Archive for the ‘author interview’ Category
When I was asked by Nicole Givens Kurtz to contribute to her anthology about vampires and their slayers across the African diaspora, I was both thrilled and terrified. Thrilled in that I would get to pen a new story and be in a collection with many established and well-known writers in speculative fiction. Terrified in that I hadn’t ever written a story about vampires nor was I steeped in vampire lore. But, when you get a great writing opportunity, you always say yes!
SLAY: Stories of the Vampire Noire launches on Tuesday. SLAY includes twenty-nine stories, plus original illustrations. It’s a big book!
Here’s an overview: Few creatures in contemporary horror are as compelling as the vampire, who manages to captivate us in a simultaneous state of fear and desire. Drawing from a variety of cultural and mythological backgrounds, SLAY dares to imagine a world of horror and wonder where Black protagonists take center stage — as vampires, as hunters, as heroes. From immortal African deities to resistance fighters; matriarchal vampire broods to monster hunting fathers; coming of age stories to end of life stories, SLAY is a groundbreaking Afrocentric vampire anthology celebrating the rich cultural heritage of the African Diaspora.
SLAY has already received positive reviews from early reviewers!
I loved working on my story and digging into urban fantasy, a new genre for me. I knew that I wanted the story to center on contemporary vampires. My story “Blood Saviors” features a conflict between Fae, humans and vampires–and a virus to boot (I couldn’t help myself). It’s the first story I ever wrote where I began with a theme. I wanted that theme to resonate and I wanted the reader to feel the weight of the moral choices that confront the main character, Shonda. The story explores the question: What would someone be willing to do to save their own kind? Would they be willing to sacrifice another race to save their own?
This collection is important in a couple of different ways: SLAY will be a touchstone for readers of color who love horror and are aficionados of vampire stories but never really saw themselves reflected in mainstream narratives. It offers white readers something unique in the vampire subgenre because the anthology isn’t centered in white and/or male characters. It’s important for the genre in that until now no one has attempted to retell the vampire mythology through and about the experiences of people across the African diaspora.
Pre-order link for SLAY is here
Below is a sampler of AWESOMENESS about SLAY that includes my participation on Alicia McCalla’s Diverse Sci-Fi & Fantasy podcast. We had an outstanding time talking about my story, vampires and subverting conventional tropes in speculative fiction.
Milton Davis one of the contributors (and small press publisher in his own right) has been hosting many of SLAY’s authors on his blog for short interviews where we ‘SLAY 11 Questions’. They are fabulous. I have enjoyed reading more about the other contributors. You can check out my interview here and learn why I name Shori from Octavia Butler’s Fledgling as one of my favorite vampires.
Check out contributor John Linwood Grant’s excellent posts on ‘Black Vampire’ week on his Grey Dog Tales blog. He covers African vampires, movies with Black vampires and more.
I’d appreciate any signal boosting that you can do for this collection. Thanks in advance.
And, if you are a writer struggling with your productivity and motivation, you might like my ‘Ten Ways to Keep Connected to Your Writing Self during COVID-19’. Click here to receive it.
I’m super excited about my guest for this author Q&A and the new format. I thought I’d start moving my author Q&As to Youtube. Dr. Molly Howes was so gracious in agreeing to being the first one!
Molly is a Harvard trained psychologist and an award-winning writer. I met Molly in summer 2015 when we were both soaking up the wonders of Ghost Ranch, New Mexico during the A Room of Her Own (AROHO) residency.
Anne Lee Photography
As I say in the interview, I always felt an openhearted vibe from Molly and I’m glad we have stayed in touch over the years. When I heard about the release of her new book A Good Apology: Four Steps to Make Things Right, I knew I wanted to share her work here.
It’s a timely and powerful book that I enjoyed reading. During the interview we talk about her comprehensive approach to apologies, why it’s important to do them well, how her case studies from years as a psychologist inform the book, and how A Good Apology made its way into publication. We also talk about racial legacies and reparations and Molly’s experience as a new author. I hope you enjoy our discussion and let me know if you want more Youtube interviews!
***
Your invitation still stands, click here to get your ‘Ten Ways to Keep Connected to Your Writing Self during COVID-19’.
Claiming a Writing Life & Subverting the Western Genre: Author Interview with Paige L. Christie
Posted on: July 6, 2020
I’ve missed bringing you awesome author interviews this year, so I’m glad to share this new one with you!
Last June, I met Paige L. Christie on a panel at my first ConCarolinas. We were on a panel that I had pitched about ‘Mothers and Daughters’ and how their relationships are portrayed in speculative media. I had heard of Paige’s Legends of Arnan series and my curiosity was piqued as it was described as an epic fantasy with Western elements and feminist sensibilities. Or, as one reviewer on Amazon described it as, “a feminist Western with dragons”. The panel was fabulous and Paige and I quickly realized we had many overlapping interests. My plan was to invite her for an Author Q&A in 2019. The best laid plans…
Fast forward a year. Paige and I got reconnected through the lovely fact that we both have stories in the recently released Witches, Warriors and Wise Women anthology (by Prospective Press, same publisher as her epic fantasy series) and were on a virtual panel together promoting the book.
Paige L. Christie is author of The Legacies of Arnan fantasy series: Draigon Weather (2017), Wing Wind (2018), Long Light (2019), and the forthcoming Storm Forge (2020). As a believer in the power of words, Paige tells stories that are both entertaining and thoughtful. Especially of interest are tales that speak to women and open a space where adventure and fantasy are not all about happy endings. When she isn’t writing, she teaches belly dancing, is director of a non-profit, and runs a wine shop. She is a proud, founding member of the Blazing Lioness Writers, a small group of badass women, writing badass books.
It’s wonderful that Paige could join us to talk about her most recent novel, Long Light. I’m so delighted to welcome Paige L. Christie to The Practice of Creativity.
Tell us about your new book, Long Light? This is the third book in your series that began with Draigon Weather. What’s in store for readers?
