sober.

FANZINE: Do you ever catch yourself writing for your audience?

Peter Sotos: I've heard how wrong I am for as long as I've been alive, it seems. So I have to weigh a possible audience's possible arguments against mine all the time. But I don't pander.

FANZINE: Where do you see yourself fitting in terms of literary tradition?

PS: I know where others say they see me fitting in. But, honestly, I don't think in those terms at all. I don't see anyone else doing what I do. Which sounds terrible, I know. But I don't feel much kinship with contemporary writers, especially those who create fiction. My interest is in completely the other direction. There are writers whose work I love, of course, and it's nice when some people make certain smallish comparisons. Sade, Dworkin... But nothing in terms of an ongoing tradition.

FANZINE: You mention Andrea Dworkin often. People might find the two of you an odd pairing, but on some level I guess you seem to share a notion of the humanity of victims.

PS: I disagree. I think Andrea Dworkin cared very deeply about her words being more than that – just words. I'm certain that I do, as well. But we don't see the frustrating impossibilities of that action in the same context or towards the same result.

FANZINE: Have you read (Samuel Delaney’s) Hogg?

PS: I've read Hogg, of course. I think it's supposed to be like a Tom Of Finland cartoon and it doesn't do all that much for me. I like Times Square Red, Times Square Blue and The Madman much more but I'm uneasy about so fucking many of the community conclusions and connective politics. I honestly don't think they exist. I go to the same kind of places Mr. Delany does, or did, I don't know, and I have very different experiences.

FANZINE: When I think of contemporaries, I also pause at William Vollmann. But you've been critical of him and his work.

PS: I'm not convinced. He sounds untouched. A bad liar with quaint reasoning. We're looking for different things, though. I don't feel I have anything in common with such traditional concern.

FANZINE: People have referred to your books as formless, though there are obviously internal structures and connective patterns. How do you map the texts?

PS: I write what I like and connect the underlying themes and strains later. See what comes through, basically. Tick had a very clear numbering system running through it. Selfish, Little had a fairly rigid template. I suppose Comfort & Critique, though, has the most structure in that the news clips were very carefully selected and then placed in a very specific order. The book itself then came from that order and the general assumption that created it.