1) Tell me about your anthology.
Robot Hearts is a collection of personal essays written by people navigating the relationship maze of online dating and new media.
2) What inspired Robot Hearts?
Both of us met our husbands before the whole internet dating thing, but were fascinated with stories of people connecting in this new way. Even our own friendship was rekindled through Facebook. We thought it’d be fun to gather these kind of stories together in one place. We have a line of nonfiction anthologies planned—this is just the first.
3) How did you select the writers?
We put out a general ‘call for submissions’ on blogs, Facebook, Twitter and our website. Some of the folks who contributed were friends, but most were complete strangers. David Sterry is an award-winning memoirist and well-published friend whom we’ve worked with before. Carrie Cohen’s essay, “The Man I Might Have Married,” is a tragic, touching tale of the strange and sometimes false intimacy meeting online entails.
We were intrigued by the experimental form of Kianoosh Hashemzadeh’s essay. “They Left a Paper Trail.” Trudi Tayor, who is traveling from North Carolina for the reading, cracked us up with her submission, “The Pickle Story.” Cara Bruce wrote about the truly frightening ways that psycho exes can use technology to terrorize. And the title of Caroline Bryant’s piece, “Match.con: One English Woman’s Experience with Online Dating” just says it all.
4) Do you Kiss and Tell?
Hmmm….well, we’ve both written explicit material of our own, before, but in this case, we hug and allow other people to tell on themselves.
5) What are your thoughts about the intersection of love and technology?
Shawna: I’m suspicious. Technology is an extension of the user, yet it has the uncanny ability to mask our most human qualities. Meeting people online is both more immediate and more removed—our online selves are artifice. I’m a romantic, so I’d like to believe anything’s possible, but interacting online can never replace that intangible thing—that chemistry—that people feel once they see, hear, smell and experience one another in-person.
Cara: I agree with Shawna about the chemistry. I’m also not sure it can be replaced. Yet, I do wonder if meeting someone online and taking the time to get to know him or her, really get to know him or her, before doing anything physical might not be such a bad idea. But, then again, sex is such an important part of any relationship that maybe all relationships should start with sex and move on to talking. I also would imagine that meeting someone online would involve a whole other level of trust or, should I say, distrust. Overall, I think that as long as we don’t remove ourselves from real, face-to-face human connections we should be okay.
6) Are there any things that we humans should avoid with our newly Robotic Hearts?
Loneliness. Hermitude. Agoraphobia. Damn, it sounds like the life of a writer.
7) Where can we find the book and learn more?
We’ll have books at the reading, iand t can be ordered online now at
http://www.amazon.com/Robot-Hearts-Twisted-Seeking-Digital/dp/0982644507/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275944083&sr=1-1
and we have guidelines for future anthologies up at our website:
http://www.pinchbackpress.com/
8) What can we expect on June 15th?
Expect to laugh and maybe even cry a little. You will emote, whether you want to or not.
