Inspiration and Craft, with Artist and Writer Gwen Hollins
Interview by Darcy Dillon & Katie Lynn Johnston
This week, we interviewed artist and writer, Gwen Hollins, to talk about her writing practices, inspirations for “The Prayer Factory,” and her current projects.
Self Portrait by Gwen Hollins
At what point did you realize you were a writer?
I think a lot of writers realize quite young that they enjoy writing because it starts with a love for stories and storytelling. It's something within us that enjoys the act of creation, whether it’s our own or someone else’s. I had always been a big book and movie lover since I was very young, but my passion for writing my own projects actually began with my obsession over stop-motion animation films, like The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Corpse Bride, and Wallace and Gromit. There was something about that style of animation that I just fell in love with, and I would spend hours watching and rewatching the special features on the DVDs to learn how they did everything. I practiced a bunch with my toys and my mom’s camera, making my own short stop-motion clips, and I started writing my own screenplays and plotting feature-length productions. I analyzed my favorite books to figure out how to adapt them for the big screen. I crafted my own puppets, drew designs for large sets, and made way too many storyboards, but none of these projects really got off the ground. In my early teens, I realized that there really wasn’t an easy career to be found in stop-motion these days, and I wasn't really interested in pursuing other kinds of animation. But I had already developed a love for writing screenplays, so I started to focus on that and this eventually shifted into writing fiction novels and short stories. I still love stop-motion animation because it helped me find my true calling in the end, and I still use a lot of the knowledge about filmmaking I learned back then today when writing prose and making comics. I guess it just goes to show that any hobby is important and impactful, no matter how niche it might be.
Do you play music while you write—and, if so, what’s your favorite genre?
Yes! Most of the time when I'm writing—and especially when I'm editing—I enjoy listening to music. It helps me get into the right tonal headspace. If I want a dangerous tone, I go for heavier music. If I'm going for a more sentimental or sad tone, I listen to sad songs. So I end up listening to a pretty wide range of music genres, though I tend to stick a little closer to indie and alternative artists. For example, I listen to a lot of Hozier and Florence and the Machine. For some reason, I find their music can really help get the creative juices flowing.
“The Prayer Factory” is steeped in themes of religion, love, and identity, among others, and explores the constraints of society and family—but what drew you to these topics? What inspired you to write “the Prayer Factory?”
This might sound a little strange, but the idea for “The Prayer Factory” initially came from a dream.
I’ve always struggled with my mental health—childhood PTSD, anxiety disorders, depression, suicidal thoughts, etcetera—and when you've been going to therapy for years and years and feeling like you're not making the progress you want to see in yourself, it can be really disheartening. It can feel like there is something inherently wrong with you, some little glitch in your internal system caused by your personal failures. There came a night when these feelings manifested into the dream that eventually became the basis for “The Prayer Factory.” In this dream, I was taken through a facility to stand inside a big white box, just like Ray does when he visits the Prayer Factory in the story. And as I stood alone inside the box, a voice spoke to me, calling itself my “higher power for the day,” and offered me the chance to erase all of my mental health struggles instantly through the power of prayer.
I was so tempted to say “yes.” But, despite my frustrations with my mental health, I found myself hesitating to jump on the offer. This “higher power” wasn’t offering me mental healing. It was offering the erasure of a part of myself and my journey. It was offering the facade of normalcy. I’m not saying this is what‘s best for everyone, as everyone’s mental health journey is different. But for me, I realized in that moment that this isn’t what I wanted for myself. A lot of mental health isn’t actually internal. It’s layered with external stigmas and pressure from your family, your work, or your school system—and a lot of mental health issues are caused by outside factors in the first place. I wasn’t born with PTSD. It was handed to me by factors out of my control. So erasing my mental health problems wouldn’t fix the core of the issue, which was entirely external to myself. It might be an issue I had to work to ease to live a better life, but that didn’t mean it was some kind of personal failure. And in this realization, I found a new sense of peace. I ended the dream by refusing the voice’s offer.
I am not a religious person (in fact, I often like to say that I’m a third-generation atheist), so the discussions of religion in “The Prayer Factory” don’t necessarily come from my own personal journeys with religion. I have nothing against people who are religious and, in fact, I have a lot of respect for them. It’s just not something I want for myself. But I do take issue with how religions can sometimes be run by people with power. This is actually where the idea for the reaction of Ray’s father to the Prayer Factory in his town comes from. The problems with religious systems and institutions come in when a religion has been commodified, funneling money out of the pockets of churchgoers and believers and into the pockets of public personas with private jets, or when religion is used as an excuse to persecute “otherness,” and the Prayer Factory as a company represents both of these.
