Stephanie Pearl-McPhee is probably one of the best known knitters on the planet. But more than that, she’s a successful author, prolific blogger and self-professed geek. When you think about it, the worlds of Knitting and Genre Fandom are not that dissimilar at all, so it seems only natural that we’d eventually talk to someone who embodies both. We recently caught up with Stephanie and she graciously agreed to answer a few questions for us.
PCZ: There are a million questions we’d love to ask you about knitting, but as we’re a site that focuses more on the geekish end of TV, movie and comic books (to name a few), we’ll save them for another time. Instead, will you introduce yourself to those that might not be readily familiar with your books and blog?
SPM: You bet. I’m a writer, humourist and knitter who lives in Toronto, with a house full of books and yarn. I write funny, philosophical and grossly unhelpful tomes that most people think are about knitting, but in reality, are about people and obsession and what it’s like to be dorky – what it’s like to have a passion that not everyone understands. I travel around North America talking about that, and in my spare time, I write a blog called “Yarn Harlot”, which is about everything and anything that pleases me.
PCZ: Thanks. You’ve talked about your fame as taking place in small rooms – knit shops and such – but we wouldn’t classify 500 people filling The Forestry Center’s Miller Hall as a small room. As someone who gets nervous in front of crowds, has your notoriety grown beyond what you’re comfortable with?
SPM: My notoriety grew beyond what I was comfortable with the first time that I got up in front of a group of any size, and it’s only become more hysterical as time has gone on and the groups have grown. I recall walking onto the stage at an event where there was 1100 people, and looking out over them thinking “Well. This has really gone too far.” It’s a bizarre thing, and I think that the only thing that really saves my sanity is that the crowds are balanced with a regular life where almost nobody knows who I am, along with experiences like book signings, where I’m able to meet people one on one, something I enjoy far more. I’m (mostly) only notorious within blogging or knitting circles, so it’s a strange sort of micro-celebrity, and that means that I can still buy cat litter unaccosted, which lets me balance the parts of whatever it is that’s been happening in my life that I’m still learning to process and accept without abject terror.
“I recall walking onto the stage at an event where there was 1100 people, and looking out over them thinking ‘Well. This has really gone too far.’ “
PCZ: Your range of published works includes fiction, essays, knitting patterns, and blog entries – that we know of. That’s a lot of variety for one author. Can you talk a little bit about what it does for you as a writer to be able to express yourself in so many different formats?
SPM: I think that in terms of being a writer, I’ve been given (or maybe I set it up that way) the opportunity to be able to write the way I think. The books like “At Knit’s End” and “Things I Learned From Knitting” contain short ideas, small concepts, things that occurred to me that are worthwhile, but don’t have the depth of an essay. Deeper, longer thoughts go into the books of essays and fiction. When I’m thinking critically or clinically that becomes instructive thought… like with patterns. The blog is pure fun. The blog is for community, immediacy… play. I don’t think of the blog as hard-core writing, just my virtual living room where I can do as I please and say what I’m thinking, as well as practice writing every day. I write a variety of ways in a variety of formats because I think a variety of thoughts. What does this do for me as a writer? It indulges me. Probably leads to a dreadful lack of discipline.
PCZ: You seem to do some interesting research for your books and the blog. For example, you quoted a neuroscience study at your last book tour stop here in Portland. Can you tell us a little bit about what kind of research goes into your writing?
SPM: I’m actually a bit of an accidental researcher. Most of the stuff I come across is the result of way to much surfing on the net and having a broad range of interests. When I find something good I clip it and save it so that when I need an obscure knitting reference I have a million of them already. Plus, I can’t take all the credit. Once you start throwing this sort of thing around, how knitting relates scientifically to the world around you or the human mind, then people start sending you links. I get a lot of good stuff that way. I’ve also learned to translate knitting into science talk. If you go on a hunt for studies about knitting, you don’t find a thing. Go on a hunt for “repetitive visual-spatial task” and you find tons.
PCZ: “Things I Learned From Knitting” is out and “Free-Range Knitter” is out on September 1st. Have you started thinking about the next project?
SPM: I have, though I’m usually very quiet about what I’m planning until it’s really underway, which is where I am now. As long as I don’t tell people what I’m up to, then I’ve got tons of flexibility to change and grow with the projects and let them take on a life of their own. I can tell you this though… it’s got to do with knitting.
PCZ: What else is on your plate in the coming months?