When I finished Draigon Weather, I realized that one of the minor characters, Kilras Dorn, was much more vital to the overall story than I initially anticipated. Much to my publisher’s dismay, I announced that the series would not be 3 books but rather 4 books. Long Light is Kilras’s story, from his childhood right up to the moment that ends the second book. Basically, I wrote Book 1, Book 2, Book 3, and am now writing Book 4. Oh the tribulations of being a ‘pantser’.
-When we were on panel together, you mentioned that you came to writing late in life (although you always had a desire to write). What are the gifts of pursuing a writing career later in life? What are the challenges, if any?
I actually started writing when I was 7 years old, and majored in writing and editing for my undergraduate degree. I’ve spent my whole life writing, but somewhere along the way I convinced myself that I was incapable of writing a novel, and that even if I did manage it, no one would be interested in reading it. So I did not complete my first novel until 2015, when I was 44 years old. The gift of this was that I had almost 4 decades of secret writing practice and had developed a strong, unique voice in that time period. The challenge is carrying a lot of guilt about ‘time wasted’, which, while pointless, weighs on me. I wish I’d had faith in myself and my writing sooner. But on the other hand, Draigon Weather could not have been written any sooner in my life. It’s a mixed bag. I’m just grateful that I got my act together at last!
-You take some delight, I think in mashing up and subverting genres. Your series is an epic fantasy that has a Western feel. What does genre mean to you?
Genre tells me where to find a book in a bookstore. It also lays out some expectations for long-time readers. People who read mysteries expect certain and different things than people who read horror or modern literature or fantasy or romance. Genre is basically a set of expectations mutually agreed upon by publishers, authors, and readers. Those expectations are based in resonance and shared history – and it’s really fun to ride those things to a place the reader does not expect.
-How long on average does it take you to write a book?
I wrote the first draft of Draigon Weather in 4 months, then spent the next 18 months re-drafting and editing until it was in good enough shape to put out into the world. Wing Wind and Long Light both took about 2 years each to get into shape. The final book in the series is taking longest of all, mostly because the 2020 Pandemic has shorted-out my creative side. Overall, I can usually create a draft in 4-7 months, and then I nitpick for a year to get it where I want it.
-What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? Why?
What comes to mind for me is not a novel, but a series The Wars of Light and Shadow series by Janny Wurts. It is by far the most epic and intense thing I have ever read, and I think it gets over-looked because it is 1) a massive series written by a woman and people make ridiculous assumptions about what that means 2) uses such rich language and depth of detail that it demands a lot of the reader, and we live in a time when people want instant gratification. As a fan of intense character and world building, and a lover of complex, gorgeous use of language, the very things that freak people out are what attract me to these books. That and the fact that every time I think I know exactly what is going to happen next, I’m wrong! I simply adore these books.
– What’s your best writing tip that you’d like to share?
This is a tough question because there’s no one-size writing advice for every human. I’d say never get to a point where you think you know it all. Always remain a student of craft. Read widely, seek advice, study books you like and figure out why you like those books, then try new techniques and styles until you find what works for you. Start writing and know that as long as you keep writing, you’ll get better!
Some craft books I recommend:
- The Fire in Fiction by Donald Maass
- Techniques of the Selling Writerby Dwight V. Swain
- Steering the Craft– Ursula K. LeGuin
Paige L. Christie is a short story writer and novelist. She possesses an uncanny knowledge of myths, archetypes and mystical worlds, and is a true student of fantasy, science fiction, history. It is her deep interest in folklore, as well as intersection of Middle Eastern and North African cultures that originally piqued her interest in the exploration of the influence of different societies, which became the foundation of her novels. Find out more about her here.
Her third novel in the Legends of Arnan series, Long Light, is available everywhere online.
Your invitation still stands, click here to get your ‘Ten Ways to Keep Connected to Your Writing Self during COVID-19’.
Creative peeps, what are you doing Friday (tomorrow!), 10am-12pm EST?
I’ll be a virtual guest for the Wonderland Book Club, co-sponsored by the NC Writer’s Network. I’ll do a short reading from my sci-fi novella Reenu-You recently published by Falstaff Books. This book club is known for digging deep into craft which I’m looking forward to. The group will have questions and I’ll take yours, too. It will be interesting to discuss this story set in the 1990s about a virus that exploits racial and gender health disparities given current events. I also hope to say a few words about staying creative during a crisis and share thoughts about the writing life.
I’m so grateful to organizer Alice Osborn for suggesting a virtual meet up since Quail Ridge Books is closed.
I hope you’ll join me (whether you have read the book or not) for some of the time. I think it will be fun and nourishing for all.
The novella is available at all online booksellers.
Zoom link is available here. Two step registration process.
Writing Sci-Fi Noir and Exploring Characters’ Contradictions: Author Interview with Michael G. Williams
Posted on: December 1, 2019
My writing community and life became infinitely richer when in 2015, on the suggestion of a writer friend, I attended illogicon, a local sci-fi convention. Michael G. Williams was one of the featured panelists that year (and many years since). Michael was just being himself on those panels and he probably didn’t know he was inspiring a lot of us in the audience with his candor, humor and deep knowledge of the genre. I was also inspired by the fact that he writes across several genres. He’s kind and encouraging of new writers. He’s also a vocal and visible advocate of diversity in gaming, geekdom, and speculative fiction and media. Fast forward many years later, I feel lucky to have appeared on several panels with him.
His recent book A Fall in Autumn is one of my favorite books that I have read this year. It’s sci-fi noir and unlike anything I have read before. The world-building is amazingly complex and I really loved the voice of Valerius Bakhoum, the main character. You can read a sample chapter here.
Michael G. Williams writes wry horror, urban fantasy, and science fiction: stories of monsters, macabre humor, and subverted expectations. He is the author of three series for Falstaff Books: The Withrow Chronicles, including Perishables (2012 Laine Cunningham Award), Tooth & Nail, Deal with the Devil, Attempted Immortality, and Nobody Gets Out Alive; a new series in The Shadow Council Archives featuring one of San Francisco’s most beloved figures, SERVANT/SOVEREIGN; and the science fiction noir A Fall in Autumn. Michael also writes short stories and contributes to tabletop RPG development. Michael strives to present the humor and humanity at the heart of horror and mystery with stories of outcasts and loners finding their people.
