Author Interview Interrupted: Essay Writer Sonya Huber's Q-and-A at Cleaver Magazine

Many (many) years ago, I wrote a syndicated interview column for two dozen equestrian publications. Every month I chose someone prominent in the horse show world--a champion rider, a judge, a course designer, a top trainer, a farrier expert in keeping equine athletes' feet in top shape. Because I was on the circuit too (competing, but hardly prominent!), I simply took my target out for coffee, pulled out my Sony tape recorder, asked my prepared, carefully-researched questions, then new questions that occurred to me in the course of the conversation. Back in my hotel room, I typed it up, got copies made, and mailed them out. 

Sometimes, I miss those days. I almost always chose interviewees who I was interested in talking to, someone from whom I could learn. Now, I do Q-and-A interviews here on the blog (the coffee is enjoyed separately, as most are via email) and love bringing their words--of wisdom, caution, encouragement--to my readers. Sometimes, I'm so impressed and/or inspired by what that writer had to share, I'm caught between wanting it on my blog an wanting a wider audience, so that their insights reach more writers.

That's why my most recent interview--with the memoir and essay writer Sonya Huber--first meant for my blog--is now up at the wonderful Cleaver Magazine. (Though I'm an editor there, my narrow lane is nonfiction craft essays, so like everyone else, I had to pitch this. Fortunately, Cleaver said yes.)

I wanted to interview Sonya because I so loved reading her new, curiously-titled book, Pain Woman Takes Your Keys and other Essays from a Nervous System. Here's a small sample from the interview:

SH:  I needed to find larger meaning and research to understand my own experience. So I was driven by self-interest to find those universals. I’m pretty much a ranter inside my own head. Every single essay—or many of them—start in rant mode. That’s great for a paragraph, or for fuel to begin writing, but then I would come back to those paragraphs and see how dull they were to read.

On revision I knew I had to unfold those strong emotions to make them real for the reader. I have learned to do that mainly by reading essays by other writers; doing a lot of that gets the “essay mode” inside one’s head. Every time I’m at a dead end of frustration with a personal experience, the essayist voice—which is developed through that repetition and training—asks, “But what else might that mean?” and then takes the topic at hand from a 46 degree angle.

You can read the whole thing over at Cleaver. 

Friday Fridge Clean-out: Links for Writers -- July 22, 2016 Edition

> So many, me included, were particularly saddened to hear of the passing of Carolyn See, novelist, writing professor, book critic, and tireless literary citizen whose generous acts and motivating book, Making a Literary Life, inspired so many writers over decades. Here is the New York Times obituary, and at KCET's website, a stunning, meaty, loving tribute by Gayle Brandeis.

> I missed this back  in March, but it's just as relevant today: Rebecca Hussey's "100 Must-Read Essay Collections," at Book Riot.

> Some days we need, "17 Poems to Read When the World is Too Much." Especially haunting: "What They Did Yesterday Afternoon" by Warsan Shire.

>Writers continue to react to the idea of aiming for 100 rejections per year. On the Kenyon Review blog, Laura Maylene Walter shares how she racked up 215 rejections in 2015, how those numbers added up, and what it means to her.

> Occasionally, I like to point readers to other places on the web (like my Friday posts) to find weekly round-ups of writerly news and links. Try the Literary News column at Change Seven journal.

> Although Beyond Your Blog will stop posting new material soon, the archives are rich in podcast interviews, tips, advice, resources, lists, and links that will help writers who want to get published online and in print.

> Student Brag Box: Bay Path University MFA student Heidi Fettig Parton's work of creative nonfiction, "When You Wander West" appears in the current issue of Angels Flight Literary West. If, like me, your kids are near, entering, or working their way through young adulthood, you'll appreciate this one!

Have a great weekend!

Image: Flickr/CreativeCommons - Cas Bright Meadow

Why I Liked Jill Talbot's Memoir and You Might Too

When a book is forthcoming from an essayist whose work I've admired, I'm all in. I'll probably buy it and read it within the first few weeks it's available. That doesn't always mean I'll love it or even like it (even books that contain essays I've already read and liked don't always make the finest books), but in this case, I did. I do.

If you nose around the world of creative nonfiction, and especially if your favorite sandbox is the personal or narrative essay, you've either read or at least know of Jill Talbot's work. If not, you probably should (though I really hate using "should" when it comes to reading, so let's say I highly recommend her!).

Talbot's book, The Way We Weren't: A Memoir (published this summer), is now the handiest way to find so much of her fine writing all together. Here are a few things I found inside those covers that kept me interested. First, to my mind, it's a coherent collection of strongly linked, narrative essays that work both independently and as a whole, and together create an arc. And yet, there's an elliptical feel to it as well. A few chapters are in the third person—hard to pull off well in memoir, but effective here. All are positives in my list of reading and likes.

Next, several chapters are in borrowed forms— loneliness and longing expressed as a literature course syllabus; redacted legal letters concerning child support; courtroom transcript; addiction progression as wine list. Other chapters are segmented; I love the white space, the separations that strongly invite connection, the sense of seeing and understanding difficult parts of life in smaller increments, which to me is closer to how memory, reflection, and long-lens perspective actually work.

Finally, what grabbed me most was the voice and sensibility of the narrator; her willingness to be the multiply flawed human she is (we all are) on the page is both gripping and at the same time, smartly circumspect. Unlike some memoirists whose dysfunctional pasts seem to beg for (all the book's) attention on no other merits than that they happened, Talbot is able to weave a narrative that includes her mistakes as part of the wider story of a fuller life.

