Sept. 25, 1897: William Faulkner born.
Sunday, September 25, 2016
Saturday, September 24, 2016
Q&A with Jim Murphy
Jim Murphy is the author of more than 30 books for children, including Breakthrough!, The Crossing, and Invincible Microbe. He has worked as an editor in the publishing industry, and he lives in Maplewood, New Jersey.
Q: You were an editor before turning to writing children's
books. Why did you switch from one to the other, and how does your editing
background affect your writing?
A: I became an editor in large part because I didn't feel I
was smart enough to write books. My seven years as an editor were a great
learning experience. I saw how manuscripts arrived and had to be gently
shaped by an editor (Jim Giblin was my boss way back in 1970).
I found the process really exciting because it suggested
that even best selling writers didn't always present perfect manuscripts and,
in a way, gave me a certain level of confidence.
I also helped rewrite manuscripts (both at Clarion and as a
freelance editor after I left Clarion in 1977). This helped me sharpen my
idea of what a book should focus on and how to tell the story.
Finally, I was always asking writers to put in more
firsthand quotes and was surprised when most didn't bother. I decided that
I'd write books that let real historical figures do a great deal of talking for
themselves.
Q: Your recent book Breakthrough! focuses on the three
people who figured out how to repair a congenital heart defect called
"blue baby syndrome." How did you come up with the idea for this
book, and how did you research it?
A: I knew about Vivien Thomas from past research into
medical issues. My editor at Clarion, Dinah Stevenson, asked if I knew
anything about him and I said he had a great story (which she encouraged me to
tell).
As I dug deeper into research I decided that this was an
interesting example of how teamwork can produce what seems like a miraculous
result. Both Alfred Blalock and Helen Taussig have amazing stories as
well.
Research included lots and lots of reading of medical texts
and research papers by Blalock and others, talks with doctors and surgeons (I
wanted to know what it was really like to cut into someone's chest and operate
in the chest cavity), plus discussions with some surgeons who worked with all
three main characters.
I love doing
research, by the way. Writing is painful; research is eternal fun.
Q: You've covered various historical periods in your
work--do you have a favorite?
A: I enjoy thinking about and researching what it must
have been like to live 100, 200, 300, etc. years ago. I always come away
thinking it must have smelled really bad, but that I still might feel more at
home "way back then" then in the here and now.
Q: As someone who's written many books for kids, do you
write one at a time, or are you usually working on multiple projects?
A: I work on a number of books always -- some are in the
thinking stage, where I spend a lot of time trying to decide if there's
really enough in the subject to make me spend four or five years living with
it; some are in active research (where I ask the same question: do I
really want to do this as a book?); some are in the opening stages of writing
or a text in revision.
I often just write a book text without a contract, so this
is all a dangerous balancing act.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: Alison Blank (my wife) and I have just finished a
nonfiction book on leprosy. Yes, leprosy!
It's more about what happened to people with this disease,
how they were banished from society, often illegally, and how they built new
and productive lives for themselves.
We focused on one boy who was sent off to Kaluapapa when he
was 16 and stayed there for over 60 years, and still managed to get married and
have a good (he said this) life.
I'm also working on a novel about a girl in the Civil War (I
do fiction from time to time).
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Speaking of fiction, I will have a novel published
in January called The Revenge of the Green Banana. It's about this kid
named Jimmy Murphy who was the worst student in St. Stephen's School and hated
by the seven-feet-tall Sisters of Charity.
Yes, it's about my experience in sixth grade and how I and a
group of other outcasts try to even the score and end up learning an even more
important lesson in the long run.
It's been reviewed on the Goodreads website, according
to Alison, and the Junior Literary Guild just picked it up.
It's (hopefully) very funny but says some serious
things about child abuse (by nuns, though most is psychological in this
book -- though I really was stabbed with a ballpoint pen by Sister Anita!),
bullying by other students, peer pressure, self-confidence or the lack of it,
and first love. Wish me luck.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
Friday, September 23, 2016
Q&A with Dina Santorelli
Dina Santorelli is the author of the new thriller Baby Bailino. Her other books include Baby Grand and Daft Punk. She has written for a variety of publications, including Newsday and CNNMoney.com, and she lectures at Hofstra University's Continuing Education Department. She lives on Long Island.
Q: Your new
novel, Baby Bailino, continues the story you began in Baby Grand. Why did you
decide to focus on child abductions in both books?
A: I’ve
always been a fan of edge-of-your-seat thrillers—in books, films, television
shows. Stories that really scare you, not in a gory or grisly way, but so that
they have your complete focus and compel you to eagerly await the resolution.
I find that,
generally speaking, there are two kinds of storylines that do that for me, and they
involve either potential violence toward children or potential violence toward
women.
I find having
children or women in danger raises the stakes somehow. Perhaps it’s because
children and women are physically at a disadvantage—again, generally speaking.
The plots of
Baby Grand and Baby Bailino have both of those elements, which I find not only
scary, but also satisfying if those women and children are able to find a way
to conquer the bad guys and win in the end.
Q: How did
you come up with your characters Don Bailino and Jamie Carter?
