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Author Interview with Shann Ray, and Book Giveaway

“A man will be physical, he thinks, forsake things he should never have forsaken, his kin, himself, the ground that gave him life. Death will be the arms to hold him, the final word to give him rest.”
~ from “The Great Divide” in American Masculine

I love this book. As I prepared the post for this interview, I flipped back through the pages of American Masculine, skimmed the stories, and realized again what powerful literature lies between the covers of Shann Ray’s book. In the introduction to American Masculine, Robert Boswell uses words like “grace” and “muscularity” to describe Shann Ray’s writing, and says that images in the stories “carry the visceral weight of memory” as well:

You finish each story with the understanding that…you have lived through something powerful and significant.

It’s true. You can’t walk away from this book unaffected, after reading stories that show the tender underbelly of a violent man and that reveal the pain of an absent father. I am thrilled and honored to share with you this book, and this interview. After you read the interview, drop your name in the comment section for a chance to win a copy of the book (courtesy of Graywolf Press). And now, welcome Shann Ray.

CC: In American Masculine, your characters are tied beautifully to the setting, so much so that asking a question about which inspired your stories first, setting or character, seems moot. Would you share with us, though, how your collection unfolded?

SR: The collection unfolded over the years with a lot of failed attempts and then quite a bit of patience and listening. Especially to my wife Jennifer, an amazing mind with passion for lit, dance, art, and music.  I’ve always been in love with the Montana landscape and spent a ton of time embedded in that landscape, the rivers and mountains, the plains.  I think of the wildlife and the splendor, and I think how is this possible, such grand intimacy in a package capable of great violence.  This reminds me of people. Consider a Wolverine can cross 9 mountain ranges in around 30 days.  Now consider how a person can ask forgiveness and make atonement even in the face of the most desolate human conditions, and further, that man can be welcomed back into the community: this occurence, across people and cultures, America, South Africa, the Philippines, Colombia… people and the wilderness inside people comes to me in the night when I’m writing.  I hope I can listen enough to speak of our humanity, our desolation, our consolation.

CC: The story in your collection that struck me most is “Rodin’s The Hand of God”. The prose reveals the relationship between a father and a daughter with such power, and when I finished reading it, I couldn’t go on to the next one right away. I felt compelled to sit, quiet, with the last few lines. Do you have a favorite from your book or one from which you didn’t want to walk away?

SR: “Rodin’s The Hand of God” is a favorite for me too because I’ve been in that place with a loved one who is ready to be loved into a better condition but is fighting the voice that speaks to them. “How We Fall” and “The Way Home” have a certain love as well, for how they bring me to a better sense of my faults and the nature of atonement.  I think we’ve all been there on both sides of that pathway that acknowledges and is in need of  something very graceful having to with heart, soul, and breath.  Sometimes we are then given the gift to hear more clearly.  Sometimes we fall.  So painful when a loved one falls all the way down.  Vaclav Havel, the artist and former president of the Czech Republic, referred to suicides as the “gaurdians of meaning.”  I agree.  In his own country, which is also my country of heritage, Jan Palach gave his life 20 years before the Velvet Revolution, through self-immolation.  He burned himself to death in order to awaken the country from its slumber.  Our deepest harms have that latent capacity, to awaken us and heal us and make us whole again.

CC: Your bio states that you teach leadership and forgiveness studies, and in this touching post on the website, The Nervous Breakdown, you talk about a friend who’s story illustrates the power of forgiveness in our lives. You say, “In coming to a better understanding of our own existence, we must pass through the history of our mothers and fathers, and our choices in this regard are of paramount importance.” I love this, and the idea behind this quote surfaces throughout your book.Though the stories in American Masculine are fiction, what do you hope readers will take away from your collection?

SR: I love the transport great lit gives us. A sense of something true touching our face and drawing us to look into the eyes of that immeasurable power of which we still know so very little, a power I see as love, kindness, and strength in the wake of human degradation.  From that gaze we understand there is mystery involved at the deepest levels of our humanity and at the foundation of that mystery there is love. I think we experience love in all true art, for example in the work of the profound contemporary philosophers, theologians, scientists, and poets that range from bell hooks to Weil to Gadamer to Bakhtin, from Lonergan to Bonhoeffer to Martin Luther King, Jr., from Worthington to Enright to Ornish to Gottman, and from Alexander to Alexie to Oliver to Williams.

