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“Novel Chatelaine” is tiny. It fits right in the palm of your hand and is comprised of seven chapters which are in turn comprised of one paragraph each.  I had to smile looking at it, for I thought, this is how Eileen takes the word novel and creates something that is truly novel. For all that it is tiny (probably the world’s tiniest novel), it contains the fullness of what we expect in a novel.

In January,  Eileen Tabios announced the release of her “Novel Chatelaine”.  Considering the output of this amazing woman, a novel was certainly not unexpected, but the way in which Eileen appropriates the word and the form to her purposes is at once surprising and delightful.
“Novel Chatelaine” is tiny. It fits right in the palm of your hand and is comprised of seven chapters which are in turn comprised of one paragraph each.  I had to smile looking at it, for I thought, this is how Eileen takes the word novel and creates something that is truly novel. For all that it is tiny (probably the world’s tiniest novel), it contains the fullness of what we expect in a novel.
This novel comes on the heels of “The Blind Chatelaine’s Keys” and a new poetry collection (“Nota Bene Eiswein”).  In the following interview, Eileen talks openly about her work, what’s keeping her busy and what waits in the future.

Interview:

I want to express first of all my admiration for “Novel Chatelaine.” When I first read about it on your blog, I was very curious as to what shape or form this novel would take, and when it arrived, I was very much surprised, and then also quite enchanted. Would you like to share the inspiration behind this novel work? (in the sense of how it also takes the word "novel" literally).


I've been attempting and failing at the form of the novel for over a decade. In fact, I thought I'd be a novelist when I first devoted my full-time efforts to creative writing.  My last office job was in a bank and I quit when I put "The End" to a novel manuscript that I'd been writing in my evening hours for two-and-a-half-years.  It was a murder mystery set in a bank—I wince now over how banal I was with that first novel attempt.  Anyway, after attempting and failing and attempting and failing at the novel, I put aside the form for several years.  When... continued.