Q&A with Kathy Curto

  

Photo by Elena Mudd

 

Kathy Curto is the editor of the new anthology What Are You Waiting For?. She also has written the book Not for Nothing. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College/The Writing Institute and Montclair State University, and she lives in the Hudson Valley.

 

Q: You wrote that this anthology about waiting was inspired by your own grief--can you say more about this?

 

A: There is no doubt that grief has a hand in this. It has a hand in a lot of what I write, even if that is not spelled out clearly or obvious in whatever I’ve tossed out onto a page in any particular moment.

 

My mother’s death was sudden. She was in my home when she suffered a massive aneurysm. I found her on the floor, close to the unconscious state she eventually slipped into and never came out of. Her heart stopped nine days later. Mine shattered. It was 1998. I was 31.

 

Working on this book, contemplating my longing for her, my waiting for her to come back, my guilt and my sometimes-fixation on living with uncertainty, has been a way to explore what to do with that shattering, with those broken pieces.

 

As well, reflecting on the writing of my first book and what surfaced after it was out in the world for a few years also inspired curiosity around waiting.

 

Several of the chapters in that book have “waiting” in the title and after sitting with that full body of work once it was published and I was speaking to groups, readers, and students about it, I had a bit of an epiphany. For all sorts of reasons, waiting was a big part of my girlhood. And it permeated my stories.

 

Two other realities reinforced my interest in this topic, too. Covid—we all waited and waited and waited, right? And, finally, motherhood. I very briefly reference Ocean Vuong’s Time Is a Mother in this anthology, mostly because the title is striking to me and distills some of the complexities that accompany mothering: longing, wanting, waiting. And then letting go.

 

Q: How did you choose the essays to include in the anthology?

 

A: This question should yield a straightforward, cut-and-dried reply but…no. I knew what I wanted and had to figure out how to get there.

 

The shortest answer is this: I chose by inviting people whose work had moved me somewhere along the way. But this was an evolving process because of what I was striving for: a multi-genre collection that offered a wide range of voices, forms, shapes and tones.

 

My hope is to see the evolving continue so that I can invite more people to the table around this topic. (I am researching how to create a digital presence so the book is the kickoff to a continued conversation about waiting.)  

 

Q: The writer Sari Botton said of the book, “What Are You Waiting For? is my platonic ideal of a literary anthology--a diverse chorus of voices, in a variety of genres, on a most relatable theme. Who among us hasn’t confronted the difficulty of waiting for what we know--or hope--is coming?” What do you think of that assessment?

 

A: When Sari sent me the blurb I recall thinking, She got it! She noticed the “variety” in the selections and, at the same time, recognized how human and routine this practice of waiting is, no matter who you are.

 

I admire Sari’s writing and the way she harnesses her talents as an editor as well as a connector of people and ideas. Plus, she has a great sense of humor! Having her in this book’s circle means a lot to me.

 

Q: What impact did it have on you to edit this anthology, and what do you hope readers take away from it?

 

A: I am still feeling the impact and will for a long time to come. Working on this, with this particular group of writers and artists, reminds me of what art, expression, and collective wondering can do, the way it can coalesce and lead to something new, something that’s never been before and will never be exactly that again.

 

I am learning more every day about the precious intimacy between writers and editors. I now think in fresh ways now about how various mediums of art can speak to each other and to the people who are kind enough to take it all in.

 

Somewhat unexpectedly, this project made me think about my work as a community organizer. (I have an MSW and have worked as a community-based social worker.) On some days, I was doing a lot of that, helping to organize a group with a common goal in mind.

 

Finally, my pull to letter-writing intensified. Much of the way I communicated with the contributors was through letters (ones attached to emails.) As of this interview, I’ve written 17 to them!

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I am working on figuring out, day by day, the best way to offer this book to others. As we know, these days, there are many ways to publish, many ways to get stories into the world.

 

I want to share this experience not only with readers but also with the contributors, as well. We have some events lined up for summer and fall (virtual and in-person) that I look forward to. I would love to see this book in classrooms and libraries, so I hope we can find some time to visit those spaces as well.

 

I also want this “waiting conversation” to continue and I’m educating myself on ways to create a digital space so more writers and artists can be read and heard.

 

My work as a writing teacher affords me the chance to meet people who have fascinating stories to share, are drawn to writing and deserve to be read and heard. I’d love for this book to be a step in a new direction, a new collective.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I was on the phone the other day with one of our contributors who is planning a book event in her community. (A very gracious move on her part, by the way.) We talked a bit about the start of this project.

 

I told her that at the seed planting stage, I knew I wanted to explore and learn more about waiting—and all the things we wait for as human beings—and I also knew I did not want to do it alone. I was hungry for connection and a wider understanding of this.

