Given the difficult circumstances under which the assignment was written, I will share the email interview instead of the article itself. I integrated the follow-up questions with the original ones and did other minor revisions and rearrangements for continuity. For those who haven't read or finished The Teaching Emotion, know that nothing significant is "given away" but that I do discuss "themes" and crap, so beware if you want an unmediated experience.

1. Why did you call the book The Teaching Emotion?
   The title is from the play "The Zoo Story" by Edward Albee: "I have learned that neither kindness nor cruelty by themselves, independent of each other, creates any effect beyond themselves; and I have learned that the two combined, together, at the same time, are the teaching emotion." The book was over half written the first time through and without a title when I stumbled upon and read this play. The quotation struck me—it communicates the contradictory yet complementary and moving (and terrifying) aspects of duality, a thread that ties the book together (and the characters, down). Using "the teaching emotion" as the title was perfect, natural, and obvious, though I do believe the novel's "teaching emotion" is more than Albee's "kindness-cruelty combination." That aspect is in there, absolutely, but that's only part of it. So what exactly is the teaching emotion? Uh… next question, please.
2. How old were you when you started writing in general, and how old when you started the book?
   I wrote bad poetry all through middle and high school. I vaguely recall being in a young authors'… writing… thing… in third grade or so. TTE just sort of happened when I was fourteen. It began as a few page story that didn't go anywhere; I had no intention of continuing it. Months later, my oldest brother Ben got a hold of it, read it, loved it, and encouraged me to expand it. I of course thought it was terrible, and it was—combined with the invasion of privacy, I was mortified and hated him, but his curiosity and support were gold. For my fifteenth birthday a month later, I got my own computer and thus a word-processor and started to work on it seriously.
3. How long did it take to write the book?
   Over six years—two and a half to write the first draft, then nearly four to revise and get it as close to right as my sanity would allow. While the plot remained essentially the same, the writing itself altered dramatically, reflecting my maturation as a writer and the influence that music has had on my life. One of the most important aspects about this process was my (ahem) naiveté. I did not sit down thinking that I would write a novel, I just started to write, and this passion for what I was doing simply for the sake of doing it—and not for the desire to be published, rich, famous, or even an "author"—took away the fear of failing the expectations of myself and others. I could write honestly and without external pressure.
4. What does writing do for you?
   I shy from saying writing is my mode of self-expression because I don't know what the self is much less how to express it—yeah, I'm into that postmodern crap. I see it as a way to make sense on the inside of everything on the outside—the books I read, the music I listen to, the films I watch, the art I look at, the socio-political situations and personal frustrations of everyday every day. With creative nonfiction, I write to remember and to reconstruct memory to connect experiences and make them meaningful, both to myself and other people. With fiction, the same, except the memories aren't mine.
5. What was your inspiration for the book?
   Everything. Boredom. Frustration. Lots of great music. I had no moment of "Ah-ha! This is it," the plot, the themes, what I wanted to put in and others to get out of it—my inspiration was just an accumulation of stuff.

6. How did you choose the plot or how did it choose you?
   Had you simply asked, "How did you choose the plot," I probably would've said, "It chose me." So nice forethought deflection. And I don't know. It seemed to come together naturally, absurdly so—such as details at the beginning I thoughtlessly put in that didn't make any sense or have meaning suddenly did at the end of the book, or more often, four years later in revision. And uh… hm. I really don't know. Did I choose it, it's because it wouldn't leave me alone. If it chose me, it's because I was willing to be controlled by it. To not quit. But ultimately, I think the plot chose itself. I tried to push it in directions that made sense, and sometimes that worked, sometimes it didn't. It was a trying relationship, indeed, but mutually beneficial nonetheless—it pushed me around a lot, too, into places I needed to explore.

7. Where did you get ideas for character names, personalities, subplots, etc.?
   As with inspiration in general, I get ideas from everywhere and nowhere. In a few cases I could pinpoint the seed and evolution of a personality or plot-line, but after awhile in writing, a creation becomes its own creator. I knew exactly what characters would say and do because they knew what they would say and do.

