Author of the week: Miranda July

last updated 8 January 2015

Miranda July found her latest book in the classifieds, said Carolyn Sun in TheDailyBeast.com. The 37-year-old author and filmmaker was putting off finishing a screenplay in 2009 when she picked up the PennySaver classified ads. Wondering about the people who were selling tadpoles for $2.50 each or a “large leather jacket” for $10, July picked up the phone and started asking each seller if she could stop by to conduct an interview. “It was very unclear where I was going with this,” she says. Yet in the living rooms of Andrew, the 17-year-old tadpole seller, and Ron, under house arrest and peddling Dr. Seuss titles, a book emerged. It Chooses You collects the stories of the sellers along with pictures, in a quirky, funny work about connecting with people on the fringe.

Dealing with real people gave July a new appreciation for nonfiction, said Emily Raine in the Montreal Mirror. “A lot of my work is just me in my own head sort of making everything up,” she says. “But there’s also a real desire to make things that involve other real people.” Connecting with strangers was both affecting and a little scary, she says. “Andrew, the tadpole guy, he got to me. And also, out of a slight paranoia I keep thinking about Ron. He’s the only one where my husband was like, ‘So are any of these people going to come after you?’” Resisting the urge to fictionalize her subjects’ lives was a struggle, but July stayed true to her goal. “Ultimately they’re represented in their own words and pictures,” she says. “I’m sort of pleased.”