author Q&A Archives - Page 6 of 8

August 24, 2016August 23, 2016

Q&A with Anne Clermont, Author of Learning to Fall

“Back at home the walls of my bedroom were the same mossy green they’d been for the last ten years. My vet school textbooks lay disorganized on my dresser and in my reading nook. the kitchen was empty, and the sitting room still ached for laughter and conversation. ” ~ from Learning to Fall

When pieces of our life crumble, the first thing we often do is go home in search of comfort and solace. But for Brynn Seymour in Learning to Fall, the act of returning home after the tragic death of her father brings as much heartache as reprieve. With the fate of Redwood Grove Stables and her father’s life’s work in her hands, the actions Brynn takes will mean losing the family ranch or letting go of her own life-long dream of becoming a veterinarian.

In a debut novel that builds around the world of horse show jumping, Anne Clermont gives us a page-turning story with an insider’s view of the strong competition; we read of one woman’s loyalty, her love for horses, and her realization of what matters most in a world where winning is everything.

I’m thrilled to host Anne as she talks about Learning to Fall and doubly excited to give away a copy of her book (courtesy of SparkPress). You can enter the giveaway by dropping your name in the comments OR by sharing this post (and tagging me!) on Facebook (@Christi Craig) or Twitter (@Christi_Craig). Deadline to enter is August 30th.

Now, welcome Anne!

CC: On your website, you say you were inspired to write ever since you took to the trails on horseback for the first time at sixteen years old. What was it about that ride that opened your heart to stories and storytelling?

Anne Clermont (AC): The summer I turned sixteen my parents took us on a long (and at the time seemingly grueling) tour of the US and Canada. While in Wyoming we came across a trail-riding place: one of those rugged, authentic cowboy places. I begged to be allowed to ride and for some reason my parents gave in (they usually didn’t). I had read of horses and open plains and ranches and cowboys, and I romanticized it to no end. Being able to finally ride a horse was magical and surreal in many ways, and after that ride I imagined living on a ranch, surrounded by horses, writing long novels. Stories have been a part of my life from the earliest time I can remember, yet that moment seems to be the moment where many of my dreams laid their foundation.

CC: In your novel, the theme of “letting go” returns again and again for the protagonist, Brynn, as she faces tragedy, difficult choices for her future, and the sordid side of competitions. What do you hope readers take away from Brynn’s trials and triumphs?

AC: I’m a dreamer. I always have been. One of my earliest memories is of laying in preschool during naptime, imagining flying out of the window with the help of magical angel wings. I would discover new worlds, travel, learn… What I didn’t expect as I grew up, and I’m sure many can relate, is that life doesn’t unfold in a neat, organized way, and sometimes it’s not that easy to follow your dreams.

Many of my plans fell apart, many were riddled with obstacles and unforeseen difficulties. There were moments when I didn’t think I could go on, where moving forward seemed impossible. But what I learned from observing those who were happy and filled with joy and love and success was that life is about adjusting, changing course, dealing with the blows that have come your way. Writing LEARNING TO FALL was my way out of a dark place, discovering who I was, finally saying ‘yes’ to a dream that was buried somewhere in the far recesses of my mind. As I wrote it I imagined that one reader, alone, curled up with my book, reading Brynn’s story. I imagined it inspiring them. Reminding them that sometimes life is about learning how to fall – then picking yourself up again. I still hope that it finds that reader and helps make their day a little better.

CC: Outside of writing, you are an editor and web designer, wife and mother, and more I am sure. How do all the roles you play come together to fuel your creativity and guide you to the next story?

AC: Our family recently relocated to the Pacific Northwest so that we could live a simpler life with much less stress and commuting than we had in the Bay Area. Life still isn’t simple, but every day I’m filled with gratitude and love for my husband and daughters who support me one hundred percent in my pursuit of writing. I don’t know if life will ever simply be about writing, but how could it? Living life, with all of its imperfections, is where I find inspiration and guidance to fill pages with made up characters and their stories – ones that hopefully touch and inspire readers.

CC: What are you reading these days?

AC: Right now I’m reading THE GIRLS by Emma Cline, THE HOUSE OF BRADBURY by Nicole Meier, and ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE by Anthony Doerr. There are many other fiction and non-fiction books on my kindle and nightstand and they’re like candy! I don’t know which one to read first!