I wanted to hear more about the influences that helped shape his writing. I’m so delighted to welcome Michael G. Williams to The Practice of Creativity.
-Tell us about your new book, A Fall in Autumn? What’s in store for readers?
A Fall in Autumn is a far-future science fiction detective story about Valerius Bakhoum, a washed-up private eye taking what he expects will be his last case. It’s got the voice of a hard-boiled detective story but the setting and characters of the more fanciful end of science fiction: human-animal hybrids, genetically modified people, and golems (which we would call androids).
It’s set far enough in the future – 12,000 years from now – that from Valerius’ perspective you and I are living in Atlantis. They know that people were alive in our time, and they know there are stories of a highly advanced society, and they know there are stories of that phase of human civilization completely wrecking the planet and destroying itself in its hubris, but Valerius and his contemporaries aren’t totally sure any of that is actually true.
At the time of the story, humanity’s technological forte is genetic manipulation and genetic engineering. In theory, the Vrashabh Empire – the dominant political entity, and the nation of which Valerius is a citizen – is a completely egalitarian society, in which all citizens are equal. In practice, the 25% of the population who are what Valerius calls “floor models,” designed from scratch or upgraded or otherwise genetically enhanced, are the ruling elite. The rest of humanity is overwhelmingly human-animal hybrids purpose-built for various roles in the economy, from manual labor to specific “white collar” jobs. There’s a very thin slice, maybe one percent of one percent, socially situated in the middle. These are Artisanal Humans, people who were made the old-fashioned way by people who are likewise unmodified. They’re considered a sort of “backup copy” of the human genome, and are supposed to live in genetic preserves where they have fewer exposures to environmental mutagens. Valerius is one of the Artisanal Humans, and so finds himself simultaneously fetishized as admirably pure and reviled as a grotesque throwback.
-What did you like to read growing up and/or as a young adult and are there any of those influences in your work?
I read boatloads of mysteries, horror, and science fiction, and those are definitely influences on what I write now!
My household had a ton of the yellow-bound Nancy Drew novels, and I really envied her lifestyle. She had her own car, an absentee parent, and a couple of friends to get into trouble with her. Who needs more than that? Dracula was one of my favorite books of childhood for the same reason: this deeply personal tale of a group of friends and lovers overcoming evil by trusting in one another and fighting bravely for one another despite the world’s refusal to believe what they’re experiencing? That seemed like exactly what I needed as a gay kid in the middle of nowhere.
I read classic sci-fi, tie-in novels for Star Trek by the wheelbarrow-load, Stephen King, and anything else I could find. But I also read a lot of classic literature, and Wuthering Heights remains one of my favorite books of all time. Given where and when I grew up, and how I grew up – specifically, being raised by evangelicals in isolation from a lot of pop culture – I wanted every book I could beg, borrow, or steal, and I read constantly.
-Much of your published work employs vivid first person narration. What draws you to use that point of view?
I love to get inside a character’s head and really unpack what makes them tick. For me, as a writer, nothing is more interesting and more motivating than the chance to sit with a character’s take on the world and learn their strengths, their weaknesses, the scars they bear from past wounds, and the secret wells of principle within them. Good characters constantly surprise us, and I want to give the perspective character the maximum opportunity to effect that surprise. With Valerius, the more of him I wrote the more complexity I find in his perspectives and attitudes. The story would not have been the same from a third-person perspective. It would have been significantly weaker.
Compelling stories are driven by characters making choices we can fully understand. That’s what drives both the horrifying inevitability of tragedy and the cathartic triumph of a hero overcoming her foes to claim victory. Learning a character inside and out is a great way to build our skills for empathy, too, and I think increasing empathy may be the only way we have to prevent the social, economic, and political downfall that destroyed our world in the fictitious history of Valerius’ future.
-While reading A Fall in Autumn one can’t help but ruminate on questions of memory, identity and personhood. Have you tackled these or similar concepts in your other work, or is this fresh territory for you?
Every single one of us struggles with the tension between how others see us and how we see ourselves. Ultimately, that’s at the root of every conflict between two people: a parent and their rebellious teen, two co-workers who both think they should be in charge, two spouses who disagree with how one or the other spent their money or their time, and so on. I think the only truly universal experience is of finding out someone else does not see us the way we see ourselves. And that’s certainly been at the heart of the greatest struggles of my personal life. I grew up gay in a remote mountain town, surrounded by people whose sets of acceptable outcomes for my life turned out to have almost no overlap with who I actually was. Who I am today is partly who I actually am and partly a reaction to others’ prejudiced demands and incorrect assumptions about me – and that’s true for everyone. I call A Fall in Autumn “queer sci fi” in part because Valerius is an explicitly queer character and in part because it’s a story about the power of identity to drive who we are, and how others see us, and the way a conscious examination of our own identity may close off certain paths for our life but it opens up other ones, new futures in which we get to be much more honest, much more authentic. That, more than anything, is the modern queer experience: that of people discovering who we are and choosing to lead lives that honor our self-revelation rather than obscure it.
My now-completed vampire series The Withrow Chronicles (which starts with Perishables) absolutely centered around those, as Withrow found himself over and over again confronting the difference between who he thought himself to be, who others thought him to be, and who he needed to become to survive that story. Throughout those books Withrow repeatedly assures us – in the course of trying to assure himself – that he’s a monster now, not a person, and that “person rules” don’t apply. Even in my urban fantasy series SERVANT/SOVEREIGN (which starts with Through the Doors of Oblivion), the heroes’ biggest personal questions are around how they are perceived by others versus how they perceive themselves, and what that says about how much they value the people and places they’re trying to save.
The same is very true of Valerius, who is constantly running into other people’s conflicting ideas of who he should be, how he should behave, and what’s “acceptable” for him. He occupies a place in society that some consider privileged and others consider reprehensible, and I really wanted to play with what it does to a person to get it from both sides like that. I think in many ways that’s very typical of the current queer experience, in which straight people watch RuPaul’s Drag Race in sports bars and right-wing politicians write dehumanizing laws intended to keep us marginalized and afraid.
-What is one area of craft that you knew you were weak in (or just OK), when you started writing that you rock now? How did you get there?
