Caroline Leavitt's Blog, page 52

Jillian Cantor talks about The Hours Count, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, writing, rescue dogs, and more

 If you want to have a great time at the Tucson Book festival, you want to hang out with Jillian Cantor! But beside being a great tour guide and friend, Jillian is also the author of award-winning novels for teens and adults including the critically acclaimed MARGOT, which was a Library Reads pick for September 2013 and also featured in O the Oprah Magazine, People, Ladies Home Journal, and Time.com. Her most recent book for teens, SEARCHING FOR SKY, was nominated for the 2015 Carnegie Medal in the UK.  Her new novel, The Hours Count, is a devastating exploration of the Rosenbergs. The only thing that would make me happier than hosting Jillian here is having her come have pie in NYC with me. Thank you, Jillian!


What sparked the writing of this book?

I took an anthology of women’s letters out of the library, thinking it would help me with another book idea I’d had (that I never ended up writing). As I was reading through the letters in the book, I came across the last letter Ethel Rosenberg (and her husband, Julius) wrote to their sons, on the day of their execution, June 19, 1953. The letter ends as they tell their sons to always remember that they were innocent. That sparked me to start reading about the case, and I quickly started to believe that maybe Ethel was innocent, or at the very least that she did not deserve to die the way she did. I also learned that at the time Ethel was executed, her sons were only six and ten (very similar to the ages of my own sons as I was writing), so I really started thinking about Ethel Rosenberg as a mother, not as this “spy” as we’ve been taught in our high school history books. Then I read that on the day Ethel was first arrested in 1950 she left her sons in the care of a neighbor. I don’t know who that real neighbor was, but I invented a fictional neighbor, Millie Stein, and that’s where my novel began to take shape.
You’re known for your meticulous research--what was the research like for this novel? Did anything surprise or disturb you?  

Thank you – I’m glad you feel that way! I read almost everything that was published (non-fiction) about the Rosenbergs and their case before I started writing, including many of the letters the Rosenbergs wrote from prison. Also, I read a lot about the time period – what the atmosphere was like during the Cold War, the continual overarching threat of the bomb, what it meant to be a communist at the time and even a Jew, and maybe most importantly, what it was like to be a mother. So much surprised me! Initially it surprised me how little evidence there was against Ethel, how a woman, a mother, had been executed just like that. I learned that Ethel was convicted based on her brother’s testimony that she typed up notes, and that she was sentenced to death because of that. That in itself is surprising, but then I learned that years later, in the 1990s, her brother admitted that was a lie, that he’d perjured himself to save his own wife. Many things about the time and motherhood were surprising, too. My main character Millie has a son who, today, would essentially be considered autistic, but, at the time, it was common practice to blame the mothers for a child’s “unusual” behavior, to say mothers were too cold. The theory of Refrigerator Mothers, which I read a lot about, is both shocking and disturbing.
I love the way you took an incendiary story--of the Rosenbergs--and filtered it through the eyes of a young wife and mother who is grappling with her own story. What do you think this structure allowed you to do that you couldn’t have done otherwise?

Above all I think I wanted to write a novel about motherhood and about female friendship. Though I tried to stick to the timeline and real events of what happened with the Rosenbergs and their case, filtering everything through the eyes of my fictional Millie – and also giving her her own fictional story – really allowed me to explore the themes I wanted. Also, I felt this horrible sense of injustice for what happened to Ethel and her children in real life. I wanted to make the novel deal with that in a fictional way. I’m trying to say this without giving a spoiler about the ending, so I’ll just say, adding in the fictional component allowed me to make the story a little bigger – to tell past the moment Ethel and Julius were executed from the view of someone who was close but still on the outside of things.
I always read the first sentence of a novel before I dig in, and yours is a knockout: On the night Ethel is supposed to die, the air is too heavy to breathe. Where did that line come from and why did you start the novel that way?

Thank you! Ethel was executed in the middle of June at Sing Sing, and I read the night was terribly humid. So in one way, I’m commenting on that, setting the scene for that particular night, but I also wanted to get across the point that Millie (who is narrating this) is feeling guilt, having trouble breathing through the mess, the heaviness, she has created for herself.
Margot, your sublime novel before this one, is also historically based—how was the writing of this novel different than writing Margot?

Margot was really more of a what-if – we know that Margot Frank died in the Holocaust, but my novel asked, what if she didn’t? What if she made it to America and saw the overwhelming commercial success of her younger sister Anne’s diary? What kind of life would she have in Philadelphia in 1959, the year Anne’s diary is made into a Hollywood film? In The Hours Count I basically stick to the historical timeline as it existed, from the years leading up to the Rosenberg’s arrest through to their execution. Before I began writing I made a huge chart on my office wall, detailing the historical timeline with all the true historical events I wanted to include in the novel from 1947-1953, and then I wrote the fiction around these events. Also, this time, I’m looking at these events and real people through the eyes of a fictional woman, who not only becomes involved in the Rosenbergs’ lives but who also has her own struggles with her marriage and her child.

What’s obsessing you now and why?

Stamps! I’m finishing a draft of my next novel, which is about a stamp engraver in Austria just before WWII who uses stamps to work with the resistance, and also about a woman in 1989 Los Angeles who discovers one of his stamps and unravels his secret love story. Honestly before I started thinking about this book I never thought about how stamps were made, who created them, and what was involved. Or even the reasons why people collect stamps. There are so many stories in stamps!

What question didn’t I ask that I should have?

Hmmm, good question! You asked fantastic questions, Caroline, and thanks so much for having me on the blog! I’ll add onto your last question – how about what’s obsessing me now outside of the writing world? I recently adopted a rescue dog, an adorable little chiweenie who’d been abandoned by her previous owners. It’s the first time in my life I’ve ever had a dog (I was always a cat-only person up until now), so I am currently obsessed with all things dog!

Lisa Scottoline (it rhymes with fettucine!) talks about her blazing new novel CORRUPTED, why it's not selfish to please yourself, the slim lines between right an wrong and so much more

Lisa Scottoline is amazing. She's not only a live wire with the greatest perspective on life that I know (you'll see when you read her interview), but she's also the New York Times bestselling author and Edgar award-winning author of 24 novels, including CORRUPTED. She also writes a weekly column with her daughter Francesca Serritella for the Philadelphia Inquirer titled "Chick Wit" which is a witty and fun take on life from a woman's perspective. These stories, along with many other never-before-published stories, have been collected in six books including their most recent, Does This Beach Make Me Look Fat?, and earlier collections, Have a Nice Guilt Trip; Meet Me at Emotional Baggage Claim; Best Friends, Occasional Enemies; My Nest Isn't Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space; and Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog, which has been optioned for TV. Lisa reviews popular fiction and non-fiction, and her reviews have appeared in New York Times, The Washington Post and The Philadelphia Inquirer. Lisa has served as President of Mystery Writers of America and has taught a course she developed, "Justice and Fiction" at The University of Pennsylvania Law School, her alma mater. Lisa is a regular and much sought after speaker at library and corporate events. Lisa has over 30 million copies of her books in print and is published in over 35 countries. Lisa's books have solidly landed on all the major bestseller lists including The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Publisher's Weekly, Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times, and LOOK AGAIN was named "One of the Best Novels of the Year" by The Washington Post, and one of the best books in the world as part of World Book Night 2013. 
What happens when, as an adult, you take on the person who bullied you as a child? Lisa Scottoline's extraordinary new novel Corrupted delves into the failures of the law--and the failures of our own selves, and I'm thrilled to have her here to talk about it.

 I always want to know what sparked a particular book, what the thing that haunted you that made you need to write Corrupted?

It started with the character, in that Bennie Rosato is such a strong, confident woman, but I wanted her to explore self-doubt and regret.  Why?  After twenty years of writing about her, I feel that she's really become real to me, and as I've gotten older, I think about my life with regrets.  I can’t pretend I don't have one or two, and I became tempted by the idea of a second chance.  People always think they want a second chance, but if they were confronted with the same situation, what would they do differently?  So Bennie has a legal case that she regrets deeply, not only because she didn't get justice for her client, but because it also compelled her to leave behind a man she loved.  And she hasn't been in love with anyone, for real, since then.  So I wanted her to look back, both professionally and personally, and think, if I got a second chance, what would I do with it?


 I’m always bowled over by your research (I seem to keep asking, how did she KNOW that?) on just about every pages. What is it like? What surprises you?  Do you ever want something to be able to happen, and then your research shows you that it can’t possibly?