CC: What are you reading these days?

SR: The Divine Milieu by Jesuit mystic Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, two gorgeous and fiercely imagined books of poems:A Thousand Vessels by Tania Runyan, and The Man I Was Supposed to Be by John Strulhoeff, and my friend Jess Walter’s evocative and multi-layered jewel of a novel Beautiful Ruinsdue out on Harper in June.  This year I also loved You Know When the Menare Gone by the infallible Siobhan Fallon; Beautiful Unbroken, a book of tremendous grief, loss, and recovery by Mary Jane Nealon; and the sheer torque and drive ofVolt by Alan Heathcock.

CC: What advice would you offer for writers on the rise?

SR: There is a discipline that is formed of hours and days and years. That discipline, if approached through love and beauty, will carry you and those around you for the rest of your lives.

Shann Ray’s collection of stories American Masculine (Graywolf Press), named by Esquire as one of Three Books Every Man Should Read and selected by Kirkus Reviews as a Best Book of 2011, won the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference Bakeless Prize.  Sherman Alexie called it “tough, poetic, and beautiful” and Dave Eggers said Ray’s work is “lyrical, prophetic, and brutal, yet ultimately hopeful.”  Ray is a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow and has served as a panlist for the National Endowment for the Humanities, Research Division.  Ray’s book of creative nonfiction and political theoryForgiveness and Power in the Age of Atrocity (Rowman & Littlefield), was named an Amazon Hot New Release in War and Peace in Current Events, and engages the question of ultimate forgiveness in the context of ultimate violence.  The winner of theSubterrain Poetry Prize, the Crab Creek Review Fiction Award, and the Ruminate Short Story Prize, his work has appeared in some of the nation’s leading literary venues includingMcSweeney‘s, Narrative, Story Quarterly, and Poetry International.  Shann grew up in Montana and spent part of his childhood on the Northern Cheyenne reservation.  He lives with his wife and three daughters in Washington where he teaches leadership and forgiveness studies at Gonzaga University.
For more information on Shann Ray and his works, visit his website: http://www.shannray.com/blog/. And, don’t forget to leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of American Masculine.
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An Interview with Anna Solomon, Author of The Little Bride

“Minna continued pulling up grass in big fistfuls. . . . One day she would decide to learn the names of her torture and be disappointed when she found them nowhere near as precise as how she’d identified them then: Sharpest grass, shiniest grass, curly grass, hardest-to-pull grass. She pulled all of it up from the roots, giving in to the slices in her palms, watching the dry soil break into dust….” ~ From The Little Bride

 

When dreams turn to fantasy and take on a life of their own, and it becomes inevitable that they will fracture or crumble in the face of reality. Anna Solomon’s debut novel, The Little Bride, is the story of Minna Losk, a Jewish mail order bride on a journey to pursue her dream of life and freedom in America, which she assumes will include a handsome husband, a large house with running water, and servants of her own. What Minna discovers instead is the stark reality of life on a South Dakota homestead, marriage to a husband twice her age, and a forbidden attraction to the man who is her stepson.

Using subtle but rich details, Anna Solomon quietly introduces readers to each character in The Little Bride and takes us through the seasons of rugged South Dakota and through Minna’s self-discoveries. The characters are perfectly balanced, so that minutes after an unfortunate decision is made that casts a negative light, their stories still pull at the heartstrings of the reader. Today, I am honored to host Anna Solomon for an interview, where she discusses her novel and writing, and offers her best advice for others on the road to publication.

At the end of the interview, drop your name in the comment section for a chance to win a copy of The Little Bride. Random.org will choose the winner on Tuesday, January 3rd, at noon.

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CC: In a post on Beyond the Margins, you talk about a musical-literary collaboration, with musician Clare Burson (called A Little Suite for The Little Bride) as an innovative way to introduce readers to your novel. Can you talk a bit about the structure of these performances and how readers have responded to them?