CC: Do you have a favored mantra that keeps you going when life or writing (or both) slow you down?

AC: We all have things we say to ourselves that either help us move forward or impede our ability to do so. So often I’ll tell myself, or even say it out loud, “I just can’t do/take this anymore! I give up.” But then I realize that if I do, I’ll forever wonder what would have happened ‘IF’. I have to fight against that voice and try to replace it, like a bad hard drive, with thoughts of: “Yes. Yes you can. You can’t give up just yet. You have to see this thing through and see where it takes you.” Then I go back to my computer/task/life event, and try to tackle one little bit at a time. Oh, and I couldn’t do it without yoga, long walks in nature, and my family.

Anne Clermont is a Canadian living in the U.S., born in Kraków and raised outside of Toronto. She spent fifteen years in California before relocating to the beautiful Pacific Northwest. She holds a BS in animal biology, and an MBA. Her background ranges from studying animal behavior to carrying out pancreatic cancer research at one of the world’s largest and most innovative biotech companies. Inspired to write Learning to Fall in part by her own experience of running a show jumping business, she now devotes her time to writing and working as a developmental editor. She lives on an island in the middle of Puget Sound with her husband and two children. Visit her website at anneclermont.com and follow her on Twitter (@anne_clermont).

Don’t forget to enter the giveaway: 1) drop your name in the comments OR 2) share this post (and tag me) on Facebook (@Christi Craig) or Twitter (@Christi_Craig) by Tuesday, August 30th!

June 8, 2016June 7, 2016

Q&A (& giveaway!) with Jessamyn Hope, Author of Safekeeping

“We are all pawns of history.” ~ from Safekeeping by Jessamyn Hope

One of my all-time favorite quotes about story comes from E.L. Doctorow in his lecture, “Biography in Fiction” (available as a podcast from CUNY), where he says, “What is the past if not the present and the future?” He’s talking about historical fiction, but his quote speaks to the importance of stories for writers and readers.

As a writer, stories allow me to untangle and reason through life experiences, past and present; as a reader, they offer different or new perspectives to understand the world around me and consider the future. Stories act as a bridge between generations and cultures and the human spirit.

Doctorow’s quote fits well into the heart of Jessamyn Hope’s debut novel, Safekeeping, a book that weaves generations together with an ancient and precious brooch and with themes of loss and survival in the face of recurring physical, mental, or political hardship. The book’s cover reflects the beauty and intricacy of the well-drawn novel, and once you enter the “Fields of Splendor” with one of the protagonists, Adam, you won’t be able to put it down.

I’m honored to host Jessamyn Hope today and am thrilled to offer a giveaway as well. Read her excellent Q&A below, then drop your name in the comment section for a chance to win a copy of her novel. Deadline to enter is Tuesday, June 14th, at noon.

Now, welcome Jessamyn Hope!

Christi (CC): In your interview on Tablet Magazine’s Unorthodox Podcast (readers, click in at 11:57m for Jessamyn’s spotlight), you hint that this book has been years in the works. As a novelist-to-be who has nurtured a story for many moons, I’d love to hear about the beginnings of Safekeeping and how it finally fell into novel form?

Jessamyn (JH): Safekeeping was eight years in the making. Why did it take so long? Party due to outside factors (I had a day job most of that time), but mostly due to the work itself: I am a very slow writer, and Safekeeping is a sweeping book with multiple protagonists, spanning seven centuries and several countries. My advice to aspiring first-time novelists would be keep a sense of urgency, otherwise you won’t write regularly, but not so much urgency that you needlessly suffer. The book is going to take as long as it is going to take. You can lengthen the time frame by not dedicating enough hours each week to the book, but can you hurry the labor of bringing a certain novel into being? I don’t think so.

CC: The brooch, a family heirloom that Adam carries in his pocket, serves a dual purpose in this story as the reason he travels to the kibbutz and (even more important) a symbol of Jewish history and preservation. Even so, Adam is careless with it at times. As the story of the brooch is revealed, what do you hope readers will come to understand about what it truly represents?

JH: There isn’t one thing the brooch truly represents. As you suggest, the heirloom embodies a lot: the burdens of our personal and national histories; the inevitability of loss; our astonishing will to survive. I was particularly interested in the fact that although we sometimes know exactly what happened in the past—to us personally or to our ancestors—that affects our present, often we don’t.