A: I wanted
a very complex villain, someone who wasn’t one-dimensional, someone who wasn’t
entirely bad, but was certainly menacing and intimidating.
One of the
greatest compliments I get from readers is that they love Don Bailino and that
they hate themselves for it. That’s exactly what I was going for.
That how I
felt when I watched Tony Soprano in the HBO series The Sopranos. For one
episode, I’d think, This guy isn’t so bad. He’s just misunderstood. He needs a
hug. And the next episode, when Tony’s violent streak reemerged, I’d think, What
was I thinking? This guy is totally dangerous. He’s fooling us all.
As for
Jamie, I wanted a woman who was down on her luck, someone who thought she had
no control of her life and was always looking for others to guide her.
I wanted to
take that ordinary, complacent, and seemingly weak woman and place her in an
extraordinary circumstance so that she had the opportunity to show how very
strong she really was.
I’m often
asked if Jamie is based on me since she is a freelance writer. The answer is no
(I’m probably sprinkled across many characters), but making her a freelance
writer definitely gave me better access to her emotional depth since I’m very
acquainted with that life. As they say, you write what you know.
Q: Did you
know when you wrote the first novel that you'd be writing another one?
A: Not at
first. I thought Baby Grand would be a stand-alone novel. However, as I was
writing one of the final scenes, I got this sudden sense that there was more to
the story.
I could see
in my mind’s eye how things would play out, how the characters could continue,
and it was in that moment that I made a major change to the storyline and
decided to create Book 2.
Q: What kind
of research did you need to do to write these novels?
A: I’ve been
a journalist for 25 years, and research is so important to my job. However,
when it comes to writing fiction, I tend to leave the researching behind and
just write whatever comes into my head.
That is not
to say that I don’t do quick online searches for help with expressions,
locations, or descriptions, but I really don’t consider that research—not the
kind that I’m used to.
However, I
did take a road trip in May 2010 to Albany, New York, while I was writing the
last half or so of Baby Grand so I could get feel for the city. I mainly wanted
to take a tour of the Executive Mansion there, since the building is such an
important setting for the book.
I do enjoy
incorporating true-to-life details in my descriptions. Although I don’t feel
any obligation or pressure to be accurate, I do like that mix of fact and
fiction in novels—when novelists play with the facts in such a way that the
story seems real, even though it’s not. I think it keeps readers on their toes.
So there are
details about the governor’s Executive Mansion that are real, but there are
also lots of things have been imagined. Other locales, such as Taryn’s Diner
and Bailino’s log cabin, are completely imagined.
Q: What are
you working on now?
A: I am
working on the third book in the Baby Grand series. I know what you’re
wondering…Did I know there would be a Book 3 in the series when I started
writing Book 2?
Actually, no.
I had no idea. The plotline came into focus as I got to the end of Baby Bailino.
(There seems to be a trend here!) However, I really think Book 3 will be the
end of the story. Of course, I say that now…
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
Thursday, September 22, 2016
Q&A with Rachel Hall
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| Rachel Hall, photo by Pamela Frame |
Rachel Hall is the author of the new story collection Heirlooms. Her work has appeared in a variety of publications, including Bellingham Review and Crab Orchard Review. She is a professor of English at the State University of New York-Geneseo.
Q: The
stories in Heirlooms were inspired by your own family’s experiences. What did
you see as the right combination of fact and fiction as you wrote the book?
A: Heirlooms
is inspired by family stories, but I start fictionalizing as soon as I hear a
story—and then I believe my story is what really happened.
For
instance, in Heirlooms, I made Lise and Alain twins, because in real life the
characters they were based on were incredibly close. It seemed easier to
explain their closeness if they were twins.
At one
point, I was talking to my brother about our grandmother, on whom Lise is
based, and I mentioned her twin brother. My brother said, more or less, what
are you talking about?
I’m not
sure I thought in terms of fact and fiction as I wrote. I think the
fiction-writer is always embellishing and imagining, trying to understand
motivation in a way that other people (normal people?) aren’t.
For
instance, the story “La Poussette,” is based on a story my grandmother, Alice,
told me about a neighbor of theirs who refused to sell them any food. This was
during the war in France. She claimed she didn’t have any to spare, though it
was clear she had plenty.
At the
time, my grandparents were trying to farm in the Vaucluse, but they didn’t know
anything about farming, so they were pretty hungry. The neighbor woman tried to
brush them off, but when she saw my mother’s pram, she suddenly remembered some
barley she could part with, in exchange for the stroller.
In my story,
I create a character, Sylvie Beauchard, who refuses to sell or barter with the
Latours, and then I tried to understand her motivation, her selfishness and
cruelty. I guess you could say that I often take a real event and fictionalize
around it.
It seems
like a small thing, but I chose fictional names for the characters even when
they were based on real people. This gave me freedom to veer away from what
actually happened to make a more compelling story. And my allegiance was with
story always, over fact.
I should
also add, that I felt some discomfort when I made my characters (those based on
real people) act in certain ways or endure actions. The rape in “Leaving the
Occupied Zone,” for instance was very hard to write. It was necessary to the
story, but I felt sort of ruthless writing it.
