Kim Acrylic, author of the novel Rock n’ Roll Melancholy and a collection of poetry The Myth Behind All Truth, is a writer and a poet who writes prose in a style that oscillates between Stephanie Kuehnert and Hunter S Thompson. Her poetry relies heavily on metaphor while seeping itself into reality in a way that is both fascinating and disturbing. Her work is heavily influenced by music and musicians and the infamous Seattle music scene.

I am most familiar with your work Rock and Roll Melancholy. Tell us about that novel.

The easy answer is sex drugs, and rock n roll, but in reality it’s a story of hardship and loss. But it’s also about love and excitement. It’s on the edge between young adult and erotica. It’s really hard to narrow it down to a simple, common description. I like to think it pushes boundaries and genre bends.

Much of the story in Rock n’ Roll Melancholy is really raw, very upfront about the chaotic life of someone dealing with trauma. What kind of feedback have you gotten about that story?

I’ve gotten two different feedbacks. One is that they loved it and couldn’t put it down, and the other is that it was too sad or disturbing to finish. So no gray area with it really. (laughs)

I remember you took it off the market for awhile. Was that so you could rework the story? What were the reasons for doing that?

I did take it off the market because the editing needing to be a lot better, I just wasn’t happy with it. I went through a rough patch of disliking it. Finding it too fangirl, too erotic. Too something or other. It just was never good enough for me. I tortured myself over it. So I got a good editor and rewrote what I didn’t like about it.

What was it that you didn’t like? Was it a whole scenes or just the way it was written? Did you delete any material?

I deleted some of the overly erotic scenes. Only because it was hard to sell to a young adult audience with that amount of sex. So I cut back a bit. I also changed tiny things like names, descriptions, etc. I tried to mature up the fangirling and tone down the overly mature things that could be cut out without compromising the story. I think the things I disliked was literally what every writer goes through. It just never feels perfect enough. Maybe it was my OCD?

Kim Acrylic’s book
Rock and Roll Melancholy

Tell us about your poetry, what you have going on with your poems right now.

I’ve been writing poetry seriously since I was 15 years old. I go through really creative streaks then they lie dormant for quite a while. Writer’s block is real! I just recently started submitting my writing to poetry anthologies. I got published in, CHAOS: A Poetry Vortex, The National Beat Goddess Anthology, and This Other Time The Alien Buddha Got Sooo High. I even read some spoken word on a Podcast for “Bards Against Hunger”.

I know you’ve been working quite a bit on your poetry, even after your publication of The Myth Behind All Truth. Are you working on any more prose right now? Do you have plans to go back to that?

I do! I’m currently experimenting with different styles and subjects for my soon to be published book, “My pink skull ”

What can you tell us about My Pink Skull? What’s it going to be about? What kind of theme will it have?

Even though I do experiment more with my prose and structure in this book, it is still very much me. So it’s filled with an insane amount of metaphors, imagery. You can look forward to a very dark, trippy book.

The poems of yours that I have read oscillate, to me in any case, between metaphor and stark reality. What can you tell us about your personal poetic form and style?

I’m extremely metaphor rich. And I love the surreal, abstract imagery in writing. It’s what I love to read, so I write it. However, I’ve been playing with more straightforward cohesive pieces as well.

I was quite impressed that you got to use a Chris Mars painting for your book covers. How did you arrange that?

I interviewed Chris when I worked for Punk Globe magazine, then again for The Battered Suitcase magazine. He and his wife, Sally are lovely people so I just asked them. Chris said he’d be honored and to pick whichever one I wanted. I’m blessed as he’s really talented.

I know music is a huge influence with you, especially a lot of Seattle scene bands. Tell us about how music influences your art.

As a teenager in Seattle in the 90s, I was big into the grunge scene and the Doors. The death of Kurt Cobain was huge for us all during that time. Especially being so young, for some us, that was our first introduction to death. All of that influenced my early writings. Then I branched out to the British scene, shoegaze, Dreampop, etc. All of that all lead to different styles and lyrical influences. Now, in 2020 my stuff is influenced by dreams, film, many types of music, books, and many, many experiences.

Can you tell us who some of your biggest musical influences are? Which bands and Musicians?

My favorite band is Pulp. But I also love The London Suede, the Verve, the Jesus and Mary Chain, the Raveonettes, the Killers, and a lot of sad indie bands.

Can you recommend some books or writers?

A novel I really fell in love with in the last few years was “All the Ugly and Wonderful Things” by Bryn Greenwood. As for poetry, I’m really inspired by the writings of Julea Callinicos. And I also really loved “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy. “Perfume” by Patrick Süskind is another classic. “Room” by Emma Donoghue was also a great newer novel. I like Augustin Burroughs, Elizabeth Wurtzel, Jim Carroll, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, Sylvia Plath, JT Leroy, the Beats, and Allen Ginsberg.