Thank you so very much for saying that, and I did a lot of research for this book.  I love doing research, not only because I get to learn stuff, but also because it's easy!  As anybody who writes knows, it's not easy to produce something out of nothing, every single day; that's both the challenge and the joy of writing, whether you're published or not.  (I'm curious whether you agree, since you're one of my favorite authors!)  But to stay on point, the research I did for this book had to do with juvenile justice, which is different in many ways from the adult criminal justice system, and in certain respects, is terribly antiquated.  The judicial corruption scandal at the heart of this novel, which was true-life and took place in Pennsylvania, exploited this very defect in the system.  We are only just now beginning to understand the complexities of the adolescent mind, and I think we need to appreciate and safeguard the rights of younger people more and more; in fact, the United States Supreme Court just heard the question of whether it is constitutional to incarcerate juveniles for life.  That question will involve an analysis of law, justice, as well as societal and political norms, and I love exploring the bolus of interests that will yield the answer.

This novel, like all of your novels, deals with moral issues as well as telling a gripping, smart story. There is always so much at stake.  In Corrupted, Bennie Rosato, represents a man who killed the bully who taunted him as a child, and led to his being sent to juvenile prison.  And she feels that part of this is her fault, as well as that of the whole legal system. You make us care deeply about your characters. Do you think the legal system will ever be fixed? And do you think there are strong lines between right or wrong, or do you think you can do something wrong for the right reasons?

First, thank you for saying nice things about the book, and I think it's important to care about the characters, if only if not because it makes an entertaining novel, but because it gets people to really think about the underlying issues.  I always think of myself as writing for smart people, so I never write down to anybody, but I “play up,” or assume the reader knows what I'm talking about or will figure it out.  When I learn something, which I did in my research for this novel, I pose it to the readers so they think of great questions, like you did. 

In answer to your first question, whether the legal system will ever be fixed, the legal system is completely dependent upon legislative branches, both at the state and federal level.  If we can get people interested in the law, they can vote people in who will vote their way, and people can actually influence the law in that way.  It's remarkable, truly.  The best example of this is rape shield laws.  If you think back a long time ago, victims of rape were prosecuted twice, and it was really fiction that brought that to the fore, dramatizing what these women went through when they had to testify to convict their rapist.  As a result, people put pressure on legislatures to develop laws that would protect crime victims, and rape shield laws were born. So it's a perfect example of how when people mobilize, they can actually impact law to gain justice, and I draw enormous comfort from that, so I think people can fix the legal system if they just know more about it and motivate themselves to do so.
   
As for whether there are strong lines between right and wrong, I don't think so, and that's really the stuff of my fiction; the differences between right and wrong, legal and illegal, justice and injustice.  And as for whether you could do the wrong thing for the right reason, or vice versa, that sounds vaguely like the story of my life.  LOL!

You are an acclaimed mega-selling author of 29 (29!!) books and yet you have this warm, welcoming, down-to-earth presence. Do you ever get nervous or worry about a book or do you feel more like the seasoned pro you are?

OMG, how sweet are you!  The truth is, I am nervous and I worry about my books every day of my life.  I write 2000 words a day, and I am constantly worried if it's good enough.  I'm starting to understand that this is part of my makeup, and being anxious comes with the territory of being a writer, for many women.  To overcome it, I tell myself to “act as if,” in therapy speak - in other words, to act as if I'm not worried or anxious or insecure.  I think this is really key to happiness in life, honestly.  Just go forward, despite whatever worries her anxieties you have.  The point is that it’s behavioral, it's about action, and I try to channel my anxiety into action.  This may be a sexist assumption, but I feel as if this insecurity plagues women more than men,  or maybe they just hide it better.  Sometimes I even think to myself, what would a man do?  Or day?  Would he edit himself or just say it?  Then, say it!  I'm always amazed when I see men praise their own books and see how easy it is for them.  I could never say those things.  But what I do feel is determined to get it right and extremely lucky to be able to tell the stories that interest me and touch my heart, in the hope that they will reach other people who feel the same way.

You’ve collaborated with your daughter on books--what is that like? And how can I convince my son to collaborate with me?

LOL,  I love reading about your son on your blog!  Make him do it!  Punish him if he won't!  (Yeah, right.)  Francesca and I started writing together, honestly, because we wanted to see more realistic and positive images of mothers and daughters in the culture.  We really are best friends, even though we get into what we call “Chihuahua fights,” and among my friends, all of them are very close to their daughters.  So we were both like, why don’t we give it a try, and we both end up telling the true, if comic, tales of mothers and daughters.  We been doing it for six books, and this last summer, we made the New York Times Bestseller list with DOES THIS BEACH MAKE ME LOOK FAT?  It's an awesome title, which Francesca thought of, and it's all about how the last thing women should worry about is their weight.

 What’s obsessing you now and why?

You might not believe this, but I'm not the obsessive type.  It takes too much work.  I really love things, and if I think about what I really love, besides my daughter, it's my dogs.  Daughter Francesca has wisely moved to New York and so she is out of my adoring gaze, but my dogs cannot escape.  They're always around me, sleeping on the sofas and chairs, begging for scraps at mealtimes, or barking whenever I have a phone interview.  But despite their adorably disobedient nature, I take time every day, several times a day, to just go over and kiss each one, hug them and scratch them, and generally have a Zen love session with a furry, warm little animal.  And I have five such animals, so you can imagine this is time-consuming, but it recharges me for my day, if not my writing.   And when I think about what I’m really feeling right now, it's enormous love and gratitude for my life.  I'm healthy and happy, and I finally managed to say no to lots of obligations and requests that I didn't really want to fulfill, in order to spend more time working on what really matters to me, like my books.  I call this protecting the candle, and I could talk forever about it, because I think it's really been a journey for me and for a lot of women, to realize that every time you say no to someone else, you are saying yes to yourself.  To not worry about pleasing others, but to worry about pleasing yourself and devoting your spare time to your interests.  I think women get socialized to believe that this is selfish, but nothing could be farther from the truth.  It's just setting limits, and leading life on your own terms.  I suspect I have this perspective because my only child is up and grown, and I was a single mother almost her entire life, but I suspect that many mothers will feel the same way, as the years come on.  It's truly a glorious time in a woman's life, and it only gets better.

What question didn’t I ask that I should have?
Please, you asked everything, and I just went on and on and on because I feel as if I know you so well, and we must meet someday!  And your IS THIS TOMORROW, which you so graciously signed to me, is at the top of my to-be-read pile as soon as my edit-deadline is over!!!

I just realized I have been pronouncing your last name wrong all the time! Forgive me!  It’s SCOTT oh Leen ee, right? And not SCOTT Oh Line. That’s correct, right?

Caroline, my father always said to tell people it rhymes with fettuccine, but that isn’t very literary, is it?  Still, it works and you can call me anything you want!  Hope we get to meet someday and let's do try! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Lisa Scottolline (it rhymes with fettucine!) talks about her blazing new novel CORRUPTED, why it's not selfish to please yourself, the slim lines between right an wrong and so much more

Lisa Scottoline is amazing. She's not only a live wire with the greatest perspective on life that I know (you'll see when you read her interview), but she's also the New York Times bestselling author and Edgar award-winning author of 24 novels, including CORRUPTED. She also writes a weekly column with her daughter Francesca Serritella for the Philadelphia Inquirer titled "Chick Wit" which is a witty and fun take on life from a woman's perspective. These stories, along with many other never-before-published stories, have been collected in six books including their most recent, Does This Beach Make Me Look Fat?, and earlier collections, Have a Nice Guilt Trip; Meet Me at Emotional Baggage Claim; Best Friends, Occasional Enemies; My Nest Isn't Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space; and Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog, which has been optioned for TV. Lisa reviews popular fiction and non-fiction, and her reviews have appeared in New York Times, The Washington Post and The Philadelphia Inquirer. Lisa has served as President of Mystery Writers of America and has taught a course she developed, "Justice and Fiction" at The University of Pennsylvania Law School, her alma mater. Lisa is a regular and much sought after speaker at library and corporate events. Lisa has over 30 million copies of her books in print and is published in over 35 countries. Lisa's books have solidly landed on all the major bestseller lists including The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Publisher's Weekly, Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times, and LOOK AGAIN was named "One of the Best Novels of the Year" by The Washington Post, and one of the best books in the world as part of World Book Night 2013. 
What happens when, as an adult, you take on the person who bullied you as a child? Lisa Scottoline's extraordinary new novel Corrupted delves into the failures of the law--and the failures of our own selves, and I'm thrilled to have her here to talk about it.

 I always want to know what sparked a particular book, what the thing that haunted you that made you need to write Corrupted?