Different characters having different voices, probably. No, wait: real emotional depth in the characters’ perspectives and experiences.
No, scratch that, planning and editing.
No, wait, can I just list myself as being weak in everything? I’m not yet convinced I rock any of them. 🙂
(But seriously, I think I used to really stink at giving different characters their own voices and now I’m at least OK at it.)
– What’s your best writing tip that you’d like to share?
Don’t worry about genre. Don’t think about where the book would be shelved in a bookstore or what categories it would have on Amazon. Those are important, sure, sort of, but they’re not as important as writing a story that makes you excited to tell it. It doesn’t matter what your book is about as long as you’re enthusiastic when you try to pitch it to others. If you have an idea that you love, and you think it might blend things together too much or be too “all over the place,” guess what: readers love that. Readers want to see an explosion of big ideas. Readers want you to lean in close and give them the elevator pitch of their lives: gay werewolves in space! Gothic romance but no one realizes everyone else is a secret vampire, too! Friday Night Lights but also they’re hedge wizards! I have had people walk away from my books because they were cross-genre, yes, but I’ve had many more drawn to my books because mixing things up and blending things together leads to the exceptionally pleasant experience of novelty.
Michael G. Williams is a prolific and award-winner writer. He writes novels across multiple genres and likes to subvert and mashup genres from time to time.
Michael is also an avid podcaster, activist, reader, runner, and gaymer, and is a brother in St. Anthony Hall and Mu Beta Psi. He lives in Durham, NC, with his husband, two cats, two dogs, and more and better friends than he probably deserves.
Find out more about him here.
Reimagining the Weird and Diverse in the ‘Weird West’: Author Interview with Nicole Givens Kurtz
Posted on: July 22, 2019
Nicole Givens Kurtz is a Renaissance person. She is an author, educator and publisher. I met her, several years ago, at my first local speculative fiction convention. She was warm, encouraging and knowledgeable about the changing face of publishing. She’s been a hybrid author since 1998. At the time I didn’t know the profound impact she has had through her mentoring of other writers and being an advocate for diversifying the field of speculative fiction.
Kurtz is the published author of the futuristic thriller series, Cybil Lewis. Her short stories have appeared in over 40 anthologies and magazines of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. She is a member of The Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA). Her novels have been finalists for the EPPIEs, Dream Realm, and Fresh Voices in Science Fiction awards. Her work has appeared in Sycorax’s Daughters, and in such anthologies as Baen’s Straight Outta Tombstone and Onyx Path’s V20: Vampire the Masquerade Anthology.
She founded Mocha Memoirs Press to provide more diversity in speculative fiction. She is an advocate for better and more diverse representation in speculative fiction and is a national speaker on these issues.
Nicole loves ‘weird westerns’ and has been publishing them for some time. She’s recently gathered them together in her dazzling new collection: Sisters of the Wild Sage: A Weird Western Collection. I have not read widely in westerns or weird westerns, so I had no background in the genre when I read the collection. I immediately forgot this fact as I was pulled into the vividly described realities of Kurtz’s characters. These stories are mostly set in New Mexico around the 1900s, though some take place in the present or near future. Kurtz is a powerful storyteller, weaving in fascinating tidbits of history alongside powerful characters. These creative stories run the gamut of magical realism, horror and science fiction. I loved this collection and reviewed the work on Goodreads and Amazon.
Given that her new collection has just been published, I thought this would be a great time to catch up with Nicole. I’m so delighted to welcome Nicole Givens Kurtz to The Practice of Creativity.
Q: Tell us about your new book, Sisters of the Wild Sage? What’s in store for readers?
A: Sisters of the Wild Sage is a wild, untamed adventure into the American West that never was. It’s weird. It’s horrific. It will stick with the reader, long after they have completed the collection.
Q: This collection feels like it is reinventing the conventions and genre expectations of ‘weird westerns’ given its focus on the multifaceted lives of women of color characters, in particular. Is this accurate? What drew you to explore weird westerns?
A: The collection’s purpose is to share stories of those people who thrived and survived in the American West but didn’t get the same attention in traditional (and often inaccurate) westerns. Yes, it was intentional. I grew up watching westerns with my mother, so the genre is a part of my childhood, a part of me. My love of horror is why they’re weird. Additionally, so much of the Southwest for me, when I lived in New Mexico, felt otherworldly and foreign. That comes through in the stories in collection.
Q: How did you come to writing? Did you always want to write or did you come to writing later in life?
A: I’ve been writing since I was a young child. Even when I couldn’t write out long stories, I would alternate endings to television shows in my mind. I remember being very young, no more than 6 or 7, playing with my dolls and crafting narratives based on what mom read to me that night or what I’d seen on cartoons.
Q: You manage to pack a lot into your day! You are a writer, educator and also run a publishing press. How do these different activities fuel your creativity?
A: All three feed into my ability to communicate ideas, both fictional and non-fiction. They require me to continue to look for different solutions to issues, both in story, and in real life, that fuels my creativity. They’re really three sides of a pyramid.
Q: If you could invite three authors (living or dead) to your next dinner party, who would they be and why?
A: If I could invite three authors to my next dinner party, I would invite Zora Neale Hurston, Sue Grafton, and Octavia Butler. Each of these women were stellar icons in their respective genres, and the opportunity to sit and listen, to soak up their wisdom and advice about the writing life would be life-altering for me.
Q: What’s your best writing tip that you’d like to share?
A: My best writing tip is to read as much as you can. It serves as a foundation for building your writing career.
Educator. Author. Mom. Nicole Givens Kurtz loves reading, writing, and anime. She enjoys reading works that promote women of color and futuristic settings. She also loves a good mystery. She started Mocha Memoirs to provide more diversity in speculative fiction. She’s also a scribbler of tales. She lives in Winston-Salem with her family. Learn more about her at Other World Pulp
Tackling War, Meaning & the Big Questions in Historical Fiction: Author Interview with Miriam Herin
Posted on: March 18, 2019
Writers’ conferences provide fantastic opportunities to meet authors through other writer friends and also serendipity. Both played a recent role in how I met today’s guest, Miriam Herin. I was introduced to Miriam by Marjorie Hudson, my writing teacher and friend. Last July, we all were attending the North Carolina Writers Conference (NCWC). The NCWC is an invite and membership only, volunteer based organization that’s been around for over six decades co-founded by esteemed writer Paul Green. I was a newly admitted member.