I remember my college professor, novelist Mark Dintenfass, explaining this image from Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom: a series of pools are connected by a narrow channel so that a stone tossed in one pool sends ripples endlessly into the others. Long after the stone is forgotten, lying on the pool’s floor, its effect is still rippling into the future. In Safekeeping, the reader learns about the brooch’s far-flung past and future, things that happened to it in a medieval Jewish ghetto, in WWII Dresden, in present-day New York City—things the characters holding the brooch in 1994, the novel’s main setting, never find out. And yet, the reader can see, whether the characters know the history or not, it still affects them and the world they live in.

CC: Ziva as a character intrigues me. We know from the beginning that she is quite ill, but we never find out exactly why or how she became sick. After reading your book, I wonder if her resistance to change on the kibbutz is what ails her. I know only a little about life on a kibbutz, but I understand the ones of today are quite different from those in the early 1930’s and ’40’s. Change is inevitable in your book (and in the world at large), but often something lost means something else is gained–a life saved, a future procured, a mind brought back to sanity. Do you think the modern-day kibbutz makes way for a greater future, or does it hint at what Ziva fears: a collapse under the pressures of society and a repeat of history?

JH: I am so happy Ziva intrigued you! Her character—her fortitude and single-mindedness—intrigue me too.

I don’t think Ziva’s failure to adapt makes her physically sick. She is simply growing old, something even the most adaptable of us cannot avoid. But you are right: I was exploring Ziva’s inflexibility, the pros and cons of it. I am fascinated by the type of person who is so dedicated to a cause that she is willing to relinquish everything to achieve it—her personal relationships, her comfortable life, perhaps even life itself. Although it must be painful to be the child or spouse of such a person, I believe without these dedicated people we would have far less medical breakthroughs, great works of art, advances in human rights, and groundbreaking, if at first unpopular, ideas.

So although evolution teaches us that adaptability is important to survival, I wonder if human beings need to have in our ranks a few uncompromising idealists, even if, like Ziva, they can be difficult to be around. Maybe we wouldn’t have the theory of evolution if Darwin had been more chill about his studies.

CC: Pieces of ourselves sometimes weave their way into our fiction. Is there a character in Safekeeping with whom you relate most?

JH: I do not relate to one character more than any other. A dimension of me lives in each of them. Sometimes the battles between the characters dramatizes a tension within me: for instance, the tension between Ziva and Franz that complicates their love affair, her dedication to the community versus his strong individualism, reflects a tension that exists in me. As an artist who has suffered through many a day job, I relate to Ofir’s frustration at having to be in the army rather than working on his music; and as someone who has suffered from severe OCD, I identify with Claudette’s struggles. I have felt the way drug-addict Adam does: racked with guilt, afraid I am too weak to be as good a person as I want to be. Sometimes people tell me how much they hate Ulya, the Soviet émigrée, which means they hate something that exists in me: the part I drew on to bring to life her selfish survivalism, as well as her fondness for dramatic eyeliner.

CC: What are you reading these days that most feeds your writerly self?

JH: I almost exclusively read novels. Right now I am halfway through A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which most Americans read in their youth, but that I didn’t hear much about growing up in Montreal. Now every day I walk down the exact streets whose previous incarnations the novel describes in such lively and heartbreaking detail.

Jessamyn Hope is the author of the novel Safekeeping—a recommended read for summer 2015 by The Boston Globe; acclaimed by The Globe and Mail, Tablet Magazine, The Montreal Gazette, The Jerusalem Post, and Booklist; a New York Public Library Staff Pick; a finalist for the 2016 Paterson Fiction Prize; and found at number two on BuzzFeed’s “53 Books You Won’t Be Able to Put Down.” Her short fiction and memoirs have appeared in Ploughshares, Five Points, Descant, PRISM International, Colorado Review, and other literary magazines. Recent accolades include two Pushcart Prize honorable mentions, in 2015 and 2016, and selection for Best Canadian Essays 2015. She was the Susannah McCorkle Scholar in Fiction at the 2012 Sewanee Writers’ Conference and has an MFA in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College.

Born and raised in Montreal, she lived in Israel before moving to New York City.

Don’t forget: drop your name in the comments for a chance to win a copy of Safekeeping!