It started with the character, in that Bennie Rosato is such a strong, confident woman, but I wanted her to explore self-doubt and regret.  Why?  After twenty years of writing about her, I feel that she's really become real to me, and as I've gotten older, I think about my life with regrets.  I can’t pretend I don't have one or two, and I became tempted by the idea of a second chance.  People always think they want a second chance, but if they were confronted with the same situation, what would they do differently?  So Bennie has a legal case that she regrets deeply, not only because she didn't get justice for her client, but because it also compelled her to leave behind a man she loved.  And she hasn't been in love with anyone, for real, since then.  So I wanted her to look back, both professionally and personally, and think, if I got a second chance, what would I do with it?


 I’m always bowled over by your research (I seem to keep asking, how did she KNOW that?) on just about every pages. What is it like? What surprises you?  Do you ever want something to be able to happen, and then your research shows you that it can’t possibly?

Thank you so very much for saying that, and I did a lot of research for this book.  I love doing research, not only because I get to learn stuff, but also because it's easy!  As anybody who writes knows, it's not easy to produce something out of nothing, every single day; that's both the challenge and the joy of writing, whether you're published or not.  (I'm curious whether you agree, since you're one of my favorite authors!)  But to stay on point, the research I did for this book had to do with juvenile justice, which is different in many ways from the adult criminal justice system, and in certain respects, is terribly antiquated.  The judicial corruption scandal at the heart of this novel, which was true-life and took place in Pennsylvania, exploited this very defect in the system.  We are only just now beginning to understand the complexities of the adolescent mind, and I think we need to appreciate and safeguard the rights of younger people more and more; in fact, the United States Supreme Court just heard the question of whether it is constitutional to incarcerate juveniles for life.  That question will involve an analysis of law, justice, as well as societal and political norms, and I love exploring the bolus of interests that will yield the answer.

This novel, like all of your novels, deals with moral issues as well as telling a gripping, smart story. There is always so much at stake.  In Corrupted, Bennie Rosato, represents a man who killed the bully who taunted him as a child, and led to his being sent to juvenile prison.  And she feels that part of this is her fault, as well as that of the whole legal system. You make us care deeply about your characters. Do you think the legal system will ever be fixed? And do you think there are strong lines between right or wrong, or do you think you can do something wrong for the right reasons?

First, thank you for saying nice things about the book, and I think it's important to care about the characters, if only if not because it makes an entertaining novel, but because it gets people to really think about the underlying issues.  I always think of myself as writing for smart people, so I never write down to anybody, but I “play up,” or assume the reader knows what I'm talking about or will figure it out.  When I learn something, which I did in my research for this novel, I pose it to the readers so they think of great questions, like you did. 

In answer to your first question, whether the legal system will ever be fixed, the legal system is completely dependent upon legislative branches, both at the state and federal level.  If we can get people interested in the law, they can vote people in who will vote their way, and people can actually influence the law in that way.  It's remarkable, truly.  The best example of this is rape shield laws.  If you think back a long time ago, victims of rape were prosecuted twice, and it was really fiction that brought that to the fore, dramatizing what these women went through when they had to testify to convict their rapist.  As a result, people put pressure on legislatures to develop laws that would protect crime victims, and rape shield laws were born. So it's a perfect example of how when people mobilize, they can actually impact law to gain justice, and I draw enormous comfort from that, so I think people can fix the legal system if they just know more about it and motivate themselves to do so.
   
As for whether there are strong lines between right and wrong, I don't think so, and that's really the stuff of my fiction; the differences between right and wrong, legal and illegal, justice and injustice.  And as for whether you could do the wrong thing for the right reason, or vice versa, that sounds vaguely like the story of my life.  LOL!

You are an acclaimed mega-selling author of 29 (29!!) books and yet you have this warm, welcoming, down-to-earth presence. Do you ever get nervous or worry about a book or do you feel more like the seasoned pro you are?

OMG, how sweet are you!  The truth is, I am nervous and I worry about my books every day of my life.  I write 2000 words a day, and I am constantly worried if it's good enough.  I'm starting to understand that this is part of my makeup, and being anxious comes with the territory of being a writer, for many women.  To overcome it, I tell myself to “act as if,” in therapy speak - in other words, to act as if I'm not worried or anxious or insecure.  I think this is really key to happiness in life, honestly.  Just go forward, despite whatever worries her anxieties you have.  The point is that it’s behavioral, it's about action, and I try to channel my anxiety into action.  This may be a sexist assumption, but I feel as if this insecurity plagues women more than men,  or maybe they just hide it better.  Sometimes I even think to myself, what would a man do?  Or day?  Would he edit himself or just say it?  Then, say it!  I'm always amazed when I see men praise their own books and see how easy it is for them.  I could never say those things.  But what I do feel is determined to get it right and extremely lucky to be able to tell the stories that interest me and touch my heart, in the hope that they will reach other people who feel the same way.

You’ve collaborated with your daughter on books--what is that like? And how can I convince my son to collaborate with me?

LOL,  I love reading about your son on your blog!  Make him do it!  Punish him if he won't!  (Yeah, right.)  Francesca and I started writing together, honestly, because we wanted to see more realistic and positive images of mothers and daughters in the culture.  We really are best friends, even though we get into what we call “Chihuahua fights,” and among my friends, all of them are very close to their daughters.  So we were both like, why don’t we give it a try, and we both end up telling the true, if comic, tales of mothers and daughters.  We been doing it for six books, and this last summer, we made the New York Times Bestseller list with DOES THIS BEACH MAKE ME LOOK FAT?  It's an awesome title, which Francesca thought of, and it's all about how the last thing women should worry about is their weight.

 What’s obsessing you now and why?

You might not believe this, but I'm not the obsessive type.  It takes too much work.  I really love things, and if I think about what I really love, besides my daughter, it's my dogs.  Daughter Francesca has wisely moved to New York and so she is out of my adoring gaze, but my dogs cannot escape.  They're always around me, sleeping on the sofas and chairs, begging for scraps at mealtimes, or barking whenever I have a phone interview.  But despite their adorably disobedient nature, I take time every day, several times a day, to just go over and kiss each one, hug them and scratch them, and generally have a Zen love session with a furry, warm little animal.  And I have five such animals, so you can imagine this is time-consuming, but it recharges me for my day, if not my writing.   And when I think about what I’m really feeling right now, it's enormous love and gratitude for my life.  I'm healthy and happy, and I finally managed to say no to lots of obligations and requests that I didn't really want to fulfill, in order to spend more time working on what really matters to me, like my books.  I call this protecting the candle, and I could talk forever about it, because I think it's really been a journey for me and for a lot of women, to realize that every time you say no to someone else, you are saying yes to yourself.  To not worry about pleasing others, but to worry about pleasing yourself and devoting your spare time to your interests.  I think women get socialized to believe that this is selfish, but nothing could be farther from the truth.  It's just setting limits, and leading life on your own terms.  I suspect I have this perspective because my only child is up and grown, and I was a single mother almost her entire life, but I suspect that many mothers will feel the same way, as the years come on.  It's truly a glorious time in a woman's life, and it only gets better.

What question didn’t I ask that I should have?
Please, you asked everything, and I just went on and on and on because I feel as if I know you so well, and we must meet someday!  And your IS THIS TOMORROW, which you so graciously signed to me, is at the top of my to-be-read pile as soon as my edit-deadline is over!!!

I just realized I have been pronouncing your last name wrong all the time! Forgive me!  It’s SCOTT oh Leen ee, right? And not SCOTT Oh Line. That’s correct, right?

Caroline, my father always said to tell people it rhymes with fettuccine, but that isn’t very literary, is it?  Still, it works and you can call me anything you want!  Hope we get to meet someday and let's do try! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

The wonderful Amy Koppelman talks about her devastating new novel, Hesitation Wounds, the movie of her novel, I Smile Back, starring Sarah Silverman, writing and so much more

