Hello Sara and welcome to Novel Travelers! I'm excited to have you join
me today. Thank you for taking a bit of time out of your busy day to talk with
me. I wanted to let my readers know what a motivator you are to new writers, so let's get started. Tell us a little bit
about yourself and your writing style.
It’s nice to speak with you again. I was born in Northeastern
Pennsylvania, the Wilkes-Barre/Kingston area, where my father’s family is from.
They emigrated from Wales to work in the anthracite mines in America. I lived
in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, until I was ten. A big part of my heart is still in
that region. All my people are buried there, and I often dream I’m still in
Hazleton, a little girl with pigtails, looking out her bedroom window. I’ve
lived in West Virginia now for nigh on thirty years, and I love Appalachia,
too—the mountains, the music. I lived on Ocracoke Island, North Carolina, too,
for eight years. What a beautiful place.
Hmmm. My writing style. That’s a tough one. Well, I write stories,
exclusively. I’ve never had a big idea in my life, but I’ve had plenty of small
ideas—glimpses and flashes that I can turn into stories. I’m basically a thief
and not very creative when it comes to narrative. I’ve stolen many an anecdote
from friends, repeated stories I’ve heard, and drawn from—embellished and
reimagined—scenes from my own life, trying always, it seems, to reveal
something about the absurdities and injustices of life, along with little
moments of grace. All my stories have kind of a Russian nesting doll
structure—stories hiding within stories—and I digress a lot. Oh, and lots of
white space. Vignettes. This structure seems natural to me—a little of this, a
little of that, lots of room for the reader to imagine the left-out parts. I
think maybe I have some kind of attention deficit disorder. It’s the only way I
can think and put things together. In pieces. Like quilting, I guess.
Discovering patterns. Working with images. Fitting things together in different
ways. I never have a complete story in my head. Just little dreams of scenes,
but the secret is that I trust that somehow everything will fit, that a story
arc will rise up out of the mist. Or, it’s sort of like shaking a kaleidoscope.
No matter how you tip or turn it, a pattern emerges. Basically, it’s all magic.
And faith.
Faith drives my writing as well. And your vignettes draw the reader in and make them feel the emotions your characters feel. That shows the talents of a gifted writer. Was there a magic moment
when you knew you were going to be a writer?
Hmmm. More magic! There wasn’t really a moment when I knew I was going
to be a writer, but I have a very distinct memory of thinking I could
maybe write something. This must have been in the early eighties.
I would have been in my early thirties, living on Ocracoke Island, North
Carolina. I’d graduated from college with a degree in English and I’d spent two
years in graduate school at West Virginia University, working on an MA in
English, and I was . . . yes . . . waitressing!
I was in love with writers like D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Hemingway,
Steinbeck, Thomas Wolfe, Vonnegut, John Irving. You know, THE BIG GUYS. I’d
spent all these years reading literature, and I probably could have counted on
one hand the female authors I’d read. Well, Willa Cather was one. My Ántonia
is still one of my favorite novels. I’ve probably read that book ten times over
the past forty years. But then, somehow, out on that island, I discovered early
Margaret Atwood (The Edible Woman, Lady Oracle), and the Virago Modern
Classics and the Feminist Press, which were publishing/reissuing all these
books by WOMEN! Praise the Lord!
One day, from my friend Sandy on Ocracoke, I came across a book called Our
Spoons Came from Woolworth’s by Barbara Comyns, a British author. It was
first published in 1951 and reissued by Virago in the early eighties. I was in
the sand dunes, alone, wearing a one-piece plaid Jantzen bathing suit from the
fifties and lying on an old linen tablecloth with apples silk-screened on it. I
opened that book and read the first couple of paragraphs and something
happened. Something clicked. I heard this voice—a first-person narrative—a
young woman’s voice—so matter-of-fact and intimate that I felt as if the author
were right there, talking to me. I’d never read anything like it. I
recognized the voice as my own maybe, and I know I said out loud right there to
the sky and the sea, OHMYGAWD, I CAN WRITE!
But I didn’t. I waited a long time. A decade at least until I started to
try to write. But what I discovered that day was that my own voice could be a
perfectly acceptable narrative voice, unlike the voices of the literary,
primarily male, writers I so admired.
So many writers don't start writing until later in life. I am one
of them. Sometimes we need more life experiences or maybe more wisdom to
tell our stories. What’s been your latest project and what inspired the
story?
Well . . . my latest project has been my new collection of short
stories, Help Wanted: Female, published this month (July 2013) by
Etruscan Press. I love the cover! An original painting by Caroline Jennings of
a woman walking two dogs. The ten stories in the collection I’ve worked on for
about six years—writing, revising, tweaking, throwing out. The stories are
inspired from, mostly, a sense of place; that is, what I see out my window,
what I observe when I’m out walking my dogs, interesting people who have
crossed my path in the past forty years, places I’ve worked, personal
experience—all whipped together into fiction.