Did I also mention the writing is just terrific? Did I mention it was a book I read in two days, and not because I had the time? I only "know" Jill Talbot a tiny bit via friendly social media exchanges, and I know very well that reading someone's memoir doesn't mean you know that person. But the person who rises from these pages? She's someone I'd invite in for coffee. 

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers -- August 7, 2015 Edition

> Still need some summer reading? The Atlantic's list (all with links) of "100 Fantastic Pieces of Journalism" is the ticket. Many of the pieces straddle lines between straight journalism, long-form nonfiction, literary journalism, creative nonfiction, and personal essay. The mix ranges from The New Yorker ("This Old Man," by Roger Angell), to Modern Farmer ("The Abstinence Method").

> This is by far the best, most interesting, nuanced argument I've read yet in favor of not only reading Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman, but also considering what the book's (draft's?) existence suggests about the writer Lee might have become had it been published when first written. I wasn't at all surprised that the byline on this insightful commentary was Ursula K. Le Guin. (And if you missed it, check out Le Guin's speech upbraiding the publishing industry at her recent National Book Foundation awards dinner.)

> Now that the 500-plus panels, presentations, and readings for the 2016 AWP conference have been announced (alas, both of the proposals I was included on did not make the cut from the 1900+ submitted), you can peruse the full list of accepted events at your leisure, leaving you plenty of time to plan for next April in Los Angeles.

> The Essay Prize asked 28 top contemporary essayists to each select their top 10 essays of all time.

> Fiction writers may want to bookmark Now Novel's "151 Must-Visit Writing Websites."

> BookFox has gathered "The Top 20 Places to Submit Flash Fiction" (under 1000 words), ranked by number of website visitors.

> Want to get the hang of Persiscope? Writer/blogger Estelle Erasmus offers some basic guidelines for a quick start.

> Should major traditional publishing houses be able to bar their authors from giving endorsement blurbs to self-published, indie, hybrid, and/or POD books? Brooke Warner, of SheWrites.com and SheWrites Press, weighs in, emphatically.

> If your weekend plans include HippoCamp15, the conference for creative nonfiction writers in Lancaster, PA, please say hello. I'll be around, giving a presentation Saturday afternoon, on a panel on Sunday morning, and otherwise listening, mingling, and hanging about.

> Finally, have a few laughs at the funny/not-funny #ThingsNotToSayToAWriter, which trended last week on Twitter.
Have a great weekend!

Image: Flickr/Creative Commons - USDAGov

Author Interview: Sue William Silverman, on her new memoir, The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew

First, I read and admired Sue William Silverman's work. Then I listened to, and learned from her at an AWP panel. Read some more of her nonfiction. Met her briefly at another conference. Read more. Next, I interviewed Sue here on the blog about her craft book, Fearless Confessions: A Writer’s Guide to Memoir, which I've recommended to many students. That interview remains one of the most heavily trafficked posts here. I'm delighted in so many ways to have Sue back, this time talking about her new book from the University of Nebraska Press.

Please welcome Sue William Silverman.

LR. So – The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew. I'm guessing you've gotten a number of raised eyebrow questions about that subtitle. To me, the first two essays perfectly explain it. Subtitles do seem especially important in memoir. How did you come to this subtitle?  Was it long before publication? During editing? A collaboration with the publisher? 

SWS. Oh, that subtitle! The main reaction I get is a laugh, which I love. The book, in part, is supposed to be funny – or, well, ironic. I wanted a subtitle that would convey the tone of the book, not just the subject matter.

I came up with the subtitle long before I sent the book to the publisher. Initially, there was another one (I can’t remember what), but it didn’t quite fit. So my partner Marc and I brainstormed subtitles one day, and this one immediately rose to the top of the list.

LR. Since this is a memoir-in-essays (my favorite kind of nonfiction), I will ask the question I ask every writer who has assembled such a book. Since some of the essays were published in journals over a multi-year span, at what point did you realize you had a book percolating?  That the threads between different essays were strong enough to collect them?

SWS. Initially, I had no idea I was writing a book. I had already published two memoirs, a book on craft, and a poetry collection, so I wanted to write something I’d never tried before: stand-alone essays. I was about two years into this essay-writing business when it hit me that, in one form or another, all the essays were about how, growing up, I wanted to belong to the dominant culture/religion and that, in conjunction with this, my feelings toward Judaism were confused and ambiguous.

Once I realized this, I took the already published essays and reframed them (some more than others) to more closely align them with this theme of self-definition and identity.

I also wrote new sections to fill out and deepen this exploration. Most of these new essay/chapters wouldn’t have worked as stand-alone pieces as they more fully “speak” only to the other essays.

LR. I'm interested in the process of transforming the individual essays into a coherent, logical progression. Can you describe your process of selecting, revising, ordering, and writing additional transition pieces to make it work as a book? 

SWS. Let me give some examples.

The first essay I wrote is also title essay, “The Pat Boone Fan Club,” and sets the tone/theme of the book in that, growing up, I wanted the clean-cut, wholesome, overtly Christian 1960s pop star, Pat Boone, to adopt me, as if he could save me from my abusive Jewish father.

The next essay I wrote, originally titled “The Land of Look Behind,” focuses on my obsession with a homeless tramp who wandered around St. Thomas (where I spent most of my childhood). In the original, stand-alone version, the essay explored the idea of hypocrisy: the wealthy white parents on the island warned us kids, their children, that the tramp might be dangerous. However, ironically, and generally speaking, these white parents were the dangerous adults. In fact, the tramp wasn’t dangerous at all. Among the white parents, many were alcoholics. Others physically and emotionally abused their children. To say nothing of my own dangerous and hypocritical father.

