An Unlikely Mini Interview with Caroline M. Yoachim

Do you find clowns to be a) creepy b) downright terrifying c) mildly amusing d) laugh out loud funny e) some combination of the above or f) none of the above (please supply your own alternate adjective/description)?

It really depends on the clown and what they happen to be doing at the time. A clown doing some juggling at the state fair? Amusing! A clown with red eyes and pointy teeth knocking on the window of my car? Significantly less amusing.

On a related note, what is you earliest clown-related memory, and how did it scar you and or shape your view of clowns?

When I was two years old, my mom made me a clown costume for Halloween. She spent a lot of time working on it, and it was kind of big, so I wore it for Halloween three years in a row. Maybe I developed a profound empathy for clowns, having been one myself. . . or maybe the costume had no impact on me whatsoever.

What lead you to take the particular approach to clowns you used in your story, Everyone’s a Clown?

I was looking around for ideas for clown flash stories, and decided to start by searching for clown songs on YouTube. Eventually I found a video of “Everybody Loves A Clown” where a little girl stands and stares at Gary Lewis while he sings the entire song. It was actually kind of creepy to have a kid just stand there and stare, like she could see something I couldn’t--and that was the seed for the story.

Unrelated to clowns (or not, as the case may be), what else are you working on/have you published recently/have upcoming that you’d like people to know about?

I actually do have another clown story! “The Carnival Was Eaten, All Except the Clown,” appeared in the final issue of Electric Velocipede and was later podcast at The Drabblecast.

I also have several stories that have nothing to do with clowns. “Four Seasons in the Forest of Your Mind” is forthcoming in the May/June issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and I recently did a “Tasting Menu” of food-related flash stories at Daily Science Fiction. I have a complete list of my publication on my website.