Mary Hannah Terzino is the author of the new story collection Secrets and Other Hobbies. She lives in Saugatuck, Michigan.
Q: Over how long a period did you write the stories in your new collection?
A: Of these 21 stories, the first one I wrote, before I knew there would be a collection, was “The Arc of the Birch.” It’s about a woman grappling with loss and change as exemplified by a beloved birch tree in her yard that her husband cuts down. I finished it in late 2017; it was published in mid-2018.
Four years later, I attended a writing residency where I printed out every story I’d written that was in final or near-final form. It dawned on me then that I’d written over two-thirds of a whole book.
Did I want that? I decided I did, that the themes of loss and attempted redemption threaded through my work could unify a collection. I wrote additional stories to cohabitate under the same book cover. The last story was completed in late 2023.
I continued to revise the entire collection before committing the book to Cornerstone Press in May 2024. That makes the answer to your question almost seven years.
Q: The author Katey Schultz said of the book, “Secrets and Other Hobbies isn't your average debut story collection; it’s a literary coup for all those who love the Midwest, and for any bookworm yearning to feel transported.” What do you think of that description?
A: I am honored by that description. I consider myself a Midwestern writer and I focus on Midwestern characters and culture – and yes, there is a culture to the middle and upper Midwest.
Partly it’s a balance of friendliness and reserve, curiosity and let-it-be, eating good food that’s not very good for you, visiting on the porch, stubborn hardiness in cold winters, adoration of the Great Lakes, and real conflicts and controversies that simmer under the surface rather than smack you in the face.
Good fiction transports the reader. I hope my fiction is good enough to do that.
Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: I didn't consciously write these stories with secrets as a unifying theme. I wanted to write about characters experiencing loss, and how difficult it can be to achieve redemption from certain kinds of loss-- the sometimes-awkward ways we try to rise above and the ways we succeed and fail.
What holds many of my characters back is their own flaws. In a number of the stories, keeping secrets becomes a barrier to redemption. Because other flaws besides secrecy affect some of my protagonists, I added "other hobbies" to the title. That pulls in hoarding, drunkenness, outsized ambition, and various juicy tendencies my characters exhibit.
Q: How did you decide on the order in which the stories would appear in the collection?
A: One organizing idea was that some of the heavier and longer stories should live next door to flash fiction pieces (fewer than 1,000 words) or stories that are more humorous in nature, like “Jack’s Eulogy” and “Blank Slate.” I hoped this would create a pleasing ebb and flow.
“Three Seasons of Judy Mitchell” is the longest story and in a way, is a culmination of the touchpoints that went before it. It also includes scenes set in the middle of the last century and in the present. It was easy to decide it should end the book.
It was also clear to me that “Bridge Club” should start it. The story opens with the sentence, “Even at six years old, I knew who the alcoholics were.” That was the first “Bridge Club” sentence I wrote. It then informed the entire story.
As I was organizing my collection, I realized this opening line reflected the knowingness, and maybe weariness, of adolescent and teen characters elsewhere in the book. That told me “Bridge Club” had to be the first story.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: My fascination with small-town Midwesterners in the mid-century years has continued. The next book centers on a weather mystery. It will tap into real events in my hometown of La Porte, Indiana: an anomaly in which the precipitation that fell on La Porte in warm months far exceeded the precipitation anywhere nearby.
In this work of fiction, I’ll tell a story of people who believed the anomaly was man-made—caused by the effect of pollution--and the people who fought them. A Climate Change tale.
Against this backdrop, I plan to create narratives of ordinary La Porteans in the 1960s and how the big rains, thunderstorms, and hail affected pivotal moments in their lives.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: It may seem odd to combine stories set in the mid-century with contemporary tales. I did it to show that we still haven’t solved the issues that disrupted Midwestern life in the 1950s and ‘60s.
I've been disturbed by the fantasy that the mid-century involved some kind of extraordinary cultural greatness that we should strive to return to.
There was a lot that was great –for example, I had a great childhood—but there was often a societal controversy or conflict bubbling under the polite Midwestern surface of our town: issues like economic class inequality; prejudice regarding sexual preferences; bias against the disabled; constraints on the role of women; and the sometimes-damaging pull of organized religion. And always, secrets!
I want to show that while the mid-century was the heyday of Jello salads and Seventeen Magazine, it was also a hard time for a lot of individuals who couldn’t flourish under its rigid cultural norms and biases. And I think those issues resonate because they still haven't been resolved today, as the contemporary stories reveal.
I’d also like to assure readers that there’s wit and humor in this book, as there often is in serious tales. I really can’t help myself! I have to lighten the load.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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