This idea of hypocrisy remains, yet I re-slanted many details – for the book – to highlight the tramp’s role as a potential “savior.” I followed him around as if he, like Pat Boone, could save me – could lead me away from my father – as if he were a spiritual being and I was one of his followers. I also changed the title to “The Wandering Jew” to emphasize that aspect of culture.

As I continued on with the book, I shifted the lens a bit, with each essay, to approach this theme of identity from different angles. For example, there’s a section, “That Summer of War and Apricots,” about a trip to Israel to pick apricots on a kibbutz – but I still don’t discover my Jewish roots. There’s a section called “Galveston Island Breakdown: Some Directions” about an existential crisis I have when my marriage, myself, and my Volkswagen all break down. In “My Sorted Past,” I explore the idea of identity when I visit the movie set of the filming of my second memoir Love Sick: One Woman’s Journey through Sexual Addiction, and so on.

The final pieces I wrote for the book are what I call “bridge sections” in which I address the reader directly. These, sprinkled throughout the book, act as a kind of “meta” element to help guide the reader on this journey.

LR. Do you enjoy that part of the process, or is it a special kind of torture? One memoirist told me going from individual essays to a memoir-in-essays meant she had to "break the back of each piece," and that it felt like breaking her own back at the same time.

  

SWS. Actually, I loved this part of the process! I love to revise in any event, but, in terms of this book, it deepened my own understanding of how various encounters with people, or moments in time, were, in fact, a search for self. As I revised each essay – and/or wrote new ones – it was kind of like solving mysteries. For example: How did this tramp in the West Indies represent a savior? What were my true feelings toward him? Metaphorically, how was he just like Pat Boone in terms of my search? I write memoir/essays to make sense of my life, to discover the metaphors of it.

Ironically, therefore, my experience was probably the exact opposite from your friend’s in that, for me, this revision process helped form my backbone, rather than breaking my back.

LR. A few of the bridge pieces are in the form of letters to "Gentle Reader" signed SWS, and referring to the narrator as a "little Gefilte (fish)."  What was the genesis for those?

SWS. After I’d finished the “regular” essays, I felt I needed an additional unifying element to better hold the book together. In these sections the narrator takes on the “persona” of a gefilte fish – yes, very surreal, I know! But the gefilte fish acts as a metaphor for this narrator in her quest for identity: Who am I? Can I be a Christian? Can I accept Judaism? How can I find a “me” who feels comfortable in her skin?

Why a gefilte fish? Because it isn’t a “real” fish! There is no fish swimming in the ocean called “gefilte.” It’s kind of a mish-mash without a true identity. Which is how I myself felt growing up – a kind of mish-mash of identities – so it seemed like the perfect metaphoric image.

LR. In some places, you use subheads and/or segmented form. Elsewhere, the reader encounters multiple choice questions; excerpts from emails, signs, and website text; script formatting; and some varied type fonts. I've read that some writers and publishers -- cognizant (consciously or not) of how readers' visual expectations have changed because of the internet and shorter attention spans -- are building more visual elements, shorter "easy eyefuls" into book-length work (especially in YA fiction). To me, these things in your book seem to be purely creative, narrative-driven decisions, but I wondered if any of that crossed your mind?

SWS. Oh, interesting. It never occurred to me to write with that in mind: changes in readers’ expectations, shorter attention spans, etc. You’re right: all my decisions were narrative-driven. What did I need to best convey the material in this particular essay/chapter? How best to serve the needs of the piece? All decisions were based on that.

But that’s an interesting observation: that readers’ tastes have changed. And, for all I know, I might have been subconsciously influenced by that without realizing it!

LR. I often use something I'm reading in my teaching, and one of the micro ways in which I took this book into the classroom was to point out your excellent use of verbs – precise, interesting, unexpected, so carefully selected. Does that come naturally to you, or does attention to word choice mostly happen during revision? A little of both?

SWS. Thank you! I’m delighted you see this in my writing. Some of the word selection, as it does for all writers, comes naturally. However, most of this attention to word selection, metaphor, detail comes only with revision. Everything I write goes through a gazillion drafts – well, okay, maybe fifteen or twenty…I lose track. But a lot.

The first draft is usually getting the basic narrative in place. Then, with each subsequent draft, I move from this broad focus to smaller details. I’ll revise to ensure every image speaks to the theme. I try to find the most accurate words. I examine each sentence to ensure it builds on the previous one.

I can only accomplish so much in any given draft, so it’s a long process. But the longer I stay with a piece, the more I’ll discover the exact word or verb to convey the meaning at hand.

LR.  I understand Pat Boone has been supportive of the book; that you even attended his 80^th birthday party. Can you tell me what it has been like – after admiring him from afar for so long, and spending so much time dissecting your unusual pull to him, and writing about it – to be in real contact with him, off the page?

SWS. Yes, Pat Boone likes the book! It’s both flattering and surreal to have developed a bit of a relationship with him. I first had a crush on him when I was a teeny-bopper! And now, all these years later, he knows my name…and admires my writing! I mean, that’s kind of wild.

Here’s what’s most gratifying: he’s really a nice person. My early childhood instincts were correct. The memoir revolves around three separate times I met Pat Boone. In one instance, when he invited me backstage after a Christmas concert, he pointed to an embroidered flower on the jacket I was wearing and said, “You remind me of a flower growing up through concrete.” By this time, he’d read my first two memoirs (one about my incestuous family, the other about a subsequent struggle with sex addiction), so he was referring to how I survived. In this sense, therefore, he did see me more clearly than my own father.