AS: That’s a great question, because until people have seen Clare and I perform together, it’s hard for them to picture exactly what we’re doing. Basically, Clare wrote five songs inspired by scenes from my book. On stage, she starts playing a musical score, then I come in reading one of those scenes over her score, then my reading ends and she plays/sings the song that was inspired by it. Sometimes we break one of my readings up with music – I stop mid-scene for a musical interlude and then begin again. And sometimes the music drops out and I read in silence for a little bit. But that’s the basic rhythm of the work.

And there are projected images, too: old drawings or maps that Clare played around with in Photoshop, thrown up on the wall behind us in black and white. The images are there to accompany the various sections, and provide context; often they have text, too, maybe a line from the book, just to set the scene and give the audience a footing in our story. We wanted to create a narrative arc through the piece, which is similar to the novel but also can exist on its own, for the purposes of these performances. I find that aspect very satisfying – that we’ve created something inspired by but separate from the novel. It kind of mirrors the experience of publication, when you see your book go off and become something different in each reader’s mind. Maybe the performance process helped prepared me for that letting go. In any case, I’m excited that we already have more performances of our “Little Suite for The Little Bride” scheduled for 2012!

CC: Some of my favorite scenes in your novel are the early interactions between Samuel and Minna, the simple dialogue and how Minna describes his gestures. When he finds her pulling grass, helps her, and then leaves, her recollection of his departure says so much with so little — about his character, and hers. What was your favorite scene to write, and why?

AS: I did like writing that scene – especially after he leaves, when she’s replaying it in her mind. (Did he mean to breathe on her, or did he just breathe, like people have to do?) Minna’s a tough character – a survivor – and scenes like that let me into her tenderness, her humor. It’s funny – at some point I thought that the same scene might take place when she’s trying to milk the cow, that Samuel would wind up behind her, showing her how to do it, but then I thought: gag! My favorite scene to write might be one that comes pretty late in the book. I won’t give away too much, but it also involves Samuel and Minna – they’re standing outside at dawn and though nothing very physically intimate happens between them, it’s probably the closest they come to a true emotional intimacy in the whole book, without the walls they usually have up. Also, it involves a circus and gunshots, so those parts made it fun to write, too.

CC: You recently started up a blog on your website. How do you like the blogging platform? And, do you find it offers more freedom in writing?

AS: Honestly, I’m not sure about blogging – for me. I held off for a long time (aren’t new blogs sort of passé at this point?) and now that I’m attempting to do it I feel a kind of pressure and I’m starting to think I’m not going to be able to fulfill my idea of what I want to do with it. I like the posts I’ve done, and writing them was fun, but especially as I dive deeply into my second novel, I feel like I only have so many things I can pay attention to. In some ways I think I’m just not cut out for multi-tasking in my writing, or for quick, off-the-cuff pieces. I enjoy them, and they do offer a different kind of freedom – there’s something nice about just pitching my voice into the soup and seeing where it goes – but I’m also not entirely comfortable with the process. I’ve found this with writing for online formats before: I’m not prepared to move so quickly. Editors get frustrated with me. I think I’m a slower thinker, a slower writer.

That said, I’m loving being part of the wonderful Beyond the Margins blog. That gives me a way to try my hand at blogging without having to be the sole proprietor, so to speak – and more importantly, it’s introduced me to this amazing, incredibly supportive group of writers, all at different stages in our careers, eager to offer other writers bits of our own experience.

 

So we’ll see. I’m going to stick with my blog for a while, see if I can make it fun for myself, and also experiment with different kinds of posts.

 

CC: What are you reading these days?

