The Curious Creator: An Interview with Pattie Palmer-Baker, author of MALL
I write poetry and personal essays. I also create visual artwork—collages of paste paper with calligraphy of my poetry. I never planned on writing a novel until one day I wondered what life would be like if the world were a huge mall. I began to imagine a place somewhat similar to our reality but also radically different—a place where everyone is beautiful, and everyone is employed with enough income to consume and to experience pleasure, including drugs, gambling, theater, and holographic adventures. No poverty and little or no crime. A lot of sex. But what’s the catch…and what happens when a woman from our reality finds her way into this alien yet familiar world? Does she try to leave or does she stay? Who changes the most—the woman who befriends her or the outsider? Only by writing a novel did I discover the answers in enough detail to satisfy my curiosity. Mall is my first novel.