June 30, 1920: Eleanor Ross Taylor born.
Thursday, June 30, 2016
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
Q&A with Beverley Naidoo
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| Beverley Naidoo, photo by Linda Brownlee |
Beverley Naidoo is the author of the children's book Who Is King?: Ten Magical Stories from Africa, a winner of the 2016 Children's Africana Book Awards. She has written many books for adults and for children, including Journey to Jo'burg and S is for South Africa. She grew up in South Africa and is based in the U.K.
Q: How did you come up with the idea for Who Is King?, and
how did you select the stories to include?
A: Animals feature strongly in traditional African folktales
and I grew up enjoying many such tales as a child in the 1940s/’50s. However,
in books they were often accompanied by stereotypical, offensively racialised
representations of black Africans.
In colonial literature for children, it was common for
animal characters to be humanised and attributed with a humanity that was
denied to black characters, the real people.
Indeed, one of the reasons I focused during the first 20
years of my writing career on realistic fiction was to write the kind of books
that I never had as a child.
It took Julius Lester’s fine rendering of The Tales of Uncle
Remus (beautifully illustrated by Jerry Pinkney, Dial Books & Bodley Head,
1987) for me to realise that Brer Rabbit had his roots in Africa and the same
little trickster hare tales that I had loved as a child.
I knew Lester as a powerful writer of realistic fiction
about African American experience and his Foreword to his Uncle Remus got me
thinking more deeply about the purpose of these ancient folktales.
Nevertheless, writing has its seasons and it was a while
before I returned to thinking about that little trickster hare. With The Great Tug of War and Other Stories (Frances Lincoln, 2006), I had the good fortune to
be introduced to Piet Grobler as an illustrator.
I was a Jo’burg “city girl” and Piet was a “farm boy” from
the bushveld. I loved the quirkiness and mischief in Piet’s drawings.
A few years later we collaborated on Aesop’s Fables (Frances
Lincoln, 2011), transporting them to a South African setting. From there, it
seemed a natural step to broaden the canvas to retelling tales from across the
continent of our birth, as in Who is King?.
As a young adult, in exile from apartheid South Africa, I
voraciously began reading contemporary literature by African writers... and
now, grey-haired, I’ve allowed myself the pleasure of roaming through tales
from north, west, east and south of this huge diverse continent.
How did I select the tales? Their sources are varied, with
many of them collected, by others, directly from storytellers. But apart from
wanting to reflect diversity of geography and characters, I looked for tales
that made me laugh, raise an eyebrow, sit up straight or touched my
heart.
Q: Do you see any similar themes running through the 10
different stories?
A: African folktales invite us to talk about how characters
behave. If there is any uniting theme, it is simply that humans, as well
as the animals who behave like them, are capable of being mischievous or kind,
foolish or wise, jealous or generous. Life requires that we use our wits... and
woe betide those filled with self-pride!
Q: You’ve mentioned Piet Grobler—what did he bring to the
illustration of this particular book?
A: I’ve mentioned earlier the quirkiness and mischief in
Piet’s illustrations. Underlying these qualities is a strong humanity that
reflects the wisdom in these tales.
For instance, in the tale “Unanana and One-Tusk,” a scary
rogue elephant swallows the children of a poor widow who then bravely recovers
them. Piet’s humour offsets the goriness, as disaster turns to delight. Thank
goodness.
Q: You've written for a variety of age groups. Is your
writing process different depending on your audience?
A: My writing process - and the stages through which I need
to go - varies depending on the task in hand rather more than the age group.
Creating a novel is a very different task from retelling a folktale, indeed a
much longer and more arduous journey.
It’s interesting to reflect that many traditional tales are
essentially cross-age, originally being told to adults with children probably
listening in. Whatever age I am writing for, I want to tell the story as
vividly as possible.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: Sorry to be mysterious, but it’s currently under wraps.
