Women on Wednesday—AJ Walkley
AJ Walkley
What was the impetus or inspiration to write your stories?
While my first two novels (Choice and Queer Greer) were primarily driven by social issues that also affected me personally in some way (abortion and the LGBT+ community, respectively), my newest book – Vuto – was inspired by my experience as a health volunteer in the U.S. Peace Corps. Stationed in Malawi, Africa, one of my most vivid memories from my time there involves my witnessing a teenager give birth in the health center of my village. I was in awe of the fact that she had to go through her labor and delivery alone, as tradition warranted. I was also incredulous to find out that the husband of the girl would not see the child for two weeks after the birth; if the child passed away during that period of time, the father would never acknowledge the child whatsoever – the burden of burial would fall on the mother and the village women. I knew there was a story in those traditions and it took me about five years since returning from Malawi to flesh that story out.
What were some of the struggles that you faced in the writing process? How were you able to overcome them?
My primary struggle was assuring that my memories of Malawi and Malawian customs were accurate. While Vuto is fictional, I wanted to make my descriptions as precise as possible. One of the ways to do this was to incorporate as much of the language of the country as I could into the story, weaving Chichewa vocabulary into the prose and the conversations of the characters. This was yet another struggle – to assure my use of Chichewa was correct in each instance. I sent my manuscript to several Returned Peace Corps Volunteers to read over before publication to make sure all of the aforementioned were as they should be.
How do you see writing as an empowering experience for yourself and other women?
For me, writing is about having an outlet for my creativity that I have complete control over. It’s about being able to enter any world and be any type of person on any given day. Writing is how I travel without a plane or a plane ticket. It’s how I can experience being both an all-powerful presence and the smallest, most vulnerable creature in a matter of paragraphs. Writing is experience and, for me, experience is everything. I have always been intrigued by people and places I’ve never been, desiring the ability to live an astronomical amount of lives within my own lifetime. As a writer, I have that seemingly impossible ability. For women and others with similar desires, or for those who may feel trapped in their current realities, writing offers a similar escape and a way to explore lives one might never have the chance to otherwise.
What is the most important piece of advice you can give to aspiring female authors?
Never stop writing. Write when others say you shouldn’t or you can’t. Write when you’re happy, angry, sad, ecstatic. Write every day. I can’t tell you the number of times people have told me I won’t make it or I won’t make a living as a writer. If you hear those same critics, ignore them, pick up a pen and write some more. You are your own biggest cheerleader when the critics grow too loud – press on through, keep writing and, one day, you’ll make it.
If you had to describe yourself in three words only, what would they be?
Passionate, idealistic and driven.
If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would that be and why?
It’s so difficult for me to choose just one place – I want to go everywhere and see everything! Believe it or not, though, ever since I left Malawi, I’ve felt pulled back there. I want to revisit without being a member of the Peace Corps to view the country with a new set of eyes. I want to go back and try to find my homestay family, whom I think of daily yet have had no way of corresponding with since coming back to the U.S. I want to give back in some way to the country that influenced me just as much as my native home.
What can we look forward to seeing from you in the future? Do you have any exciting plans or projects coming up?
I always have at least three books percolating in my mind at any given time. Right now I’m considering a follow-up to Queer Greer, perhaps turning it into a series. I also have a very rough draft of a novel from National Novel Writing Month 2012 that may or may not turn into something publishable. But I’m thinking that the book I’ve been writing off and on for four years, based on the life of the incarcerated Elizabeth Burke, might be next. I’ve been corresponding with Burke since 2009 and, after hearing her story and reading her court transcripts several times over, I believe she was wrongfully convicted of killing her son. The Innocence Project of Texas is currently looking into her case and their verdict might mean that Burke becomes my fourth novel.
@AJWalkley
Women on Wednesday—Jessica Soffer
Jessica Soffer
What was the impetus or inspiration to write your story?
I wrote a story called “Pain” when I was in graduate school. It was the very staccato recounting of a woman’s life of pain from the time she was a young girl until she was an adult. The story’s protagonist was the character that became Lorca in my novel. I found her voice even in the story (which didn’t work for a whole slew of reasons) to be the most compelling I’d come across. I wanted to take her with me when I started writing something larger.
