Interview with Eggshell
Tarro:
Hello and welcome to this interview! Today dear readers you are in for a treat. We’re joined by the one and only Eggshell Ghosthearth, the most popular zoosexual you’ve probably never heard of! Now, normally I’d give a general summation of what you, the interviewee has done, but I think just given how many things you’re a little bit involved in, why don’t you explain how people probably best know you?
Eggshell:
I write things! But I do it sneakily. For a little while now I’ve been one of the members of the writing team here on Zooey Pub and over on Zooier Than Thou, so if you’ve been following the major zoo projects lately you might have already read or heard something that started off as a line or two scribbled down in my notebook. Most of it is uncredited because that’s more fun to me.
Tarro:
I’m glad that you brought that up! You’ve written a fair number of articles, but up until this point, they’ve always been anonymous. Why is it that you haven’t wanted to claim authorship of the work that you’ve done? What about it is more fun to you exactly. Maybe this says more about me than you, but that’s a very confusing sentiment to me!
Eggshell:
Heh. It’s a few things, but a big part of it is that I’m more interested in “the cause” than “the me” when it comes to a lot of endeavors that I choose to get behind. And given how anonymous (or pseudonymous) people in the zoo space tend to be already, it feels especially appropriate to contribute on the downlow when working on zoo things. Not to mention it can allow me to wear many hats, getting to try out a variety of styles and angles without worrying about whether it fits a brand, so to speak.
I also think projects can benefit from a little air of mystery as to how many people are involved, and in what ways. I will retroactively claim the Joy of Zoo article in the magazine, I’m really happy with that one and I think it was received well. But I will leave it to the readers if they want to speculate about what other ‘anonymous author’ pieces were me or someone else.
Tarro:
Okay, that does kinda make sense! Who doesn’t love a good mystery! So anyway, as someone who’s worked on the magazine a fair amount, I’d like to say that you and I are friends at this point. As such, I feel like it’s important for me to hit you with the hard ball questions, so that people don’t think I’m “going easy” on you due to our relationship. So, lets jump into it. What do you think of dogs?
Eggshell:
Some of my happiest and most meaningful memories are with dogs, going on hours long walks all over the city night after night, being taken on a tour of the world by them. I love the way that they engage with things by smell, how you can just look at them when they have their nose to the grass intently sniffing something, and just see how much they’re getting out of doing that, how fulfilling and informative it is to them, when to us it looks like any other bit of grass, or any other mailbox, or any other fire hydrant. Not all dogs are the same person but I feel blessed to have gotten to share many years with a dog who likes to snuggle when we go to sleep, and is as enthusiastic about human/dog kisses as I am. I love how they smell when you bury your nose against them anywhere and take a big sniff. I love how they talk to you with their posture and their glances and their canine vocalizations, huge impressive barks when someone is at the door or little unimpressed exhaled huffs when I should be getting ready to take us on a walk and got distracted by something. Overall 10/10.
Tarro:
D’awww. Of course you would have a touching answer for such a simple question. It’s very clear that you love dogs, has it always been that way for you, or is that something that you figured out more recently? What was your general journey into discovering your zoosexuality?
Eggshell:
I didn’t always have a word for it, but, yes it’s been dogs for as long as it’s been anything for me. I think it would be fair to say there have been different phases to it over the years. Initially, it was just very anxiously wondering whether anyone else has ever experienced an attraction to animals, which, yes, it turns out a lot of people do. For a while, it was questioning whether I have much of an interest in humans, to which I think the answer is faintly yes, but any interest in humans is outshined strongly by how much I like nonhuman animals. Lately I think my journey has been defined by coming out to people in my personal life and getting involved in activism.
Tarro:
Speaking of your activism, it’s fair to say, I think, that you’re someone who seems pretty interested in writing, and written based mediums in general. Do you do much reading as well?
Eggshell:
I do, although admittedly it will not be difficult to catch me out having not read any given classic or popular book. I gravitate to picking up short story collections, which can have great impactful narratives but they usually don’t find fandoms built around them in the same way a novel series can.
Tarro:
Hey, good stories are good stories, regardless of whether or not they have fandom behind them. Who’s your favorite author, and what’s your favorite thing you’ve read in the past year?
Eggshell:
Truthfully, as someone who hangs out in writer-y spaces where we pass our WIPs to each other sometimes, my favorite authors are not household names. To my knowledge, the author who comes to mind when you ask for a favorite still hasn’t been published. But as for my favorite thing I’ve read in the last year, I thought The Hobbit was thoroughly enjoyable and I’m looking forward to the rest of the series. It’s another one that I’m very late to but I’ve been enjoying it.