During one of the breaks, I found myself chatting with Miriam and her husband, Tom. There was time before the next session and we were all headed to the bar for refreshments. I was about to sit on a stool by myself but Miriam and Tom waved at me and asked me to join them, which I happily did. The three of us talked as if we had known each other for a long time. I love it when I make that kind of connection. I enjoyed hearing about Miriam’s journey as a writer and her persistence and perseverance on the path. I’m grateful for the introduction; our conversation was a highlight of the conference.
Miriam Herin is an accomplished author. Miriam’s first novel Absolution won the 2007 Novello Press Literary Award and was cited by Publishers Weekly as an “impressive” debut that “skillfully combines a contemporary courtroom thriller with a subtle look back at the competing passions and pressures of the Vietnam War era.” The novel also received Independent Publisher‘s Gold Award for Best Fiction, Southeast Region, and was a Finalist for Foreword Magazine’s 2007 Novel of the Year.
Miriam is a short story writer, too, and her short story Lucky, won the 2018 Doris Betts Fiction Prize, and was recently published in the North Carolina Literary Review. To read the story: https://issuu.com/eastcarolina/docs/2019-nclr_online-final/140
Miriam’s second novel A Stone for Bread (Livingston Press, West Alabama University) was a top-ten finalist in the 2014 Faulkner-Wisdom novel competition, received a starred Kirkus Review through the Kirkus indie program, and was named a Kirkus Best Books of 2016.
About A Stone for Bread:
In 1963, North Carolina poet Henry Beam published a collection of poems supposedly saved from a Nazi slave labor camp. The authorship controversy that followed cost Henry his university teaching position and forced the poet into decades of silence. Thirty-four years after the poems’ publication, Henry breaks that silence when he begins telling grad student Rachel Singer the story of his study year in Paris, how the naïve young American became entangled with fiery right-wing politician Renard Marcotte, his love affair with the shopgirl Eugenié and his unnerving encounter with the enigmatic René, the Frenchman Henry claims gave him the poems. A Stone for Bread moves back and forth in time from 1997 North Carolina to post-World War I France, to Paris in the mid-1950’s and into the horror of the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria.
Miriam writes across historical eras and tackles big themes in her work. I couldn’t wait for her to share her wisdom with us. I’m so delighted to welcome Miriam Herin to The Practice of Creativity.
-Why did you write A Stone for Bread? What’s in store for readers?
I think a general answer to the first question would be I haven’t a clue, at least not in terms of what the novel is about. When I first started discussing the published novel at bookstores and with groups, I would say that the opening chapter seemed to have come out of nowhere. But not too long ago, I realized that wasn’t true, having recalled my own very early childhood at Fort Benning, Georgia, when our family would picnic in the woods and I would pick up bullet casings from the soldiers’ war games. The rest of the book was more rationally contrived from the notion of a lost collection of poems and a disgraced poet. I had also just finished a very long and still unpublished historical novel set in France, so I decided to use what I’d learned in my research of the country for the novel’s setting.
I think the real answer to the first question, however, is found in the answer to the second one. I hope that readers will find in the novel compelling characters with their separately revealed stories that may also shed light on our day from the vantage of epochal and horrifying 20th century events. Taped beside my desk is a very old 3 x 5 card on which is typed (probably on a long ago typewriter) my personal mantra as a writer: “If the world were clear, art would not exist.” Camus
-How did you get bitten by the writing bug?
I had wanted to write novels from the age of six, after my mother read Bambi to me. This wasn’t the Walt Disney version, but the original novel by Felix Salton which dealt with death and loss and the trials of coming of age. However, I didn’t seriously begin writing fiction until I was forty (I’d had a short story published in my college literary magazine but was too shy even to put my real name on it). My sense of myself through school and later teaching college students was that I didn’t have the ability to write fiction. So I had studied it instead, spending four years in grad school. What pushed me to try writing fiction were life-changing sessions with a therapist through which I also discovered the power of “story” to shape our lives and choices from our earliest childhood.
-What advice would you give a writer attempting a historical novel?
Characters don’t have to be actual historical figures, but they need to seem authentic to the time period and place in which the story is set. This isn’t always easy to know or visualize and may take a good bit of research to come close to that authenticity. Dialogue in fiction, for example, seldom resembles or even should resemble “real” speech (if it did, it would be deadly boring on the printed page). What’s important is for dialogue to seem realistic to the characters and setting as well as authentic to the time of the story. When setting fiction in an early time period or a place that is non-English speaking, I find simulating dialect usually works better than trying to recreate in English the actual language or its “foreignness.” This is when the old adage “less us more” can be very important.
There are two literary terms that I find helpful in this: verisimilitude: creating fictional places, people and stories similar to the actual places and people of a particular time period and anachronisms, which are to be avoided, such as vocabulary, objects, styles, etc. that would not have existed at the time a story is set. What writers need to know about a particular place and time are such things as types of houses and styles of clothing, vegetation, landscape, types of work and vocation, and something about what people’s everyday lives might have been like. We don’t have to be meticulous to the point of boring, but we do need to give a sense of authenticity to a fictional place and period.
-What’s your process like when you work on a book?
I usually write on as many weekdays as possible with my best time in the morning, although not too early. I no longer give myself a daily page quota because these days, I don’t have to force myself to stay in the chair. I then use afternoons for research when needed. For very busy people, writing two pages a day, five days a week can result in a hundred pages in ten weeks. I’m very fortunate to have a retired husband and enough income under us to do what I do. However, I haven’t forgotten the early days and the free-lance jobs that often took me away from my desk to help keep the family solvent, as well as the activities of our two children who needed chauffeuring to ball teams and music and art lessons, scout troops etc., etc.
-What is your next writing project? What are you working on now?