Which brings me to the great cover of Help Wanted: Female.
It obviously depicts the everyday woman out walking her dogs. She looks
like a lady I pass everyday when I walk around my neighborhood. She is a
character! She talks incessantly to her two poodles as they tug her
along. Who makes a good character for your novels? Do they have specific
traits?
Ordinary people are the best characters because nobody is really
ordinary. Everyone is full of secrets and dreams, heartaches and failures,
guilt and pain, moments of joy and comfort and compassion. I guess I kind of
prefer older characters, ones with a lot of history (backstory) and a deep
sense of the mystery of just being alive, how very weird life is. In her book Family
Linen, Lee Smith says, “Life is long and weird and sooner or later,
something about it will make you crazy.” I think that’s true.
I must say I have to be in agreement with that statement. But
books have changed me. They have taken me places I didn't know existed and have
allowed me to dream. There have been books that have stirred me, comforted me
and given me hope. What books have changed your life in a significant way?
Well, definitely the Barbara Comyns book I mentioned. Also, all of Alice
Munro, especially The Lives of Girls and Women, The Beggar Maid, and The
View from Castle Rock. I especially admire the latter—the way Munro begins
with public history and genealogy and then moves seamlessly into pure fiction
and story, weaving the two genres together into a glorious tapestry. It’s so
brilliant. And I just this week read the complete stories of Alistair MacLeod, Island,
who has become my male counterpart of Alice Munro. Gosh, another Canadian. The
haunting landscape of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, which he describes—I was
transported. His story “In the Fall” ripped open the seams of my heart. I’m
going to write him a letter. It will begin: “Dear Alistair MacLeod, Where have
you been my whole life? . . .”
It is the Maritime Provinces that centered my first novel, Run River
Currents. That area in Canada has a special place in my heart. It's
funny how sense of place, unusual characters and the writer's voice can move
the reader. From the feedback you’ve received about your own novels, which
book has affected your readers the most? Why do you think that is?
I received a lot of positive feedback about Crackpots (2003,
novel in stories). I’m sure one reason is because it was a prize book and a New
York Times Notable Book of the Year and it was marketed well (I was truly a
nobody), but another reason, I think, is because it’s a baby boomer book. There
are a lot of cultural references to the fifties, sixties, and seventies, and it
speaks to women who, like me, grew up then, married young and divorced, entered
the American workforce and sort of floated about, trying to find a place in
that limbo between the traditional female role of the fifties (housewife,
mother) and the “liberated” (ha ha ha) woman of today. Actually . . . my new
story collection Help Wanted: Female sort of takes up where Crackpots
left off.
I love when readers relate to a writer's work. I've enjoyed your
readings and the way your audience reacts to your work with such varied
emotions. You always leave us wanting more. So knowing that, what is
your next project?
Well, right now, I’m just exhausted. I haven’t thought much about
writing. I’m still reeling from reading Alistair MacLeod.
I understand the exhaustion of completing a work and I know you also
work as a mentor and instructor to other writers. Giving so much of
yourself must reward you with moments of both exhasperation and joy. But what
has been your biggest moment as a writer?
Big? Well, I guess winning the Bakeless Prize for Fiction in 2003 for Crackpots.
That’s what really got the ball rolling. My suggestion to all you writers
who have complete manuscripts is to submit them to book prize contests. If you
win one, well then, it’s like you do pass go and you do collect
$200. You just jump ahead to the publisher, without all that searching for an
agent. The whole JOB of publishing is just soooo tiring. But this is an
exciting time for publishing. There’s been a sea change in the industry, which
for so many years was very closed and dominated by big name authors and
powerful agents, editors, and reviewers. But today there are so many wonderful
small presses—like Etruscan. And self-publishing and co-op publishing are top
rate. You just have to know how to go about it, find the perfect fit.
I agree with you Sara! Etruscan Press is a gem of a small press and has
published some extraordinary books. I hear the Executive Director of Etruscan,
Phil Brady, is a fabulous orator and poet himself. You have
surrounded yourself with an eclectic and talented group of people! Well,
I'm sad to say our time is up, Sara. Anything more you’d like
your readers to know about you before we say goodbye? And where can we
find your new book?
I think I’ve said enough! Thank you and your readers for spending a
little time with me today. I've had a great time. Oh! Help Wanted:Female is
available from Etruscan Press or you can find it at
an independently owned bookstore close to you by going to Indie Bound.
And, you can buy it online through amazon.com or Barnes & Noble.
Thank you Sara, for joining us today! We will be watching for more of your work in the
future!
.