Amy Koppelman is the kind of person who, after you admire a hairpin of hers, takes it out of her hair and gives it to you (I know because I still love that red clip.) She's also one of the most talented writers around.  She's the author of A Mouthful of Air, and I Smile Back (soon to be at theaters everywhere and on demand, starring Sarah Silverman. You can watch the trailer here. )  And her new novel, Hesitation Wounds is a devastatingly brilliant look at psychiatry, the people we love and lose, and depression.
I always want to know what was haunting you when you started to write this novel? And while you were writing, did you feel more haunted--or less?
I never know what I’m going to write about when I start writing.  I know the feeling I’m trying to figure out and the character but I don’t know the story.  When I started I Smile Back I knew I wanted to write about fear, and the ways in which we negotiate with our fear and about inheritance, what we inherit from our parents besides height and eye color or, I guess the better or rather simpler way to say it is I was trying to figure out what is the legacy of mental illness.  Can it be avoided or are we forced to repeat the trauma?  Laney repeats the trauma almost as if to understand she needs to inhabit it.
What kind of writer are you? Do you map things out, or try to bribe the muse?
When I start writing I just write without any agenda if that makes sense. (There are long stretches of time when I don’t write.  Usually I’m reading then.  I don’t read and write at the same time because I don’t want to accidentally start mimicking the voice in the book I’m reading.) I write and write, on and off, for days and years until I write a scene that clarifies it for me-that reveals what it is I’m writing about.  Then I go back and look at all the pages and pages of writing and between the crappy, awful, embarrassing writing I find sentences--sentences that when linked together tell a story.  It’s really quite amazing because it’s all there-the subconscious is a powerful, powerful thing.  After I gather up any writing that’s salvageable I start over.  It’s daunting and frustrating because after four years I may only have five thousand words but the second time through is easier.  In my second draft, I know the destination-what I’m writing toward.
 Your language is just exquisite, so here's a chicken or the egg question for you--what comes first for you, the story, the character or the language?
The character and her feelings come first to me if that makes any sense.  All I know going in how my protagonist’s heart hurts (the way she’s feeling) but I don’t necessarily know why.  That’s part of what I’m trying to figure out I guess.  How and why we find Julie, Laney, Susa (those are my three protagonists) where we find her when the story opens and where she’s going to go from here and why.
Your fabulous book I Smile Back, is a film starring Sarah Silverman which will be coming out this fall. How strange was it to see your book transformed into film? What was the hole process like for you?
Watching  Sarah inhabit Laney, (a character that I carried around in my head for years and years) was surreal.  I Smile Back, is a very interior novel.  It’s not something that lends easily to film. Paige Dylan (my screenwriting partner) and I had to eliminate scenes and locations for budgetary reasons.  But all the pain: the crippling anxiety, self-doubt and shame Laney feels in the novel – it’s all up there on the screen. Sarah came to set, day in day out, with a willingness to access the darkest, ugliest, saddest parts of herself and by doing so she was able to capture every nuance of the character. And I am just so grateful.
What's obsessing you now and why? And will it find its way into your work?
I’m spending the majority of my days getting word out about my new novel, Hesitation Wounds (It’s coming out November 3rd on The Overlook Press).  I’ve been reaching out to readers, writers, reviewers, librarian’s, bloggers, booksellers…fiction lovers like me. Hesitation Wounds, took me over eight years to write so I’m just trying to give it the best shot I can.  I guess the best way to say it is right now I’m in the business of shameless self-promotion.  Gosh-that makes me sound like a terrible person.  But it’s just so hard to get people to read.  Especially if they don’t know you wrote a book.  So thank you Caroline!  Getting to be on your blog is a big deal!

Yvonne Prinz talks about her astonishing YA, If You're Lucky, mental illness, and who decides what's real?

Okay, you know how they always say you can't be friends if you just know the person on social media? So, so not true. That's how I met Yvonne Prinz and I am telling you, we must have been sisters in a past life. We love the same things, especially movies, and whatever Yvonne tells me to watch, I immediate do, because she's got an instinct for greatness.  She's the co-owner of the uber-cool Amoeba Music and the author of All You Get is Me, The Vinyl Princess, Still There Clare, Double Dare Clare, Not Fair Clare. I'm absolutely jazzed that Yvonne and I now share the same publisher, Algonquin! And I'm thrilled to have her here to talk about her haunting new novel, If You're Lucky. Thank you for everything, Yvonne.




I always have to ask, what sparked this book? What was the thing haunting you so you felt you had to write this?
There were several things that came together in me to write this story. Over many years of working on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley I noticed that a lot of the homeless people showed signs of Schizophrenia. After some research I found that approximately 200,000 individuals with schizophrenia or manic-depressive illness are homeless, constituting one-third of the approximately 600,000 homeless population in the U.S. That’s a staggering number and indicative of a broken system. I read a lot about the illness and I felt that it would make a great book if I could somehow incorporate it into a thriller. I wasn’t looking to write a Gone Girl type of book, I wanted to write something that could get a little more inside the head of a schizophrenic.
I love the northern California coastline. As you travel north toward Oregon on Highway 1, the hamlets become increasingly secluded but so beautiful. The fog blankets that coast almost every day in the summer. I’ve long wanted to create a story around one of these hamlets and I felt this was the perfect story to place there.
I watched an Andy Griffith episode called “The Stranger” where a man arrives in town and he seems to know more about the locals than they’re comfortable with. He wants to make it his new hometown. Turns out he subscribed to the local paper for years. Of course Andy steps in and makes the folks in Mayberry feel ashamed for not embracing the guy. I kept thinking about  working with this theme but then I arrived at a version where the stranger is loved by everyone in False Bay, (because their prodigal son has just died and they are vulnerable), everyone, that is, but my main character, Georgia.
What I particularly loved about this book--among many things--is the whole issue of Georgia taking meds to still the voices in her head. And when she stops, to try and solve a crime--she can never be sure if her interpretations are real or the result of her hearing voices again. It was chilling, real and moving. And Georgia is just a brilliantly realized character. Did you do research on this?  What surprised you about it?
Schizophrenia, I found, is a very difficult illness to treat. What works for one person might not work for another. Also, schizophrenics are notorious for going off their meds because of the negative side effects or because they don’t actually believe that they’re ill. I was very moved by a couple of TED talks, and a book written by a teenage schizophrenic. All of these people were incredibly bright and all three had been off their meds at one time or another and the results were disastrous. I wanted to give my character a solid reason for wanting to get off her meds.  Georgia believes that her dead brother is trying to tell her something important and she can only hear him if she’s un-medicated. This seemed like a perfect jumping off point for the abyss she eventually falls into.
The most surprising thing I discovered in my research is the number of people who struggle with this illness and how little it’s talked about and how misinformed the general public is about it. Writing this book created empathy in me for people who endure the illness and especially toward the schizophrenics who are homeless, undiagnosed, un-medicated, and live that nightmare daily. The most important thing I learned that I would hope to impart on my readers is that these people are hardly ever dangerous except to themselves. The media has created a lot of misconceptions about this.
I also love the tagline on the jacket--Who Decides What’s Real? It’s really a book about trusting yourself, no matter what anyone else says or thinks, isn’t it?
Yes. In Georgia’s case though, the struggle to make people believe what she’s convinced is the truth is almost insurmountable because of her past reputation for not trusting strangers and her tendency to fabricate stories about newcomers. She’s the ultimate in unreliable narrators. As a reader, you want to believe everything she tells you but…
What kind of writer are you? Do you outline and map things out, or do you just sort of follow your pen?
A bit of both. I start with an outline. I write elaborate character sketches. And then I start building. I rarely stick to my outline and I often write secondary outlines as I go just to keep myself somewhat on track. My books never turn out how I initially visualized them. This is especially true for “If You’re Lucky”. I did eleven complete rewrites on it. It’s the only book I’ve ever cried over (out of self pity mostly, but also frustration) My editors at Algonquin had some fabulous insight and really helped me find the best way to tell this story. I am so grateful.
You’re also the owner of the very famous Amoeba Records and you’re a film buff.  How do those two impact your writing--and your writing life?
I’m not sure this is because of Amoeba or because I’m just generally a music person but I write to a soundtrack that plays in my head, not a musical score but real songs. I often stop while I’m writing to find a song that speaks to a scene. I listen to it a couple of times and get back to work. It’s like my writing adrenaline. Also, every one of my books has a musical element. In “If You’re Lucky” it’s Gypsy Jazz. My character Fin is the son of a famous Gypsy Jazz guitarist and this has a strong bearing on how Fin came to be what he is. 
The film buff thing is torture. I write (and rewrite) overly cinematic scenes. I inevitably have to shave them down but ultimately I think it’s a good thing to have great films running through your head while you write. I am annoying in my conversations with people about film. I honestly don’t understand people who don’t go to the movies. Who doesn’t want to escape for two hours? I certainly do.
What’s obsessing you now and why?
I obsess over everything. There is no such thing as mild interest in the way I live. If I read a good author I want everything they wrote, same with music, art, photography, film. Even a color, when I like it, becomes an obsession. Right now I am also obsessing over a YA novel rewrite, which will hopefully be finished by the time people are reading this. My character is a violinist in a Celtic Punk Band so there’s a lot of listening to music. Her baby brother is autistic so that too is consuming me these days. I’m also an obsessive food forager, but I think that’s healthy (maybe?) If you tell me what you are looking for food-wise, I can probably find you a source, no matter how exotic it is. There is an actual food forager job these days: People who source foods for chefs. This is what I’m going to do if no one likes my book. I will be the best damn food forager in the nation and possibly the world.
What question didn’t I ask that I should have?
You’ve been away from the world of YA writing for a while. How does it feel to be back?
I feel like the old dancer in A Chorus Line who says “Can the adults smoke?”
And finally, when are you coming to visit?
Soon, Darling, soon. And we’ll tear it up. We’ll hit every movie theatre in every borough.

