Beth Thomas is originally from New Mexico. She currently makes her living as a technical writer in California, where she lives with her husband and daughter. Her work has appeared in SmokeLong Quarterly, Juked, Word Riot, UR Paranormal, Insolent Rudder, Cezanne’s Carrot, and Pindeldyboz, among other publications.

Tell us about the screenplay you’re writing. Is this the same screenplay that you entered in Project Greenlight? What is Project Greenlight?

The screenplay I’m working on is about establishing, losing and finding faith. It’s about sacrifice and miracles. It takes place in one of my favorite places, Las Vegas. There’s a girl with passive-aggressive suicidal tendencies, a guy who killed his parents, and a drag queen who fancies herself a deity. There are confessionals in bathroom stalls, a hooker, a stripper, and a guy named Peaches.

Project Greenlight was a screenplay competition and TV show on HBO circa 2002, I think. The screenplay I’m finishing up (cowritten by my friend in NM, Leslie) is what we originally wrote for that contest. It didn’t “place” (wasn’t top 10 or anything), but it made it through a few rounds.

You’re currently conducting research for a young adult novel that you hope to turn into a series. What will the books be about?

I think they’re going to have something to do with a ghost, or multiple ghosts. That’s all I really know right now.

You won the first Kathy Fish Fellowship award granted by SmokeLong Quarterly. What has the experience been like for you? Do you have any advice for future Fish Fellowship writers?

The experience has been wonderful and I have learned a lot. The SLQ peeps are all amazing writers and they are very supportive and encouraging. I only wish I had more time to work with them, because the level of critique within that group is really hard to come by.

My best bit of advice is something I wish I were doing right now, which is: Take full advantage of this resource (the SmokeLong staff). These people are all so talented at both writing and critiquing, and to have them all together, commenting on your work and suggesting things to make your work better, well it just doesn’t get much more awesome than that.

One of your favorite stories to write was “Fracture,” published in the fall 2006 issue of Insolent Rudder. What did you enjoy about the process of writing this story? Where did the idea come from?

As for where the idea came from: Rewind to me in High School, 1993. I played lots of sports. After graduation, I stopped playing sports completely to focus on school and socializing. Fast forward 6 years or so to around 1999 — I was out of shape and soft around the edges. I was working on an Air Force base where the gym hosted pick-up volleyball every Tuesday & Thursday at lunch. I wanted to get in shape, so I started playing. Then I joined a weekend league. Then I joined another league on weeknights. Soon I was playing every day of the week. (Then I played in a tournament with the AF men’s team, where I met the man who later became my husband, but that’s another story for another time.) So anyway, due to all the jumping around on my out-of-shape muscles and joints, I ended up with these “almost, possible” stress fractures in both my feet. My doctor said the best way to help them heal was to NOT stay off my feet. So I kept playing volleyball (on an abbreviated schedule) and my feet eventually got better. Fast forward 7 or so more years, and I’m at work here in Simi Valley, wearing really uncomfortable sandals, and I’m like, This feels a little like the time I had those kinda-maybe stress fracture thingies. So I took my sandals off, opened a Word document, and wrote “Fracture.” I wanted to have this quirky, playful character jumping around; I wanted to play around with reality, what she’s really doing and really saying; I wanted it to be melancholy. I wrote “Fracture” in a couple of hours, and it’s still one of my favorites.

Okay, let’s here that “story for another time,” about how you met your husband playing a volleyball tournament with the Air Force men’s team.

