Nancy McCabe is the author of the new novel The Pamela Papers and the new young adult novel Vaulting Through Time. She directs the writing program at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford.
Q: What inspired you to write The Pamela Papers, and why did you choose to use the epistolary form?
A: My campus had just hired new administrators right before the pandemic, some of whom we’d never met in person. Academia already has its absurdities, but in this strange situation things became even more weird, with demands and expectations that felt outrageous and sometimes contradicted each other.
Absurdities seem to have proliferated across many industries since we were all trying to hurry to adapt to a new reality without any experience with this kind of emergency. On our campus, things got very oppressive.
I always cope with stress by turning to writing. Writing The Pamela Papers was a cathartic process—I took real-life events and exaggerated them, which kept me laughing through a difficult time.
The epistolary form and other documents seemed organic to this story—we were very isolated during that time, with most of our communication happening through e-mail and Zoom meetings, which is why I also included a Zoom transcript.
There are other forms as well, like project proposals, accreditation standards, a customer service transcript that leads to a revelation for Pamela, a word cloud, a screenplay draft. Using a variety of documents helped me to emphasize the way technology sped up the dehumanization of the workplace.
Q: As you noted, the novel is set in the academic world--are there other satirical books about academia that you particularly enjoy?
A: Many years ago, in another challenging situation during my many years in academic settings, I took refuge reading satires like Richard Russo’s Straight Man and James Hynes’s Publish and Perish: Three Tales of Tenure and Terror as well as books by David Lodge and Jane Smiley.
More recently I enjoyed Julie Schumacher’s trilogy of satires that begins with her epistolary novel Dear Committee Members, written in the form of letters of recommendation.
Q: You also have another recent book out, the young adult novel Vaulting Through Time. Why did you decide to write that book, and how did you create your character Elizabeth?
A: My Chinese-American daughter was a gymnast who went through a bit of an identity crisis in her mid-teens. Her life had been defined and shaped by gymnastics, and her decision to leave the sport was a difficult one.
During the last year she competed, I was teaching a class in time travel fiction, and while sitting on various bleachers during long meets, I started imagining a time travel story about a gymnast with an identity crisis.
What happens if she discovers there are even greater questions about her identity and has to travel backward in time to find answers? What if those travels take her to other gyms and Olympic competitions? What if she’s mistaken for someone else and has to compete in the Olympics?
While many elements of this story are entirely made up, my daughter commented that Elizabeth is a combination of her and me. She is funny and quick-witted and athletic and curious, like my daughter, with a little of my own teenage angst thrown in.
Q: As someone who writes for adults and for young adults, do you have a preference?
A: I’ve had tremendous fun writing for both audiences. The material seems to dictate what direction I should go in. I would like to write more for both audiences—and I also have a middle grade novel coming out, Fires Burning Underground, from Fitzroy/Regal House.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I always have a bunch of things in progress, in various stages, and I enjoy experimenting with different genres. I’m working on putting together a poetry collection, since I’ve published 20-some poems in the last few years and have more I’ve yet to send out.
I have an adult novel in progress, a YA novel brewing that is a sort-of sequel to Vaulting through Time, and a creative nonfiction book about the history of the town and house where I live. I’m also currently directing a play on my campus based on The Pamela Papers.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: The Pamela Papers, a comic novel about academia, and Vaulting through Time, a YA novel about time travel, may seem like they don’t have much in common.
But both are stories that are grounded in real life and complex characters, and both use speculative elements—the time travel in Vaulting through Time, and some touches of technological science fiction in The Pamela Papers.
Thank you so much for these great questions!
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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