Too, I’ve always been deeply interested in loneliness, and in the measures we take to feel less alone, and to cope in the meantime. For me, that is in great part what APRICOTS is about. Finding ways out of one’s solitude, connecting, engaging, becoming all right.
How do you see writing as an empowering experience for yourself and other women?
Writing is a great expression of freedom, of the imagination, of voice. I can’t imagine anything being more empowering than finding one’s voice and letting it ring out. Think of all the things we can say, and in all the different ways, once we realize that we have the power to say them. Reading, for me, is empowering too. It engages us in a conversation about empathy, which allows us to better understand the world, others. That is immensely powerful: understanding. It’s everything.
What is the most important piece of advice you can give to aspiring female authors?
Scratch what itches. Tell the story you want to tell, you must tell. It might take a long time—to come to it, to put it into words, and then to find for it a place in the world—but everything else is a waste of time. Editing is very different from self-censure, and an important distinction. Tell the story you must.
What was the publishing process like for you? How were you able to bring your book to life?
I wrote a short short that was published by Granta (http://www.granta.com/New-Writing/Beginning-End) just after I graduated from graduate school. By some stroke of luck, it got enough attention so that when I was ready to send out a manuscript, I already had contacts. Which didn’t mean it was easy. It just meant it was easier. My name carried the tiniest bit of weight. I did a whole bunch of revising with my agent, and then even more with my editor. I did a lot of revising, compared to some other writers I know. But what do I know? My manuscript was once a mess, aimless. I’m lucky to have found people who believed in it: sometimes more than I did. Usually more than I did.
If you had to describe yourself in three words only, what would they be?
Porous. Nostalgic. Mindful.
If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would that be and why?
Cuba. I’m nostalgic by nature, and Cuba is such a perfect illustration of that particular emotion. Of all the places: maybe the most so.
Tell us about Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots.
It’s about a young girl, a pain addict, who is looking for friendship, the key to her mother’s happiness and a recipe. And an old woman, an 85-year-old Iraqi Jewish widow who is looking for friendship too, and the daughter she gave up for adoption fifty years before and the key to her own happiness. They find each other. It is as much about sadness as it is about what happiness after sadness. Sadness and then.
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Women on Wednesday—Niki Tulk
Niki Tulk
1. How and when did you decide to become a writer?
I think that writing is something that chooses you, in a way. I cannot remember a time when I was not writing, storytelling, drawing and even singing my stories before I could form words with a pen … then the thrill of constructing sentences, filling pages in secret notebooks with tales of high fantasy, novellas about magical cats descending from mysterious planets to empower girls to take up their destinies, running away to lonely islands and surviving … I have always written. Writing saved me, in a way. I was severely bullied through much of school, and I could transform it all and be empowered by narrative. There were times I story-told my way out of being hurt, too … my insurance for a while was telling customized tales under a tree in exchange for protection, or the distraction of my tormentors! My friends and mentors breathed amid the pages of my books, so writing was a way to meet them, spend time in their world that was so much kinder and more stimulating than my own.
2. What is the most important piece of advice you can give to aspiring female authors?
Read. Read across all genres, picture books, poetry, nonfiction. Listen. Eavesdrop on friends, relatives. Look. Form a keen eye for gesture, faces, compositional arrangements in the landscapes around you. Write as often as you can (public transport is great!) and don’t show anyone else until you are sure you feel solid in your voice. I think that as women we are conditioned extremely thoroughly to adjust to what we perceive others want/expect from us, and our writing is a tender sacred thing that needs to “sound its barbaric yawp” without fear nor favor. So care for your “voice” and let it grow strong before subjecting it to the scrutiny of others.
Once we feel strong, then of course share. Expect to rewrite twice as much as you write, and cull your work frequently. A friend who taught me to sew advised me from the start that I would unpick twice as much as I sewed. She was right, and I think you can apply that to writing!
Support your sisters, keep a generous spirit to yourself and all others — learn from them (especially the old and wise ones). Don’t write to get published, write to create the most truthful, incredible art you can make. Stay true, break all the rules and then stick by them too, just to see where that takes you. Be open-minded and open-hearted, and find at least two others who share your passion for words.
