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Q&A with Erika Dreifus, author of BIRTHRIGHT: Poems

“You say that the Bible is just an old book, / But when I consider the story of a Levite’s concubine, / I wonder what has changed since those ancient times.”

~ “On Reading Chapter 19 in the Book of Judges” in Birthright

Give me a box of old letters, a shelf full of ancient books, or a roll of microfilm and I will spend all day thumbing through pages, scanning old newspapers, studying the text, digging for connections between words of the past and my understanding of the present. Rarely, though, do I pick up my old King James version of the Bible, except to fan the pages for a bookmark or note I may have left behind when I was thirteen or to look back on what I was dreaming about in 1981 (“Christi + Kyle”) hoping God was listening.

Birthright (Kelsay Books), a new book of poems by Erika Dreifus, gives one pause to reconsider the ancient texts we grew up with, if only to gain new insight into the ways they influence who we have become. From there, her poems reflect on the Jewish experience of her grandparents as well as herself, on the work of past poets, on life and death, celebration and sorrow.

Birthright as a collection is, as author Matthew Lippman says, “the spellbound silence of history that helps to bind you with the people right next to you and to the ‘ancestral spirits that mingle above.'” A perfect example of the reasons why we write, and why we read.

I’m thrilled to host Erika, who talks more about Birthright, and to offer a giveaway. Enter by Tuesday, November 12th for a chance to win a copy of her new book!

Now, welcome Erika!

Christi Craig (CC): In Poet Laureate Joy Harjo’s Inaugural reading she says, “[poetry] emerges from the soul of a community, from a community’s history, mythological structures, the heart of the people….” Your collection speaks to this with poems that build on your own history, Jewish culture and experience, and historical texts. Writing from a close study of our past can provide unique insight into our current understanding of, well, everything around us. What insights have you gained from writing these poems and putting them together in this book?

Erika Dreifus

Erika Dreifus (ED): I’ve always been pretty self-aware, and attuned to time, place, and environment. But for lack of a better term, I think that I’m even more “anchored,” more in conversation with my past and present thanks to these poems and the book. I feel enriched by newer discoveries, approaches, and experiences.

CC: Several of your poems like “The Book of Vashti” and “Complicity” were inspired by biblical texts. Some poems give voice to women who were silenced (these poems in particular reveal ancient “Me Too” stories). Many, in the way they are written, connect narratives from a far-distant past with affairs of the immediate present (here I am thinking of “On Reading Chapter 19 in the Book of Judges”). For some who might not be familiar with religious texts, what do you hope readers gain from these poems?

ED: I’m not sure that I set out to do this, but I suppose that one hope is that some readers may be moved to revisit or explore the religious texts themselves. I grew up with a working knowledge of only some of the texts—I arrived at the texts and commentaries grounding “Complicity” and “On Reading Chapter 19,” for example, only through adult study in the past few years. Even the understanding I carried from childhood of Vashti—who plays a role in a major Jewish holiday that I grew up observing—was vastly simplified from the version I’ve explored more recently in the company of other grown-ups. And perhaps that message may be extrapolated to other texts and traditions—all of this material has been handed down to us, and it’s never too late to (re)consider it.

CC: Outside of Birthright, you also have a collection of short stories (Quiet Americans, 2011) and a long list of essays and articles. For you, are there certain stories or experiences better suited for one genre versus another? Or, another question might be, are there certain topics easier to approach in a poem versus an essay?

ED: I love this question (even as I doubt my ability to answer it!). In my early days as a fiction writer, I thought often about what makes a fiction writer realize that something is “meant” for a novel instead of, say, a short story. So pondering these questions is not new to me, even if I don’t have much more confidence in the answers.

I do think that brief observations or vignettes—I think here of a poem in the collection about my mother’s typewriter, and one about walking through fresh snow in the city—are so impressionistic that they’re better suited to the poetic form than to the essay. On the other hand, I’ve found that sometimes, compressing what readers may consider more weighty narrative (and sometimes political material) into poetic form can make the work different from—and perhaps more compelling than—a more conventional “think-piece.”