Tarro:
Well, whenever your author does get published, make sure you let everyone know. If they impressed you that much with unfinished work, they must really be something special! That said, maybe as someone who hangs out in “writer-y spaces” you’ll have a good take on this. Writing as a thing is always going to exist, but it’s pretty clear that as an independent medium it’s starting to give way to more visual based content. Do you think that in 50 years there’s still going to be a place for people who want to just write a book, or do you think that eventually novels in general are just going to fizzle out?
Eggshell:
Of course it’s difficult to say for sure. The idea that you can “just write a book” is true and always will be, but even right now, if you want to make a living off of writing books, that’s going to depend more on your marketing skills than your writing chops. I think there will always be books, because their longform nature lets you get into depths of character and theme and setting that would be difficult to accomplish in a movie or a show, because a part of the appeal of books can even be in stewing with the character in a situation for quite a while. You feel like you’re there with them instead of watching them through a window. I think what we might see is innovations like audiobooks take over instead of print or e-book. If you look at the grand scale of history, oral tradition has been at least as popular as writing, if not more so. It might be sort of a spiritual return to that, but fortunately enough, in a way that still necessitates writers as a part of it.
Tarro:
That’s a very romantic way of looking at it. “The return to oral tradition.” I think you might honestly have something there. It’s a very cool idea.
So, you’ve been on the magazine team for a while. This question might be a little mean, but I’m curious. Considering everything you said about print media, how do you feel like it’s going just in general?
Eggshell:
Luckily I think the question of books and the question of articles are actually questions about two different niches :3 It might be closer to the same question if we were trying to be widely circulated in print, but, at the moment we’re more zeroed in on shorter interesting nonfiction reads that people can check out on their phone when a new one drops. I have seen enough heartfelt comments left on different articles that I can say this project is having a positive impact on people. The occasional comments from antis are also very funny, not to encourage them, and I wish them the best when they realize that they’re obsessing over a zooey magazine because they themselves are closet zoos who lowkey want to know what zoos are saying but can’t admit it to themselves. Overall the magazine is something that I’m glad exists. I think it’s another good piece in the stonework of building up a community for ourselves.
Tarro:
Wow. That’s so sweet. I’m glad to hear it seems like it’s being well received on your end too. And you’re a huge part of that! I know we’re keeping it mysterious on what you have and haven’t written, but for the fans of the magazine, if you had to pick your favorite, or maybe top two, of the articles that you’ve written, which would you pick? I know you mentioned “The Joy of Zoo” before. Is that up there?
Eggshell:
The Joy of Zoo would be up there for sure. Part of what’s been cool about writing for these projects at a time when I’ve been coming out to people is that even if I’m intentionally not credited in the piece, I can still send it to someone and be like, “Hey don’t tell anyone but this was me, this is what I’m about when I say that the dog is my romantic partner.” Joy of Zoo was one that I shared with a friend in that way, and I think he understood after reading it that this was more of a “real” thing to me, not that he wasn’t already cool about it to begin with. I think a lot of times telling someone you’re attracted to animals can leave them with a lot of questions about what exactly you mean by that, so sharing something like a day in the life as a zoo helps.
I’ll also give a shout to Everyday Ways to Practice Compassion with your Dog. In a lot of ways that one feels like very basic advice, but the basics can be good to keep in mind.
Tarro:
Okay, enough chit chat! Let’s get to the matter at hand. You recently launched a website featuring a bunch of zoo based fiction writing. The name is To Thine Own Self be Zoo. I think the pun is cute for sure, but is that all there is to the name, or is there a deeper reason for why you went for it?
Eggshell:
Yes, I’m happy to finally have it out there! This project has been in the making for a while, as I finalized some things and waited for January to come around to start all of the numbering clean on a new year. I don’t honestly remember the specific thought processes that lead up to the name. I’m sure I was out walking with a dog when I came up with it, just because that’s often when I tend to have creative ideas. I may have been thinking of Zooier Than Thou, and seeing if I could come up with other phrases or sentiments that you can fit the word zoo into. But like you say, the name is a take on “To thine own self be true,” which is life advice that is given by Polonius in Hamlet. I don’t think the name is terribly deeper than that: as zoos we are told to hide, or to not be what we are, and To Thine Own Self Be Zoo is a project of indulging in creating genuine zoo literature, not filtering zoosexuality down to a sanitized or shameful thing, but celebrating in animal empathy and exalting nonhumans.
Tarro:
Right now you have one issue out, and as far as I’m aware you’re planning on putting out a new issue each month, right? What should audiences expect from each drop? Is it going to just be one story, or will it be a few things like the first month was?
Eggshell:
Yes, for the time being the hope is to have a new issue come out each month. I’ve already seen what the website should look like in the coming months when more issues are out there, and, I’m looking forward to getting there. Admittedly it feels a little sparse with just the one. Most of the issues will be a few stories and a few poems, like you saw in the first issue. That said, I do also have plans for a few issues that may explore other forms, like novellas or screenplays.