And have fun!!
3. What approach did you use in publishing your book—self, traditional, etc.?
I had an agent, and was on the path well and truly to traditional publishing. Then, during my Masters in Children’s Literature at the University of Georgia, I found out a lot more about the corporatization of publishing, and it concerned my deeply. Now, studying my MFA in New York City, I am surrounded my industry folk and wannabe best-selling authors. I feel keenly that there needs to be a professional, grassroots small press movement to return storytelling to the community. And thankfully there is a burgeoning of such presses.Writing should be disseminated and sold, of course, but I don’t believe it should become commodified, if that makes sense. I am a keen advocate for the rights and celebration of independent artists and publishers, and resent the fact that now marketing departments have the final say over who gets contracts, not editors.
My husband and I founded Australia’s first (and only, to my knowledge) nonprofit indie record label about 7 years ago. We are both in love with reading and writing, and when I had been with my agent for a while, and one very large mainstream house kept my book for a year, arguing over whether it should be literary fiction, YA or women’s fiction and finally gave it back to my agent with a “we love it, but could not figure out how to sell it,” then we looked at each other and he said to me, “if we can do it with music, we can do it with books. Let’s start a press.” And we have. We are incredibly excited too, about using this platform to support more authors, but that is probably for another interview!
4. What is your involvement in pre and post promotion of your work?
Community is everything, and the best art comes from that place, we believe, so I ran a kickstarter campaign. The challenge was: If I prepared the project’s pitch well, allowing people to download samples and hear the journey and political context through a short video, would we get enough people on board to publish? It was scary, because I found it hard to believe that folks outside my immediate circle would be interested, but I really wanted to see if it were possible to find a core audience first, and then publish for them, rather than publishing the work and then finding a market.”
Miraculously, we burst through the funding goal. I was ecstatic, because I knew that a huge reason why people funded this project was to support the idea of independent artists and author self-empowerment. In other words, this campaign was a much larger concern than just my book; which is what I wanted it to be. I hoped people would begin to think critically about the process by which work is brought to them, or kept from them, to ask questions and to celebrate the range of places from which new voices emerge. I was also adamant that the work represented the highest level of writing, editing, and design.This was to be independent publishing, not the work of a Vanity Press, with all its attendant (and sometimes rightly earned) stigma.
I had a wonderful time organizing the official launch in Athens, GA, at the best indie bookstore in the South East (Avid Bookshop) and we celebrated the novel with a full house and free donuts (hmm, a connection there I suspect!). I am now in the throes of setting up some more readings up this way, where I am now based, to coincide with the official release in June.
The amazing thing, is that supporters in Australia are organizing “reading gatherings” of “Shadows & Wings” too—reading aloud the work and encouraging others to purchase the book. I am thrilled at this—the idea of people around the world gathering to read and enjoy home-cooked art, and sharing it with others outside their spheres … that is mind-blowing to me.
I feel as if I am a part of a shift in our world, that is about reclaiming what is ours—our stories, dreams, and the ways we choose to share these with each other. I feel it is an exciting time to be in writing and publishing, and can’t wait to see what exciting manifestations of “the book biz” will continue to appear.
5. If you had to describe yourself in three words only, what would they be?
Passionate. Determined. Dreamer.
6. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would that be and why?
Can I have an endless round the world ticket, and say ‘everywhere’? No? Okay! I would have to agonize between two places—traveling around the byways of Ireland in a gypsy caravan, and trekking through the Himalayas. I have a deep love of being with quiet with wilderness around me. It reminds me again of my own insignificance—I mean that, too, in a positive sense—in the face of the planet on which we walk. It renews me with joy, and I become aware of the beauty, danger and risk that is living; urban life can feel so disconnected from the basic things like growing food, depending on seasons, needing each other … being away from that, amongst mythic places, makes me feel lost in a far greater story than just my own. It’s liberating.
7. Tell us about your latest book.
Shadows & Wings was born many years ago, from a conversation I overheard as a child, between an aging German soldier (and relative) and my parents: But we did not know. How could we know? I was an ordinary soldier. Years later, having become obsessed—both as teacher and writer—with the rise and profound effects of fascism on Germany in the 20th century, and what it means for us today, I had to try to answer that question. I had to unpack the silences in my own family, and map what was compelling me to write.