Virginia Pye talks about Dreams of the Red Phoenix, writing, meeting Mick Jagger and so much more

<!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Times; panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-alt:Times; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} @font-face {font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-font-charset:78; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;} @font-face {font-family:"Cambria Math"; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} @font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} @page WordSection1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;} </style> <br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sqjQh3MDq0Y..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sqjQh3MDq0Y..." width="238" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GzQnn-89YBo..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GzQnn-89YBo..." width="225" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /><br />I'm thrilled to have <a href="https://www.virginiapye.com/">... Pye </a> (brilliant, funny, warm) here to talk about her astonishing second novel, <em>Dreams of the Red Phoenix</em>. And I'm not the only one raving about it. Author Gish Jen has called it, “Gripping, convincing, and heartbreaking…a real page-turner and thought-provoker—wonderful.” Kirkus writes: “There’s a comparison to Ballard’s E<em>mpire of the Sun</em>, but this unflinching look…shares truth in its own way.” Her debut novel, <em>River of Dust</em>, was published in 2013 by Unbridled Books and was chosen as an Indie Next Pick and a 2014 Virginia Literary Awards Finalist. Virginia has published award-winning short stories in literary magazines, too. Thank you so much, Virginia!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">What sparked the writing of this book? (I know from reading your acknowledgement pages, but the story is so great, I’d love for you to tell it here.) </span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">A central character in my debut novel, <i>River of Dust</i>, is a young American missionary wife and mother living in the rugged northwest of China in 1910. Grace is a naïve ingénue at the start of the story, but as she faces greater challenges and dangers, she grows in wisdom and worldliness and eventually becomes a powerful woman. In my next novel, I wanted the story to focus on a more mature and confident woman who, if anything, must learn to be less impulsively decisive and strong willed in the face of challenges. As I tried to think of female role models who were strong, my grandmother came to mind. One evening when she was living as an American missionary in Shanxi Province during Japanese occupation, Japanese soldiers arrived on her front porch and accused her of using a radio to communicate with Chinese resistance fighters. It was a silly idea, because the radio she owned didn’t allow for two-way transmission, but the Japanese insisted. The story goes that my grandmother was so unimpressed by the Japanese and unafraid of them that she actually swept them off her porch with a broom. In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dreams of the Red Phoenix</i>, I wanted to write about a woman whose confidence borders on hubris and who must work to become a more thoughtful person. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">The premise is intoxicating--a young mother is torn between helping the Chinese fight the Japanese, but she also needs to save herself and her son while she can. It’s a difficult moral choice, and her plight opens a window into the political situation of the time--and makes it very human. Can you talk about this a bit, please?</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Like many writers, I feel torn between wanting to be politically active and the realities of a “job” that keeps me alone at my desk for many hours each day. Also, as a writer, I tend to be an observer, and yet I wish in a way I was a more active participant in political life. This tension plays out in <i>Dreams of the Red Phoenix</i> through Shirley, who thinks she wants to retire from the world, but then is drawn into the urgent stream of human need. After the Japanese attack she sees the Chinese suffering all around her. She has the nursing skills to help them and fairly quickly she realizes she has no choice but to lend a hand. This experience opens not only her eyes, but her heart as well. She ends up feeling at one with the people she is helping. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">But she also must care for and protect her son. In her enthusiasm for her new cause, she loses sight of how Charles, though a teenager, still needs her. I think every mother has moments when she convinces herself that her child will be fine without her; she can step away. And sometimes that’s true and the time is right for the child to be independent. But sometimes, we just wish it were true—whether because we’re worn out with parenting, or because we’ve become excited to enter a new chapter of our own lives. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dreams of the Red Phoenix</i> weaves a mother’s conundrum of how to parent a teenager through a story set in a dramatic and violent political moment in a faraway land. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">What was the research like for this novel? Did anything surprise or disturb you?</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">For <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">River of Dust</i> I had been lucky enough to use my grandfather’s journals to help me gain a feeling for that earlier time period and language. My grandmother left very little writing behind and none of it gave a sense of her voice. So I delved into other descriptions of 1937 North China. It was a wildly confusing and complicated time with at least four different factions fighting for power: the Nationalists, the Communists, the Japanese, and the traditional warlords. Most foreigners, and most Chinese as well, had only a partial understanding of all that was going on around them, but I had to understand the history myself. So I started by reading Jonathan Spence’s excellent <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Search for Modern China</i>, which incidentally begins in the year 600, just to give a sense of the vast range of China’s history that the modern period begins then! </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">I also read a good number of autobiographies from that time, especially those by American journalists, including Edgar Snow. But most helpful were the stories of three American women living in China in the 1930’s: Helen Snow, Nym Wales, and Agnes Smedley. When I discovered descriptions by Smedley of her experience traveling with the Communist Eighth Route Army in the mountains of northwest China and her visits to Mao in hidden army caves, I knew I had found a unique setting to use in my novel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>As with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">River of Dust</i>, the research helped ground me, but then I took extensive liberties that I hope China experts will forgive. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">How was writing this particular novel different from writing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">River of Dust</i>? Does one novel build on another, do you find, or are they completely different animals?</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">The two novels are companions, not sequels, though they do have much in common. Caleb Carson, the minister in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dreams of the Red Phoenix</i> is the nephew of The Reverend in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">River of Dust</i>, and partly chose to go to China because of the heroic stories he heard about his mother’s brother. The settings in both novels are similar, though not precisely the same. I got smarter in the second novel and did not name the town where the story takes place, so it could remain clearly fictional. But the two books do share key themes: they each explore what it means to be a foreigner in a foreign land, especially during times of crisis and danger. Both books are about confidant, stoical, strong, and good-hearted Americans who are somewhat blind to what goes on around them. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Writing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dreams of the Red Phoenix</i> was a lot of fun, as was doing the research for it. I felt a certain ease as I did it, I’m not sure why, but perhaps because I’d already delved into one corner of Chinese history from an American perspective. I think of the two books as cousins, and I’ve recently completed a third novel that will round out this fictional family portrait. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">In the three books, I’m try to show an arc in American history over the course of a hundred years, ranging from the grandparents’ colonial assumptions as missionaries in China in the early twentieth century, to the swagger shown by their son as her returns with the Marines to help liberate China in WWII, to the grandchildren’s post-Vietnam changed understanding of America’s less assured place in the world order. These novels are strongly linked thematically, but I think each can stand alone. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">There’s a terrific sense of page-turning tension through the book. How difficult was that to sustain? </span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">I love plot. As a literary novelist, I’m not sure I’m supposed to admit that, but I do. I love upping the ante on my characters to see what they’ll do next. When faced with a dramatic moment, I try to hold their feet to the fire even more. I love the surprises that occur when that happens. My job is to have the story stay on the rails. The characters need to remain true to themselves, even when the plot becomes more exaggerated. If the characters don’t respond realistically to challenges, then the reader isn’t going to buy the twists and turns. So strangely enough, character, even more than story line, is what makes the tension work.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">What’s obsessing you now and why?</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Right now, I’m in the middle of a move from Richmond, Virginia, where I’ve lived for the past seventeen years and have raised our two children, to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I grew up. My husband and I are moving for his work. He’s an art museum director and now runs the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, which everyone should visit when up in the Boston area. This transition is radical for me and for our whole family. I haven’t lived in Cambridge for thirty-five years! It’s wild to be back. My new home is around the corner from the bus stop where I used to wait every afternoon of middle school for the city bus to take me out to Belmont. I never thought I’d move back, but here we are. So, I’m a little distracted from writing, though I’m eager to send my third China novel off to my agent, which I hope to do soon.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">But what’s most obsessing me quietly and persistently is the South. All the years while living in Richmond I tried to conceive of a novel inspired by mother’s side of the family. They were Southerners with deep roots in South Carolina and Georgia. Whatever I write about the South will necessarily reflect that I’m a white Northerner of Southern extraction who lived in the South for almost two decades and raised Southern children but has now moved back to the North. This book will show the North/South divide, which I believe exists even today, from the perspective of having one foot in each camp. That’s what’s obsessing me, but it’s anyone’s guess how it’ll find expression in fiction. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">What question didn’t I ask that I should have?</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">As always, I think you covered the bases. I’m amazed you have time to write your own wonderful novels and also delve so thoughtfully into the work of fellow writers. Thank you for reading and thinking about and sharing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dreams of the Red Phoenix</i>. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Here’s something fun: I’ve only visited mainland China once, and it was after writing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">River of Dust</i>. I went there in 2014 for the Shanghai Literary Festival, which I highly recommend. It’s for English speakers and draws a wonderfully international crowd. While there, I met with a book group of women from all over the world. They loved <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">River of Dust</i>, and really got it, because, like my characters, they were living as foreigners in China. I was so relieved that the book resonated with ex-pats. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Also while in Shanghai, I met Mick Jagger. Yup, me and Mick. He came into the bar where the Literary Festival was taking place and, oddly enough, no one was talking to him, so I sidled up and we started chatting. He had just arrived in China at four that morning and was scheduled to do a show that evening for a massive 20,000 seat crowd. So naturally I asked him how he handles jet lag. He was friendly, and helpful, and pretty soon we were joined by others who listened as he shared his jet lag tips—homeopathy, light lamps, hydration, and naps. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">As he spoke, I tried not to stare to closely at him, but part my brain was screaming: you’re talking to Mick Jagger! You are standing inches away from the man. I found myself trying to memorize his face—and his clothes, which couldn’t have been more ordinary. He’s a petite guy. Super skinny with large, bony hands. But that face! So iconic, like Mt. Rushmore. And as craggy as Mt. Rushmore, too. I wanted to reach out and poke his cheekbones to see if they were real. Definitely a stranger than fiction moment. </span></div>