SPM: Tons. I meant to take a few months off, but I’m obviously bad at it. I’m writing pieces here and there, writing reviews, working on the next project and as always, writing for the blog. I’m getting ready to make a tour stop in London, so I’m excited about that. We’re taking a family vacation, and I have a plan to dye a raw sheep fleece that involves a cauldron. Busy, busy.
PCZ: Kudos for asking William Shatner to hold the travelling sock! So, you’re an obvious sci-fi fan – can we inquire as to your current favorite sci-fi shows?
SPM: So many. Holy cow. “Battlestar Galactica” has been huge for me, “Doctor Who”, “Torchwood”, “Stargate SG-1” and “Atlantis”…
PCZ: Have you considered crossing over into Speculative Fiction in your own writing?
SPM: Nope, but I never considered becoming a knitting philosopher or humourist either, so who knows. I’ve certainly got nothing against it, and if that’s where a plot took me, I would go. It’s just not on my desk right now.
PCZ: You tend to go light on the TV during the summer months to encourage your household to take advantage of the good weather. Will you be making an exception for Stargate SG-1’s new movie, “Continuum”?
SPM: Big time. I’ll be in the lineup for the new X-Files too. Ah, Mulder. How I’ve missed you.
PCZ: Let’s move over to the internet side of things a bit. Your blog gets the kind of traffic that most sites have to pay to generate. How do you feel about having that many people in your electronic living room?
SPM: I invited them, so I’m delighted they’ve come. It’s like throwing an open house party. You buy chips and beer and set out the welcome mat, but you don’t really have a sense of how many people might come. It’s very unexpected that it’s gotten this big, but thrilling. I think the best part is that I didn’t really know who would show up. Everyone can come, and one of the neatest things about the internet, one of the things I love best, is that “everyone” does. I have no idea what sorts of people I’m writing to, and because I have open comments, who will write back. The variety of humanity is endlessly interesting to me. It’s a very vivid exchange, and volume only makes it more engaging to me.
As a writer, the immediacy of the feedback is useful and exciting.
“The variety of humanity is endlessly interesting to me.”
PCZ: A link in one of your posts to another blog, a pattern, or a new yarn sometimes launches the heretofore unknown into the mainstream of online knitter-dom. Since this can change the financial future of a yarn company or pattern designer, have you chosen to tread carefully when selecting who or what to link to?
SPM: Sort of. (That’s a terrible answer, isn’t it?) I link to things I’m interested in, things I like (or don’t like) and try to wield the spotlight only as a representation of what I’m engaged with right then… I try not to think of it in an economic or moral sense. On the other hand, a lot of the products I link to are artesian, they are being made by one person, or two people, or a very small business. They are more like art than a commercial product, and that means that quantities can be limited, so the only concession I make is that I sometimes warn an artist that extra business might be headed their way so they can prepare. Sometimes they get swamped anyway, or sometimes their product is so unique that only a small percentage of readers buy it. I have more rules about what I don’t do. I don’t link to “causes” very much, I have one charity that’s politically and religiously neutral, and I put all of my efforts there. I don’t link to things to make fun of them or point out how they’re missing the mark, and I can’t be “bought”. You can’t buy a link on Yarn Harlot, or purchase my attention – or even give me yarn with any expectations. I want people to know that if I like it or link to it that I really like it, or that the things I say about it are unbiased, so I conduct myself accordingly. If someone gives me yarn or a product – I make them no promises.
PCZ: If we were believers in conspiracies, we would be inclined to think that you’re trying to change the world into a nicer, happier place. Are you hiding any secret identities under that handknit? But seriously, what would your superpower be if you got to choose one?
SPM: I wonder what it means about me that I thought about what superpower I’d like to have more than any other question here? (Probably a terrible sign of my lack of depth.) I considered telepathy, but it raises terrible moral questions about privacy, and I don’t think it would be good for my self esteem to know what people think about me any more than having a blog already lets me know. Telekinesis would be cool, but I bet I would get fat. I know I would use invisibility, shapeshifting or mind-control for evil, that waterbreathing would get damp, x-ray vision would be gross, immortality would eventually be boring and that invulnerability would make me reckless. It has to be something that I wouldn’t be able to use for evil, that would support my ultimate goals as a person, save me time without making me lazy and would be really freakin’ fun. That only leaves one.
I want to fly.
Thank you very much to Stephanie Pearl-McPhee for agreeing to talk to us and for taking the time to answer our questions.