8. What made you want to write a book?
   It wasn't so much wanting to write a book as needing to write—a preoccupation that became an obsession. You ask about "inspiration" and I say "everything" and everybody has that—everybody carries around stuff. But the motivation? the application?—it just was. As mentioned, at first I never thought of it as becoming a book. A book's a big deal. This was just something I did this one time.
9. What was easy about writing it?
   I don't know if "easy" is an apt word to describe anything about writing The Teaching Emotion. Sometimes it came easily, but even then it was never in a finished form. The desire (…or obsession…) was easy—in the over-six-year process, I was never apathetic about writing or revising, and I never wanted to quit.
10. What was difficult about it?
    Being satisfied with a final version. I'm still not satisfied—there's a lot I wish I could change. I don't know if that makes me a perfectionist, paranoid, or pathetic. Maybe just conscious. It's a problematic novel. Uh…I'll leave it at that.
11. What is the genre of the book?
    It's a deepsicks book! Heh. But seriously, I'm not sure. It's definitely horrific but not really horror and I like to think literary but also unreal. I've been trying to get away with calling it magical realism, but that's not right, either—both incorrect and a corruption of the term. As I see it, genre and literary fiction have their advantages and disadvantages—I selected what was useful from each and disregarded their limitations. It was necessary within the story for characters to take seriously impossible situations but also to recognize and interrogate the implausibility. The same goes for readers—they must be willing to suspend their disbelief then demand it back several times throughout the novel.
12. Why did you choose to write that type of genre?
    I didn't choose to write in this genre or lack thereof; the book couldn't have been written any other way. If I wrote in straight genre horror, it would've been too easily dismissible if not contrived. If I kept it mainstream or "general fiction"—that is, rational and logical, without any fantastical elements—it wouldn't have been effective. The novel tries to explain the inexplicable, the unbelievable, and the frankly too horrible to accept. How could I possibly do this?—with the equally unreal. ...This being plot-wise. I wouldn't mind classifying or attempting to classify it based on the writing itself—the language and how it operates. If so, it's neither genre fiction or even mainstream. Is it literary? *Shrugs.* Is it avant-garde or whatever shitfun label is ascribed to this kinda stuff? Maybe. Just because I haven't seen it, doesn't mean it's not out there... but still—I have yet to encounter writing that's similar stylistically.
13. Who published the book?
    I published the book myself with the print-on-demand (POD) service GreatUnpublished. There is no editorial review or submission process for the books they produce because they are not a publisher, they are a printer. I formatted the layout and designed the cover then uploaded the files over the internet; I paid a setup fee for their service and also for a load of books to sell myself at discount. As a POD book, the novel is stored in a computer and printed directly from file one at a time ("on demand") instead of in print-runs like conventional publishing or non-POD self-publishing. Readers may buy books directly from me or from the printer from whom I get a royalty. Go here for more detailed information about POD self-publishing and related advice.
14. Explain deepsicks.com.
    The original purpose of my website was to inform about my novel—what it's about and how to get it, including a 118-page excerpt. Yet over a year after its inception, deepsicks has outgrown its TTE word-dropping mission. I write literary nonfiction and run across a lot of weird stuff—so why not share? It's a widely accessible space for expression and not just for conventional, contained writing; one section, the s u s p e n s i o n project, was written specifically for deepsicks, using links to story fragments and different stories entirely as narrative devices to construct a whole. No, that's not completely innovative especially within the medium, but it's still cool. I try to keep the site interesting for returning visitors—it also motivates me to write in general.
15. What is behind the name "deepsicks"?
    With the name deepsicks—as a website domain, a concept for my writing, and the occasional internet moniker—I think others at first assume I'm a deathed out sad kid with deviant interests. Um… no. The name is derived from several sources, none of which are too hard to figure out: a "deep six" is a grave—it also refers to burial at sea, and water death images play heavily in my writing. To "deep-six" something is to get rid of it—I've always been fond of the Dorothy Parker quotation, "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force." Indeed. And of course there's simply "deep sicks," which just sounds insidious. I also have a few personal investments in the term which are interesting, surely, only to me. All that misleading nonsense aside, conceptually deepsicks deals with ambivalence and duality, acknowledging the existence of anger, fear, and negativity but also of happiness and manic hope. Deepsicks is making sense of such extremes when they're side by side or occur simultaneously. To have deepsicks is to deny codified and uncomplicated responses, be they to personal situations or current world affairs—nothing is black or white, right or wrong, good or evil. In creative processes, deepsicks is the expression of the brutally honest and the honest expression of the brutal.
16. Follow-up: Why the brutality?
    Concerning the violence in TTE… it is a violent book—verbally, physically, mentally, emotionally, and sexually—and it makes me sick. I became desensitized to it after awhile, not realizing how extreme it was until I got some distance from it. Reading and rewriting certain parts was quite the shock. An important note: no matter how violent it is, it is not gratuitous. I don't write that way and dislike writing and movies that are. Readers have also remarked on how harsh it is yet strangely not gratuitous—the violence is in there for a reason, and it's a lot more intense, realistic, and terrifying than some gorefest kill-a-thon.

