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Welcome Rebecca Rasmussen, Author of The Bird Sisters

“Milly placed her hand on the girl’s curls. Their softness and the scattering of freckles at the girl’s neckline, the sudden camaraderie she felt with the mother, opened up something inside her that hadn’t been opened in a long time.”
~ from The Bird Sisters

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We all experience those moments in life, when a simple gesture, or a glimpse of something familiar, stirs up memories, emotions, and reminders of a time when we sat at the crossroads, when choices made and actions taken determined who we became.

The Bird Sisters, Rebecca Rasmussen’s newly released debut novel, is a story about such a time for two sisters, Milly and Twiss. Set in Spring Green, Wisconsin, The Bird Sisters opens with a visit from a stranger and unfolds into a recollection of the summer of 1947, when Milly and Twiss discovered truths about their priest, their parents, and their cousin Bett. In her novel, Rebecca transports readers back and forth in time with ease, closing each chapter with an image that leaves the reader thinking and wanting more.

The Bird Sisters is a beautiful story that will connect with readers on so many levels. I’m honored to host Rebecca here, where she shares about the inspiration for her novel and talks about writing. At the end of the interview, leave a comment and you’ll be entered into a drawing for a copy of her novel (complete with an autographed book plate!). I’ll announce the winner on Tuesday, April 19th. Also, read more of Rebecca’s writing here and here. She’s an author to follow!

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CC: Under “Behind the Story” on your website, you mention details from your family history that served as inspiration for The Bird Sisters. How much of that history informed your novel, and at what point in your writing process did your main characters, Twiss and Milly, take over?

Rebecca Rasmussen

RR: For several years after my grandmother passed away, I kept trying to figure out how to create a story that honored her based on the journals she kept over a forty-year period. There was a lot of unhappiness in her journals—to be frank—and a lot of wishing her childhood had been different. Both of her parents passed away within a year of each other when she was a teenager and she was constantly torn between making martyrs out of them and seeing them as real people capable of the very grave mistakes that each of them made. Once I took the pressure off of myself and let Milly and Twiss take their own breaths (mostly by putting away my grandmother’s journals), the story came to me very quickly, and I fell in love with the sisters; Twiss for her adventurous spirit, and Milly for her family-bound one.

The two sisters in the novel are different from my grandmother and her sister in that they cling to each other when the going gets rough, whereas my grandmother and sister invested in their new families and children. They invested in moving on. If there is a reckoning in the novel, it’s that while familial love can harm you, it can also save you. The older I get, the more I am tuned in to the sacrifices—large and small—that people make daily for the good of their husbands and wives, their children and grandchildren, and even the animals they love. I am drawn to the idea of sacrifice because it often goes against our instincts, and because it can be one of the most beautiful things in the world, and yet its consequences can be devastating to have to survive. The sacrifices Milly and Twiss make in the novel are part of why they have my love and always will.

CC: You are one of those authors who create a wonderful sense of place in a novel, sometimes shown in brief but powerful descriptions. Set in the real town of Spring Green, Wisconsin, I imagine many of the specifics in the story are real. So, I wonder, does the “enchanted purple meadow” truly exist? If it does, I want to go there and bask in the sun.

RR: I am deeply attached to Spring Green, Wisconsin, which is where my father has lived since I was a girl. My brother and I would go back and forth between his house and my mother’s, which was located in a small suburb of Chicago. For us, Wisconsin was magical. There we were able to swim in the river, cover ourselves in mud, and tromp through the woods. There we played with barn cats and snakes, lightning bugs and katydids. I’ve always preferred rural landscapes to urban ones. Wild over tame. It’s like the old bumper stickers from the 80s used to say: “Escape to Wisconsin.” As for the enchanted purple meadow, it exists in my imagination—it’s a place of love and magic, where life can change after opening one’s self up to those internal possibilities we alternately hope for and are afraid of throughout our lives. For me, without places like that purple meadow, story simply doesn’t exist.

CC: In your novel, which section was your favorite to write?