 

AS: I’m loving Amos Oz’s A TALE OF LOVE AND DARKNESS. Not crazy about the title – it’s so generic, I forget it every time I put the book down – but the book itself is wonderful: a memoir of Oz’s childhood in Jerusalem, and also of course the story of Israel itself. I’ve loved hearing Oz speak about conflict, war, and peace, and I find his book adds a complexity to those soundbytes – it’s very rich, very generous, and beautifully written, too. I’m also reading a totally different kind of book, a novel that came out last June, DAUGHTERS OF THE REVOLUTION by Carolyn Cooke. It’s about the first black girl (admitted by clerical error!) at an elite New England boarding school. But it’s about so much else, too – Cooke’s characters are totally real, often eccentric, always struggling to hang on to their individual selves even as they scramble to belong within “society” (theirs or others’). Her writing feels almost anthropological: look at these things, they’re called people, they create institutions like this, and they run around like that trying to get in or out.

 

CC: What advice do you have for writers on the rise?

 

AS: Stay focused on the work itself. I think the hardest thing about having my first book published was how obsessed I had to become – at least for a few months, while on tour – with my “career.” It’s so important, of course, I wanted to give my book the best chance possible, but it was also easy to lose track of the whole point: writing. When I was in an MFA program, just starting to publish short stories, I had this very rigid boundary for myself between writing and submitting stories – I would only deal with submissions at night, after my “real” work was done, and I wouldn’t think of it most of the time, I’d forget that the question of publication even existed. This gets tougher, of course, as you’re lucky to publish more, but I think it’s important to try to keep that boundary there. Now, as I start back in on my next novel, I’ll put up my wall again: in the morning, when I’m writing, there will be no phone calls, no internet, no criticism or praise to ingest, just me, my characters, my story. For me, this is the only way – I need rules, to bring my back to the work.


~

From Anna Solomon’s website:
Anna Solomon’s fiction has appeared in One Story, The Georgia Review, Harvard Review, The Missouri Review, Shenandoah, and elsewhere. Her stories have twice been awarded the Pushcart Prize, have won The Missouri Review Editor’s Prize, and have been nominated for a National Magazine Award.
For more information about Anna or for a chance to explore The Little Bride, visit her website. You can also follow her on Twitter or like her page on Facebook. Also, don’t forget to leave a comment to enter the book giveaway!
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Welcome Author, Lisa Rivero

[Oscar] motioned for me to sit next to him “This grand prairie”–he swept his hand toward the door– “is like a blank piece of paper. The way I see it, we come here to write our story on the land, acre by acre. Every homesteader’s claim tells a different tale.”
“What is your tale?” I asked.
Oscar grinned. “I’m still writing it,” he said.
~from Oscar’s Gift

The front cover of Lisa Rivero’s debut novel, Oscar’s Gift: Planting Words with Oscar Micheaux, bears four important words: Fiction for Young Historians. Oscar Micheaux, the first African-American filmmaker, bought a claim of land in South Dakota to homestead in the early 1900’s. He was a man of persistence and of wit, educated and creative. In her historical novel, Lisa Rivero shows how a man such as Oscar must have impacted the lives of those around him,  especially a young person like the main character, Tomas.

Lisa Rivero has plenty of publishing credits to her name, but this is her first venture into fiction. I doubt it will be her last. She has a knack for taking details of the past and weaving them into stories that touch today’s readers. Just take a peek at some of her Flash Narratives on her website, stories about her Great Aunt Hattie. You’ll see what I’m talking about, and you’ll likely want to read more.

I’m honored to host Lisa today to talk about her debut novel, Oscar’s Gift. At the end of her interview, leave a comment to be entered into the drawing for a free paperback copy of her book. Random.org will choose the winner on Tuesday, October 18th, at high noon.

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CC: The blurb on the back cover of your book says that you grew up on the same reservation where Oscar Micheaux homesteaded. How did you come to learn about Oscar and his connection to your own history?

Lisa Rivero

LR: I am still amazed that I hadn’t heard of Oscar Micheaux until just a few years ago, since he homesteaded not far from my grandparents’ farm. I first read about him when I was doing some research about my ancestors for a writing project based on some family diaries. Although Micheaux is best known for his film making, I was captivated by his farming and writing. What must have the experience been like for an African American homesteader at the turn of the century on an Indian reservation? Then, when I began to read about his childhood and the intensity he brought to everything he did, I was hooked and knew I had to write about him.

Continue reading “Welcome Author, Lisa Rivero”