 

I was curious about how this very common, very everyday, and very routine act was understood and experienced by others. And what would happen if they were asked to make something artistic with that answer. It’s been three years and four months since the first letter I sent to them. And now we have a book.

 

It was so worth the wait.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Q&A with Catherine Marshall-Smith

  

 

 

Catherine Marshall-Smith is the author of the new novel The Resilience of Red Thread. She also has written the novel American Family. She is a former English teacher, and she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Resilience of Red Thread, and how did you create your character Emily?

 

A: It was a circuitous journey to Emily. Jake, the abuser, was based on an exterminator I called to our house to kill a rat. I originally named him Roy the Rat Catcher. He had a traumatic childhood, pockmarked by abuse and neglect.

 

I wanted him to have someone to love and so I created Emily and it turned out she had childhood trauma too. So, I wanted to know if two people with childhood trauma could love healthfully and wholesomely. I began my research and every psychotherapist and social worker said, “Nope, not gonna happen.” 

 

I grieved for my novel and the bitter world that made it impossible and then I deleted it. I like to think I wrote a stronger book, one that’s grounded in reality.

 

Every story I’ve encountered on domestic violence has a woman at the center who is pure as snow. I listened to stories of women who were not. They had substance abuse and sex addiction. One woman broke my heart when she said, “I felt I deserved the abuse because I was a sloppy drunk.”

 

I intentionally made Emily an alcoholic so people would have to see her flawed and making mistakes. I wanted them to NOT look away but still feel empathy for her.

 

Q: How was the novel’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: I was at a fundraiser for Next Door Solutions, a support organization for survivors of DV in San Jose, California. We were given a quilt tote bag that had a spool of red thread with a note tied to it that said, “It is said that we are connected by a red thread to someone who needs our help or someone who can help us.”

 

I had written several drafts of what became Resilience and I said to myself, This is my title. Resilience emerged from my own life and I wear it on my wrist now. Emily never gave up hope that she could get herself and [her daughter] Jenna free, but fear is crippling.

 

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between Emily and Jake?

 

A: Desperate and sick. Jake needed to be needed and had to keep Emily close because she allowed him to define himself as “head of household.” Emily thought he was rescuing her.

 

In the end, she doesn’t need rescuing. How she gets there is the story. The reader gets to go on the journey with her.

 

Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?

 

A: I knew she would escape but beyond that I had several different outcomes.

 

I wanted the reader to see her resolve her friction with her mother. I thought Hannah was well motivated, but Emily couldn’t see that and thought her mother was cruel and selfish. I wanted the reader to see Emily stop fighting with her mother, come to understand her, and forgive her.

 

My editor felt it muddied the ending so I cut it. I may publish it as a short story.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Thanks for asking. I am writing a novel entitled Just Bloom Blume, which is a delightful romp through embezzlement in a significant venture capital company in Silicon Valley.

 

The main character is Eden Blume, a freshly graduated philosophy major from UC Berkeley. She owes $26,000 in student debt and agrees to an interview at a prestigious venture capital company that has started successful companies like Uber and more recently, Anthropic and other AI companies.

 

She is stunned to find herself interviewing with the principal founding member of the company. She suppresses laughter during the interview because she is completely unqualified for the job and is stunned when he offers her a job with a six-figure income.

 

It would be foolish to turn it down so she takes it, only to find out she’s been hired not to see the widespread embezzlement that is rife in the company. They hired her because they felt she would be too naïve to figure it out.

 

Instead, because she’s practiced in analytical thinking, she sees the pattern quickly and since she’s steeped in ethics, she can’t look the other way. So, with no credibility, she blows the whistle to the FBI and finds powerful people are willing to commit murder to protect their ROI.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: If I live long enough, I have a fourth book mapped out and written as Elizabeth Strout did in Olive Kitteridge, a series of short stories of people who meet in a vegan restaurant at L.A.’s gay pride parade and find their lives entangled when a protester strikes one of them with a sign.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

July 21

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
July 21, 1899: Ernest Hemingway born.

Q&A with Emma Otheguy

  

 

 

Emma Otheguy is the author of the new middle grade novel Adventure in the City of Stories. It's a companion to her novel Cousins in the Time of Magic.  

 

Q: Do you think your characters Jorge, Camila, and Siggy have changed at all from the first book to this new one?

 

A: I think Camila has changed the most–she’s had some real experience with leadership and risk-taking that makes her more confident (and calm) in this adventure.

 

Q: What inspired the plot of Adventure in the City of Stories?

 

A: I knew from the beginning that the book would culminate with Gabriela Mistral visiting Pura Belpré’s library (something that really happened, although I heavily fictionalized the details), but the action plot was driven by what I thought would be fun and exciting for kids: missing artifacts, a race through the city, and a little bit of magic.