Then, when I told him I planned to attend his 80^th Birthday Party Celebrity Roast at the Beverly Hilton (back on June 1^st), he was genuinely delighted. He asked me to bring additional copies of my book for him to give to his family and friends. And, he invited me to attend the VIP reception before the dinner. When he saw me he gave me a big hug!

There were hundreds of people at the party, yet he took time to talk about the book with me. The very last line of the book is metaphoric and we discussed the meaning of it! I mean, could I ever have imagined discussing metaphors with Pat Boone!? (That said, he graduated magna cum laude in English from Columbia University.)

So while it’s true that, politically, we don’t have a thing in common, and I am distressed by the fact that he’s a member of the conservative Tea Party (I’m a liberal Democrat), still, I’ve been able to look past these differences and find this gentle, caring side of Pat Boone.

LR. Given that you are busy teaching writing at the graduate level, is it difficult to make progress on your own writing? What are you working on now (if you don't mind sharing)?

SWS. Probably no writer feels as if she/he has enough time to write! But since I teach at a low-residency MFA in Writing program (Vermont College of Fine Arts), as opposed to teaching at a traditional college with daily classes, I probably have more time than others. So I can’t (or shouldn’t) complain.

Besides, I love to teach and am quite satisfied with this balance between teaching and writing.

I’m currently working on another memoir/essay collection. I’ve got a very rough draft. It’s still finding its form and focus, but I’m getting closer to figuring it out.

Also, I’m quite excited that I wrote a poem last week! It’s the first one I’ve written since my poetry collection was published back in 2006. I was worried I’d never write another one. The title is “If the Girl Never Learns to Cook or Sew” (yes, autobiographical). So maybe another poetry collection is percolating. I hope so!

Note from Lisa: Sue will *stop by* the blog for several days after this post runs, to answer any questions left in comments. She will also send a complimentary signed copy of The Pat Boone Fan Club to a randomly selected commenter (must have a US postal address). To be in the drawing, post your comment by end of day Wednesday, August 5.

Three Good Books. Out of Three Hundred. No, Three Thousand. No...

Last year, when my husband helped me re-do my home office (after 23 years), we lined two-and-a-half walls with floor-to-ceiling, walk-to-wall, black wood bookshelves. I think they look great against the new red walls, and it's a huge change from my previous system for books, comprised of hand-me-down half-height bookcases, used beige office shelves, and repurposed odd pieces of furniture topped with baskets, milk crates, plastic stacking shelves, and clumsy piles (plus boxes stacked in a corner).

Would it surprise anyone to learn that it wasn't nearly enough room for my books, even after a careful reduction? That a second culling yielded four boxes of books, now in the garage awaiting pick-up by a terrific local service that matches no-longer-needed books with organizations that want and need them? That two more boxes are in the basement; I'm undecided about their fate. That at the end of every class I teach I haul a suitcase of books into the classroom -- duplicates of books I love, books left over from contests I've judged, books I didn't enjoy but are well written enough that others might -- and still, the shelves groan?

Honestly I don't expect the situation to get much better, and though I am slowly coming around to making use of my Nook, I don't mind a bit. When you are a writer, when you have a constant need to locate good material to teach from and learn from, when reading is like breathing, and when you work at home, being surrounded by shelves that spill over is a good problem. 

Which brings me to a month or so ago when Drew Myron, a lovely writer (who contributed a guest post here with tips on giving a reading), asked me to participate in the "3 Good Books" series at her website, Push Pull Books. She assigns each invited writer a specific topic based on what she knows about the writer's work. I was happy she asked me to talk about books that feature personal essays, and even more pleased that I could pick not-so-new books (the idea is to suggest what may be missing from other writers' shelves). I decided to narrow it a bit further to essay collections by women writers which have influenced me and my writing (I hope).

To do the "research" for this assignment, I didn't have far to go. I simply stood up from my seat at my still-new writing table (in the office re-do, I tossed the desk and the entire idea of a desk), and traveled a few feet to spend some quality time with my bookshelves. The section that houses essay collections is a single unit unto itself, about two feet wide and seven shelves high. It was a good trip.

My "3 Good Books" guest post is now up, and I hope you will jump over to Drew's blog to read it.  And I also hope you have shelves that spill their riches all over your home and/or office too!

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers -- May 30, 2014 Edition

> Richard Gilbert, author of a new memoir, Shepherd, has some good advice on obtaining advance trade press reviews, over at his blog.

> This summer, three writers I'd had the pleasure of working with as students or coaching clients are beginning low residency MFA programs, and in the fall another is entering a full time program; so the advice for new graduate writing students in this John Vanderslice post is particularly timely.

> If you're not reading book coach and author Jennie Nash's How to Write a Book blog, you're missing out.

> Determined to crack that one important journal? Read how Laura Maylene Walter (finally) made it into The Sun. (hat tip Erika Dreifus)

> In the next month or so, I'll have an interview here with essayist/memoir writer Sue William Silverman, but I can't wait: her interview at The Artist's Road, about building a memoir from essays, is too good not to pass along.

> Wondering if Tumblr will help your freelance writing career? Some quick tips via the ASJA newsletter.

> Sure, I'm biased (since I'm the creative nonfiction editor) but I'll say it anyway -- there is some seriously good writing, across all genres, in the Spring issue of Compose Journal. Plus, a few excellent craft and business-of-writing articles, too.