    So what is the reason? I'm guessing you asked "why the brutality" based on my remark that "deepsicks is the expression of the brutally honest and the honest expression of the brutal." I didn't mean that as a blanket statement—deepsicks is that, but it is more than that—and I also meant "brutality" figuratively, as intense tension, the realization of harsh realities about one's self and environment. In TTE, this was expressed and explored through violence, and it wears many masks. Yes, there's physical and sexual violence, but just as deep and damaging is the characters' inability to make choices, their loss and miscommunication of identity, and their inability to process and express emotion because they don't know what the hell they're feeling, and if they did, they would resist it. This sort of brutality is imposed by characters onto one another but also onto their personal selves. Why do they do this? Good question—why do people deny and defy their best interests, hate and hurt themselves, and abuse the ones they supposedly love? I used the language of brutality because it's powerful and dangerous, and I did dangerous things with it, some of which I now feel I didn't handle as well as I could and should have. Is all my writing overtly violent? Absolutely not. Does it challenge the mundane and all the moreso, the typical, sensationalistically "violent?" Is it provocative and brutal in the sense that it's "real" and you don't want to believe it, to relate to it and see it in your own life and in the world? I certainly try.

17. Follow-up: Why do water death images play heavily in your writing? Is it in a lot of your writing or just TTE?
    I'm not sure. I probably should've have said that. Water death images do come up in TTE, but I was thinking about it because I was writing a short piece involving water deaths when I started the first round of interview questions. A student here who had been missing since Halloween finally showed up—dead in the Mississippi, so I got to thinking about other water death missing kids, such as Jeanna North of Fargo in the early 90s. They never found her body, but she's supposedly (maybe?) in the Sheyenne River. Likewise Lotte is a kidnapped kid with a strong connection to the Sheyenne. Mentally she keeps returning there (and to the Pits in general), imagining and wishing that she had drowned in the river. There's also other instances of water death imagery and being engulfed by water. Are water deaths really prominent in my writing? Eh, maybe. I admit that it's a cliché, though, too—that sort of imagery is nothing new.

    As an aside, the piece I mentioned is a great example of deepsicks—very honest writing that could easily be perceived as insensitive or needlessly crass, though I don't intend it that way at all. (Read "What to Wear When Last Seen.")