As a queer person, I have seen my fellow queer folk be endlessly tortured by this societal and religious need for normalcy and conformity. I went through it myself, even without the added pressures of religion, and it’s this cycle of shame in our culture that led me to not fully accept my same-sex attraction until my college years. It happens in little ways, with “gay” and “lesbian” being bad words for children to beat each other with on the playground. And it happens in bigger ways too as we get older, with conversion therapy and literal beatings and killings. The desire to be “normal” becomes like the desire for air when you’re drowning. That'‘ what the box in this dream was really offering me: a conversion to “normalcy” without any consideration for what that actually means or what the actual causes of my pain were. In the story, when the Prayer Factory visits Africa, they make a show of it and pretend that they are helping the people there. But they are merely slapping a Band-aid on a massive wound, feeding these struggling people for a day when the causes of their starvation go un-tackled. Rather than fixing a harmful system, we patch up those who are struggling the most under that system and give them no real way to dig themselves out.
This is one of the many reasons the 1950s were chosen as the time period to set “The Prayer Factory” in. With McCarthyism and the Red Scare, the fear of appearing deviant was at an all time high, as was consumerism with the economic boom in America following the second World War. There was an obsession with avoiding juvenile delinquency and enforcing an extreme kind of conformity, even down to physical appearance, in order to not appear “deviant” or “abnormal” to others. The problems that Ray faces don’t come from inside himself. When left to his own devices, he is able to find contentment and happiness. It’s when his mother or Brian'‘ parents are around, the representations of this harmful system of shame and conformity, that he experiences his suffering. He gives up to the temptation for normalcy in the end and prays his gay away. But he cannot escape himself, and his love for Brian quickly returns. These cycles of shame that we burden our children with do nothing to erase “abnormal” behaviors. Because there was nothing abnormal there in the first place.
Ray wasn’t “fixed.” He never needed to be.
Science fiction as a genre has always been used to discuss anxieties about technology, and that does come through in “The Prayer Factory” for me. With the idea of gene editing and designer babies, we are inventing new ways to enforce “normalcy” on a microscopic level. Many minorities have protested against gene editing as a way to eradicate deafness, dwarfism, and other physical “abnormalities” as people with these conditions don’t see themselves as damaged, as needing to be fixed. Their struggles aren’t internally-based, but rather come from living in a society that treats them as lesser. But “The Prayer Factory” delves into speculative fiction as well, which in tandem with science fiction usually takes a closer look at human nature and broader society. That is ultimately what I tried to do with this story, to explore the ideas of how far people are willing to go to enforce norms and how far companies are willing to go to cater to humankind’s worst desires. I hope that all of this comes through in the final story. This was very cathartic for me to write and it is one of my favorite stories I've written to date.
As a storyteller through and through, does your process for writing comics differ from your process for writing fiction?
I am a big believer in the idea that “the medium is the message.” Stories must be told differently depending on the physical form you are putting them in to tell them. When I write prose, I tend to get lost in philosophical questions and internal monologues, which don’t always come across as effectively in comic form, as I’m sure you can imagine. Actions and dialogue are always essential to good storytelling, as they’re just easier for readers to grasp onto and to move the story forward. But when writing prose, I use those internal monologues to give breathers between actions or else to give needed context. In comics (especially serial ones, where the episodes are pretty short), working with clear dialogue and action is absolutely essential, not just for narrative purposes but also for visual interest. I have to find new ways to add in those places for breathing, for rest between actions. This can be either softer scenes that move a little slower, or more commonly in taking the time to look around the environment.
However, probably the most difficult part of writing comics is just the knowledge that whatever I put into the script, I’m going to have to draw. In prose, I can put whatever I want and, as long as I describe it in a way that makes sense, it works. But with comics, there is that visual component that comes later. You want things to be seamless visually, but you also want to write something you actually have the skill to put together. Just keep that in mind if you’re thinking of getting into indie comics. I had to learn it the hard way, haha!
In what ways do you cool-down after writing for your profession?
Currently, I work professionally as a ghostwriter for fantasy novels. In order to get a 70,000 word novel out every four weeks, I'm writing upward of five thousand words a day, and I know a lot of ghostwriters who write closer to ten thousand a day. The cool-down is an absolutely necessary part of the process. After a long writing session, take a break from anything creative. What I usually do is have a snack, drink some water, read a couple chapters of a fun book, and get some exercise. I also like to cool down by playing video games, but the rest of this process has to come first, particularly if you do your writing on a computer. Rest your eyes. Listen to a funny podcast. Dance around. Do whatever you need to do to loosen up your mind and body. And, most importantly, rest your hands and wrists. I'm serious. Especially do this if you're an independent comic creator, too. I have followed too many indie comics that eventually die out because the creator injured themself.
What are you working on now?
Currently, I have my comic, "By The Light," which is available to read for free on Line Webtoon and Tapas. It's a medieval fantasy that discusses queerness, found families, and how some kinds of magic (“dark magic” versus “light magic”) are often stigmatized in other kinds of fantasy media. Other than that, I’m trying to find the time to write some novels of my own. More historical fiction, more fantasy, and even more gay! I can’t wait for you to see what I have coming!
Gwen Hollins is a queer writer and artist currently living in Chicago, Illinois. She spends her time running her independent webcomic, "By The Light", working as a freelance fiction ghostwriter, and playing Stardew Valley with her girlfriend.