Shadows & Wings, although about a young man coming of age as a cellist and artist in another time and place, is very much about myself; and about many people – all of us who feel like exiles, who feel that somewhere along the line we have listened and obeyed a voice that is not that of our own hearts, and we seek freedom and peace from what we have done.
Shadows & Wings is a novel of cyclic journeys between hemispheres, the connections between ourselves and those we can never know, and the haunting power of art, love and dreams.
The story revolves around Tomas, a cellist and dreamer, who denies the devastating changes happening in 1930’s Germany—until he is drafted into Hitler’s Wehrmacht. Many years later, having emigrated to Australia, he raises his granddaughter Lara to love music and birds. He also chooses to hide from her a terrible secret.
When her beloved Opa dies, 22 year-old Lara receives a shadow box of mysterious ornaments that force her to confront his past. Seeking to understand his years of silence, and to find a way through her own grief, she travels to Germany—the objects her only guide.
Women on Wednesday—Alissa Johnson
Alissa Johnson
1. What was the impetus or inspiration to write your story?
I tried very hard not to write my story. In 2008, I started graduate school at the University of Western Connecticut MFA program. I was determined to become a witty travel writer—a David Sedaris meets Barbara Kingsolver out on the open road, if such a thing is possible! I swore I would never write about relationships or marriage.
Yet every time I sat down to write, my marriage—and my disillusionment and unhappiness—crept in. For my very first assignment I tried to write about a trip my husband and I took to Mexico. I wrote 30 pages to arrive at the 15 I turned in, and the piece was a mess. Luckily, my mentor, author Mark Sundeen, took the time to read carefully and discern that it was not really an essay about a trip to Mexico. It was an essay about a 30-year-old woman trying to figure out if she could reconnect to her husband and the life they’d built together over the previous 10 years.
She could not. I could not. Over the next two years, I found myself writing a memoir about my divorce as every aspect of my life unraveled. Time and again, I tried to write something else, but I was always drawn back to my own story. I learned that sometimes we have a specific story that needs to be told and there can be great power in heeding that. I know now that writing that story helped me save my own life and create a new one better aligned with my true dreams and values.
2. What were some of the struggles that you faced in the writing process? How were you able to overcome them?
Most of my struggles were emotional. I wrote as a way to find answers in my own life, often tackling questions and issues I hadn’t admitted out loud to myself or to my husband. This made writing an extremely emotional process layered with intense guilt—my ex-husband was not an evil man; I was the one hurting him by asking for a divorce. I was also writing about things still ongoing in my own life. I didn’t know how things were going to turn out, much less how to end chapters. Some chapters had to sit for months before I could give them a proper resolution. I also worried a great deal about writing a story that not only exposed my secrets and flaws, but also exposed my ex-husband and my family.
Three things helped me get through the process. First, I learned to focus only on the writing before me. I could worry about sharing it (and hence, the reactions of others) after I had a manuscript to show for my efforts. Secondly, I found a lot of freedom in the Artist’s Way, a book by Natalie Cameron that taught me to foster my own creativity and introduced me to morning pages—essentially, three pages of handwritten brain dumping to get ride of mental clutter and closer to my own truth. I learned to let the act of writing be a safe and creative space in my life and not something to fear.
I also had tremendous mentors who didn’t judge me. They provided a fair sounding board for my writing, and also cared about my well-being. They taught me that it was okay to let a story rest while I lived my life—that just like my life had it’s own timing and rhythm, the life of a story did, too.
3. Is there a place, routine, or ritual that you have when writing? Is there an environment that allows you to be the most creative?
For creative writing, I write best in the early morning hours. I like to wake up, let the dog out, get a cup of coffee and climb back into bed to start with morning pages. It’s best when it’s still dark out and I’m writing only by the glow of a bedside lamp. It creates the sensation that I’m in a safe cocoon, and it’s a signal to my inner censor that this draft doesn’t have to be good. It just needs to uncover the story. (I should add that I write all rough drafts by hand for the same reasons!)