> Perhaps by now everyone has seen the "Look Up" video exposing the anti-social effects of social media, texting, and cell phone addiction, but it's worth sharing. Extras: it's by a Brit, in rhyme, and hey, my teenager sat through the whole five minutes and pronounced it "cool". Pass it on.

> Essays that rise to the top of the submissions pile at Prairie Schooner have a few important things in common, according to assistant nonfiction editor Sarah Fawn Montgomery.

> In case you missed it, scroll down one post to the interview with Brain, Child magazine editor/publisher Marcelle Soviero...and leave a comment by Tuesday night to win a subscription and batch of recent issues.

> Finally, listen to Rosie Perez's passionate reading of the poem "Still I Rise" by the late, wonderful Maya Angelou. 

Image: Windell Oskay/Flickr, Creative Commons

Guest Blogger Faye Rapoport DesPres on Combining Individual Essays into a Cohesive Collection

Like many gifts from the literary universe, my guest blogger today came to me via a mutual online friend.  But even before I got the email about the book Message From a Blue Jay, I was already interested in Faye Rapoport DesPres—because she's done what many say cannot be accomplished (and frankly, what I am also trying to do):  published an essay collection without first having a slew of traditionally published novels and/or a best-selling memoir to her credit.

Faye earned an MFA in Creative Writing from the Solstice Creative Writing Program at Pine Manor College, and her essays, fiction, poetry, reviews, and interviews have appeared in many literary journals and magazines, including Ascent, Fourth Genre, Superstition Review, and The Writer's Chronicle.

  

Please welcome Faye Rapoport DesPres

Many writers who approach traditional publishers about a personal essay or short story collection hear a familiar refrain: “What links your collection? Can you transform it into some kind of cohesive narrative?”

I first learned about the concept of “linked collections” at an AWP panel in Denver in 2010. As a new MFA student enamored with the personal essay form, I had dreams of one day publishing a collection of individual essays. Yet one after another the panelists discussed the difficulty writers face when submitting essay collections to publishers. The current buzzword in the industry was “memoir,” they said, and if your personal essays couldn’t be marketed as a memoir, it was going to be difficult to convince a publisher to take your manuscript.

At the time I was approaching each essay I worked on as an individual piece. One essay might be about the loss of a family member and another might describe a trip to London. Taking the advice of a number of my teachers, I was practicing my craft on shorter works before attempting a book-length manuscript.

Each essay was an experiment of its own – the length varied from less than 1000 words to 5000 words or even longer. The style changed from lyric to reflective, and sometimes I framed a narrative inside another narrative. I wrote some essays in the present tense, and others in the past tense. 

I was trying out different forms and tones in an effort to see what felt right to me as a writer, and to find my own voice. I submitted some of the individual pieces to journals and magazines that seemed to match each essay’s content or form, and a number of them were published. I was so focused on making my individual pieces the best they could be that I hadn’t even thought about linking them in any way.  

Fast-forward to May 2014, and my debut book, Message from a Blue Jay has just been published by Buddhapuss Ink., by a wonderful independent press out of Edison, New Jersey. The book is an essay collection, but it also qualifies as a memoir or a linked collection that forms its own kind of narrative—the story of what I call my “middle decade,” the years between 40 and 50. 

So how did I transform my individual essays into that elusive cohesive narrative without losing my reverence for the essay form?

At first, after I had completed enough pieces to attempt to publish a collection, I found that the panel had been right: a number of publishers liked my work, but their editors felt they couldn’t market an “essay collection.” Some didn’t see how the pieces were linked, or questioned the inclusion of one or two of the essays I’d chosen to be part of the manuscript.

One editor, Lynn Vannucci of Water Street Press (a high quality new publisher out of California) liked the writing enough to make a specific suggestion: mine the over-arching themes in the work, and re-order the essays chronologically so that they form more of a memoir with a clearer narrative arc.

I didn’t quite go back to the drawing board, but I took that editor’s advice.  I thought carefully about what major over-arching themes did link my work and how the book might have a clearer, chronological beginning, middle, and end.  The essays were, in fact, as a whole representative of what can happen during a particular time of life. Once I started to re-envision my manuscript in this way, things fell into place pretty quickly. I took out two essays that didn’t add to or fit with the narrative and wrote and added two new pieces that amplified the meaning and added a sense of revelation toward the end. Then I added an introduction that spelled out in a symbolic (and perhaps poetic) way how the chapters were really part of a cohesive whole.

The re-edit did require some other changes. After ordering the pieces chronologically, I edited out any repetitive information. For example, I had to make sure that any person mentioned in the book was introduced only once. A number of the essays mention my husband’s mother, Judith, and in the original pieces she was introduced and described each time. I had to take some of that out. I also had to make sure that the timing of each essay made sense as a chronological narrative chapter – I wouldn’t want to mention my forty-eigth birthday in a chapter that appeared before “Forty-Six,” for example, which is about what happened on my forty-sixth birthday.

For the most part the chapters are in actual chronological order, so that wasn’t a problem, but in one or two cases I had to edit out information that would have been confusing to the reader time-wise. I also had to introduce the move from Colorado to Boston early in the book, so I used the essay “Walden, Revisited,” which talks about my connection to Boston and return there, to do that. It took some careful re-reading to get it all right, but by the end I felt so much happier with the manuscript that I wished I had never sent out the original.