I started a new novel last year, one that’s quite different from anything I’ve written before, mainly because I’ve chosen to write it from experiences in my own life, which require little or no research! This is taking me imaginatively to places where I’ve traveled and into situations I’ve experienced. I don’t consider it a particularly “literary” novel, but it has certainly been a lot of fun.
-What’s your best writing tip you’d like to share?
If you let others critique your work in progress, consider the 11th thing.*
* From a filmmaker: After he previews a rough cut of a film, he listens to all the critiques, especially the negative ones. Then supposing ten different criticisms, his job is to figure out the real problem, the eleventh thing they may all be actually talking about.
Miriam Herin is an author. Her most recent work is A Stone for Bread (Livingston Press, West Alabama University) In January, 2016, the novel was featured in The North Carolina Literary Review in a joint review with award-winning novelists Robert Morgan and Terry Roberts. See the review. The novel also received a splendid review from North Carolina’s ChangeSeven Magazine. See the Review.
Her short story Lucky, winner of the 2018 Doris Betts Fiction Prize, was recently published in the North Carolina Literary Review. To read the story: https://issuu.com/eastcarolina/docs/2019-nclr_online-final/140
She lives in Greensboro, North Carolina with her husband Tom and their rescue-dog Chance. She is the mother of two adult children and the grandmother of a delightful eleven-year-old.
Visit her at http://miriamherin.com/
Happy new year, everyone! It feels especially poignant to begin the first post of the year with a special Author Q&A. More than a decade ago, before I formally began my coaching practice, I taught creativity workshops at UNC-Chapel Hill’s The Friday Center. They had a thriving adult enrichment program. My classes were popular and I met and coached people from all backgrounds. It is always a delight to run into people many years later and hear about their creative adventures.
Two months ago at the North Carolina Writers’ Conference, out the corner of my I saw a distinguished-looking woman. Her face looked familiar, but I only caught a glimpse before moving on to my next panel. To my great delight and surprise, this same woman came up to me at the reception. We immediately recognized each other. She had taken one of my classes at the Friday Center and credited me with planting a seed of creative possibility! At the time, she did not know that she even wanted to write a book. Yet, as she stood there, we both rejoiced about her newly published book, Stories from the Tenth-Floor Clinic: A Nurse Practitioner Remembers. It was a joyous moment to celebrate this accomplishment with her. When I heard about the subject matter of her book, I couldn’t wait to invite her for an interview. I also was curious (as always) about what being on this writing journey has meant to her.
Aging is a reality. Needing competent and compassionate healthcare as we age is a reality. I just turned 50 last year and I often think about what the next 30 years (or more) of my life will be like. I think about the importance of personal health and also a health care system than can work for all. My mother passed away at 56 and I often think about what kind of care she might have received as a senior citizen, if she had lived. The quality of care that our elders receive is of paramount importance. Nurse practitioners play a vital role in helping us navigate the demographic shift of aging Boomers that is already under way.
Marianna Crane became one of the first gerontological nurse practitioners in the early 1980s. A nurse for more than forty years, she has worked in hospitals, clinics, home care, and hospice settings. She writes to educate the public about what nurses really do. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Eno River Literary Journal, Examined Life Journal, Hospital Drive, Stories That Need to be Told: A Tulip Tree Anthology, and Pulse: Voices from the Heart of Medicine.
I honored to welcome Marianna Crane to The Practice of Creativity.
-Why did you write Stories from the Tenth-Floor Clinic: A Nurse Practitioner Remembers? What’s in store for readers?
I wrote the book because I had to. The patients I cared for hounded me for years until I finally told their stories. I also wanted to show the emergence of the nurse practitioner role.
The problems facing the underserved elderly are depicted. Unfortunately, the issues are not too different with the issues this population still faces today
I was the first coordinator of the Senior Clinic, which was located in a one-bedroom apartment in a Chicago housing high-rise for low-income elderly. It was novel to have a clinic for the elderly housed in a building where they lived. Each day was a total surprise. Folks walked into the clinic for a routine medical appointment or with a life-threatening illness or carrying a loaf of zucchini bread. The reader will meet these colorful characters as well as the opinionated staff that challenged me to rethink my values.
-What did you learn about yourself as a writer while you worked on the memoir?
I learned that what I wrote initially in the book was not a clear map of what I wanted to convey. I just wanted to tell this story. But what story? My memory cast my co-workers in roles that inhibited my progress. With each rewrite, I softened my harsh critique of others and uncovered some detrimental actions that I had initiated. My insight became sharper when I let the story percolate in my head rather than rushing to rewrite. Reflection and patience, albeit over seven years, finally enabled me to be truthful to what happened in the tenth-floor clinic.
-You were one of the pioneering nurse practitioners (NP) in geriatric care. Given the upcoming demographic shifts happening in the U.S. (e.g. Baby Boomer retirement) what expanded role might NPs play in helping the public to navigate this change?
Physicians tend to choose specialties that they feel are more exciting and well-paid than geriatrics. To offset the deficit of physicians that care for the elderly, NPs could step into the role of primary care provider. They are educated to see the total patient, not just physical illness. It’s important to note, however, that not one health care professional is optimal in delivering care to the elderly. An interdisciplinary care team working to address social, economic, mental, functional, and physical problems has been shown to be most helpful. The NP could coordinate this effort.
–Who would you love to know was reading your book?
Oprah Winfrey.
-What’s been the most fun or surprising thing about being a new author?
Having the license and permission to talk about nursing and the care of the elderly as a trusted narrator. Telling how the role of the NP developed and the barriers that new NPs faced 30 years ago when physicians felt threatened is especially satisfying when other nurses are in attendance and we relive our shared history.
I am humbled that in various settings when I speak about my book, the fact that I am a nurse holds weight and credibility.
-What’s your best writing tip that you’d like to share?
I am speaking of creative nonfiction, specifically the memoir.
Don’t be too sure you know what you are writing about in the beginning. Let it evolve. Trust that you have a story inside you that will declare itself. Step aside and let it unfold.
In retrospect, I see that having a preconceived notion of what I wanted to write had caused me to miss what was behind the real story—my belief about the stories from the tenth-floor clinic stemmed from what I remembered—my truth at that moment. The passage of time has a way of rearranging recollections. It was only after re-examining my place in my memoir that I uncovered what the story was really about, even if I had already lived it.