 

Q: As you noted, the novel includes historical figures—how did you research their lives, and did you learn anything especially surprising?

 

A: I read a few biographies about each of the historical figures in the book. What interested me the most was how they all interacted with one another.

 

Gabriela Mistral is a Chilean poet rarely associated with Puerto Rican librarian Pura Belpré, but they worked not far from one another (Mistral at Barnard, Belpré at New York Public Library branches in Harlem), and Mistral visited Belpré’s library at least once.

 

Arturo Schomburg, who founded the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, not only knew Pura Belpré, he also knew José Martí, the Cuban independence leader who was the subject of my first book.

 

Anne Carroll Moore, the librarian who established the Children’s Division at the New York Public Library, hired and mentored Pura Belpré, whose work in turn informed children’s librarianship around the country. They were all connected!

 

Q: In the first novel, your characters traveled to 1862 and in this novel they’re in 1930—how would you compare the two time periods?

 

A: I had a lot of fun writing about 1930 because it is much more familiar. The New York City skyline looked different than it does now, of course, but major landmarks like the Empire State Building were already being built. Simply put, the world in 1862 was much more different and required much more intensive research to write about.

 

It also helped that I was writing about New York City, where I live, for this book–it was very easy to hop over to the New York Public Library for research, and many of the places I was writing about still exist. In the previous book I also visited the landmarks in person, but it took a lot more time to travel to Virginia and Puebla, Mexico.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m working on a contemporary novel, which is an interesting change from time travel, but still for middle-grade readers. It will be a while before that book is finished and ready to share with readers!

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I’ll be sharing more upcoming events and New York City history to celebrate Adventure in the City of Stories. The best way to stay tuned is through my newsletter! 

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Emma Otheguy. 

July 20

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
July 20, 1933: Cormac McCarthy born.

Q&A with J. Chad Mitchell

  

J. Chad Mitchell is the author of the new book Change Your Game: Empowering Young Leaders to Ditch Doubt, Find Their Voice, and Impact the World. He is also a lawyer, and he lives in Richland, Washington.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Change Your Game?

 

A: Kids!  

 

For 30+ years, I’ve worked with young people as a coach, teacher, mentor, brother, father, and community leader. I saw the impact teens had on their friends. I saw youngsters welcome the new kid. I watched youth transform team culture. I saw simple conversations change the trajectory of someone’s life; young people influencing each other in ways adults can’t.

 

I realized the leadership book I wanted young people to have, and wished I had had, didn’t exist. So, I wrote it.

 

A key message of Change Your Game: Hope is power. When young people know someone believes in them, they’re capable of extraordinary things. 

 

I wrote this book because young people don’t have to wait to lead. They already have great influence with their peers. My hope is that they use it, and wield it with integrity, courage, and kindness.

 

Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: Lots of reps. I originally titled it Youth. Truth. And leadership. Eventually, based on lots of feedback, I shifted to something more descriptive and outcome-oriented. The full title reflects what I hope happens after someone explores the book: Change Your Game: Empowering Young Leaders to Ditch Doubt, Find Their Voice, and Impact the World.

 

When people hear “change your game,” they often think about sports, which certainly influenced me. But I’m talking about something much bigger than athletics. We all have patterns of thinking, habits, and ways of treating other people – our game, our vibe, our leadership. When we change, we change the direction of our lives.

 

One of the book’s central ideas is that leadership begins by leading yourself. Before we can positively influence others, we have to examine our own choices, habits, integrity, and attitudes. That’s changing your game. As we improve ourselves, we improve how we influence our friends and, ultimately, our “enemies.”  

 

The title is also intentionally hopeful. I don’t believe young people are stuck. I don’t believe mistakes define them. Every day gives us another opportunity to make a different choice, become a better listener, show more empathy, or encourage someone who needs a lift.

 

Q: How would you define leadership as it relates to young people?

 

A: Leadership is using your influence to help others.

 

Research and experience tell us that young people have enormous influence over one another. Teenagers often listen to their friends long before they’ll listen to adults. This is an underutilized resource, which creates opportunity.  

 

Young people influence others every day. The question is not whether they’re leading. It’s what direction they’re leading others and how do we make them aware of their power to influence others for good.

 

A smile. Including someone who feels left out. Encouraging someone who is dragging. 

 

The world doesn’t just need future leaders. It needs young people who recognize they’re already leading, and who choose to use that influence for good.

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?

 

A: More than anything, I hope readers close the book believing what they do matters.

 

Young people hear enough voices telling them what they can’t do. I wanted this book to be one voice reminding them what they can do.

 

I also hope they understand that leadership isn’t something you simply read about. That’s why I encourage readers to write in the book, highlight it, argue with it, answer questions, complete challenges, and do leadership.

 

Reading about leadership doesn’t make someone a leader any more than reading about Bulgarian split squats makes your legs stronger. Do the work.

