In past columns I've noted that I feel fortunate to read the work of new voices, revisit older work and introduce it to new readers, as well as publish new essays from established authors. Over time, the volume of submissions I receive has grown; this tells me we are doing something right.
I also get to interview authors whose work I admire. Lauren Kessler is such a writer. She is the founder and editor of Etude, an online journal that showcases emerging voices in literary nonfiction; she directs the graduate program in literary nonfiction at the University of Oregon in Eugene, holds a Ph.D. from the University of Washington and is a graduate of Northwestern University's school of journalism.
Lauren Kessler writes biography and sociological nonfiction. Her most recent book, Dancing With Rose, which she admits was somewhat of a departure for her in terms of the book's inspiration and the process with which she gathered material (she worked as a caregiver in a residential facility for men and women with dementia), won this year's Oregon Book Award.
Success continues unabated for Kessler; Oregon Reads 2009 has selected Stubborn Twig as one of its books to read this year. Kessler's true story of three generations of a Japanese-American family spans the 20th century in Hood River, Portland and Eugene. Oregon Reads 2009 begins in January and runs through April; it involves libraries across Oregon in events and programs.
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OLR - Can you tell us a little about how you became a writer.
LK - When I was a kid, sitting under the crabapple tree on the front lawn reading My Friend Flicka, I dreamed of being a writer. I wanted to be able to make others feel the way certain writers made me feel: suspended in time and place, part of a world not my own. I kept the usual "my parents don't understand me and I have a crush on Bobby" pre-teen diaries. I wrote bad poetry and worked on short stories peopled by characters with names like Gwendolyn and Pamela. Later, I dreamed of a glamorous life in journalism. I was then under the powerful influence of the comic strip Brenda Starr, Reporter (flaming red hair, exotic boyfriend with patch over eye, intoxicating international adventures)
and the Susan St. James character in the TV series The Name of the Game (perky, witty, winsome, works for handsome powerful boss at great magazine). Journalism sounded great. I went to Medill at Northwestern where I was taught by grizzled Chicago Tribune
editors-turned-teachers who pointed out all my flaws and told me that voice had no place in nonfiction writing. It took me almost ten years to unlearn what I learned in college about what makes a story and how to write it. I am a self-taught narrative writer.
OLR - What drives your interest in certain subjects and who you want to write about; tell us something about your next project.
LK - I'm interested in just about everything. That's not exaggeration. I see stories everywhere. At any moment I have half a dozen book ideas that I'm enthused about. I am particularly interested in the small story that opens up in to the larger theme. So I might write about a particular person - a Communist spy turned FBI informant (as in my
Book Clever Girl) or a pioneering Party Girl pilot (as in my book The Happy Bottom Riding Club) - but what ultimately interests me in these stories is the price women pay for living a big life. In Dancing with Rose, my latest book, I try to get inside two hidden-away subcultures - the surprisingly vibrant world of people who have Alzheimer's and the Nickel-and-Dimed world of the women who take care of them in residential facilities. I think the narrative is compelling, but ultimately what I want people to think about is aging and how we look at disease, about the possibilities and impossibilities of human
connection, about who we are when we no longer remember who we are.
I am right now involved in a book about the rich, conflicted, contrarian relationship between mothers and daughters, the bonding and breaking of bonds, the push-pull. It's been said that the two worst times in a woman's life are when she is 13 and when her daughter is 13. My daughter is 13. I am writing out of that experience, and my daughter
is guiding me.
OLR - What do you think are the reasons for the long run of popularity of the memoir as we see it published today.
LK - I think much of what is published as memoir today is written as therapy and should remain as such. I am particularly disturbed by the proliferation of the ever-more-shocking family trauma memoirs. It is not enough to grow up with alcoholic parents. Now they have to be impossibly quirky, homeless alcoholics. They have to stuff you in a
closet for a few years. Or you have to be sexually abused by the family dog. Or vice versa. Tapping into and reporting out from personal experience to illuminate what it means to be human is a worthy undertaking. Writing about yourself because you are the most fascinating (wounded, tortured) person you know is not. I've written quite a lot about fabrication in nonfiction - particularly in memoir.
These essays are published in Etude, the online journal of literary nonfiction that I founded back in 2003. (http://etude.uoregon.edu)
OLR - Your writing process: work habits, research, editing; which parts to you like and which are the most difficult.
LK - Writing is a job. It is a creative, exciting job. But it's a job. You work it. I am a very disciplined writer. From June through January, when I am not involved in teaching writing workshops, I write - or research, organize, brainstorm, think, conceptualize, edit, revise - seven to eight hours a day, six days a week. During the five and a half months I teach workshops, I still write several days a week. I don't feel whole, I don't feel truly alive, I don't feel like me unless I am writing.
I used to think that writing itself - placing words on the screen - was the most challenging part of the process. Then, as my standards for depth and context got higher, as I began to really understand what it took to flesh out a character or bring life to a moment, I thought researching was the most challenging part of the process. Now I think
it's conceptualizing - the incredibly hard work that goes into honing ideas, moving from an area of interest to a story you can tell, the art of crafting narrative. That's the toughest. That's when I really work up a sweat. The only moment in the process that I hate is when I've finished a piece of work and have to move on, to say goodbye. People say: "Wow, it must feel great to be finished with the manuscript!" It doesn't feel great. It feels empty. It feels like you've lost all your friends, like a world you inhabited disappeared overnight. I can't wait to immerse myself in the next world, the next project.
OLR - Some favorite books/influences/authors.
LK - These days I find I am influenced more by film - or even high-quality dramatic TV series - than I am by books. It's not that I have slacked off at all in my reading. I read constantly. I read a book or two a week. But I have learned more about narrative arc and character development and scene-setting from The Godfather and Deadwood and ER
than I have, recently, from books. That said, I read widely in contemporary narrative nonfiction, and I love the work of Ted Conover, Tony Horwitz, Melissa Fay Greene, Atul Gawande. I have a deep admiration and respect for the work of the masters of the genre: Joan Didion, John McPhee, Gay Talese, Tom Wolfe. I think Norman MacLean's
A River Runs Through It is one of the most effortlessly magnificent stories I've ever read. I like Julia Glass' novels and Edna St. Vincent Millay's poetry. I love Wallace Stegner. and Raymond Chandler. I love reading about food and foodies (Jeffrey Steingarten, Alan
Richman).
Our interview stops here. Kessler has a deadline for her new book but I hope to catch up with her again soon to continue the conversation.
Please make Etude one of your regular reading stops on the web - http://etude.uoregon.edu. And best wishes for good reading and writing in the new year.
Evelyn Sharenov
Nonfiction Editor
eve_nonfiction@yahoo.com
www.redroom.com/authors/evelyn-sharenov