In the meantime, however, the forward-thinking editor at Buddhapuss Ink, MaryChris Bradley, a 30-year veteran of the publishing industry, had already decided that she loved my manuscript and wanted to publish it. She was going to suggest similar changes, but she had so much faith in the future of my book that she was ready to sign it even before seeing the final, more chronological manuscript.

 The end result is a book we both love, and that I hope readers will enjoy.

I still love the individual essay form. At the same time, I’m happy with the way Message from a Blue Jay will be published, as a memoir-in-essays. What I have, in the end, is a book I’m truly proud of: a nod to the personal essay and to memoir all at once.

 Tomorrow, Faye's Virtual Book Tour takes her to Mariam Kobras's blog. Her publisher is offering a personalized, signed copy of Message from a Blue Jay (plus swag) to one winner of their Virtual Tour Giveaway. Simply comment below to enter. For more chances, visit the Buddhapuss Ink or Message from a Blue Jay Facebook pages and click the Giveaway Tab!

You can follow Faye on Twitter and connect on her book's Facebook page.

What Kind of Essay? The answer is in...the essay.

If you've been a regular here, you may know that I'm putting the final touches on a manuscript--a memoir about the relationship that developed between me and my father (just before, but mostly) after, his death, told in linked essays. 

Some are more narrative than others, some more lyrical. One is long and segmented; a few are short forms. How and why each essay takes the shape and form it does relies on so many factors, and frankly often the *answer* doesn't reveal itself until far along in the revision process.

The rest of the time, I'm typically just following some instinct that's difficult to explain. The material knows, often, what it wants to be. The story knows how it wants to be told. Lately, I trust that if I listen carefully enough and resist the urge to be right about an initial impulse, I can hear when subsequent drafts are telling me something different.

An excerpted essay from the manuscript, with the title of "Eyes, Hands, Hotel, Hospital," is included in the December issue of an online journal with its own distinctly intriguing name, Halfway Down the Stairs.

If I had listened to my initial idea of how this particular piece of the story--my final visits to my father's hospital room--should exist on the page, it might have been three separate things: a light piece about my father, afflicted with Alzheimer's, thinking the hotel was a hospital; a long (and likely maudlin and unruly) prose poem about how his eyes unnerved me; and an essay about how comforted and upset I was by the look and feel of his hands even as everything else about his body was deteriorating. 

But early pages can be squirrelly, and after a dozen or so combined drafts, I put each one away for a while. 

At some point, I realized that it was all connected to those final days, everything running together, a collage of eyes and hands, memories of all the fine hotels we'd stayed at during my childhood, and finally, the reality of the hospital. It wasn't three pieces, it was one -- and a rather straight-ahead narrative essay at that

Which is not to say it might not have worked the other way, ten other ways. But this way felt right.

Here is part of middle of the essay, a section where I write of my father's confusion about where he was.

In the hospital, I asked my father if he wanted me to rub on some hand cream. He shrugged, but I did it anyway. I thought, What the heck, it will kill some time. After, he began what had, at least while I'd been here, become his daily litany of why he must be allowed to leave this place:

They can't keep me here against my will.
I know the law.
If I want to leave, I can you know.
Get them to call me a taxi.
Where's my suitcase? I want to go.
Get your mother; she'll know what to do. (This one I could not help laughing at out loud. My father always did everything related to travel, finances, and dealing with management or authorities; and he always reminded everyone that he alone was qualified to do so.)
Take me home.
I want to go home.
Why can't I go home? (This one I had trouble answering, even glibly, because I wanted to know the same thing. Why couldn't my mother allow him to come home—to his 5,000 square foot house, the one with extra bedrooms and spare bathrooms and wide doorways, the one built with polyester money—instead of making nursing home arrangements?)
Where is my ticket, my passport, the concierge?
When is that damned bellboy coming back?
They make me wait, for what?

I hope you will hop over to Halfway Down the Stairs (where there is a lot of engaging work), and read "Eyes, Hands, Hotel, Hospital."

Guest Blogger Vanessa Wright on An Unexpected Journey: The Writer’s Winding Path

One of the pleasures of having one's work included in an essay anthology is the connection to the other contributors. If you're lucky, you find an entire new group of like-minded writers, expanding your writing community. This has happened, happily, for me several times, and that is precisely how Vanessa Wright and I found one another – as contributors to Why We Ride: Women Writers on the Horses in Their Lives, published by Seal Press last May. Vanessa's artistry is expressed in many ways – as a photographer, writer and teacher, whose work "celebrates the human-equine bond."

Please welcome Vanessa Wright.

Particularly in October, any leaf in New Hampshire will tell you: inspiration can be a dangerous thing. For as long as you can remember, you have been clinging to the same tree: dancing in the wind, glowing in the sunlight, and growing into the lines and arcs of your unique and perfect shape. Life is warm and good. The days always grow longer, and the world grows full.

Then comes the tingling, the cool breeze that riffles the newest, tenderest, and greenest edges of everything that you are. Like laughter between lovers, it is the secret that can never be told, the call not to your heart but to your clear, swift-running blood that cries, “Become!” Become what? “Shh. Let go.” How? Why? And what will happen? No answer comes, except a harvest all crimson and gold, a shortening of days, and a brisk, northerly certainty that change is in the wind.


I was a writer once. I researched and wrote thousands of words each week: fiction, nonfiction, instructional text, history, literature, nature, myth. I was fearless and, thus, full of stories. Fairy tales and lesson plans dropped into my hands, ripe and plump as strawberries; the grand dance of nations, inventions, and ideas twirled itself out in chapters among the wildflowers as my horse and I lolled in his pasture.