I was working on Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque and my [future] husband was living about 3 hours south, in Alamogordo, where he was stationed at Holloman Air Force Base. The Kirtland AFB men’s volleyball team asked me to play in a tournament with them in Abilene, Texas. So we drove out to Abilene and played in this tournament over a weekend. The Holloman AFB team drove out to Abilene to play in the same tournament. My team played their team, and I’m pretty sure they beat us. We really weren’t that great, though I must say I got two of my best blocks EVER during that tournament. I shut some fools DOWN! Uh, so anyway, we all met up later that evening and had steak dinners delivered to our rooms, and then went out on the town. My [future] husband and I got to know each other a little that weekend, and then exchanged e-mail addresses and stayed in touch afterward. Then we started seeing each other regularly and were very happy together. The only problem was that we still lived in different towns. So we took turns making the 3-hour drive every weekend for about 1.5 years. Then we drove on up to Las Vegas and got married! Yay! But we were still living in different towns. That’s odd. About 4 months later, he got stationed out in California. About 2 months after that, I moved out here too. It sounds chaotic but it’s pretty much how we planned it.

You write flash and novel-length works. Do you ever venture into the mid-range form, the short story?

I have written maybe 10 short stories, total. One of them (“All Eyes on Me”) was pubbed in edifice Wrecked last year. One (“Lipstick and Percocet”) was pubbed at a now-defunct literary magazine in 2003 or so. Some of the characters from that story migrated to the screenplay mentioned above. The rest of my short stories just sit on my hard drive, and in my dusty little master’s thesis, located in the steaming bowels of the University of New Mexico library archives. I have been trying lately to air these stories out and start the revise/submit process. I would love to get back into short story writing, and I have a couple of ideas, just no time to make them happen right now.

You have an MA in Creative Writing and a BA in Journalism. For pay, you work as a technical writer. What do you do besides write?

Eh, edit? Read? ha ha. I also watch a lot of TV. I make up games to play with my daughter. We have this one right now called Nine Times, where I sit in the middle of the floor and she runs circles around me. At every lap, we count: “One time! Two times!” etc. But seeing as she’s only 19 months old, after we get to five, she skips to nine, and then all subsequent laps are “Nine Times!” It’s a lot of fun.

Oh, and I take Spinning classes at the gym.

What style of writing to you admire? Is there any technique you’d like to try that you haven’t?

I admire poetry and anyone who can write it well. I personally write the worst poetry you’ve ever seen.

I went to graduate school with this guy, let’s call him CHET. For the record, I couldn’t stand Chet, the guy was a total dick. But he wrote these short stories that were so straight-forward and honest and clean — they were amazing. They were usually just one scene, no shifts in time or even place, really. But they told the story of the moment in such a way that you couldn’t imagine it going any other way. There were no tricks, there was no sly magic, no stylistic gadgets, no masturbatory language. Just “x happened, then y, then z” to the end. And it just made for good reading. So, I’d like to try that.

Being from New Mexico, you know all about the allure of the high desert. For you, what is so captivating about this area? Is it the landscape alone? The lifestyle? The addicting nature of chiles?

The chiles are part of it, for sure (and the food in general). But there is something else about the area. The landscape is so grand and sweeping and you can see for miles in all directions, pastureland and fields of tiny sunflowers and sage. Mesas, canyons, antelope, elk. The sky is huge. The clouds are tall, and, unlike here in California, the storms in New Mexico actually reach you. Here, the clouds are always Over There, behind some hill. There are four distinct seasons in New Mexico (five if you count Green Chile Season, which many people do – it’s late August thru September), and they all happen perfectly. It’s just gorgeous. There is also a sense of history and tradition, a sense of faith and spirituality, that gives everything a depth and substance that you can’t find just anywhere.

Do you think growing up in New Mexico influenced your writing? In what ways?

When I lived in NM, I would have said, vehemently, NO. Nothing I wrote while living there was about there. But as soon as I moved to California, it started coming out – maybe it was homesickness, nostalgia, a desire to pay homage, I’m not sure. Now it’s something I’m trying to break away from, at least a little. I need to see if I can write anything else. I need to see if I KNOW anything else.

What is your favorite chile dish? Are you a red or green chile girl?

For most purposes I’m a green chile girl. I love a good green chile stew. Green chile chicken enchiladas rock my socks off, especially if my dad makes them.

I prefer red on cheese or beef enchiladas, tamales, and of course, on chile ristras.