Girls' Talk
A speech I gave at Westridge All Girls School in Pasadena
Dirk and flb, 1982 for a Playboy story on “punk and new wave fashion in L.A.”
Set in early 1980s Los Angeles, Weetzie Bat follows the adventures of punk pixie Weetzie Bat and her outsider friends, Dirk, Duck and Max (My Secret Agent Lover Man), as they attempt to form a loving, unconventional family in the face of threats from their own painful childhoods, Vixanne, a witch with a secret, and the dangers of an illness that has been primarily attacking gay men.
I wrote this book in my early 20s while I was at UC Berkeley studying creative writing and English literature with an emphasis on modernist poetry, and nostalgic for L.A. where I’d lived my whole life. The story was based on my personal experiences (a charming father in the film industry, a beautiful narcissistic mother, a gay best friend, even an actual Jayne Mansfield witches’ coven, were all real parts of my life) and set in the world my friends and I loved to explore: early 80s Venice Beach, Hollywood Boulevard, Melrose Avenue, Fairfax Avenue the Sunset Strip…
At that time LA was so different than it is now: my friends and I worked in retail at galleries or clothing stores and could rent apartments for a few hundred dollars a month, spacious rooms in Spanish style buildings within walking distance of affordable pizza, vegan food, clubs, boutiques and a theater that played old films or newer artsy ones. We bought our clothing at thrift shops when you could find engineer boots, cowboy boots, motorcycle jackets, vintage lace prom dresses and beaded sweaters for just a few dollars. (My daughter Jasmine will never forgive me for giving away some of my treasures: a gold lame and lace reversible coat, aqua satin pumps with pointed toes, a leopard print bolero, a pink leather jacket, not to mention the 90s era pink satin pant suit, sheer mesh tops with Japanese cherry blossom prints, and long, sheer blue lace dress). My friends and I lived without chain stores and mini malls and the internet and AI, of course, and homelessness was less rampant. We enjoyed the vestiges of old Hollywood—hikes to the Hollywood sign, drinks at the Formosa café (we all had fake IDs that worked), and visits to Hollywood in Miniature a perfect replica of the town in the 30s, and could get everywhere in about half the time it takes these days. We had room to create and develop a counterculture that wasn’t immediately coopted by capitalism via advertising and social media. Two things that weren’t as good then were, believe it or not, the air (not that it’s so great now, though smog makes for beautiful pink sunsets that serve as a backdrop for many of my stories), the proliferation of matcha (how could I have lived without matcha? I can barely pronounce proliferation with my morning cup!) and the literary scene which has really blossomed—at the time all the focus was on screenplays rather than books.
The distance between Berkeley and Los Angeles really helped me write about it with a kind of passion, longing and fondness that wouldn’t have been possible if I haven’t left for a while. (Which might be one more reason to travel and/or move away from home after high school if you can swing it.) Most of my books are set in Los Angeles or at least California and setting is an important part of my writing process. Joan Didion talks about the heat in Sacramento as impetus for an entire novel and I’ve had the same experience with books other than Weetzie Bat: a teen dance club in the San Fernando Valley was the inspiration for my novel Wasteland, The Elementals came out of my time at Berkeley, and my latest novel House of Hearts takes place in the Salton Sea. I would argue that setting begets character begets plot. Our environments shape us, and the choices we make shape our stories, although I suppose you could also say that setting creates plot as well, acting as the catalyst that leads us to make those choices. For example that pink smog I mentioned can make someone appreciate the beauty of the toxic, and as they see beyond the superficial, decide to leave Los Angeles, at least for a time.
See below for the rest and link to June Write with Me (no class June 2nd)!