I could have lived in that summer country forever. But those silver fingers brushed my drowsing eyelids; that golden bell shattered the dam holding back the clear river from my veins. A strange and terrible story coursed through me – a story unlike anything I’d written, a story of glowering skies and trees turned to flame. Summer turned to autumn in a moment, and that blissful pasture withered beneath my feet.

For a thousand reasons as complex and common as the lace on an aspen leaf, I could not write it. That story, it was not who I was – it was not the fairy tale I wanted it to be. My own heart failing me, I leaned upon the one heart that never had: my horse’s.

The stories came – and went to print – quickly. “Rope Trick,” an essay about my horse’s near-magical abilities to make food appear and disappear, was published in Dr. Marty Becker’s Ultimate Horse Lover. “Under the Wings of Pegasus” tells the true story of my horse's midlife calling to become a foal-sitter for rescued, orphaned and challenged young horses, and opens Allen and Linda Anderson’s Horses with a Mission: Extraordinary True Stories of Equine Service. Of course, “Great Grand-Mare,” the mane-raising tale of his sprint with my 92-year-old grandmother, appears in Verna Dreisbach’s Why We Ride.

Yet writing about my horse produced results I did not expect. My focus turned from the past to the present moment, from the world to here. I realized that legendary horses and their people – Pegasus and Bellerophon, Greyfell and Siegfried, even the Pie and Velvet Brown – had their equals in compassion, courage, and heroism in my own horse and in the lives of those he touched, and those who touched him.

I decided then to travel, across America and around the world, collecting the stories of today’s heroic horses and horse-people, novices and Olympians alike. I photographed them and paired the photos and bios with quotations from classic books. I offered the collection to libraries, and added educational materials I created drawing upon my experience as a teacher of history and literature and as a director and manager of a children’s theater program. Before I knew it, it had become The Literary Horse: When Legends Come to Life, an exhibit touring public and school libraries worldwide through 2012.

More than 150,000 children, teens, and adults have visited The Literary Horse exhibit since its debut in May 2008. It has appeared at libraries to celebrate national and international events ranging from Children’s Book Week to the World Equestrian Games, and it has trotted into the pages of national media outlets including EQUUS, The Blood-Horse, Horses in Art, and HorseChannel.com.

Though I have walked a winding path, not only am I still a writer, I am more of a writer than I was before. The kindness and generosity of the equestrians and horses of The Literary Horse were my harvest of crimson and gold. Learning of their journeys beneath glowering skies and through trees turned to flame, reminded me that all days are short, and that change is how we meet each moment – that it is a blaze and a leap to be embraced. Simply walking among them inspired me to become, and to let go. And that story I could not - would not - write began to write itself.

So, like any leaf in New Hampshire, I too will tell you that inspiration is a dangerous thing: follow it, and you may become more than you ever dreamed you could be.

To learn more about Vanessa Wright's The Literary Horse: When Legends Come to Life, which pairs photos of today’s novice through Olympic horses and riders with quotations from the world’s great books, visit the website. Vanessa also recently started the blog Great Books for Horse Lovers.

Essay Lovers, I Have Your Evening Reading

Writers interested in discussions about the literary, narrative and personal essay may want to check out the free download of the proceedings from Welcome Table Press's first symposium, held at Fordham University last Spring, "In Praise of the Essay: Practice and Form." There are five meaty pdf files, with topics and tone ranging from the formal to the more frolicsome.

Consider this, the opening to Brian Doyle's paper, "Playfulness: A note" --

"Thesis: The essay is the widest, fattest, most generous, open, glorious, honest, endlessly expandable form of committing prose, not only because it cheerfully steals and hones all the other tools and talents of all other forms of art, and not only because it is admirably and brilliantly closest to not only the speaking voice but the maundering, shambling, shuffling, nutty, wandering, salty, singing voices in our heads, but because it is the most playful of forms, liable to hilarity and free association and startlement, without the filters and mannered disguises and stiff dignity of fiction and poetry and journalism, respectively."

While you're over there, note that there is a call (though scant on details) for submissions to a planned anthology of essays written in the second person. And if you're the advance planning sort, their second essay symposium, with a terrific line-up of speakers, is set for October 2011.

Interview: Verna Dreisbach, anthology editor & agent

I've loved horses and writing since I can remember liking anything. As a young child, I wrote about everything and read about and pined for horses before getting my first horse at 14. Soon I was submitting work to equine publications and Horse of Course magazine gave me my first clip. I went on to support myself for several years post-college as a freelancer for equestrian media. Then, about 20 years ago, I stopped -- riding and writing about horses. I had other things to write about and no longer had the time or budget for riding. But more recently I began to think about what horses have meant to me beyond the pleasures of the saddle, and a series of essays emerged, one of which, "It Always Happens One Summer," is included in Why We Ride: Women Writers on the Horses in Their Lives. The editor of that book, Verna Dreisbach, is also a literary agent, and of course she's a rider and horse owner, too. She recently agreed to answer some of my questions.

LR. You are a busy literary agent, and also a graduate student, mother and horse owner. With all that on your plate, why this collection, and why now?

VD: Surprisingly, the opportunity came to me. I attended the Willamette Writers Conference a few years ago where I met editor Krista Lyons from Seal Press. After talking literary agent/editor business stuff, we started talking freely. I talked about my love of horses and how, because of horses, I found my own passion for writing. Little did I know that Krista was looking for an editor for an anthology about women and horses (later to become Why We Ride). By the end of our conversation, we were both jumping up and down because I had a dream opportunity (anything to do with horses) and she had an editor to the anthology.