Stories from the Tenth-Floor Clinic: A Nurse Practitioner Remembers is Marianna Crane’s first book. It is published by She Writes Press. Find out more her at here.
Art at Last–Secrets to Creating In Our Later Years: Author Interview with Mariah Wheeler
Posted on: October 8, 2018
Mariah Wheeler has had the grand privilege of living, working, and playing, with artists for the last twenty-four years. She represents a life of “art at last,” having invented her own muse-inspired career later in life.
At age 58, Mariah opened the Joyful Jewel, a 300-square foot art gallery in the small, but vibrant town of Pittsboro, North Carolina where I reside. By the age of 61, Mariah had moved the Joyful Jewel to a 2,000-square-foot space, which currently sells the work of 170 local artists. The Joyful Jewel has become a destination to explore, marvel over and buy works of art.
Her deep passion for art and supporting artists has enriched the community. She believes that everyone has at least one creative gene, and that it is never too late to start developing it!
Over the past several years, Mariah has nurtured her own creative spark to write. Her new book Art at Last: It’s Never Too Late to Create has recently been published by Lystra Books. Reading Art at Last will convince you that “It’s never too late to create!” These inspiring memoirs are of thirteen artists who began their careers late in life and became successful.
I’m delighted to welcome Mariah Wheeler to The Practice of Creativity.
-Why did you write Art at Last? What’s in store for readers?
I started in my own art so late in life. I found so much joy and pleasure in something that I never expected or thought about doing before it happened to me. I wondered who else had found this amazing quest at retirement age, too. As I began to ask people, I heard inspiring stories from people with diverse backgrounds and in a variety of media. To a person, when asked, what they are doing now that they never thought they would do, they said “Be an artist.” I wanted to share the stories in hopes that members of the general population would be willing to take this challenge themselves. I don’t expect many to strive for the level of perfection or dedication as those in the book Art at Last but know, without a doubt, that focusing on creative pursuits can greatly enrich anyone’s life.
-How did this project stretch you? What did you learn about yourself as an editor while working on this collection?
I learned that writing and publishing a book is not a short-term project. I found that I was perfectly capable of working on this anyway, until it was done! It was a labor of love, yet one that surprised me in many ways. The biggest surprise was how many mistakes I could make, as even through ten or fifteen revisions, I still found things that needed to be changed! I really thought I was more careful than that – a bit of a letdown. Just getting the book in a format for publication had many challenges, from obvious things like making sure that the flow of the pages made sense, to unexpected troubles in getting the page numbers on the right edge of the page. I found that the time needed after writing the book was no longer than the time afterward in getting it ready for publication.
-Where does someone who wants to pursue an artistic path, but keeps hearing their inner critic tell them that they are “too old”, begin?
The only thing I really can say to the common problem of getting beyond the inner critic is just to do it anyway. Don’t let yourself think about what the product looks like at first, just keep doing something. Like they often say to writers, do your morning pages – these are not for publication, and the art is not for showing others or for sale – but they get you in the habit of creating. You WILL meet your Muse. When you set that critic aside, you may want to try several different media until one just grabs you and makes you pay attention to it. That’s the one to keep doing.
-In Art at Last you declare that art can change the world. What can you share with us about the transformative power of art?
One of the biggest things that art can do is bring new ways of looking at problems. This may change the world for the person creating the art, and when shared can affect the larger community. This happens even when we aren’t doing art, such as later in time, to answer problems or change the world. I have a hard time knowing how to explain it, but I think you get in touch with the Muse, the Divine, the Collective Unconscious, whatever word you use. It’s a place that is outside of everyday consciousness, and once you have gone there, it’s easier the next time to get there. Maybe it’s like a dream that tells you about something you hadn’t yet seen in your life. I think of it as insight that comes at us sideways, as Rumi says, it enters from the window rather than the door.
-What’s your next creative project? What are you working on right now?
I have been doing research on another book. I’m not sure the format, maybe historical fiction. I want to write about the poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox (who I have always thought I was related to) who lived 1850 – 1919, and had a very interesting life. She wrote “Poems of Passion” which created a bit of a stir in her time, was a New Thought pioneer, and was very very prolific. Her best known poem begins “Laugh and the world laughs with you, weep and you weep alone . . . “
– What’s your best writing tip that you’d like to share?
Similar to my suggestion for other types of creative expression, just do it! There is no time like the present. You have nothing to lose and much to gain. This is true whether you do it just for yourself or in hopes of a larger audience. You may not know what you want to do with your writing, but you can still begin.
Mariah Wheeler has had the grand privilege of living, working, and playing, with artists for the last twenty-four years. She represents a life of “art at last,” having invented her own muse-inspired career later in life.
She is the owner of the Joyful Jewel Gallery in Pittsboro, North Carolina. The Joyful Jewel is dedicated to bringing the spirit of creativity to all, artists and patrons alike. They offer “local art, fresh from the heart” in a wide variety of media, styles, and prices, each creation made with care, skill and inspiration.
Mariah, along with poet Sheridan Bushnell, conceived of the idea of inviting writers to come to the gallery and write about art. Their idea developed into the much anticipated annual ‘Vision and Voice’ event where writers are asked to read what they wrote after their visit and the corresponding artists are asked to display their objects and say a few words about the art-making process.
Find out more about Mariah by visiting her at The Joyful Jewel. Pick up her book at the Joyful Jewel.
*She would prefer folks not get her book from Amazon because it isn’t the same quality, and it is also more expensive. She is more than happy to mail a book to anyone who asks for one and can call with credit card info. or would mail a check. The book is $28.50, with tax for NC $30.42 and mailing is $2. She can be contacted via email or phone through The Joyful Jewel.
True Crime Writing Calls to This Lawyer and Investigator of 100+Year Old NC Mystery: Author Interview with Charles Oldham
Posted on: September 16, 2018
I love it when my own assumptions about how to get a book published are upended! I met Charles Oldham this spring in my Charting Your Path to Publication workshop. In that workshop, I stress that there is no one path to publication, but we can follow and replicate the strategies of accomplished writers. The most important thing is to finish and submit our work. I like to think of getting published as knocking on a series of doors as opposed to hitting a bullseye.