RR: I really loved writing about the priest who renounces his priesthood early on in the novel: Father Rice. Although his story isn’t rooted in fact, there is a little country chapel in the hills outside of Spring Green that I went to a few times as a girl. Instead of the incendiary language used by priests in other churches I had been to, this priest talked about fishing the river and farming the land in order to convey messages from the Bible. I remember one day he ended mass early because it was still cool and the fish were biting. He was the first priest I ever met whom I wasn’t afraid of and whom I understood had hopes and dreams like the rest of us. I loved writing about faith in an untraditional way, through a priest who questions his faith and almost loses everything. Almost.

CC: What are you reading these days?

RR: I have been reading wonderful books lately. The first one I want to mention is Susan Henderson’s novel, Up From the Blue, which is a wonderful synthesis of what’s it’s like to be child in a highly dysfunctional family. It’s sad and beautiful and wonderfully written. I’ve also been reading Alan Heathcock’s story collection Volt, which does indeed electrify me somehow. Alan and I navigate on different ends of the spectrum: his stories are tough, gritty, and very Cormac McCarthy-esque. I love this collection because it breathes life into my imagination, and I only hope it gets the attention it deserves. Other wonderful books I’m reading are Siobhan Fallon’s You Know When the Men Are Gone, Melissa Senate’s The Love Goddess’ Cooking School, Kate Ledger’s Remedies, and Therese Fowler’s forthcoming novel Exposure. All are major nightly treats for me.

CC: Do you have any advice for writers on the rise?

RR: Have faith in yourself and your work. If you don’t have it, no one else will. Also, be kind to yourself. When you face rejection, treat yourself to something small that you love. Send yourself flowers or chocolates or go find a little trinket. (My husband bought me a sweet little bird charm necklace.) Pick yourself up. Keep writing.

Rebecca Rasmussen is the author of the novel The Bird Sisters, released from Crown Publishers on April 12th, 2011. She lives in St. Louis with her husband and daughter and loves to bake pies. Visit Rebecca at http://www.thebirdsisters.com for more information.

You can also find Rebecca on Twitter (@thebirdsisters) and Facebook.

Don’t forget to leave a comment to be entered into the giveaway!

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On Stiltsville: A Novel — An Interview with Susanna Daniel

“This is what it means to be part of a family. There are no maps and the territory is continually changing. We are explorers,
traveling in groups.” ~ From Stiltsville

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Seconds after I read the first page of Susanna Daniel’s debut novel, Stiltsville, I closed the book quick. I was in the middle of the after-school hustle (homework, dinner, baths and bed), and after taking in the opening paragraphs, I thought, This is gonna be good. I didn’t want to start the story until I could do so with the least amount of interruptions.

I should back up. The cover of Stiltsville is what hooked me first, with its beautiful image of a house on stilts — a dream-like vision of something mystical and maybe unreachable. Daniel’s story inside follows suit. Stiltsville is a tale of relationships and marriage, and the house on stilts serves as the backdrop, as a reminder that much in life is magical, and sometimes fleeting. Daniel writes about this sense of place with authority and vivid detail, so that I felt not like a reader looking in, but as if I were actually present.

I loved so much in this book, from the beginning when Frances and Dennis first meet, through to the end when I became witness to endearing moments between husband and wife. There are passages in the book, like the quote at the top of this post, that gave me pause and insisted I read them again. I am honored to interview Susanna Daniel here today, where she talks about her novel and writing.

(For a chance to win a copy of her book, leave a comment at the end of this post. I’ll draw a winner on Tuesday, March 15th.)

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CC: Your biography on the back flap of your novel mentions that you spent much of your childhood at your family’s own stilt house in the Biscayne Bay, and the setting in your novel plays a strong role in the story — both literally and  metaphorically. How much of your experience with the real Stiltsville  informed your novel?

Susanna Daniel

SD: I think often with first novels, the most vividly autobiographical element of a novel is the setting — and this is true of STILTSVILLE. As a child, my family visited our stilt house monthly, for the weekend, and I had many of the same experiences there that the family of a novel does: jumping off the porch at high tide, slinging water balloons at  sailboats, walking the flats in old shoes and avoiding all the dangers that lurk there, sleeping on the porch, watching storms from inside, and so on.

CC: In an essay you wrote for Slate.com, you talk about the time it took to get Stiltsville from its “conception” to its place on the shelves, “a staggering 10 years.” Now that you are working on your second novel, has your writing process changed? Are there any new techniques or rituals that you practice?

