In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors—Suqi Karen Sims

Your fiction piece, “Fungirl,” takes the idea of mycelium network and puts it in a child-shaped body, telling the story of a chef who uses those mushrooms from this creature to create dishes. This work is both beautifully written and disconcerting to read. What inspired this piece? 

I used to live in Sleepy Hollow, New York, which was very close to Dan Barber’s Blue Hill at Stone Barns, an upscale farm-to-table restaurant with its own farm and greenhouses. This was when I was working as a freelance food writer, covering new restaurants for a local magazine. I never dined at Blue Hill (I couldn’t afford to), but the thought of a chef with complete control over the produce made me think about the power dynamics of food, cooking, and eating, and how that was reflected in hierarchical professional kitchens, especially given the potential for gender- and race- based abuse. This also coincided with a lot of news that was breaking about this type of abuse happening “back of house.” 

A few years before that, I volunteered as an assistant zookeeper at a pretty well known zoo in another state (I won’t mention the name, because I had to sign an NDA). The thing about zoos is that there is the display exhibit, but also a similar “back of house” exhibit, where the animals are actually kept and cared for during the zoo’s off hours. This second exhibit tends to resemble a prison rather than a habitat, and I think this experience, of feeding and caring for animals behind the scenes, melded with my interest in the problematic, “unseen” elements of fine dining. 

Fungirl, the character, grew organically from these inspirations. From there, it was just a matter of figuring out the form this story would take and writing it. 

Your story weaves so many different types of writing; a menu, an article, an interview… How did you decide on this unique format?

I love form. I’m a bit obsessed with it. I think this is because I write both fiction and nonfiction (and some hybrid!). I conducted a lot of interviews with chefs and restaurateurs when I was a food writer, so those forms came naturally to me. I also had to read a lot of menus and find the “story” in them, so that made sense for this piece, too. In 2020, I went straight from freelance food writing into the fiction PhD program at Georgia State University. No MFA, but with a graduate journalism degree. I still can’t believe I was accepted. 

When I wrote “Fungirl,” I was still very nervous and unsure of myself as a fiction writer. I’d been writing fiction as a hobby, but it was only during the pandemic that I figured, well, why not pursue it properly. Perhaps this was my way to prove to myself that I could write fiction, even if it involved leaning on nonfiction forms. At any rate, it was very fun (almost naughty) to be able to take these very specific, nonfiction forms and just go wild with fabulist, fantastical additions. It was very freeing. 

What sort of research did you do for “Fungirl”?

I highly recommend North Spore for anyone interested in growing their own mushrooms. That taught me a lot of the basics, such as the vocabulary, the process, and the novice-level science. Plus, you get a few good meals out of it, too. 

A lot of the research around the food industry came from food media and writing within that form. I watched a lot of Chef’s Table. This helped me understand how celebrity chefs speak, both to the media and to their staff (when the cameras are on, at least). For the menu, I was really inspired by the work of Chef Jenny Dorsey, who exhibited her pop-up show Asian in America at the USC Pacific Asia Museum, which brought a tasting menu together with poetry and virtual reality. I never got to see the exhibition, which I think was shown in 2019, but I read a lot about it. Jenny Dorsey also founded Studio ATAO, which is a nonprofit organization dedicated to justice in the food and dining industry. The work of Soleil Ho and Sohla El-Waylly was also hugely influential, especially in regards to the microaggressions and overt racism and sexism taking place in the food industry. 

This piece is full of commentary on the elite, on dining—“People don’t want to know where their food really comes from,”—and on trends. Can you talk about that?

Oh man. Have y’all seen the news? Obviously, Vitaly is a compilation of several celebrity chefs, but one of the biggest inspirations for that character (and I’m sure foodies can guess who it is) has just come under fire for some pretty horrific abuse allegations.