Now that I’m in a new relationship, it doesn’t always work to take over the bed for writing. I’ve trained myself to write during the light of day now, in 90-minute increments (with the timer actually going). That’s long enough to get something done but short enough that it doesn’t feel like an overwhelming amount of time. I’ve also had great success writing first drafts on airplanes or waiting for airplanes—there’s no place to go and nothing else to do.
4. If you had to describe yourself in three words only, what would they be?
Determined. Adventurous. Homebody.
(I like to think the latter two can coexist).
5. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would that be and why?
Rock climbing in Thailand. I moved from Minneapolis to Colorado after my divorce, and I now live 9,000 feet above sea level. I crave tropical forests and humidity! Not long after moving here, I met my boyfriend of two-plus years and he introduced me to rock climbing. It’s a physically and mentally demanding sport that in many ways parallels the writing process—you make progress by taking small steps and learning that you can move forward even when you’re afraid. That’s a life lesson I always need to be reminded of, and I would love to explore it in Thailand.
6. What can we look forward to seeing from you in the future? Do you have any exciting plans or projects coming up?
I’ve begun my first novel about a young girl in Northern Minnesota—the place of my roots—coming to terms with a newly created wolf hunt. I’ll admit, I love fiction after pouring my heart and soul into a memoir! I’m also launching a new business as a writing coach, and as part of that, a website called WritingStrides (www.writingstrides.com) dedicated to helping writers navigate the writing process. Not just the nuts and bolts of writing, but the emotional hurdles that come with it.
Women on Wednesday—Vicki Addesso
Vicki Addesso
1. At what age did you begin writing? Is writing your sole career or do you have other jobs in addition to being an author?
I began writing when I began reading. I love reading. I remember being very young, and watching my father sit at the kitchen table reading the newspaper. I saw all the marks - which were letters - but did not know what they were yet. I felt like my father knew the secret to a wonderful mystery - I couldn’t wait until I learned that secret also. Learning to read was amazing!
When I opened a book, I was in another world. It did not matter what the book was about, but knowing what letters were and that they made words and words told stories - that was so exciting for me. So, it was a natural transition from being a reader to becoming a writer. Of course, as a child I wrote stories that imitated what I was reading. In my early teens, I began to keep a journal - not so much a diary, more like a depository of emotions and questions and ideas. Im my journal, I did toy with writing fiction, jotting down the beginnings of stories I hoped to one day write.
But my writing remained personal, and secret, for a very long time. I was too inhibited, insecure, to share my stories with anyone else. I thought they weren’t good enough.
So, in college I choose a major in art history. I continued to read voraciously. And I continued to write in my journal and hoped that one day I would figure out how to be a “real writer.”
I worked at the Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase, NY for ten years, as Education Associate and then Coordinator of Public Programs. When I married and gave birth to my first child (I have two sons), I left my full-time career and took on a variety of part-time jobs. I worked in a book store, as a dental office receptionist, and did data entry for a home decorating company.
Obviously, writing is not my sole career. For the past fifteen years I have worked as a Personal Assistant to the founder and director of the Treeture Environmental Education Program.
In 1998, I registered for a memoir writing class at the Hudson Valley Writers Center in Sleepy Hollow, NY. That was the beginning of my “career” as a writer - meaning, it was then that I allowed myself to believe I could write something of interest and worth to share with others. I took many workshop classes at the center, and met some wonderfully supportive writers.
In 2006, I and three other women from the writers center started meeting on our own, every Thursday morning - we each were writing different material: fiction, journalism, memoir. We would bring in what we had been working on during the week, read it to each other, and critique the work.
During the first year or so, we continued to pursue our separate goals, but at some point , we began to bring in pieces about our relationships with our mothers. The subject of the mother/daughter dynamic became a focus, and we eventually decided to collaborate on a book about that subject.
2. What approach did you use in publishing your book—self, traditional, etc.? What is your involvement in the pre- and post-promotion of your work?