Q: Before
you started the first story, did you already know you’d be writing a book, and
did you write the stories in the order in which they appear in the book?
A: When
I wrote “Saint-Malo, 1939” I thought I was simply writing a single short short story.
I tried to make it as tight as possible with the intention of entering it in
Glimmer Train’s Very Short Story Contest. (It won third place!) The story was
later published in Gettysburg Review and it got a lot of positive attention, which
was great.
I
thought I was done with the material, however. I was working on something
entirely different when I got the idea for “In the Cemeteries of Saint-Malo.”
I was on
sabbatical then from teaching, so I took a couple of days off from my other
project to write the story. When it was done, I realized I had the beginning
and ending of a linked collection.
Months
later, I wrote the title story in another happy burst while my husband and
daughter were out of town. At one point, I wrote down a number of story ideas
on index cards and then I worked on whichever caught my interest.
In other
words, I didn’t work in any organized fashion. This way of working kept the
process fun and interesting for me. I loved being able to move around in time
and character and point of view.
Q: Why
did you pick Heirlooms as the book’s title—it’s also the title of one of the
stories—and what does it signify for you?
A: Titles
are tough. Sometimes a title will leap out at me while I’m writing, and I know
it’s right. Other times, it’s a struggle. I find it’s much easier to title
other people’s work. In a writing group I was in for a while, I was known as “The
Titler,” because I was always coming up with titles for other people’s stories.
With the
short story, “Heirlooms,” the title was one that came to me easily because it’s
a story about the absence of tangible heirlooms. Around the time I was writing
this story, I visited a new friend’s house. She had lovely antiques from her
grandparents on both sides of her family.
I was
struck by her casual acceptance of these things. She appreciated her heirlooms,
but she also took for granted that these things had been passed down to her.
It made
me think of the things my family had abandoned or left behind when they moved
during the war, and then again after the war when they came to the States.
Of
course, things are minor compared with the other losses of war and immigration,
but I’ve also come to understand how a thing—a dining room set, a string of
pearls, candlesticks—brings to mind the people who used it, makes them vivid
and more knowable.
In this
way, heirlooms function as memorials and markers, which is an issue that comes
up for characters in other stories as well.
Q: Did
you know many of these family stories as you were growing up, or did you learn
more about your family history as an adult?
A: I
grew up hearing stories from my mother about her life before, during, and after
the war. When I was younger these stories were about the strict teachers she
had at lycee or about the girls who picked on her because she was often the
youngest in her class.
I was
the kind of kid who pored over the family photograph albums, and I’d ask
questions as I looked. My grandparents told me stories too, though they didn’t
live nearby until I was in my 20s. But whenever we visited them, my brother and
I would ask questions.
My grandparents
could be persuaded to retell stories, and this way I’d sometimes get a new
detail or bit of information. Sometimes this detail would change the whole
story for me. This made me wonder about what wasn’t being recounted—either
because it was forgotten or in order to protect me from some troubling incident.
As I got
older I became aware of the way that the storyteller shapes the story. For
instance, Alice often told the story of going to get my mother as her
biological mother was dying.
My
mother’s biological father, who was a medic, was away at the time, stationed at
the Maginot Line. Alice couldn’t have children of her own, and my mother needed
a mother.
I loved listening
to Alice tell this story. She would laugh with pleasure when she talked about
the way my mother, who wasn’t yet 2 years old, reached up to her from her crib
and called her Maman. “She adopted me,” Alice would say.
As a
girl, I loved the symmetry of this story, the perfect logic of it, but when I
had a daughter of my own, I came to understand how layered and complicated this
situation was.
Q: What
are you working on now?
A: I’ve
got two projects in the works. One is a collection of short stories and the
other is a novel, of which I have a few chapters completed.
Like
Heirlooms, both draw on real events—some historical and some more recent—though
I don’t have a personal connection to these events, other than the fact that I
find them intriguing.
Both
projects have involved research, too, which I love, especially archival
research. I’m a fan of libraries like most writers, but the archives are
especially wonderful. I love receiving the boxes full of materials—all that
information!
I even
like the requirement that one write with pencil when using archival materials and
the funny gloves you have to wear to prevent damaging the papers.
Q: Anything
else we should know?
A: I’ve
got a number of events scheduled for the fall. I’m thrilled to be reading from
Heirlooms in Columbia, Missouri, on Sept. 21. I will also be in Kansas
City, Missouri, where my publisher is, speaking at the National Archive on Sept.
22.
Back in
Rochester, I’ll be reading with three of my students from SUNY Geneseo at the
Rochester Fringe Festival. My students will read poetry and fiction inspired by
their families’ stories—and I’m especially looking forward to that.
My launch
party will be Sept. 27 at Swiftwater Brewery. There will be an Heirlooms
special edition beer!
In
October, I’ve got two NYC events—10/18 at the Cornelia Street Café with Diane
Simmons (the author of The Courtship of Eva Eldridge) and 10/20 at Pete’s Candy
Store.
Details
about these events and more are available on my website. I’m also on Twitter
@rach_h_writer and my email is hall@geneseo.edu. I love to hear from readers!
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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