February 17, 2016February 16, 2016

Q&A with Pam Parker, Co-Editor of DONE DARKNESS

“This is how you find her: / hands clamped around the broom handle / like a bulldog’s teeth, / working the far corners of the room / till the dust spins around her….” ~ from Jennifer Highland’s “Sonya Sweeping” in DONE DARKNESS

Recently, I spent a weekend on a retreat with a group of ladies, and I reflected on many things, one of which was my experience with depression. I’m a functional depressive; when it hits, I ride low but not too low. Still, it hovers in the background even during a good stretch, so that–I realized when I was away–I wear it like a badge, one identifier among many: Christi, the Mother; Christi, the Writer; Christi, the Depressive. Silly, I think. But in the next breath I wonder, Who am I if I’m not sunk or on the verge?

41lzLZqECyL._UY250_ To answer that question is a journey in itself, one that begins in recognizing depression does not have to define me and that, even when the low feels much like how Jennifer Highland describes it above, with my hands clamped around it “like a bulldog’s teeth,” it’s a quiet fight I don’t face alone.

Pam Parker and Kathy Lanzarotti have co-edited DONE DARKNESS, curating the work of eighteen authors who write about the quiet fight: depression and the life beyond. Today, Pam talks about the anthology, and I’m offering a giveaway. Drop you name in the comments for a chance to win a copy of DONE DARKNESS. Now, welcome Pam Parker!

CC: This is a unique anthology on the topic of depression in that it includes not only personal essays but short stories and poetry as well. What sparked the idea for this book, and what was your biggest challenge?

PP: I’ve had personal experience with depression, as many of my family and friends have had too, so certainly that played a huge part in the choice of subject. I also believe strongly in the power of literature and art to build empathy. Without building empathy, we can not hope to continue chipping away at the stigma surrounding mental illnesses.

There were a number of challenges with creating the book, including my extensive traveling in the first half of 2015, but for me, I think the most difficult thing was having to reject a large quantity of wonderful pieces, simply because they really weren’t the right fit for the final book. That hurt. (Can you even imagine having to send rejection letters to folks who had submitted for a book on depression?)

CC: I’ve edited a few tiny anthologies and know these kinds of projects can be labors of love. When you envision DONE DARKNESS in the hands of readers, what do you hope they will discover?

PP: I hope they will find voices, feelings and stories to connect to and gain understanding. Maybe they will think of a friend or a relative who has struggles and gain some patience! More than anything, I hope they discover ways to spur conversations when they have concerns — about themselves or others.

CC: Instead of dividing the book into poetry, nonfiction and fiction, the collected works fall into chapters of Morning, Afternoon, or Evening. What is the significance of those chapter headings?

PP: I had in mind Shakespeare’s “All the World’s A Stage,” speech and the seven ages of man. Since depression can affect anyone at any time in life, we used the times of day to parallel the seasons of life. So, in the morning section, we have some important younger characters and a mother coping with post-partum depression. Afternoon represents the longest season of life — prime and middle-aged — whatever words we want to attach to it. Evening represents the senior years and end of life.This was one of the most difficult aspects of the book to finalize. We wanted to stay true to that concept, but not be beating folks over the head with it. I didn’t mind at all if many people didn’t truly understand the decisions for the divisions.

CC: Neil Gaiman says, “The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story….” What advice can you offer for writers (or readers) who desire to share their story but don’t know where to begin?

PP: Stop worrying about where to begin and simply begin. Put the pen to the paper, the fingers to the keyboard, whatever works for you and start. Absolutely nothing happens when you spend all your time trying to figure out where to begin. People have to determine what is stopping them from starting and for so, so many writers I’ve known, it’s that “where to begin” question. Most writers will admit that the “first beginning” of a final piece, is often absent from the final piece or has been moved elsewhere. So, if it’s no longer in the piece, did it matter? Of course! It got the piece started. Without it, there would be no final piece.

Pam Parker’s short fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in numerous print and electronic journals, including Potomac Review, Grey Sparrow Press, The MacGuffin, and more. She is a regular contributor to “Lake Effect” on Milwaukee Public Radio. Her work has earned accolades from the Wisconsin Broadcaster’s Association, Wisconsin Writers Association, and the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. She makes her home in Wauwatosa, WI with her husband, though her heart is often in western Massachusetts or Glasgow, Scotland. To read some of her work, find links at pamwrites.net.

Don’t forget to drop your name in the comments for a chance to win a copy of DONE DARKNESS! Deadline to enter the giveaway is Tuesday, February 23rd, at noon.