All I can say is that I feel a bit like the city-girl Marika in my story “The
Dare” in Out of Bounds when she is tasked with capturing flies to feed a
one-legged chameleon that the farm children have trapped. That one-legged
chameleon is depending on her and those flies are pesky.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I hope that I shall be more successful than Marika.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
Tuesday, June 28, 2016
Q&A with Michelle Latiolais
Michelle Latiolais is the author of the new work of fiction She. Her other books include the short story collection Widow and the novel A Proper Knowledge. She is an English professor and codirector of the Programs in Writing at the University of California at Irvine.
Q: How did you come up with
the structure of the book, which features one character's story alternating
with those of other characters?
A: I only know one writer who
ever worked off outlines and knew precisely how the structure of a book would
unfold, and that was John Williams of Stoner, Butcher’s Crossing and Augustus
fame. He made extensive outlines and character sketches.
But my influences are pretty
obvious here: Winesburg, Ohio, In Our Time, The Wild Palms, and I’ve talked about
this, but I was realizing the other day in answering the question of what books
I admire most in the world that Last Exit to Brooklyn continues to be a huge
influence on me. That’s a book with several sections or stories linked by
place, and certain characters, but not completely, and certainly not slavishly.
In hearing more and more
about the Orlando, Florida, shooting, Omar Mateen, I kept thinking about
“Strike” in Last Exit. Powerful, painful writing that articulates a certain
psyche, and I think might even get at the confusion of the wife, her
contradictory statements.
So, I’m perhaps far afield of
my own writing, but we hear over and over this search for a motive, or the
question of whether or not “the shooter” was mentally ill. Read some serious
fiction folks; you’ll hear the news, the real news. DeLillo’s Libra, brilliant,
even Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins. Listen to that.
Q: Did you know how the book
would end before you started writing, or did you make many changes along the
way?
A: It’s not that I made many
changes so much as I originally ended the book with “Promotion,” and that was a
kind of metafictional gesture back at the reading process, or what the book is
now, filtered through the reader’s reading, et cetera.
Too clever by half, dumb, dee
u em, as my sister would say. And Elizabeth Tallent said, hey goofball, you
can’t end the book without us knowing where she lays her head that night,
can’t, can’t, can’t, and I do everything Elizabeth tells me to do, because I’d
be a fool not to, and John Glusman also very much wanted a closing section of
She.
So, I wrote that after the
book was taken. I love that phrase, “after the book was taken,” as though it
got ravished off a Récamier chaise longue!
Q: The book takes place in
Los Angeles. How important is setting to you in your writing, and could this
have taken place somewhere other than L.A.?
A: Now Deborah, are you
really asking me that question. As my colleague Ron Carlson says to students,
“nothing happens nowhere,” and if the writing could happen anywhere, are there
sentient characters on the page? Or perhaps the writing takes “place” in a
deprivation chamber?
Of course, now, I suppose, we
have a lot of stuff happening online, or in the ether, that place, or realm, or
domain, love it, domain, technology’s feudalism!
But being serious, that is an
amazing arena of freedom for some people, and for a kind of artistic
collaboration, and I respect that, but I’d be lying if I also didn’t say that
one of the pre-eminent reasons I go to books, serious books, is to be in the
presence of a single mind thinking or creating singularly; I want to read the
emanation of a single mind at work; character matters to me; product is product
and I’m much less interested in that than I am in something that has really tussled
itself into the world. I know why product makes it into the world. So what.
Q: How was the book's title
chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: It was just always the
title. She. Some things in writing have squatter’s rights. I think it was the
poet Juan Delgado who I first heard say that, or tease someone about something
that writer was holding onto in a piece of writing. “Hey,” Juan said, “it doesn’t
have squatter’s rights.” I always loved that, but She just always had squatter’s
rights.
Plus, my late husband always
refused to introduce me as “my wife,” because he said that people then rarely
if ever asked any subsequent question. “Wife” seemed definition enough to
people, and that angered him.
So, something in my thinking
about the word “she” being both an erasure and mystery at the same time, though
this book is not autobiographical. Pronouns also just keep us closer in on the
character. At least I think they do.
Q: What are you working on
now?
A: A cherry tarte for guests
tomorrow night; I just made the pastry dough, and tossed it in the fridge. I
need to walk up to the world’s most expensive grocery store and buy some
hazelnut oil for a dressing for green beans, and I was thinking maybe I’ll just
roast the asparagus with olive oil and lemon. I don’t know. I’m thinking . . .
you can smell the burning.
If I was cool, I’d say I was
Tweeting something; I just always find people are hungry afterwards, though.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
Monday, June 27, 2016
Q&A with David R. Hardiman
David R. Hardiman is the author of the book Bailey's Remarkable Plan, which focuses on his life and his interactions with his service dog, Bailey. He is a businessman and entrepreneur, and he lives in Arlington, Texas.
Q: Why did you decide to write a book about Bailey, and what
role has she played as you face your health challenges?
A: I was working on another book when I realized, one
morning, I needed to write this book. Bailey and I had been denied the right to
be in a local shopping mall; and, even when I requested the police respond,
they were no better and stated they did not care what the ADA regulations
allowed. If I refused to leave, they were going to arrest me.
I was issued a criminal trespass ticket like a common
shoplifter. This was all because the mall did not allow “pets” which, of
course, are not the same as service dogs.
Without Bailey, I have significant difficulty in public due
to my struggles with PTSD. I have problems handling the stress of the noise,
the crowd and the interaction with people, and I become shaky and feel the need
to escape.
With Bailey, I am able to handle most situations. She alerts
me before I start to experience a panic attack, and I have time to adjust. She
makes it possible for me to have a better quality of life.
Q: What level of acceptance in society do you see for
service dogs? Has that changed at all in recent years?
A: Service dogs and their humans often face challenges in
public because people, including business owners, employees and even public
servants, do not understand or recognize the rights afforded us under federal
and state laws.
This is especially true for individuals who don’t show
obvious disabilities and for small dogs who may be more easily confused for
pets.
Bailey is beautiful and is show quality, which sometimes
causes the public to react as if she is just another pretty face. I think they
sometimes believe she could not possibly be intelligent enough to take care of
me. Others with service dogs have experienced this difficulty.
Some improvement has been made, but much more education
needs to occur. I have had occasions where people get in my face and scream
that I either don’t have a service dog or that I can't have her with me
regardless.
As more of us age or experience other issues in life, we are
finding help from these marvelous gifts from God. That is part of why this book
is so important and timely.
Q: You write in the book about various periods of your life.
Did you plan out the book’s structure before you started writing, or did you
make many changes along the way?
A: Bailey’s Remarkable Plan came together so quickly
and easily. It was like my hands just somehow knew what to write.
I made some changes as I wrote the book, and I went back
often to blend the events together; sometimes differently than first written.
After I finished, I changed the structure to make the book more appealing and
to help keep the interest higher from chapter to chapter.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I am working on two prequels to Bailey’s Remarkable
Plan that will tell the story of my first years of life and some other
scattered episodes, and another that tells the story of my grandfather and some
very interesting aspects that turned out to be important in my future life.
I also am working two science fiction books. One is about
time travel and encompasses a series of events in my own life. The other is
about another world and is based on an interesting theory that is
scientifically logical.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Bailey’s Remarkable Plan is a timely book about those of
us who have disabilities, especially when they are not obvious, and who
have service dogs that do not look like typical service dogs. The book
helps inform people about all of us with service dogs in an entertaining
fashion, while also educating and encouraging all.
My challenges in life were many, and my ability to not only
survive but to thrive is unique with the congenital condition I fought
throughout my life. This book and my life are a testament to God’s power and
the blessings he offers.
My story clearly defines by my life why it is so important
to never give up, regardless of the difficulties and barriers that can be
placed in the way of success. Taking the negatives and turning them into
momentum can change the future to a positive.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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