18. Has it been hard to market and sell the book? How so?
    Yes. As a self-published author and a student (/recent grad), I don't have a publisher to market the book for me or the money to do it myself, and legitimate book reviewers won't touch PODs. Most in the industry consider it vanity publishing, and I admit that it is—a lot of POD books are poorly written and edited—but a lot of great work goes unnoticed, too. Though I enjoy selling books directly to my readers and take pride in the d.i.y. ethic, my marketing and distribution is nearly nonexistent. I'm also, um. Kinda shy. Not so good with the go up to strangers with a "Hey, buy my book!" attitude. I know I'm totally awesome so it's also easy to act too "Yeah, whatever" humble.
19. What are your future writing goals?
    Just to do it. Seriously. To be widely read and respected, sure, that'd be great, but more than anything I want to keep the passion for writing itself.
20. What kind of editorial process did you go through?
    I revised the novel for nearly four years after finishing the first time through, and I still make changes mentally. I didn't keep track of drafts—a dozen, perhaps. The final version was 45 percent of its original size. It sounds like hell and I guess it was, but revision was also the pleasure in the process—knowing that that it was improving, that each draft was closer to "done." Much of the revision focused on the writing itself—delivery and voice rather than plot.
21. How did you decide what to cut out/down?
    Knowing what to cut relates to knowing the characters and the characters knowing themselves. After awhile, certain scenes, dialogs, and character traits didn't make sense. In addition, and more important, it was a first novel, and I was a kid. I was still learning how to write (and I am still learning how to write). When I think about it, I didn't even know how to properly read (I got that down now, thanks). Revision decisions just took time.
22. Did anyone help you edit or give feedback throughout the process?
    I gave early drafts to a few friends and my older brothers, but I never got specific feedback—only much appreciated and necessary encouragement.
23. Why this person/these people?
    At first I kept the writing of my book a secret from almost everybody, including my parents. I didn't want the added pressure of others knowing about it and expecting great things, especially given the intense, disturbing, and intensely disturbing content. For those I did give it to, it just seemed right. I felt a nonjudgmental and empathetic connection with these people, and giving the book was like a confession—I wanted to talk about it to get advice but also just to talk. Writing and thinking about it occupied most of my teenage life; to have been unable to discuss this with anyone would have been impossible—not because it was wonderful, but because it felt horrible and I didn't want to be alone with it. ...But at the same time, it was wonderful. See? Deepsicks.
24. What are some of the sacrifices you made by writing this book?
    Sacrifice… what a strange concept—an odd way to put it. I feel I've lost time with family and friends. They're extremely important to me, but so is writing and on a completely different level. Growing up and into TTE, I didn't discuss it with others. It wasn't exactly deceptive on my part, but there was a disconnection between me and those close, though probably only perceived by me since I was the one doing the hiding and doing it so well… though I don't know. It'd be interesting to know what others thought—if they had any idea.

    I often questioned while writing it, is any of this worth it? I "sacrificed" watching TV. Hanging out. Other teenage/early-20s activities, though I'm by no means a recluse—perhaps socially awkward (heh) but not anti-social. But seriously, what did I lose? Not knowing what I'm capable of? and not just "Oo, that's a good sentence," but to have the perseverance and desire to work steadily for nearly seven years, to have the confidence to publish it myself and to try to push it out there, and to risk "misinterpretation" and confusing the hell out of the ones I care about? It was and is difficult without doubt, but I'd do it again, repeatedly. I sacrificed apathy, a flat-line life of being dishonest with myself and how I make sense of the world around me.

25. Why was it important to you to write this book?
    I could write a book on why it was important to write The Teaching Emotion. Writing is discovery. I didn't "find myself" per se—not a mutable self, one that will grow with me—but at the time I was able to better understand what was getting in and going through my head. Towards the end of the process, I felt I was fulfilling a need—there was and is an absence for what and how I write. Growing up I read a lot of horror books but I eventually became frustrated because they weren't speaking to me intelligently and never really did. In the horror genre, readers can't relate to dark imagery and elements without surrendering their rationality, and to top it off, the writing invariably sucks hard. And the truly "dark" stuff—the twisted manipulation, warped relationships, and draining dependence on hate and hurt of the self and so-called loved—isn't even an issue. I wanted to challenge the idea that horror has to be completely unbelievable and that "literary works" can't contain the extreme. And, of course, I wanted to challenge the reader. You can't read this book and be indifferent to it. Though the thought of "kids" reading it makes me sick, it's about kids, it was conceived by a kid, and if I had read it instead of written it when I was sixteen, for once I wouldn't have been alienated by the art I sought answers in.
26. Why was it important to you to publish this book?
    Even though I dread the thought of some people reading it (basically everyone close to me who ironically are the only people who know about it), I do want to share it, and the real book form (as opposed to distributing it on CD) is a professional and financially feasible medium. It looks good, and hey, it's fun.
27. What sorts of comments have people made about the book?
    Positive—very positive. Most of the people who read it know me personally, though, so it's difficult to get unbiased feedback. I do know it's too long. The language is usually tight, but the story could be more concise. The "too much" parts aren't obtrusive, just disable a quick or even moderate read, which might not be so bad after all. I consider the length a vestigial remain from learning how to write—the parts that should be removed but aren't stayed in because cutting them out would negatively affect other, necessary elements.
28. Follow-up: Despite positive comments, I get the feeling that people may have negative reactions to the book. I know you dread the thought of certain people reading it, but at the same time, does it make you feel good that people have such a strong reaction to it? (as opposed to being indifferent). And let me get this straight: the plot is fully fictional (i.e. not based on your personal experiences) but seems so real that people think it is based on your personal experiences? Is this why you are reluctant to let the people that are close to you read it?
    It's not that I get negative reactions—what frustrates me is when I get no reaction. I don't know if this means readers don't like it, or if they just don't know what to think about it or how to discuss it with me. A lot in the novel makes readers uncomfortable and resistant—to vulnerability, to atrocity, to irrationality—feelings which often lead to disapproval or dislike instead of a careful consideration of why the story needed to be told in such a way. If someone doesn't like the plot or style, fine. It's not for everyone. It's not even for me sometimes. But I don't think the unresponsiveness is indifference so much as knowing it was Meg Holle who wrote it.