After we had finished writing all our pieces about our mother/daughter relationships, we worked for some time on the format of the book. Once we had put it all together, we wrote a proposal and began to search for an agent. Surprisingly, we found one rather quickly and for a year or so worked with her to reshape the book. Our agent had a different vision for it - she wanted to incorporate our writing group experience into the framework of the collaborative memoirs of our mothers. When we completed that transformation, she shopped the book out to large publishing houses. Rejection after rejection began coming back to us. It was discouraging, but very educational. We realized that the vision our agent held for the book was not the path we truly believed we should take. So, we went back to the beginning, worked on restructuring our book once again, and let our contract with our agent expire. It was then that we approached smaller, independent publishers. After about another year, we were picked up by Big Table Publishing (Boston, MA), a very small press. The editor there loved our book; she had the same vision for it that we had, so we moved forward.
Because Big Table Publishing is such a small press, there is no PR department. We decided to invest in a PR firm to help us promote our book. We found a local firm (here in Westchester County, NY) and negotiated a contract that we could handle financially. However, the time is limited and soon we will have to take up our book’s promotion on our own.
3. What is the role of social media in your publishing process? Who are your greatest fans, what are their demographics, and what social media platform do you find most useful in communicating with them?
We have had to school ourselves regarding social media. I have been on Facebook for several years and felt very comfortable utilizing that area for outreach. I now also use Twitter and Tumblr. I and my three co-authors schedule posts and tweets about our book. Our PR firm set up a Facebook page and Twitter feed for our book and post/tweet 3x a week. I also blog and post to SheWrites.
As our book just came out (March 1, 2013), so far our greatest fans are family and friends. However, we are doing many readings and events over the next three months, in Westchester as well as Manhattan and Brooklyn. Several local publications have featured stories about each of us and our book. NY/Metro Parents Magazine, which has a circulation of 400,000, featured an article about our book and an interview with us in their March issue. Appearances and interviews in other publication, and on television and radio, are pending. So, we are hoping, and expecting, our fan base to grow. Obviously, as the book is about the mother/daughter relationship, it is assumed that women would be most interested in our book. However, as a collaborative memoir about family, growing up, and relationships, we know our audience does not have to be limited to one gender, or even demographic.
I have found Facebook to be very useful. The connections that are made as friends share posts with their friends, and so on, snowballs. Twitter, also, allows for networking. With both platforms, I find that connecting our book to another’s work or interests is so important. It is not always the best route to “toot your own horn”, so often I will post and tweet about subjects not related to our book, simply to make connections and interact.
4. If you had to describe yourself in three words only, what would they be?
Optimistic shy extrovert.
5. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would that be and why?
I would love to visit Iceland. The geography of that land is so interesting - it seems primordial. It seems so different from where I have always lived. And I love the music that Bjork creates, and that is her home. I imagine that place as a reflection of her creativity.
6. Tell us about your latest book.
If by my latest book you mean STILL HERE THINKING OF YOU - A Second Chance With Our Mothers, it is my first published book. It is a collaborative memoir. My co-authors are Susan Hodara, Joan Potter, Lori Toppel. From our press release:
In the book, the four of us, each from very different backgrounds, remember our mothers in a unique and captivating way: together. Having joined forces in a writing group in 2006, we began writing about our relationships with our mothers. In the process, not only did our understanding of one another deepen, but our perceptions of our mothers slowly transformed and crystallized. The book opens with “The Writers,” where we each describe the circumstances that led us to the writing group. “The Stories” then presents our four separate mother memoirs. In the epilogue, “Still Here,” we reflect on how sharing our memories affected us. Revealing pain, humor, tenderness, and, finally, empathy, Still Here Thinking of You taps into that universal pulse that never stops beating, the bond between mother and daughter.
Currently, I am at work on a collection of short stories. I have always wanted to write fiction. I think that writing the memoir about my mother and me was freeing - we had had a very close and complicated relationship. After her death in 1997, I knew I had to explore that subject. Now, I am ready to continue writing, as a career.
The collection I am working on (I have three stories completed so far) will be connected - they are based in the present, but reflect back on the 1970’s. I find myself doing a lot of research, as the stories relate to events such as the Vietnam War and the Women’s Movement, as well as the social changes of that era, and how those experiences follow the stories’ characters into the present.
www.stillherethinkingofyou.com
@VickiAddesso
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