But it’s true: people don’t want to know where their food really comes from. Other than Michael Pollan, we don’t want to meet the cow that will become our steak. We don’t want to know about the terrible things that happened behind the scenes for us to enjoy the spectacle of a beautiful, orchestrated meal at a fine dining establishment. But that’s the reality: to consume something is to end its existence and extend yours. To engage with an industry, in our capitalistic society, is to participate in some form of exploitation. A lot of the food industry, especially its trends, is about distracting from the cognitive dissonance required to enjoy–in fact, indulge–in something that is entangled with violence and oppression. 

Don’t get me wrong. I love food; I love cooking and eating and finding community and connection through meals. I think it’s the closest thing we have to magic. But I guess, just like in the context of fantasy, magic rarely comes free. There’s always a cost. 

Did you always intend for the main character to meet Fungirl?

No, actually! This was a great example of good workshop feedback. I was being weirdly coy in earlier drafts. I think at first, the food reporter just thinks about breaking into Fungirl’s greenhouse. But one of my professors, Sheri Joseph, has this great piece of advice she always gives to students, which basically boils down to making your characters “just do the thing.” I don’t remember if that was the advice she gave to this piece, or if I ever brought this piece to her workshop, but that craft trick helped me switch thinking about meeting Fungirl into actually doing it. Thank goodness, because that provided the entire last arc of the story. 

You implicate the reader in Fungirl’s fate. As we learn about her, we aren’t able to help her. Was this universal culpability something you thought about as you worked on this piece?

Oh yes. I love shame. I think it’s an excellent literary device. When The Menu came out, a couple workshop mates messaged me about it, not just because they know I write about food, but because of this story in particular. Like in Mark Mylod’s film, I hope that readers are enjoying the Fungirl tasting menu through its “nonfiction” forms, “eating” alongside the elite diners, even as something terrible unfolds. You realize you’ve enjoyed something at the expense of suffering, and there’s nothing you can do about it. If you haven’t seen the movie, it’s wild. It’s about a chef with a cult-like following who crafts a tasting menu to die for. Literally.  

What themes do you find that you write about?

Food. Fabulism. Form! For my dissertation, I was really inspired by my professor Josh Russell to think about form in fiction, and my dissertation adviser John Holman helped me hone in on craft, specifically the craft particular to folklore and fairytales. I also took an ecocriticism class with Randy Malamud, which helped me understand the complicated feelings I have about the environmental impact of our food industry, as well as our anthropocentric approach to eating and cooking. I am also a mixed-race Asian woman, someone who grew up aboard in Taiwan, a country and home that I miss to near-psychosis. So I also write a lot about that identity.

What authors or books do you find you return to?

For voice and form, Toni Morrison’s Sula and Beloved, Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. Kelly Link and Karen Russell for fabulism and magical realism, especially Link’s novella “The Faery Handbag” and Russell’s short story collection Orange World. I also love Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “The Handsomest Drowned Man in The World,” which I think about all the time. Helen Oyeyemi’s what is not yours is not yours is another huge contemporary inspiration. I also just read Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa, which I already know I will read again. 

What are you working on currently?

A poison-friendly mommy blog. I’ve been revising this story for years, and I can’t place it anywhere. Maybe I should just publish it as a “regular” blog and see if anyone notices that it’s fiction–or will everyone just skip to the sub-par chicken recipe at the end? In all seriousness, I’m preparing to query a collection of short stories themed around food, which draws on literary forms such as folklore, myth, and food writing. I also have a couple stories on the backburner that I’m still working on, but I’ll keep quiet on those so I don’t jinx myself! 

Thank you so much for interviewing me. It’s been a huge honor working with Water~Stone Review. I can’t imagine a better home for “Fungirl.” 

Suqi Karen Sims received her PhD in English with a concentration in creative writing from Georgia State University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Greensboro Review, Weekly Humorist, and elsewhere. She has received the CALYX Margarita Donnelly Prize for Prose and the Steven R. Guthrie Memorial Prize in fiction and was a finalist for The Pinch Literary Awards and the Fractured Lit Elsewhere Prize. She was born and raised in Taichung, Taiwan, and lives in Atlanta.