The sublime Bonnie Jo Campbell talks about her short story collection, Mothers, Tell Your Daughters, writing in the kitchen, the difference between a donkey and a mule and so much more

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margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; <span aria-haspopup="true" role="menuitem" tabindex="-1" id=":16.77" style="background: yellow none repeat scroll 0% 0%;" class="goog-spellcheck-word">mso</span>-header-margin:.5in; <span aria-haspopup="true" role="menuitem" tabindex="-1" id=":16.78" style="background: yellow none repeat scroll 0% 0%;" class="goog-spellcheck-word">mso</span>-footer-margin:.5in; <span aria-haspopup="true" role="menuitem" tabindex="-1" id=":16.79" style="background: yellow none repeat scroll 0% 0%;" class="goog-spellcheck-word">mso</span>-paper-source:0;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;} </style><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fq4F0JMn_S0..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fq4F0JMn_S0..." width="211" /></a></b></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EWOZU4cIgR4..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EWOZU4cIgR4..." width="320" /><br />photo by Bradley S. Pines</a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--MsuBXOpPfc..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--MsuBXOpPfc..." /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4Uy-wiDboz8..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4Uy-wiDboz8..." /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><a href="http://www.bonniejocampbell.com/"... Jo Campbell</a> is the critically acclaimed author of some of my favorite books ever, including Once Upon a River, American Salvage (Nominated for the 1009 National Book Award in Fiction), Q Road, Women and Other Animals (winner of the AWP Prize for short fiction.  Her newest collection, Mothers, Tell Your Daughters (genius title, right?) is fierce, humane and dazzling. I'm so thrilled to host Bonnie here (and I love the photos of her with the donkeys!) Thank you, Bonnie.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.bonniejocampbell.com/"... /></i></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>What propelled you to write a collection of short stories instead of another novel? Is there a different feeling in it for you?</b> <br />I'm always working on both novels and short stories, and to my surprise, a collection of stories came together before my new novel did. Writing the stories is more like dating, while writing the novel is like getting married and setting up house and planning for children. There's more freedom to experiment in the short stories, to try out strange or extreme voices and see where they carry me. In a novel, I need to be more dutiful and thorough in creating comprehensive world in which a reader can take refuge for ten or twenty or thirty hours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>The people who inhabit your work are fierce, downtrodden, working class and rural--and absolutely raw and real. What made you center on them or did you feel as if you had no real choice because they were calling to you? </b><br />The people in my stories are a heated-up version of the sorts of people I know from my hometown.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Of course I also know plenty of upper middle class people, educated people, people who are doing just fine, but I find myself more interested in exploring the problems of folks who are having troubles making sense of life. I wonder if I am interested in these people because I spent so much of my young life at the mercy of such people--if you make the supposition that children are at the mercy of adults.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Many of the women in these stories have been affected by sexual violence, and I guess I have felt the need to tell about their experiences. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>This extraordinary collection is about mothers, daughters, grief, love, guilt, the ties that bind and sometimes strangle. Why do you think the mother-daughter relationship is so much more fraught than, say, the mother-son one? </b></div><div class="MsoNormal">We're going to have to call in the psychologists and social workers for that question! There is nothing more personal and essential than giving birth, and then to give birth to someone who could in turn give birth sets up a complicated dynamic from the get go. Maybe part of the problem comes from the natural identification mothers and daughters have with one another as creatures with so much in common, and the necessity of breaking away from one another, breaking that profound bond. Now add to that, as my stories do, some element of sexual molestation of the mother or the daughter. And by the way, thank you for saying the collection is extraordinary. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>I’m always interested in process, so can you tell me what was different about writing this book than your last one? What surprised you about it?</b></div><div class="MsoNormal">Well, for starters, I did all my revising and a good part of my writing in the kitchen of my house. My other books had been written in a room I considered my office, but that didn't work this time, and I'm not sure why. I wrote a lot of this standing up at a table containing fresh fruits and home-canned vegetables. Garlic and onions were always nearby. Dishes were piling up behind me. What surprised me is that I managed to actually wrestle these stories into shape. There were times when the whole collection seemed unwieldy, impossible to manage, like a school room full of unruly, undisciplined children. Did I gain weight while finishing this book? Yes, a little.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>What kind of writer are you? Do you have rituals? Do you plot out your novels or just fly by the seat of your pen? How do you craft your stories?</b></div><div class="MsoNormal">I start writing when I've got an interesting character in a tough situation, and then I write as much as I can and then I step back and see what I've got and try to figure out what I want to achieve. In the early stages I work organically, feeling my way along, but then I analyze and scheme and shape and make maps of cause-and-effect relationships. My background is in mathematics, so I've always gotten a lot of good out of my left brain. I've heard a lot of people warn writers against too much analysis of their own writing, so I guess I work differently than those writers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Joyce Carol Oates says she always knows where she's going when she sits down to write, and I wish I could have me a little more of that. </div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><b> </b><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><b><br />What’s obsessing you now and why?</b></div><div class="MsoNormal">I'm obsessing about all the wrong things right now. I'm obsessing about my book tour for Mothers, Tell Your Daughters, and I'm obsessing about my health and exercise and how to winterize our drafty old house. I'd like to be obsessing about women and their chickens (a profound relationship) or about mushrooms (I love almost every kind of mushroom and need to go out for aging.) I'm obsessing a little bit about my new novel about a girl who loves mathematics--I hope to obsess more soon. Oh, and folding bikes. I have one folding bike, and I want more folding bikes. Or I want to play around riding them anyway.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>What question didn’t I ask that I should have?</b><br />You could have asked me about the difference between a donkey and a mule. You probably know, but in case some of your readers don't know, a donkey is one of the world's three equines (horse, donkey, zebra). A mule is a creature born of a donkey father with a horse or pony mother, and it's sterile. Two times in the history of the world, it has been documented that a female mule gave birth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>The recent one was a mule giving birth to a mule daughter. If my book has a mascot, it's that pair of mules. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>

You are not alone. Amy Ferris talks about SHADES OF BLUE, depression, hope, and why Facebook can make you fat--plus so much more