 

One of my favorite stories from the book captures this perfectly. When my daughter Chloe arrived at college, she was overwhelmed and wondering if she’d made a mistake moving across the country. A young woman named Lauren recognized her, smiled, welcomed her, and invited her to sit with them for lunch.

 

Years later, I thanked Lauren for what she’d done. She didn’t even remember it. For Chloe, though, that simple act changed everything.

 

That’s what I hope readers remember. Your small act of kindness may be someone’s spark of hope.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: High school lacrosse season just finished up, so I am turning back to getting Change Your Game into the hands of as many young people and their mentors as possible.

 

I’m speaking with schools, youth organizations, coaches, educators, and parents, because I believe leadership development shouldn’t begin after graduation. It should begin while young people are discovering who they are and have great influence with their peers.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: This is a book about people and relationships.

 

It’s about helping young people discover who they are, that they matter, that their choices matter, and that they have power to make someone else’s life better. Leadership is these beliefs in action. 

 

Despite the criticism today’s young people sometimes receive, I have enormous confidence in them. I see compassion. I see courage. I see creativity. I see young people who genuinely want to make the world better.

 

I believe one encouraging teenager can influence a few. Those few can influence many more. That’s how our schools, neighborhoods, and communities become stronger. That’s how the world changes.

 

That’s why I remain incredibly hopeful.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Steve Reiner

  

 

 

Steve Reiner is the author of the new book Business Changes Fast, People Change Slow: A Leadership Guide to Accelerating Organizational Change and Building Competitive Advantage. He also has written the book Leaders Created. He has worked in the corporate world for more than 20 years. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write Business Changes Fast, People Change Slow?

 

A: After I wrote my first book, Leaders Created, I always had this thought about how critical leading change is. Over the years in business, reading, listening, and talking to people, I found that leaders talk about how important change is, but few have a process for leading it.

 

The suffering is twofold. The people being asked to change and the business. In most cases they are left to figure it out on their own which slows down adoption. That’s where the business suffers. The longer it takes for the change to be realized, the risk increases for failure.

 

Business is about survival. You don’t win in business. We all know many companies that were #1 at one time that don’t exist today. You lose in business when you shut down.

 

Implementing change has some benefits to the company. If there is no benefit someone should ask why this change is happening. It’s a competitive advantage to lead change faster.

 

You will never eliminate the gap between the rate business is changing and people change. Business has no feelings or opinions, and a new threat is always around the corner. This is all while people stand still and wonder what’s happening.

 

The goal with leading change is to shrink the gap. That’s where the Stamina Change Framework comes in. The four-part framework in the book gives leaders who don’t have a process to follow.

Q: What are some of the most common perceptions and misconceptions about change in the business world?

 

A: One of the biggest misconceptions is that people don’t like change. I call this the Leaders Excuse. Leaders blame failed change initiative on people instead of looking at their own process for leading the change.

 

People change all the time. We just do it on our own terms. Change in business is asking people to change on a different timeline and that’s the rub. Leading change is a verb requiring action. That’s where leaders need to better understand what action is needed.

 

I heard for years how important change is. At some point I said okay, I get how important it is, now what? That’s where I was looking for more from leadership, then realized it just wasn’t there. That’s why I created the Stamina Change Framework.  

Q: How did your own business experience influence your writing of this book?

 

A: From my own experience, talking with others, reading and listening to a lot on leadership, it was clear the world needed a framework. I realized leaders didn’t understand the change as well as the people they were asking to change. It’s hard to lead something you don’t understand; that’s why step 1 is Leaders Learn First.

 

People need a lot more communication than they usually receive. Many companies send an email on Friday that something is changing Monday.

 

It’s not that people don’t like change, they don’t like surprises that disrupt the way they get their job done. We need advance notice to prepare ourselves and understand why the change is happening. That’s why step 2 is Leaders Communicate.

 

Leaders should understand the change so well they can teach the class. Not just kickoff the training and leave the room but staying up front leading the training. That’s why step 3 is Leaders Host the Training.

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?

A: One of the biggest things I want readers to take away is that people need a lot more support, care, and attention to change. People do change; it just takes a lot longer than we hope.

 

That’s why step 4 is Leaders Reinforce for a Very Long Time. Leaders need to stay engaged in the change long after the initial training. Most move on way too soon and that’s why it’s called the Stamina Change Framework.

 

Leaders need to have the stamina to stick with it well after they think. People need the time and leaders need to support them along the way. This can be in terms of months or years. There is change from seven years ago we are still reinforcing.  

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Right now, I’m sharing the message and love connecting with others who are on a similar path learning about leading people and change.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Connect on LinkedIn Steve Reiner | LinkedIn to follow for more. I love getting offline and talking to people.  

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb