Q&A with Dorin Schumacher

Dorin Schumacher is the author of the memoir Gatsby’s Child: Coming of Age in East Egg. Her work has appeared in a variety of publications, including The Brooklyn Rail and At Large. 

Q: Why did you decide to write this memoir?

A: My mother was a wonderful storyteller. I grew up on her stories about Helen Gardner, her eccentric silent-movie-star mother. My mother narrated dramas such as the affairs Gardner had with men that she had her young daughter try to hide from her lesbian lover. It didn’t work. The lesbian lover “flew into violent jealous rages.”

I too love to tell true stories, especially funny ones. I had a head full of memories from my childhood that demanded to be written. I began writing, and they began grouping themselves into chapters that I would pick up, work on and then put away. This happened over several years as I built a university career. All along, I didn’t know if my work would ever be worth publishing.

I received a notice of a memoir-writing workshop at a Yale Summer Writing Conference and submitted my chapters. The leader of the workshop was Eileen Pollack, a professor in the University of Michigan MFA program and a successful writer. I was brought to tears when she and the participants in the workshop said they loved my memoir and I just had to get it published.

Q: How was the novel's title chosen, and how do you see your life relating to The Great Gatsby?

A: My father, a first-generation Jew trying to pass as Gentile, a man barely making it who wanted to pass as wealthy, moved us from New York City to Sands Point on the “Gold Coast” of Long Island. We lived for a time on the grounds of Beacon Towers castle, a Gilded Age medieval fantasy built by Alva Vanderbilt Belmont in 1918. The castle is said to have inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald to write The Great Gatsby, in which he fictionalized Sands Point as “East Egg.” My father was a Jay Gatsby type, a phony trying to impress the old-money upper-one-percenters hidden in their mansions behind thick hedges.

My mother let it all hang out. My father lied about everything. As a child, I saw what was going on around me and ultimately decided I didn’t want that life. Since I wasn’t allowed to say what I knew, I stored it up and ultimately wrote it down as Gatsby’s Child: Coming of Age in East Egg.

Q: Did you need to do additional research to write the book, or did you remember most of what you write about?

A: I remembered it all, in great detail. The sad, the ridiculous, the hilarious, the classist, and how I managed to survive.

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

A: The book is a story of survival, of how a determined young girl used her inner resources to live without love and without moral teachings to become a strong woman. I hope my readers will be inspired and encouraged as they face their own life challenges.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: My book on Helen Gardner’s film, Vanity Fair (Vitagraph, 1911), has just been accepted for publication. I wrote it in an innovative style that blends film art and literary art. It will become part of the coffee table book that I am writing about Helen Gardner’s movie career. Just as with the historic contributions of so many women, her impressive achievements are largely unrecognized. I hope to correct that.

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: My advice to aspiring memoir writers is Write it Down. Don’t worry about style. Just get it down. And keep working on it. The book will come. Write the truth from your heart. Don’t worry about what the people you write about might think. These are your memories, your stories. 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Aug. 2

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Aug. 2, 1924: James Baldwin born.

Q&A with Peter Kaldheim

Peter Kaldheim is the author of the new memoir Idiot Wind. He lives in Lindenhurst, New York.

Q: You note that this memoir originated in a long letter you wrote to a friend. At what point did you decide to write the memoir?

A: In April of 1987, after I’d hitchhiked and panhandled my way from the east coast to Portland, Oregon’s skid row, I wrote a letter to my good friend Gerry Howard, in which I sketched some of the experiences I’d had while bumming across the country. Gerry, who was (and still is) a book editor in Manhattan, wrote back and said that he’d been very moved by my letter, and he suggested expanding it into a book-length memoir.

However, I resisted following through on Gerry’s proposal for many years because I wanted to publish at least one novel before writing a memoir—at least, that’s what I told myself at the time, though I would later realize that my procrastination was mainly a result of my reluctance to revisit a time in my life that was fraught with embarrassing behavior. Fifteen years would pass before I finally began to write the first draft of Idiot Wind in 2002.

I was working as a chef at Montana State University at the time, with access to the university’s email system, and I began sending Gerry draft chapters of my memoir via email. But a year or so into that first draft, I became disheartened by my inability to develop a voice that suited the material, and I quit writing. Luckily for me, Gerry refused to give up on the project so easily, and over the course of the next dozen years he continued to nudge me to make a fresh attempt at telling my story.

Finally, in November of 2015, a few months after my two younger brothers had passed away from cancer within the space of four days in July, I began writing a completely new draft, and this time I found the voice I’d been looking for all along. To my surprise, the manuscript began to grow at a rate of a chapter per month, and by September 2016, Idiot Wind was a finished book at last.

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

A: I’ve been a fan of Bob Dylan’s music since the sixties, and “Idiot Wind,” from his 1975 album Blood on the Tracks, is one of my favorite Dylan tunes. There’s a line in the song that goes: “I woke up on the roadside, daydreamin’ ‘bout the way things sometimes are.” That line seemed to anticipate my state of mind when I hit the road in 1987 (and, in fact, my Dutch publisher is incorporating that line—in Dutch, of course—into the cover design of the edition they’re issuing in 2020.)

The other line in the song that seemed to reflect my personal story goes: “We’re idiots, babe/ It’s a wonder we can even feed ourselves.” Considering the idiotic behavior I engaged in while addicted to cocaine and alcohol, Dylan’s song title had a special resonance for me, which is why I chose to borrow it for my memoir. (BTW, Lou Reed—a fellow Long Islander—said “Idiot Wind” was a song he wished he’d written.)

Q: Jay McInerney compared the book to the writing of George Orwell, Jack Kerouac, and Frederick Exley. What do you think of those comparisons?

A: Well, of course, I’m very flattered that he put me in the company of such fine writers. Kerouac’s novel, On the Road, and Exley’s “fictionalized memoir,” A Fan’s Notes, are two books I have revered since my youth, and I certainly had them in the back of my mind as I was writing my memoir. Kerouac’s open-hearted engagement with the people he encountered on his many cross-country trips was an inspiration to me, and Exley’s endearing ability to focus on the comic aspects of his struggles with alcohol and mental illness was a quality I tried to emulate when writing Idiot Wind.

As for George Orwell’s memoir about homelessness and poverty in the 1930’s, Down and Out in Paris and London, I had never gotten around to reading it until I landed on skid row in Portland, but it was a revelation to me when I did, because it showed me how little the plight of the poor and homeless had changed in the 50 years since Orwell’s memoir was published.

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

A: That’s a good question, and I’ll answer it by quoting a great line from a Henning Mankell novel called Italian Shoes. “It’s just as easy to lose your way inside yourself as it is to get lost in the woods or in a city.” My hope is that Idiot Wind will foster a greater understanding of the “lost people” who, through bad luck or bad choices, end up sleeping in homeless shelters and eating in soup kitchens.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I’m at work on a novel, a magical-realism tale set in southwestern Montana, that tells the story of a young woman named Callie Bergen, who, in a freak accident I’ve modeled on a real-life incident, gets electrocuted by a dead grizzly bear, and subsequently begins to exhibit bear-like behavior.

It is also the story of Callie’s budding love affair with a Japanese foreign exchange student named Yoshi, who has come to Montana to do research on his American literary idol, Richard Brautigan, whose outrageous behavior during his summer sojourns at his cabin on the Yellowstone River became the stuff of local legend. The book will be called Grizzly Girl, and I’m hoping to complete the manuscript sometime in the autumn of 2020.

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: Just this: anyone who enjoys reading Idiot Wind should consider seeking out John Healy’s brilliant memoir, The Grass Arena, which details his life as a homeless alcoholic in the public parks of London in the late ‘70s. Healy’s book is available as a Penguin Modern Classic, and it deserves to be more widely read.

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Q&A with Bethany Chase

Bethany Chase is the author of the new novel One Night at the Lake. She also has written The One That Got Away and Results May Vary. She lives in New Jersey.

Q: How did you come up with the idea for One Night at the Lake, and for your characters Leah and June?

A: I had been wanting to write about best friends, and the wonderful time I’ve spent up at Seneca Lake gave me the idea to write a story with a tragedy that occurs there and which then must be revisited seven years later. Since Leah’s voice appears only in the past, I wanted her to bounce off the page with a really vibrant personality; June’s quieter personality developed somewhat as a foil to that. 

Q: You tell the story in alternating chapters, some from June's point of view and some from Leah's point of view seven years earlier. Did you write the chapters in the order in which they appear, or did you focus more on one character before turning to the other?

A: I wrote them mostly in order. My writing process tends to be 75 percent linear, 25 percent jumping around to ideas for future scenes. But I definitely switched back and forth between the characters as I went.

Q: The novel takes place at a vacation home on Seneca Lake. How important is setting to you in your writing?

A: Immensely important. I love to travel, I love architecture and natural settings, and I’m a super visual person, so I try to create as much detail in my settings as I can so that readers really feel transported to the locations I’m writing about. 

Q: What do you think the book says about friendship?

A: That generosity and forgiveness are at the core of it. Sometimes it’s easy to fall into a trap of “Well this person didn’t do this thing for me, therefore they’re a bad friend,” but unless someone is letting you down repeatedly in a really major way, it’s so self-defeating. 

Not everyone shows their love and friendship in the same ways, and measuring the people in your life against a checklist that you invented in your head—with the result that they either pass or fail your checklist—is a quick way to destroy your relationships. Assuming the best of people is generally a much more rewarding way to go.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I’m working on a love story with a bit of a metaphysical element to it.

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: I have two other books!

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Q&A with Samana Sajan

Samana Sajan is the author of the new poetry collection I Spoke with the Moon and This Is What She Told Me.

Q: Over how long a period did you write the poems in your collection?

A: In a way, I’ve been writing this book over the course of my entire life. There are poems in this collection that are bred from the antiquity of my existence. I see this work as a journey towards unearthing my own consciousness; simply returning to who I Am.

The actual compilation took me about a year to complete. It would have taken longer had I not isolated myself from the outside world for months at a time. I spent much of the process locked away in Dubai, with merely myself and the Moon as company, where many distractions were kept at bay.

There are even some pieces that carry the ideas that came to me when I first picked up a pen. Writing and self-discovery is a live process, and it grows with you every day. Though the poems have been written and inked, I am still learning them and imbibing them at every moment. 

I’d like to think that each poem has its own consciousness, and I as the poet, am writing it into its living practice constantly. If the poems themselves are living entities, then they are continuing to be written, even today.

Q: The book is divided into sections representing the phases of the moon. How did you decide on this arrangement for your poems?

A: Yes, the book is divided into four sections following the cycles of the Moon: the new moon, the waxing moon, the full moon, and the waning moon. Given that the nature of the book is growth and evolution, when the concept of the lunar cycles came to me, I knew I had to use it. I wanted that outward cycle to take root and become an inner one.

Just as the baby emerges from the womb, I see the Moon as the Mother; the new moon operates as a womb for emergence and beginnings. Granted its nature and presence in mythology, folklore, and spirituality, the subtle body as well as the physical body in human beings is greatly in sync with the lunar tides, and as a result, greatly affected. 

Just as the Moon sways the currents in the ocean, it engages with our bodies and minds in the same way, given that we are made up of 70 percent water. We mirror the cycle through our own growth; from infancy to adulthood, and ignorance to realization.

The poems begin in that incubation stage under the new moon. The waxing stage is the growth period. The full moon is the peak of existence, where you are operating in full force, experiencing in climax. 

The final stage: the waning moon, is not to be mistaken for regression, but rather a stabilization of what was unearthed and manifested under the full moon; it comes after the discovery of consciousness and becomes a period of living within it eternally. 

The poems move through this innate process, intended to align with the natural cycle of one’s own life. Taking all of this into account, I realized that the cycles of the Moon were greatly mirrored within our own selves, and I wanted to evoke this through my poems.

Q: As an actor and poet, how do the two forms coexist for you?

A: An artist tends to dabble in many art forms, regardless of their primary craft. Paint bleeds, ink bleeds, and art bleeds. As both a poet and actress, I have found that both forms have an interdependence, and I can draw from various elements within each to help strengthen the other faculty.

Already being compelled by poetry and film, my brain is mostly operating from the right lobe; meaning that I am a right brain thinker. I’m wired to think through art, so it is only natural for my thinking to filter itself through a lens of creativity. 

You will see that with many artists, they tend to engage with other art forms to some degree, it is simply their natural gravitation. So, writing and acting flow together and coexist very easily, and enhances the other’s experience, because it allows one to tap into another artistic quality and add another dimension to their art, making it multi-dimensional.

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

A: The Moon is my biggest muse when it comes to my writing. Before I even found poetry, I found the Moon. I used to contemplate and meditate a lot on her. I found her to be my biggest confidante, source of strength, and feminine power. 

I became very receptive to her energies and realized she had been the biggest witness to my life, she knew more about me than anyone or any living entity. She was the first thing, that taught me how to look within.

Her eyes have seen my pain, and her ominous light has carried me towards divinity. It was only natural for her to take form in my writing, and that is why I like to say that I write in the ink of moonlight. I found myself gazing upon her at night, and noticed the ink from my pen would flow almost uncontrollably. 

It was through those nights of intense contemplation and conversation that much of the poems in the book were born. Much of the way I think and write is rooted in those moments.

The Moon was and continues to be my biggest muse, so it seemed only fitting to have her inhabit the core of this book. I wanted the reader to know that the collection behind the title went far beyond worldly endeavors, there was a darkness and esoteric hue present. These conversations were about moving away from worldly illusion and truly opening the gateway to self-discovery in the most spiritual sense. 

I wanted the reader to understand that much of these poems would not be easy to digest, and would call for true destructive and purifying introspection. I was merely a vessel for the poetry to flow out of, and I thought “I Spoke with the Moon, And This is What She Told Me” encapsulated that essence perfectly.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: More poems! I am constantly writing, any and every time inspiration strikes. Though this book has just come out, I am already getting started on the next one. My poems are constantly evolving, and I want to share that evolution with the world.

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: For every book of mine that is sold, my publisher (Waldorf Publishing) will be donating one book to a children’s hospital. So hopefully that will be more of an incentive to get yourself a copy, you’ll be contributing to a good cause! The book is available for purchase on my publisher’s website as well as on Amazon. 

Also for those of you who have taken an interest in the book, please do leave a review! It really does go a long way. 

If you are still hungry for more poetry, do follow me on Twitter @samanasajan, as I post shorter works and contemplations on that platform regularly. 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Q&A with Doreen Rappaport

Doreen Rappaport is the author of the new children's picture book biography Wilma's Way Home: The Life of Wilma Mankiller. Her many other books include 42 Is Not Just a Number and Helen's Big World. She lives in New York City and Copake Falls, New York.

Q: One of your recent books is a picture book biography of Cherokee leader Wilma Mankiller. Why did you decide to focus on her life?

A: I think Wilma Mankiller is one of the most astounding Americans in our history. She led the Cherokee Nation with grace and intelligence and strength, even in the beginning of her presidency when other male Cherokee leaders made it difficult for her. She is the essence of what a good leader should be. 

When she and Charlie Soap, who later became her husband, went to the town of Bell to help them, she didn't IMPOSE her values, she listened to the people in the community. She found out what they thought was important, and then she helped them to get the tools to revitalize their community. It was not top-down leadership. I believe that is what all great leadership should be.

Q: How did you research the book, and did you learn anything especially surprising?

A: I researched the book reading Wilma's autobiography, lectures and interviews that she had given, videos of her on You Tube and also books about her. I visited Oklahoma and was privileged to meet with Charlie Soap, who gave me a personal look into Wilma's way of being. He also took me around to see her original home, her school, the sky, the landscape.

Q: Of all the people you've written about, are there one or two that particularly stand out?

A: I only write about people I admire, so I don't have a favorite. 

I love Frederick Douglass for his courage and intelligence. 

I love the women suffragists for their fortitude and determination. 

I love Eleanor Roosevelt, who came from a family of wealth and privilege but understood that her real job was to speak up for others who didn't have a voice. 

I love Bessie Coleman, the first woman pilot in the States for her daring and courage and skill. 

I love the teachers in the Theriesienstadt Ghetto who helped their Jewish students put out a newspaper, produce a play, and create artwork and poems and stories about their struggles to survive.  

I could go on and on and on, as I have written 67 books, covering more than 120 people.  

Q: How did you first become interested in writing about history for younger readers?

A: I taught vocal music in junior high schools for seven years and also reading in elementary schools and saw what subject matter was missing and decided to try to fill in some of the important blanks.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I don't like to talk about works-in-progress.

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: Everyone should know that THEY have stories to tell, their parents and grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles and friends have stories to tell. These stores are important parts of history, of "filling in the blanks" of this country's history and perhaps the history of countries they or their elders came from.

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Aug. 1

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Aug. 1, 1819: Herman Melville born.