<!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-font-charset:78; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1791491579 18 0 131231 0;} @font-face {font-family:"Cambria Math"; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;} @font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-alt:Cambria; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} @page WordSection1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;} </style><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><i> Most people don't want to talk about it. Being blue. Thinking about suicide. Feeling lost and lonely. Yet, the only way we can help the situation, ourselves and others,  IS to talk about it, to make it known, to let people know they may be broken, but they are not alone, and that there is compassion and hope out there. That's why I am so honored to have Amy Ferris on the blog today, talking about her incredible anthology, Shades of Blue. Amy is one of the most fearless (and funny) women on the planet, (she's also the author of Marrying George Clooney: Confessions of a Midlife Crisis</i><b>). </b><i>Thank you a billion times, Amy. </i><b><br /></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LCCfqgjsP1s..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LCCfqgjsP1s..." /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mCIkQ8z6vhs..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mCIkQ8z6vhs..." width="209" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>I have always loved you for your courage and Shades of Blue is proof of that bravery. Society has a real stigma about mental illness and even about just being “blue,” but here, 35 writers (myself included) write candidly about mental health. How did you go about choosing which essays to put into the book? And what is your hope that this book can do? </b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I’ll start with my hope. My hope is that this book opens up a dialogue, a conversation. That it helps remove an awful stigma, and creates opportunities – many, many opportunities - for people to say out-loud: YOU ARE NOT ALONE. I AM NOT ALONE.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Depression isn’t something you can will away, or hide, or push under the rug. If you really look at someone, and I mean really truly deeply look into someone’s eyes you can find the sadness, the hopelessness if it’s there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Years ago I knew a woman – a film producer - a gorgeous badass high-powered woman. She wore head to toe Armani. And that’s what people saw: Armani, Prada, Power. But, if you looked at her, really into her eyes: you would see she was filled with sadness, unhappiness. Filled. And years later her life fell apart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Piece by piece by piece. We spend millions on clothes, shoes, stuff… we tuck, and pull, and tighten but you can’t hide that kind of blue. You just can’t. I wanted to put together a collection of essays that were real - down and dirty – identifiable – pieces that connected the readers to the writers on a deep visceral level. Pieces that connected those dots. <br /><br />When I first reached out to friends, writers, and contributors, the response was amazing. Hands went up, folks said yes – this was literally right after Robin Williams died – so, there was this huge massive sadness – shock - around his death, his suicide. And a huge desire to come out of that dark, lonely closet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>The Publisher and editor at Seal Press wanted very much to be involved in the process, to be included throughout. I had (and have) a wonderful relationship at Seal; they have published my other books, and I adore working with them. It was a very important, and timely issue/topic, and they wanted to get the book out within a year. What a huge, massive undertaking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Twelve months to do an entire collection. One of challenges – and there were many within this huge undertaking<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>– was that a few of the essays that came in were very similar in story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I had never thought of that – it never dawned on me that maybe a few essays, or more than a few, would be similar in tone, similar in experience. My editor - an extremely sassy and smart woman – came back to me, and said we need to cut a few. I was mortified. That meant that I needed to let a few of the writers (who I adore) know that their essays were not going to make the final cut. But at the end of the day, I can see the reasoning in that. Each essay in the book is so unique, original. No two pieces are alike. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Why do you think it is that while society can understand and show compassion towards someone with chronic asthma or diabetes, people tend to flinch back from even a whiff of mental illness? And how can we (besides this book) spread the word that yes, there can also be compassion—and hope—for those afflicted with deep blues?</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">We shun unhappy. Unhappy is not popular.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>It’s not sexy. It’s scary. You can medicate someone with diabetes and asthma, plus – dare I say this - it’s a bit more hip to have asthma. People don’t whisper about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>People whisper about depression, there’s a silence around it, a dirtiness surrounding it. With depression it’s a dialogue, a conversation, an afternoon, an evening, a phone call – many, many, many phone calls. Depression requires intimacy. It deserves intimacy. It’s about asking questions, getting to know someone’s life – the painful pieces of their life. It takes tremendous courage for someone to spill their heart, to share their sadness, their feelings, and their unhappiness. Depression is pain. It’s both physical and mental pain. And mental illness has often been associated with crazy, with homelessness. Failure. Loss. Instability. <br /><br />Only recently – because so many famous, or beloved people have committed suicide – do we see up close that it’s non-discriminatory. Who would have thought that someone as beloved as Robin Williams would commit suicide, or L’Wren Scott (Mick Jagger’s girlfriend) would hang herself?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>When a celebrity or famous person commits suicide, or overdoses, or comes out/speaks out about their deep depression – we pay attention. It hits us hard. We feel like we’ve lost a friend. It’s an odd phenomenon that we tend to have so much compassion – huge compassion - when a stranger dies, but not so much when someone right next to us is suffering. Maybe we think, believe that depression will spread like any other disease. Maybe we’re afraid if we get too close, we’ll catch it. The greatest thing we can do is talk about our unhappiness without shame or guilt, or fear of being shunned. To write our stories, to share our histories, our messy, complicated stunning lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>There is so much power in that. Huge power. It builds community, trust - a safe place. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"> <b>It’s fascinating to me to see on Facebook how many commenters are thanking you again and again and again for producing this book, which clearly shows a need for a dialogue about suicide, depression, and mental illness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>And what is more amazing is that a book that might be misery inducing is actually shining with hope. Why do you think this is?</b> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Oh, I think it’s simple – perfection isn’t inspiring – messy is. We’re all so messy, and messy is so underrated. When folks talk about their broken pieces, or their fucked-up lives, or their complicated relationships, or their mistakes - it fills others with hope. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b> </b><b>What was it like for you to edit this book—and to write your own essay on the subject? Did anything surprise yo</b>u? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Editing the book was a real privilege. It was a privilege because each essay, story – life – was exposed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>There are so many facets to a human life, so many pieces, and I have to admit, it was astonishing to me that so many people I deeply admire and love – like you, Caroline – have gone through - and go - through deep pain. In editing the book, and reading each piece, I wanted desperately for each contributor’s voice to stay intact, to be read in the voice they wanted to be heard. My husband, Ken, is a great editor, and he was so instrumental in helping me with the process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>My own piece is the introduction. It was originally written (a part of it) as one of my morning posts on Facebook. I loved writing it, I appreciated that I was able to come out about my own suicide attempt when I was a young woman. A young, unhappy woman. What surprises me, truly, is how many people are deeply unhappy and sad. I want to help change that. And by change, I don’t mean take a wand and say, hey don’t be unhappy…but I mean, let’s talks about our pain, our lives, our struggles, our shame, our fears… that kind of dialogue reaps huge dividends. Huge. It saves lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">   </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b> What’s obsessing you now and why? </b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Estrangement is what I’m obsessing on now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>So many people – myself included – are estranged from their families. From their parents, their siblings, their children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>That’s a big obsession for me. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>What question didn’t I ask that I should have?</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">How much weight have you gained this year sitting on your ass because you’re addicted to fucking Facebook? But you can ask me that one next time… </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>

One Play. One Night. 25+ Cities: Victoria Zackheim adapts essays in The Other Woman (Including mine!) for a November 9th play about love, lust, betrayal, sex and deception.

I am so totally thrilled and excited. Victoria Zackheim has adapted essays (including mine, which got me on The Today Show twice!) from her anthology, The Other Woman into an event. One Night; One Play, on November 9, 2015. The Other Woman features five wives, lovers, and others talking openly about sex, deception, love, and betrayal in this compelling drama.

If you're interested in participating as director and/or theater, please contact Victoria on (the Facebook page URL) and please click here for more info.

Participating cities/theaters/directors, as of today...more coming:

Benicia, CA: Benicia Library, more info TBA
Berkeley, CA: venue TBA, Angela Mason directing
Chicago: Tribeca Flash Point College, Killian Heilsberg directing
Colorado Springs: Main library, Eve Tilley/Linda Weise directing
Hoboken: Mile Square Theater, Ellen Lancaster directing
Houston: FreshArts Coalition/Mildred's Umbrella Theatre, Jennifer Decker directing
Lake Geneva, WI: Venue TBA. JaNelle Powers directing
Laguna Woods, CA: Community theater, CeCe Sloan directing
Long Beach, CA: Garage Theater, Cecelia Fanon directing
Los Angeles: Ebell Theatre, Victoria Zackheim directing
Louisville, KY: The Bard's Town, Carol Hatt directing
Midland, MI: Creative360 Theatre, Carol Rumba directing
New York City: Gene Frankel Theatre, Jane Aquilina directing
Oak Park, Il: Venue TBA, Amy Rising directing
Petaluma, Ca: Clear Heart Theater, Leslie Scatchard directing
San Francisco, CA: Friends of Library, Fort Mason, Bayla Travis directing
San Luis Obispo, CA: The Monday Club, Linda Wilson directing
Santa Fe, NM: Santa Fe Playhouse, Cristina Duarte directing
Ukiah/Mendocino: venue TBA, Ricci Dedola directing
Waitsfield, VT: Mad River Valley Theatre, Jennifer Howard directing
Walnut Creek, CA: Congregation B'Nai Shalom, Anne Nicolson directing

I'm thrilled, excited and honored to host Victoria here, who has been my heroine for years. She's never seen a "no" that she couldn't turn into a "yes, " she's fearless, funny, warm, and a deep part of my heart--and my family.

So this play originates from your anthology The Other Woman. What gave you the idea for this book?

As the essays arrived, I downloaded, printed, and then read and edited each one. The only distraction I faced was this recurring image of a theater stage. Seated there were five women, and they were having a dialogue/debate/argument/sharing about infidelity.
 
And what gave you the idea of one play performed one night all across the country?
I was discussing the play with Cynthia Comsky, who is connected to the Ebell Theater in Los Angeles. We talked about a possible reading...and we were suddenly planning a one-night nationwide event! I'm quite sure it was Cynthia's idea...although I'd love to take credit!