SD: The actual act of sitting down and staring at the computer screen hasn’t changed much, the gritty work of laying down the story — but with the first novel I earned the luxury of time, at least for a little while. So instead of squeezing my writing sessions into the mornings before work and late nights, I work regular hours, four days a week  (my son is home with me the fifth day), and on the weekends, I usually manage to let one good session in when my husband takes our son skiing or sledding or  errand running.

I don’t think writing one novel taught me much about writing another, but it did give me some confidence that I’m able to do it, at least. I am better organized this time around, and I have a stronger grip on where the story is headed at any given time. With STILTSVILLE, I had written several chapters late in the novel  before I’d written the second or third. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it meant that I was doing a lot of gutting of the manuscript that, if I’d written from start to finish, I might have avoided.

CC: Writers work in isolation, but we thrive in communities, local or online. Where have you found the greatest community of writers who support and encourage your work?

SD: For a lot of writers, there’s a fine line between too many cooks in the kitchen and too few. I have one close friend from graduate school who has published extensively, who is invaluable to me as a reader. I also participate in a small writing group here in my adopted hometown of Madison, Wisconsin, which is home to many excellent published novelists — these women act not only as my readers, but as a support group as we navigate the pressures, disappointments, and jubilation of publishing.

CC: What are you reading these days?

SD: I’m reading Karl Marlantes’ excellent MATTERHORN, a classic South Floridian historical potboiler called A LAND REMEMBERED (this is research), and Leah Stewart’s wonderfully compelling HUSBAND & WIFE. I’ve been writing a lot, which means my reading is slower than usual.

CC: Do you have any advice for writers on the rise?

SD: My advice, always, is not to worry at all about publishing, and to concentrate completely on the story you want to tell and the voice in which you want to tell it. Find a workshop or graduate program or trusted reader — whatever one suits you — and get as much feedback as possible from other writers. Be ruthless with yourself.

*****

To learn more about Susanna Daniel and  Stiltsville, visit her website or her Facebook page.

To enter the drawing to win a copy of her debut novel, DON’T FORGET to leave a comment here. The winner will be announced on Tuesday, March 15th.

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On Themes, Characters, and Creative Spaces: An interview with Author, Danielle Evans

“Tell your mother she has never had any idea
how easy it is for something to be destroyed.”
— from “Snakes” in Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self

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I’ll admit, I was first attracted to Danielle Evans’ collection of short stories, Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, because of the title. But, it was the stories themselves, and the characters within, that held my attention.

Sana Krasikov (author of One More Year: Stories) calls Evans’ writing “quietly magnetic.” I love this description; it’s so true. Evans creates characters who are within my reach, even when their experiences differ from my own. I slid easily into their lives and found myself in the middle of deep loss, heartache, and threat. Yet, I didn’t want to look away. Instead, I was compelled to sit with the characters, even after the story ended, and then go back and read about them again.

After so many great reviews,from people like Lydia Peelle in the New York Times and Ron Charles at the Washington Post, I’m honored to host Ms. Evans here, where she answers a few questions about her collection and about writing.

For a chance to win a copy of her book, Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, drop your name in the comments section. I’ll choose the winner on Tuesday, February 1st.

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CC: The opening story in your book, “Virgins,” first appeared in The Paris Review three years before this book was published. Did you discover an emerging theme in your writing early on that led you to publish a book of short stories? Or, did you consider a theme and then craft the stories?

photo by Nina Subin

DE: “Virgins” was actually one of the last stories in the book to be written. It was published in 2007, just about a month before I sold the collection to Riverhead. Typically there’s about a year between selling the book and publication, but various things can slow that process down—in this case, my editor’s maternity leave, and my first full time teaching job, which coincided with the start of the editing process and meant I had to learn to divide my writing and editing time from my teaching time. I didn’t write most of the stories with any end goal in mind. By the time that I wrote the first draft of Virgins, in 2006, I had a sense that most of the stories that I was happy with belonged together somehow. The only story I wrote with the collection in mind was “Wherever You Go, There You Are,” which I thought tied together the themes of various stories, but took them someplace new. In the editorial process, a lot of what I had to think about was how these stories, which I’d always thought of as somewhat separate, could become one thing. At points I’d find that, for example, a particular story could survive having an element cut and still work, but cutting that element would take something away from the collection as a whole. There was a story that went in after the collection was sold, because it seemed to add some balance after a few stories were cut from the original version of the manuscript, and another that almost went in, but that in the end I couldn’t make claim its own territory—it seemed too similar to work I’d already done. So, there was a lot of thought about the book as a book, and not just a series of stories, but mostly I was thinking about topic and form and organization. Questions of theme I think are generally best left to readers and reviewers—at least personally, I find they can crush my writing if I let them guide it.

