Arthouse queen Miranda July gets literary

Miranda July is cheery and bright-eyed, and in general she does not look the sort who spends her time pondering the sexual proclivities of small children. Still, most people know her best as the writer, director, and star of her 2005 breakout indie film, Me and You and Everyone We Know, which, among its other eccentricities, just happened to investigate such neglected topics as winsome romance between a six-year-old boy and a 30-something woman. You'd think one might wish to dispel such a reputation, but July's first collection of short fiction, No One Belongs Here More Than You, arriving mid-May from Scribner, proves otherwise.

"If the sexuality of a 6-year-old could be something we can acknowledge exists, that would be a really great achievement of the movie"After a recent string of shows at the Kitchen in New York, Radar caught up with the performance artist-cum-filmmaker-cum-debut fiction writer, to probe the inspirations behind her oddball genius, and to clear up a few rumors being disseminated on the Internet.

RADAR: Have you read your Wikipedia entry?
MIRANDA JULY: There's almost nothing on there that's true! Timothy Leary is not my godfather—he's Winona Ryder's godfather! And July is not my "most creative month."

Why not change it?
I don't have time. I will! I want to! I always forget, and then it'll come up in an interview. I don't really know how to do it. You wanna do it?

I could, but I'll have to get some Wiki-like facts from you first. Why did you actually change your last name to July?
My best friend in high school, Joanna Fateman—who's best known for being in Le Tigre—we had a fanzine together. She wrote stories about these two women, named Ida and July, and I was July. I took that name on as my last name then, when I was 14.

Let's talk about your new collection of short fiction. It has a lot of interesting sex in it: there's a senior citizen having his first gay encounter, a teacher who seduces a 14-year-old boy in her special-needs class, and a young girl living as her father's lover. I'm assuming your own love life is a bit more conventional.
Suffice it to say it all comes from somewhere, right? There's some basis of truth, just invented, you know? But there's nothing autobiographical in the book. At the same time it is a document of the period of my life when I was writing it, so all those things are emotionally true.

In your story, "Making Love in 2003." Madeleine L'Engle, author of A Wrinkle in Time, plays a part—as the wife of a man who the narrator observes receiving a blowjob in a car. Why her?

I'd just come back from the Sundance Labs where I had predominantly male mentors—it's a workshop. They were sort of powerful Hollywood men, kind of offering me help of all kinds. I was fascinated: Who are these people's wives? And then thinking what if the wife was even more powerful? What if I arrived and his wife was Madeleine L'Engle! See, that part is autobiographical in a way.

You have a recurring character type, something you call the "New Man." Carl, for example, in the story "Mon Plaisir," is "nursed" by his girlfriend in bed. He's also a Buddhist. Is this a good progression for masculinity?
I guess I have mixed feelings. It's not just scorn, it's not that simple. I'm not interested in men, or people, who aren't sort of trying in a way. But that trying can sometimes be embarrassing or excruciating.

George Saunders coined the term "July-esque," which I'm sure is both flattering and uncomfortable. He described it as "infused with wonder at the things of the world."
I guess I am quite taken by [the] ways that people are. Often I'll be with my friends in a restaurant, for example, and I'll be listening to them talking, but they'll be like, "Okay, I see you're actually listening to those people over there." I guess I'm genuinely interested and sort of easily moved by things I see, and I'll give people a little more leeway than I'll give myself when I'm watching them and projecting on them.

There's a number of kids in the book. You don't have kids yourself—I don't know if you want to—but you seem to have this connection with children.
I don't have close friends that have kids yet. I do want to have kids, but mostly I'm talking about my own childhood. I know in my life I'm a little blunt—even the people closest to me are like, I can't believe you just said that! You can't have adults be that way, but you can have children be that way and get away with it.

What about your Web project, Learning to Love You More—is that still going on? [July gives creative assignments to ordinary people—things like "draw the news" and "write the phone call you wish you could have."]
Yeah—in fact, we have a book coming out in the fall. I love that project. It's easy to feel like I'm just a fan of it!

You seem to have faith in the creative ability of everyday people.
For the book I just looked at every single assignment on there—we had to pick all the best things, and there's a lot. You're like: Wow! And you're from where?

"I assume that not everyone is trying to be a famous artist.... Life is easier if you don't"Does it get depressing at the same time? Like Christine in Me and You and Everyone We Know trying to break into the establishment of the gallery world. Why haven't some of these people "made it"?
I assume that not everyone is trying to be a famous artist, and I look at the site as "these are people doing what they are doing. They did this today, they made this." I don't assume that anyone's in a particularly pitiful situation. I think there's wanting to make things, and then there's this sort of other thing, of desperately needing to be seen and acknowledged. Life is easier if you don't have the latter. I know a lot of artists who have that to a lesser degree than me—and it's amazing, a little calmer. Their work's getting out there, but it's not compelling their every move in a way that I feel like it oftentimes is for me ... that kind of loneliness that's making me really need to keep putting myself out there.

You wrote a short that appeared on the first Wholphin DVD magazine, in which John C. Reilly asks passersby, "Are you still the favorite person of anybody?"
That came from me talking with a friend.... I was saying to that friend, isn't it amazing that everyone you see is someone's favorite person? That guy, that person. My friend was like: "But are they? Maybe some people aren't anyone's favorite person." That was sort of so devastating, and that's what led to that. I think I'm my boyfriend's favorite person.

Who's your boyfriend?
[Laughs.] Mike Mills.

So is that an open secret?
It seems like people know that.

Well, it's on Wikipedia. How's that going?
He's waiting for me, in fact.

Okay, last question then: A) Do you think you'll be most remembered as the woman who wrote "pooping back and forth, forever?" and B) Why do you think that resonated with people the way it did?
If that's what happens, that's a pretty good thing. It's so specific. Some newspaper here, there was a plug for the performance and it said: "Beware, she might have more )) < > (( up her sleeve!" I was like, God, do people really know what that is? That they could do that and not translate it—

The )) < > (( T-shirts sold out!
If the sexuality of a 6-year-old could be something we can acknowledge exists, that would be a really great achievement—in a way, the best achievement of the movie. That space is so fraught—child sexuality. If it can be okay, and even funny or warm ... After I wrote that, I remember thinking, This needs a symbol like Coke has a symbol. It needs this thing so that people can consume it. I remember telling a friend that this is like the Nike swoosh, but it's back and forth, pooping back and forth forever. And she's like: I will be really impressed if that happens.

Photo of MJ with Mike Mills by Fernando Cardenas