Gina Nutt: “Naked Land” unfolds through the alternating perspectives of a woman and a doll she owned. How did you land on this structure? What was on your mind while embodying these two voices?
MB: I’d been thinking a lot about all my old dolls that I’ve abandoned/neglected, and I wanted to write something as one of them. But then as I began writing, I became interested in writing a doll’s perspective as a more omniscient narrator, with her account illuminating the gaps in a human narrator’s understanding of childhood. I liked thinking about dolls/ toys as witnesses, and the idea that they could make sense of the fuzzy and blocked parts of childhood that we aren’t ready to accept.

GN: Play and real-life merge as the characters detail lived experiences alongside imagined scenarios. How did you go about pinpointing the tension within these juxtapositions?
MB: I wanted both the human narrator and the doll narrator to take their games/ play really seriously. I tried to give the lived, human events the same amount of time/importance as ‘play’ in both the human and doll accounts. Keeping that in mind, and then writing their alternating perspectives, it felt natural to sort of elucidate or animate what the other narrator said in their last account.

GN: This story’s blend of voice, syntax, and pace effortlessly whisk readers off to Naked Land, fully immersing us in this world. How did these elements influence each other as you worked on this piece?
MB: I think I just wrote down the first sentence, “I liked Clarisse most because of her long floaty hair and her big pregnant stomach,” which set the voice of the story, which then led to the kind of fast, simple syntax. I wanted this story to defamiliarize almost everything, and have a sort of disorienting feel that softens the lines between ‘reality’ and ‘play.’ I think having simple syntax helps with that; if sentences feel pretty stripped down and direct, I think it lets you play around/ disorient readers in other ways. After reading through my draft, I realized that the voice of the doll and the human narrator sounded the same, and I wasn’t sure if that was correct or not. I then decided it made sense if their voices were similar, but went in and got rid of contractions in the doll’s sentences, and made her a bit more formal and objective.

GN: What’s in your creative mosaic? Books, music, restaurants, films, visual art, fashion, ephemera, architecture, anything that energizes your writing.
MB: This is such a fun question to think about! First I’d say just talking to my friends and boyfriend and mom (with this story, while I was writing it, my friend Hannah told me about her childhood Barbie world called Naked Land, and my friend Nora and I had been discussing the specific sadness of remembering neglected toys/ video game characters, and talking to my friend Cameron always helps me write better sentences.) Otherwise, I’d say movies (Take Me Somewhere Nice, Breaking the Waves, Holy Cow, Step Brothers); story-teller songwriters (Gillian Welch, Karly Hartzman, Lucinda Williams); make-you-want-to-write writers (Kathryn Scanlan, Christine Schutt, Yōko Ogawa, Joy Williams, Scott McClanahan.) I’d also say dolls, they’re in enough of my stories now for it to feel like a “theme” (my friend Emma gave me The Lonely Doll by Dare Wright recently which I loved.) I also babysit a lot, and I think this has been influencing how I write children, and child narrators (I often have to play the boy character when babysitting, and use the name Clomp.) Ballet always helps me, and Yoga with Adrienne, and swimming when I can; generally I’d say I’m inspired by anything having to do with a swimming pool.