    The plot and even the writing itself is emotionally, physically, and sexually violent. Readers who know me and are used to projecting interpretation back towards an author are going to have a hard time with it. When I know this will be their impression, it makes me uneasy to know they're reading it. It's not like someone reading my deep, dark, dirty-thought diary, it's someone reading my book and thinking it's my diary—a reverse violation, an assumption of untrue things. It's a tricky topic, especially when the idea of a book as a reflection of a writer's innermost secrets, thoughts, desires, and past and personal life is crammed in people all through elementary, middle, high, and even higher education. I just don't think that way—not about other writers and not about myself, I can say myself, yeah, this scene in my novel was partially inspired by such and such, and oh, I like these bands, and the character Lotte likes these bands, too, because hey—that's what I know, that's my experience, and I can write about it intelligently and meaningfully. But there's so much more to interpretation than "The book means whatever the author wants it to mean, and boy, she must have had an f'd up childhood." Letting a reader decide what something means isn't a copout—giving an author a monopoly on meaning is the copout, and so is assuming that the author knows what the hell she's doing and where it all comes from.

    Yes, in addition to pure imagination, I occasionally put pieces of myself and of everything around me into all of the characters and situations... but I change this information, too. Not to "protect" myself or others; I do it because it's either not interesting, or it's already meaningful. I know this story, this... lifestory. I want to know other stories. I want to tell other stories. The only appropriate response to the sidelong, nervous question, "So... you're Lotte, right?" is "What makes you think I'm not the fiend?" C'mon. Really. I'm a total idiot: I eat food off the ground and hum circus music, cry at stupid movies and pretend I can break dance (I can't. At all). And people who know me love me for it, at least tolerate my company. TTE has the potential to put a heavy, dark edge onto my interaction with others, and I don't want to tell people how to interpret art, much less my own—they can believe what they want—I just wish it didn't create barriers between me and those close. Or make me untouchable, put me on a pedestal. It's estranging. But sharing my work has also strengthened several friendships and forged ones new, so... yeah.

    Regarding strong reactions, yes, it does feel good when people respond strongly to it. The most meaningful compliments received involve readers expressing the actual reading experience—how they didn't know a book was capable of making them feel so intensely. I include a slip of paper with each book facetiously encouraging readers to throw the book against hard surfaces, and several admit that they do—deepsix it hard, and that they plow through hundreds of pages a day but then take a week-long break because they just can't take it anymore. And yeah, that makes me feel good in maybe a sick sorta way. As mentioned, after I rewrote scenes repeatedly, the impact was often lost on me, and even once stepping back, getting distance to read it fresh and critically, the disgust I felt was still familiar. I did not anticipate the reaction of TTE neophytes. First they have to learn how to read how I write, and second, how to make sense of the severity of the content. TTE demands from its readers a mental and emotional investment, even if it's concentrating on remaining detached (which I don't think is possible), and this interaction between the text and reader... yeah. Creates a helluva strong reaction.

    The best reaction, though, is and will always be those who take what I've done and create something else. To know I inspire others—be it the words themselves, or just the fact that I did it, that it can be done, and that they can do it, too—is a tremendous and invigorating feeling, a circuit of motivation. Even if TTE is "old" to me already in it's only one year of publication, to those who just pick it up, it's right now and intense first-time, and that enthusiasm kicks back to me, pushing me... do more. And that's great. That's wonderful.