The anthology did incredibly well, with appearances on the Today Show, many local/regional television and radio interviews. (I also recall an invitation to launch the paperback on Good Morning America, which never happened...you decided instead to fall down a flight of stairs and injure your head the day before your NY flight.)  What made you decide it should also be a play? And how did you choose which essays should be in that play?

As I read the essays, I not only saw the actors on the stage, but I heard the voices of the authors. I knew there was a play hiding in there—the point/counterpoint of opinions, the tragic and funny and angry stories—and I had the adaptation before the book was launched.

Choosing the essays was by far the most difficult element. In the four readings I've done since 2007, I've used perhaps ten essays...but never more than five for the play. The five selected for this nationwide reading represent five very different experiences of infidelity. Connie May Fowler rants against it, Aviva Layton was the other woman and has no remorse, Maxinne Leighton became the other woman when she was a little girl molested by a trusted uncle, Mary Jo Eustace suffered a media explosion when her husband left her for Tori Spelling, and your piece pulls us into the life of a trusting woman who is figuratively stabbed through the heart by both her husband and her dearest friend.

I need to digress for a quick moment to say that Ellie Mednick, now senior executive at the Lark Theater in Marin County, was instrumental in the 'reawakening' of this play. It was Ellie who directed it in San Francisco several years ago. There have been many changes since then, but Ellie never stopped reminding me that it had promise.

You are one of the most amazing people I know, reinventing yourself all the time. You started as a novelist, but you're now a playwright, essayist and a screenwriter. Tell us about all of this, and what is your next challenge?

I do love the novel, but I'm afraid I lack the patience it takes. (Having said that, I should probably add that I'm working on my second novel, and have been since....1996!!!)  Theater, film, television offer something that resonates within me: the process of putting voices to words, faces to images, within settings that evoke both time and place. In film, I can say/show in ten words what it might take three pages to convey in a novel. It's the glance, the shrug, the lowering of the eyes... they convey so many emotions and thoughts. I love that challenge. I also love that I can close my eyes and see the entire scene, hear the voices...it's magic.

I'm now working on a pilot script for a television series. I have the great fortune to be doing this with the queen of mystery writers, Anne Perry. I've no idea where this will go, but we're having great fun creating this!

There already has been one staged reading of a previous incarnation of this play in NYC. How did it feel to see your work on the stage?

The staged reading in June 2007 is one of the most exciting moments of my life. How not? Reading my adaptation were the most gifted actors: Penny Fuller, Kathleen Chalfant, Ellen McLaughlin, Winslow Corbett, joined by author Connie May Fowler. The audience response was thrilling....and if I remember correctly, a film guy rushed up to you minutes after the play and wanted to option your essay for a film.

What's obsessing you now and why?
I actually have the "pleasure" of obsessing over two major projects! The first is the 11/9 simultaneous readings of the play; the second is this television series I'm writing with Anne. I'm at the age where passions run deep and time is running out!

What question didn't I ask that I should have?
Victoria, have you ever thought of falling in love again? Why Caroline, funny you should ask. If he's brilliant, funny, kind, liberal, and isn't fixated on marriage, who knows?

The other question you didn't ask: What are afraid of? Not living long enough to do all the projects I'm yearning to do...and since that would take perhaps 30 years, the fear is well founded! On the other hand, I give everything my best shot. If it doesn't work, I've tried. If I don't try, I've failed. No one fails if the attempt is made. 

Down the rabbit hole of relationships! Louise Wareham Leonard talks 52 MEN, Red Hen Press, the sometimes viciousness of social media, writing, more

How can you resist a memoir called 52 men? I certainly couldn't. Louise Wareham Leonard won the James Jones Literary Society First Novel Award for Since You Asked and was published by Akashic Books, New York in 2004. Her second novel, Miss Me A Lot Of  was a New Zealand bestseller.  I'm thrilled to have her here.

For me, writing any sort of autobiography (even fictional autobiography) is always nerve-wracking because you truly are unearthing your soul.  Was it this way for you?
I spent my early life not being heard –at least in one way -- and the more I was not heard, the more I needed to be. For a long time, writing was a way for me to make things real  –not to be told that my feelings  were ‘wrong’ or  that I shouldn’t have them.  Writing publicly was a hurdle I avoided somewhat, both from fear of hurting people and from fear that I didn’t know everything yet, that I didn’t have the big picture or the ‘right’ picture.  But the beauty of getting a little older, is that you really can come into your self and your truth -- and no can take what you feel from you.
Writing the truth, either literally or emotionally became in 52 Men and my recent work, a pleasure.  I write to speak of all I kept in over so many years -- and I also write for all the other girls and women out there who are taught to doubt their feelings, to doubt their reality.  My work is for you/them.

You’re a critically acclaimed poet. Did writing fiction come naturally to you? How different was it?

For me the hardest thing, was finding the right form to express my experience. For a long time, I thought I was supposed to be a traditional novelist –  but I struggled with, for example, multi-generational psychological dramas that seemed to make sense of everything.  I couldn’t fit my life or past into that; nothing matched up neatly, it seemed impossible to find one way to see things, one vantage point that stayed the same. I thought for a time that poetry would work best for me because it has hidden spaces and is subtle and oblique.  Yet as soon as I started to create my own kind of work – a mix of styles, – a kind of intense ‘poetic’ prose, with space and elision and the ability to change directions and emotions, I felt happiest. Quickness, lightness, intensity, that’s what I love in language, in hybrid works, in texts that use different forms.

I love the structure of the book—the vignettes, the occasional photo of a note, the lists you make. Was this always how you saw this book or did it metamorphose into this shape?
I was inspired by George Perec’s W, or the Memory of Childhood in which two stories play off each other.  I also see the childhood story in 52 Men (Ben – Part 2) as an explosion in early life and the 52 Men the result or ‘fallout’  of that explosion. It is a very simple structure.

In terms of photographs, and visuals, for me they add a mystery and depth while at other times, objects -- a letter or a card  -- seemed to represent an entire relationship or man all by them themselves  -- like #47, his rage and intelligence tell you the whole story in just one of his own paragraphs: “Generous of you to write, considering the rather over-the-top nature of my letter.”  His whole tone and energy, it’s all there.  Or the lists of words about sex:  Sergios’ funniness and sexiness and brightness, it’s all in his “Project #1 #2 etc.  “to nail, to “paste to the bed,”  or “jewelry box,” “garden.”

There are so many quotable lines --(I was driving with the world’s most famous author. Now I would be famous, too.) And so many (well 52) men, some of them famous, some of them who died young.  Do you see any cause and effect in your relationships? Did one man lead to the next?
Thank you!
As testament to the bomb/explosion metaphor, the 52 are in no particular order, but scattered all around.  Yes, one led to the next, but some were mere encounters, others relationships. What unites them is that I was single, I was in New York, I was open to all kinds of people. I was always fascinated by the different lives each man seemed to make available to me – it was down the rabbit hole into all of these dizzying fantastic or sometimes terrifying worlds.

One day I could be out with my all denim-clad Irish Dexy Midnight Runners hairdresser from Jean Louis David, the next looking at a $6 million triplex in Tribeca with a man who turned out to be a gangster.  One day I was taking a gun from the hand of a narcotics officer on Jane Street, the next strolling up Fifth Avenue with a blueblood named Hewson Baltzell.  I was open to everything.
In other ways, of course, I was also open to nothing, because like most of us, I’d been hurt in childhood, and  was trying to get free of that and was not as ‘available’ as a girlfriend or wife as I imagined I was.. .

Publishing has changed so much, and I really love and support the small presses like Red Hen.  What has your experience with them been like?
My three books are all with indie presses but Red Hen has been like no other experience.  Not just I, but my agent, and all the staff at Red Hen have worked relentlessly finessing  and pitching the book. It has been a tireless team effort – frustrating at times as the market is so saturated – but to have anyone work hard on your behalf – who could knock it?

What’s obsessing you now and why?
The viciousness of social media is bothering me. It’s brutal and I am really disturbed at the lack of respect and the total public shaming of people who might have just made a mistake. One day, it could be you – or me – who puts a foot wrong – and I want never to be one of those people adding to the nastiness. At the same time, I have opinions too, and the trick is to use anger, passion, rage wisely. I want to speak up against certain things – lies, greed, deceit -- but I want also want to be a good person.   I do not consider myself a victim of men, but of individuals; I am not weak or disadvantaged because I am a woman. I have strengths as a woman men can only envy lol.

What question didn’t I ask that I should have?
How many times have you been engaged?  Four. Married? Once, at age 41