Tarro:
One thing that I think is really cool about this project is that you’re trying to voice a lot of the works. What’s your goal for that down the road? Would you like everything to be voiced, just the main stuff, or is it just a special treat every now and then?
Eggshell:
So, part of the impetus to make a whole project out of this, instead of just posting the stories to Fur Affinity or something, is that right now I don’t really know of a good space for zoo fiction. Good zoo fiction is definitely out there, but you often have to weed it out from among a lot of bestiality erotica where someone having sex with an animal is treated as degrading or perverted, or where the animal is not treated as a beautiful partner who deserves at least as much care and consideration as yourself. Not to deny people their interests if that’s what they want to read about, but, a lot of that stuff is often more fetish-oriented than zoo romantic. The hope with this project is to create an ongoing space for “actual” zoo fiction, which can mean exploring the romance of a human character and a canine character being in love, or it can merely be the fact of zoo characters openly existing in a story, or even just stories that treat animals and nature with reverence.
And that’s basically the main hope for the podcast side of things too. Back when I heard the announcement on ZooTT about Steeeeeeeeeeeeve’s new podcast, Zoo Stories, I thought from the title that it was going to be a podcast of zoo fiction, and I was stoked. It turned out his was actually an interview show, which was also cool, but I think it showed that at least for me, there was a demand for some kind of a zoo fiction podcast too, and I guess that’s me now. I don’t know how much of the writing will make it into the audio versions, but again, the goal is to create a regular space for zoo fiction drops, however often it happens.
Tarro:
Your stories are amazing, but I want to specifically call out your poems. The two dandelion pieces are so sweet. I think that it’s really incredible how you can manage to snapshot a small piece of what being in a zoo relationship is really like, and it immediately made me reflect to those moments that I’ve shared with my own partner. I don’t really have a question here I just think it’s super sweet and I wanted to call it out, because I know it can be easy for people to skip over poetry sometimes.
Eggshell:
Thank you :3
Tarro:
Last question for you here. I assume you’re already content planning for the next release, if you don’t already have most of it written already. Any fun teasers to get the people excited for what’s coming up?
Eggshell:
Ooh yes there are a few in Issue 2 that I think should be fun.
One is called Dorian Gray, but the ‘take’ on it is that I have literally not read The Picture of Dorian Gray, I just skimmed through it and stole all the names to write my own zoosexual story with, and I think it turned out unreasonably well for such a bad premise. I probably will read The Picture of Dorian Gray before that issue comes out though, I was talking about it with Brass and he read me the plot summary and it actually sounds pretty metal. But mine is about a couple who inadvertently find a video tape with some highly zooey content on it, and it progresses from there.
If you’re more into fantasy there will also be The Tale of Erskine Faern, about a boy and a dog growing up together and going through life.
And for poems, I should be including a collection called 38 Haiku About Dogs in this upcoming issue as well.
Related to dogs and poems, I actually have a couple very practical pieces of advice to leave with, if I can.
Tarro:
You stole my wrap up! I was just about to ask if you had any closing thoughts. Take it away!
Eggshell:
Advice one: If you’re out walking a dog at night and you care about picking up what he or she drops, but when you go to pick it up it’s too dark out to find it, one thing you can do is while they’re squatting, point one foot towards where things will land, and it should then be much easier to find it in the dark using that pointer as a reference.
Advice two: When counting syllables, say for a haiku or a sonnet, it can be a much better experience to count the syllables on your fingers, so that you don’t have to mentally juggle that count alongside the actual words themselves. But often times you may only have one hand free, like if you’re holding a pen or a dog leash. This is going to be a little cumbersome to explain in text, but this is a way to count to ten on one hand. “Zero” is an open hand, all of the fingers out. From here, we use our thumb to point to the next numbers: putting the thumb against the middle of the pointer finger is “1”, putting the thumb against the tip of the pointer finger is “2”, putting the thumb against the middle of the middle finger is “3”, putting the thumb against the tip of the middle finger is “4”, and so on, until the thumb is on the tip of the little finger which is “8”. From here I consider putting the tip of the pointer finger against the middle of the thumb to be “9”, and the tips of the thumb and pointer finger touching to be “10”. Ten and two do look the same in this system but, hopefully you can at least remember if you’ve gone that far or not.
Interview between Eggshell and Tarro (January 2022)
Find the articles referenced in the article here!
To Thine Own Self Be Zoo - https://tothineownselfbezoo.com/
The Joy of Zoo article - https://zooey.pub/the-joy-of-zoo/
Everyday Ways to Practice Compassion with your Dog - https://zooey.pub/everyday-ways-to-practice-compassion-with-your-dog/
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