Understanding the nuances in publishing is akin to being very curious and being willing to knock on a wide array of doors.
As we went around the room and introduced ourselves, Charles said he had a book coming out. Of course, we were very excited. What was even more intriguing was that his story was atypical for getting a nonfiction book published and even more heartening, the path was pretty straight forward.
We were also enthralled with the subject matter of Charles’s first book, The Senator’s Son: The Shocking Disappearance, The Celebrated Trial, and The Mystery That Remains a Century Later. He’s written a true crime nonfiction book exploring a 100+ year old North Carolina unsolved mystery that resulted in of one the biggest trials in the state’s history.
For Charles, The Senator’s Son is his first published book, but it is the product of several lifelong passions.
Early on, Charles had a special interest in history and politics, most especially that of North Carolina, where his family roots go back more than two centuries. He also has a keen eye for mysteries, for searching out the details of a story that needs to be explored. It is a talent that led him to become an attorney.
Charles graduated from Davidson College, and from law school at the University of Georgia. He practiced law for many years in Sanford, North Carolina.
He now lives in Charlotte, where for ten years he had a solo legal practice focused on criminal defense and civil litigation.
I knew that as a first time author Charles would be an inspiration to many. I’m delighted that Charles Oldham joins us here on The Practice of Creativity.
Why did you write The Senator’s Son? What is in store for readers?
I first became interested in Kenneth Beasley’s story about thirty years ago. I was about thirteen years old, and I read a brief account of the case in a book that was published in the 1950s. It was only a twenty-page synopsis, and it was just enough to scratch the surface. Even as a middle-schooler, I could see there had to be more to the story, and I thought someone really needed to dig deeper, to research the history completely, and write the definitive account of what happened to Kenneth and why. That is what I have attempted to do with this book. I have definitely done the research, and while I cannot say that I have solved the mystery beyond ALL doubt, I have presented a solid theory that anyone has come up with so far.
Did you always want to write, or did it manifest later in life?
My impression is that I am like a lot of attorneys. We really want to be writers, but have a hard time making it happen. We love interesting people and stories, and think it would be wonderful to create literature based on our experiences. But then we get caught up in the workaday world of billable hours and court calendars. For a long while, I didn’t think I would ever have the time to write a book. But I really wanted to do it, and eventually I just had to make a commitment: that I would take as many weekends and holidays as was necessary to research this story and write it.
What was the most interesting tidbit that you came across while researching?
I found some fascinating details in very unexpected places. It is surprising what can be revealed in some of the most mundane government documents, many of which are now easily accessible with tools like Ancestry.com. For example, in old court records, I found lists of jurors who served on trials back in the 1870s. I compared their names with Census records, and discovered that the jurors had family connections with the defendant on trial. Even something as simple as a military draft registration card can reveal secrets you might not find otherwise: where people live, their jobs, and whom they live with.
How did you find your publisher? What did you know about publishing before submitting to Beach Glass Books?
At first, I was not familiar at all with the nuts-and-bolts of finding prospective publishers and making submissions. I knew that, since I was a completely new author, I needed to make a good impression by being prepared. That is why I completed a draft manuscript before making any submissions, which I’m sure is not essential, but may have lent me some credibility. Then I sent query letters to a list of publishers whom I knew were interested in local history, especially that of Eastern North Carolina. Fortunately, one of them was Ray McAllister of Beach Glass Books, who immediately recognized the potential in this story, and was willing to shepherd me through the process.
What are you reading now? What is on your nightstand?
Most recently, I’ve been focused on works that have broadened my knowledge of my own subject matter, which is to say North Carolina history and politics. I’ve always been a fan of Bland Simpson, with his expertise about the Tidewater region. Also, historians like Timothy Tyson and David Cecelski have added so much to our understanding of politics in the 1890s and early 1900s. At the moment, I’m enjoying Dromgoole, Twice Murdered, by E.T. Malone. It is a book which, like my own, delves into one of North Carolina’s historical mysteries to separate fact from legend.
What is the best writing tip you would like to share?
For anyone thinking of starting on the road to writing a book, I would urge them to choose a topic for which they have a sincere passion. That might sound very basic, but I don’t think it is. I suspect a lot of people underestimate the difficulty of completing a book. If you are not working on a story that you sincerely want to tell, and care about getting right, then the stumbling blocks that you inevitably encounter can turn into excuses to quit.
Blurb for The Senator’s Son: On Monday, February 13, 1905, eight-year-old Kenneth Beasley walked to the back of his school’s playground and into the melting snow of the woods beyond. The son of a North Carolina state senator was never seen again. A year and a half later, a political rival was charged in what became one of North Carolina’s biggest trials ever, receiving coverage up and down the East Coast. The eventual verdict and stunning aftermath would rip apart two families and shock a state … yet leave a mystery unsolved. Now Charles Oldham, attorney and author, has reopened the case, along the way investigating not only it but the state’s political, racial, lynching and liquor cultures. The result is an absorbing must read story.
The Senator’s Son is Charles Oldham’s first book. Charles was born and raised in Sanford, North Carolina, the son of a community college professor and a math teacher. His parents instilled in him a natural curiosity and a love for reading. Early on, Charles had a special interest in history and politics, most especially that of North Carolina, where his family roots go back more than two centuries. He also has a keen eye for mysteries, for searching out the details of a story that needs to be explored. It is a talent that led him to become an attorney.
Charles graduated from Davidson College, and from law school at the University of Georgia. Afterward he practiced law in Sanford for a time, including a term as president of the Lee County Bar Association. He now lives in Charlotte, where for ten years he had a solo legal practice focused on criminal defense and civil litigation.
In his spare time, he can be found doing just about anything outdoors, especially hiking and camping. Charles also loves spending time with his family in the summer at their favorite vacation spots, including Ocean Isle Beach and Lake Junaluska in the mountains.
You can pre-order his book beginning Sept 18. Find out more details at his publisher’s website.
The Practice of Creativity 