LR: You were able to secure a foreword from Jane Smiley – quite a coup. How did that come about?

VD: I met Jane Smiley at the East of Eden Writers Conference a few years ago. I asked her if she’d be interested in participating in a written interview for a newsletter for the young writers organization I founded and we started a correspondence then. Since we both obviously have a love of horses, it was just a simple question and she happily agreed to write the foreword. I am so grateful to her and I have no doubt that part of the success of the book has to do with her contribution.

LR: Did any of the contributor pieces surprise you? Make you cry?

VD: I’m a softie for those father/daughter stories. I felt the loss and cried over "Owning Clydes" (Kate St. Vincent Vogl), felt the pain in "Getting Back on the Horse" (Kara Gall), and felt the jealousy at the fun Michele Scott and her dad had in her story "The Billy Dal Gang."

LR: What can you tell us about the selection process?

VD: I waited until I had the majority of the stories in hand before reading them. I wanted to keep the experience all within a short period of time so that I could get the full feel for the momentum and diversity of the book – the same way a reader would. I wanted to make sure that each story was unique.

I had innumerable “first horse” stories that didn’t go much deeper than that. For instance, I knew when I came upon Dee Ambrose Stahl’s story, "Painted Christmas Dreams," that this was the "first horse" story I wanted to include in the anthology. Not only was this her first horse, but she didn’t get her first horse until later in life and it was her husband of many years who finally helped make her dream come true. This is an example of where the horse becomes much more than a horse and becomes an integral part of our lives and the lives of the people around us. I stayed on task with my goal but found that near the end, I had to seek out a few stories that were different enough from the others, leading to the inclusion of Jacqueline Winspear’s story, "It’s All in the T – or Perhaps the D" and I’m fortunate to have her contribution in this book as well.

LR: Some writers think that editing a collection is a relatively easy venture. I know it’s not. Can you break it down a little?

VD: If you’re only choosing stories and sticking them together in a book, then sure, that’s easy. I doubt it will bring much success or good reviews, so I’d advise against it. An editor’s job is time consuming. I had to make sure the stories I chose were diverse and unique enough for an entire collection, one that would keep the reader entertained and not feeling as if they’ve read the same story over and over again, 27 times.

There were some contributors who needed minimal editorial advice and some that needed more. I enjoyed the diversity of writers as well as the diversity of stories. I did have two people who refused to make any changes to their stories and subsequently, they were not included. I didn’t feel that they had gone deep enough into their story, the connection between writer-life-horse to make a story that would make enough of an impact on the reader. We can all enjoy our horses, but I was looking for the stories about the horses that helped shape us as women and the way we looked at the people and the world around us.

As you can imagine, my job as an editor is far easier working with writers who are willing to revise and edit their pieces. And, my job as an editor is to work with the writer so that they feel they’ve maintained the scope, purpose and voice of the story intact throughout the revision process, if it’s a major revision.

LR: As a physical object, how do you feel about the finished product? I notice it’s slightly smaller sized than many trade soft covers, includes photos of the writers with their horses, and makes generous use of white space.

VD: I’m very happy with the finished product. I actually like the size, somewhat unique. It also follows the same pattern as the other books in the Seal series, Woman’s Best Friend and Cat Women. Inside, the reader gets the sense that they are reading through either a diary or scrap book, the way the photos are positioned within the text and with the photo corner tabs (also on the cover). I’m very glad that photos of the writers with their horses were included!

LR: What did you enjoy the most about bringing this book to fruition?

VD: The best part was meeting (eventually I hope in person) all of the contributors from the book. I feel like I have 26 new girlfriends that I hope to keep in touch with over the years. I’m thinking about an annual or semi-annual riding trip with all of them. What a great way to stay in touch and keep up our horse riding/writing skills!

LR: Anything you hope not to go through again?

VD: There were a couple of crazy stories - one woman wrote about how she smacked her horse on a regular basis with her riding crop to get it to mind her. I really wonder what she was thinking submitting her story to this anthology? The collection is supposed to be inspirational stories about women and their horses and the only thing I was inspired to do was to call animal control.

LR: I understand you have some readings and other events lined up.

VD: Yes! A number of contributors will be reading at Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle, WA, on June 5th at 4:00 pm and then the following day, June 6th, in Portland, OR, at Powell’s Books at 7:30 pm. I’m looking forward to it.

LR: Many people who read this blog will want to know more about what kinds of books/authors you are on the lookout for as an agent.

VD: As an agent, I’m looking for something unique and well written. Unfortunately, the majority of submissions are from writers who have not taken the time to perfect their manuscript or hone their craft. I’m also looking for professionals – those who view this industry like any other profession and take it seriously and act accordingly. Also, many writers who query agents are just plain crazy or rude. We get really excited when we see quality writing and a sane person all at one time! Other than that, I’m looking for both fiction and non-fiction authors, especially books with a political, economic or social context.

LR: Do you have another book project of your own in progress?

VD: I would love to do another anthology and I’m not all that particular as to the subject matter. I enjoy working with writers, helping them deepen their stories to share their memories in a way that moves readers. I’m finishing my MA degree this year and I don’t have as much time to write what I’d like. Once I’m done with my degree, I’ll have more freedom, less time constraints to write more – something that’s not necessarily “assigned”.

Note: I am giving away a copy of Why We Ride. If you'd like to enter the random drawing, post a comment here by midnight, Sunday, June 13. Be sure there is a way for me to contact you via email to obtain your U.S. postal address.