CC: Each of your stories is written with such strength and emotion. I especially love, “Snakes,” where you tackle issues of race, family, and failed expectations head on through the lives of Tara, Allison, and their grandmother, crafting each character’s emotional depth or shallowness with great skill. How do you approach character development? Do you spend more time getting to know each one before you write? Or, do you write more organically, allowing the characters to reveal themselves throughout the first drafts?

DE: I generally try to write organically, at least at first pass. The good thing about working in shorter forms is that if it doesn’t work, you can just throw it out. There isn’t that sense of pressure that you have with a novel that you’ve been working on for two years, or that you realize will be a decade long commitment. So, if I have an idea for a story, or I feel drawn to a particular character, I just write it, and if it doesn’t come together, I can abandon it, or I can leave it alone indefinitely and return to it months or years later, because a story is short enough to easily drop back into if there’s anything redeemable in it. “Snakes” is an example of that. The first draft of the story was one of the earliest things I wrote—it was actually something I wrote in one of my first college creative writing courses. For years I’d revisit it and not quite know what was off. I knew Tara was withholding something—there was always a kind of secrecy and repression built into the story—but I had no idea what. Then my editor read it, and in her critique asked some smart questions about Tara, and suddenly I had an answer. Once I had that answer it was easy to go back into the story and tear out most of what was there so I could rewrite it with greater clarity.

CC: In the Acknowledgments, you say, “The Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing is one of the best places a writer could ever call home.” I’d love to hear more about your experiences there and how they shaped you as a writer.

DE: I think if most early writers were to make a list of ideal gifts, those gifts would include time, money, and faith—not necessarily in that order. There are many institutions that are good at providing one or two of those things, but The Wisconsin Institute of Creative Writing really provided all three. There was a teaching commitment that was enough to keep you grounded, but not so much pressure that it cut into your writing time, there was a stipend that was enough to live comfortably on in that part of the country, and there was a real sense of community, a sense that we were there to do our work because someone genuinely believed in it. There are a lot of writing spaces where people feel like admitting that they don’t know something or need help navigating something is akin to failure, and I think the creative writing faculty at UW-Madison really worked to create a space where that was not the case, where it was safe to ask questions and you could expect thoughtful answers. Once you are in a position where people think you know the answers to certain questions, procedural or existential, about writing, you realize how much time it takes to answers those questions, and exactly how generous the people who kept their doors open for you were. Madison is also, hands down, the prettiest place I have ever lived.

CC: What are you reading these days?

DE: Student journals, forever and ever. But, I am amassing a collection of books to read during the summer: Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story, Jane Brox’s Brilliant, a history of artificial light, Paul Murray’s Skippy Dies. I am looking forward to Tayari Jones’ forthcoming book, Silver Sparrow, which I had the pleasure of hearing her read from last Fall. Last year I read and loved many books, but especially Jennifer Egan’s A Visit From the Goon Squad and Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns. And, I exaggerate a bit about the journals. In the context of teaching, I also get to reread some of my favorite books and poems and stories—among them Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Colson Whitehead’s John Henry Days, and Edward P. Jones’ The Known World. I’m teaching an independent study this semester where some of the books are chosen by the students, so I’m reading Blood Meridian for the first time, which I’m looking forward to.

CC: Do you have any final thoughts or advice for writers on the rise?

DE: My main advice is to do the work that you believe in, because that’s the only part of the process you can predict or control.

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You can find Danielle Evans on her website, Facebook, and on Goodreads. You can purchase her book at Indiebound.org and on Amazon. Don’t forget to leave a comment for a chance to win a copy, then check back here on February 1st.

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