In the Groove: Interview with Valmina May
Valmina May is a Filipinx-American writer, director, and actor living in Oakland, CA. In their free time, they enjoy gardening and being out in nature with their husband and dog. Their work has been featured at Bindlestiff Studio and in the SF Olympians Festival.
San Francisco Olympians is an annual festival of new works for the stage inspired by ancient myths and legends. Festival founder and director Stuart Bousel opens every performance with a lecture about the mythological characters behind that evening’s plays, making the four-week event beloved locally for its educational value as well as its bacchanalia of San Francisco theater talent. SF Olympians usually runs for most of November at the Exit Theater in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood.
This year, like so much theater in the world, SF Olympians is postponed. In the meantime, many Olympians will release previews of our postponed-to-2021 projects. Both Valmina and I have plays in the festival we hope to see on stage in 2021.
Tell me about your SF Olympians project-in-progress.
I’m writing a full-length play retelling the story of Faust from German folklore. I was really excited for this opportunity as I assistant-directed Marlowe’s Faustus a couple years back and it remains one of my favorite theater projects I’ve ever worked on. For the retelling, I brought Faust into the present for a dark romantic comedy. I decided to combine aspects from both Goethe’s and Marlowe’s works in terms of plot points, but I’m also drawing inspiration from 90s/early 2000s media like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I also just finished a one-act horror play exploring the figure of Maria Makiling from Filipinx folklore, and I’m currently co-writing a full-length original play with Fen Smyth.
Tell me a story.
I am afraid of butterflies and moths. I didn’t grow up this way; in fact, I was a butterfly for Halloween one year. When I was 19 though, I was playing basketball at a party with some friends and a GIANT moth, as large as the palm of my hand, flew into my face. Its antennae went inside my nostrils. It was a horrible, terrifying sensation. I was about to take a free throw when it happened but instead I ran off the court screaming. I did not return to finish the game. To this day, I am wary of butterflies and moths. They fly so erratically, you can’t predict where they’ll go next! I might’ve gotten over this phobia but a couple years ago, a moth blew under my sunglasses while they were on my face. I felt its legs scrabbling over my eyelid as it tried to escape. Honestly, so so creepy.
Who are your writing heroes?
There are many writers I admire, far too many to name right now, but Octavia Butler and N.K. Jemisin are at the top of the list. They’re both speculative fiction writers, the genre I feel most at home in. Butler is a hero to me because besides being an amazing writer, she opened the door for so many Black and brown writers in sci-fi and fantasy. She’s always going to be at the top of this list for me. Jemisin is my hero for her unparalleled world-building and her ability to truly access the magic of writing. Like, reading her work feels like being under a spell in the best way possible. I aim to give my readers and audiences the same experience.
What is your dream project?
I would love to write for a video game someday! I love story-driven games like Dragon Age or Horizon: Zero Dawn and I think it would be so fun to work on building the mythology of a game setting!
What do writing and sex have in common?
To me, writing and sex are both creative acts. I need to quickly explain what I *don’t* mean, because I don’t want people to take this the wrong way—I don’t mean that sex creates life and that’s it’s only purpose. I mean that we create new energy, new experiences, and new intimacy with someone through sex, and writing can be very much the same!
Describe your writing process in as much detail as you dare.
My writing process is all over the place, honestly. When I get in the groove, I really get in it and I will do nothing but write. I barely sleep or eat; it is not healthy and I don’t recommend it! However most of the time, I’ve found I need to set goals for myself in order to get writing done. I hate outlines but I force myself to make them because they really are helpful in terms of plotting out the different beats of a story. My favorite part of the process, like a lot of writers, is revision. This is the part where I don’t feel like I need to sacrifice food and sleep; the words are already on the page and it’s just a matter of refining what’s there.
What do you love about writing?
Writing is magic. We put words on a page and create entire new worlds. We can shift people’s perspectives through writing. We can safely explore and navigate traumas through writing. There is so much I love about writing and being a writer.
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I coax sexy writers like Valmina May to reveal their creative secrets and processes in interviews to inspire you:
Catch previews of SF Olympians works-in-progress on the EXIT Theater’s Facebook page throughout the month of November.
Read about Valmina’s play, Faust, and my pair of shorts about Gerda and the Snowqueen, on the SF Olympians website.
Watch a 4-minute preview of my play, “Gertie & Ro.”
Feeling inspired? Book a private session with me, The Sexy Grammarian. You always leave private sessions with homework and inspiration, and the first session is always free.
