“When everyone in the house is finally asleep, I step outside. It is fall in the Midwest and sometimes that means the air is made of silk. My feet bare on the concrete driveway, the night feels good against my skin. Almost like a secret human touch.”
~ from “Tell Me Something I Don’t Know” in We Will Tell You Otherwise.
The gift of stories, fiction or non, is in finding connections: the writer connecting with the reader by creating relatable characters, and the reader rediscovering self as she views the world through the eyes of these characters.
Beth Mayer’s We Will Tell You Otherwise (just released from Black Lawrence Press), is a collection of short stories about the human spirit and our need for strong connections.
From a father and son brought closer by the death of a stranger, to a mother who takes over the itinerary of a failing family vacation to save her own spirit and that of her kids, to a young wannabe psychic who provides temporary promise in her prediction, Mayer offers readers a close look at the intimacy and ties created in conversations and in correspondence.
Winner of the Hudson Prize (2017), We Will Tell You Otherwise is called “slyly ironic and often sardonic” by David Haynes (A Star in the Face of the Sky), who also says is “these stories kept me smiling all the way through.”
Beth Mayer stopped by during Short Story Month in May, and I’m thrilled to host her again, this time for an author interview. I’m also hosting a giveaway! ENTER HERE by Tuesday, August 27th, for a chance to win a copy of Mayer’s new collection (courtesy of Caitlin Hamilton Marketing & Publicity and Black Lawrence Press).
Now, welcome Beth Mayer!
Christi Craig (CC): In your guest post on my blog during Short Story Month, you talk about the complexity in crafting short stories and say, “I have grown to understand how, when I give myself permission, a short story determines itself.” How did this collection come together? Did you have a plan from the beginning or did the whole of the book fall into place organically?
Beth Mayer: I’ve been writing short stories for a long time. Once I got serious about my first collection, I knew I was getting close when it was a finalist in a few book contests. Looking back, I see now before this book was really done, I was busy getting better, revising, writing new stories, and refining my vision. With a lot of patience and faithful work, this collection determined itself and I love where we ended up.
CC: “Darling, Won’t You Tell Me True?” is a story about Mr. James Harrington, who begins a correspondence with his mother’s caretaker, Miss Christopher, after his mother dies. Through James’ letters only (we never read a word that Miss Christopher writes), we see a relationship unfold, a budding romance, and the pieces of the entire story are present in his responses as he writes such things he might never say aloud face to face. Your story is fiction, sure, but there’s always truth in fiction. What is it about the intimacy of letters that allows us as humans to open up in ways we could not otherwise?
Beth: I am fascinated by old letters, documents, recipes with notes on them. My old postcard collection—ones with writing on them that I found in antique shops—reveals how the stuff of life can be shared through personal correspondence. Think the crops were good; the baby died; I am back from war and still sweet on you, if you’ll have me.
As a reader, and writer, I find fictional epistolary of all kinds quite engaging. Humans, I suppose, think that letters allow us to craft our messages. Perhaps time and distance allow us to feel less vulnerable since we aren’t face-to-face with how our message is received. And isn’t it interesting that in 2019 we are again writing back and forth—albeit digitally and with immediacy—about the most mundane and intimate matters?
CC: On your website, you write about winning the Loft Mentor Series in fiction and the power of working with a mentor. How has that experience affected your work on short stories and continued to inspire you as an author?
Beth: To begin, the chance to be expected and required to regularly show up to the Loft in Minneapolis—which is a beautiful space—felt good. That time was pivotal for me. It had been a while since I had finished my MFA and landed my teaching position, so I made a conscious decision to really use my program year to renew my commitment to my writing and to my life as a writer. Several of the new stories I wrote challenged me in the best possible ways, because I was ready to be challenged. Those same stories informed my collection as a whole and are now part of my first book. From my year in the program, I have lasting friendships and am now even more committed to helping my own students or mentees discover what it is they are aiming to do on the page.
CC: What are you reading these days?
Beth: The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017, Edited by Charles Yu, Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir by Thi Bui, Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler.
CC: Being from Minneapolis, I imagine your summers are as short and sweet as those in Wisconsin. What’s your favorite summer activity that not only feeds your need for play for also fuels your creativity?
Beth: The best summer for me comes with time for thinking and dreaming. Time to take in ideas and images makes me happy and helps spark my own imagination. My husband and I like to have coffee out on our patio and walk our spoiled little dog. I love to spend time at the lake place that my extended family shares in Wisconsin. And as a teacher, reading whatever strikes and interests me is one of my greatest summer pleasures.
BETH MAYER’S fiction has appeared in The Threepenny Review, The Sun Magazine, and The Midway Review. She was afiction finalist for The Missouri Review’s Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize (2016), her work recognized among “Other Distinguished Stories” by Best American Mystery Stories (2010), and her stories anthologized in both American Fiction (New Rivers) and New Stories from the Midwest (Ohio University). Mayer holds an MFA in creative writing from Hamline University. She currently teaches English at Century College in Minnesota, where she lives with her family and impossibly faithful dog.
“My back straightens at the word pig. I am used to French Canadians complaining against discrimination in the workplace, in the government, in the media, but somehow Farzeen disarms me with her accusations against a state I’d lived in only for two hours in a taxi, except, of course, I have that vein that connects me with my Jerusalem-born, Arabic-speaking father, but I’m cutting him out of my life. Still, as jet lagged and disoriented as I am, that vein begins to pulse.” 