CC: What are you reading these days?

ED: I almost feel as though a better question is “what are you not reading these days—which books are stacked in your home waiting for you to get to?” As I receive your question, I’ve just cracked open a fascinating history that I’ve been meaning to read for some months: Peter Schrag’s The World of Aufbau: Hitler’s Refugees in America. It’s a book grounded in the history of a German-language newspaper that I can remember seeing in my own grandparents’ home.

I’m also (re)reading everything that I’ve assigned to the undergraduates in my “21st-Century Jewish Literature” course. At the moment, that means that I’m returning to Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America, which is even more stunning to me now than it was when I first read it 15 years ago.

CC: This season, you are teaching, your book has just been published, you continue editing a free newsletter for writers once a month with resources and information on submission opportunities, and you post weekly blogs with news of jobs for writers and curated lists of other writerly links (phew!). To keep up your creativity and energy, what’s a favorite activity you find both restful and inspiring?

ED: Naps. And exercise. I’m lucky enough to live fairly close to New York’s famed Central Park, and I try to work in a jog (or a walk) there several times each week.

Sometimes it’s difficult to get myself out of my chair (or to rouse myself from a nap!). But invariably, I feel refreshed after that time moving outside. And I find that ideas both come to me and sort themselves out during the time away from the desk, too.

~

Erika Dreifus is the author of Birthright: Poems (Kelsay Books, November 2019). She is also the author of Quiet Americans: Stories, a short-story collection that is largely inspired by the histories and experiences of her paternal grandparents, German Jews who escaped Nazi persecution and immigrated to the United States in the late 1930s. Erika earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from Harvard University, where she taught history, literature, and writing for several years.

Currently, she lives in New York City, where she is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of English at Baruch College of The City University of New York. Since 2004, Erika has published The Practicing Writer, a free (and popular) e-newsletter for writers of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction.

DON’T FORGET: Enter the giveaway by Tuesday, November 12th,
for a chance to win a copy of Birthright: Poems

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Guest Post: Mary Fleming on her new novel, Paris, & Place as Character

Many writers talk about the idea of place as character in fiction or nonfiction, where the setting of a story may reveal the tone or even deeper insight into a main character. In Mary Fleming’s guest post, she writes on place and the bigger role it plays in her new novel, The Art of Regret (just released from She Writes Press). You can read an excerpt below, and, courtesy of She Writes Press and Caitlin Hamilton Marketing & Publicity, there’s a book giveaway! Enter the giveaway by Tuesday, October 29th for a chance to win a copy of The Art of Regret. Now, welcome Mary Fleming!

novel: cover image, The Art of Regret

It’s no accident that Paris takes up so much space in the opening paragraph of The Art of Regret. The book actually has two protagonists. There’s the narrator Trevor, who has undergone more than his fair share of personal tragedy but who has yet to come to terms with those crippling events. The novel recounts his long road to redemption.  

The other main character is Paris. She is as present in Trevor’s life as his family and friends and the novel is also the story of his relationship to the city. It traces the way boyhood feelings of resentment and alienation grow into a more positive force so that by adulthood she provides solace and a reminder that life goes on, no matter his own suffering.

novel: Paris at sunrise

The city’s complications contribute to this sense of Paris as a character, as more than a mere backdrop to everyday life. Like a friend she is multi-faceted and can continue to surprise you, even after many years. My breath still catches when I see the morning light on the Seine and its bridges or look down a yet undiscovered little street. Trevor too, later in the novel, is taken aback when he visits a friend who lives in a house surrounded by the remains of a vineyard, all hidden from street view by a perfectly ordinary building in Montmartre.

As someone who has also lived in Paris for many years, I can testify that Trevor is not the only one to feel that symbiotic relationship. Whether it’s her long history or her great beauty, there is something close to human about the city. She is in fact one of the reasons I wrote the book, as an ode to this great lady.   

novel: Paris monuments up close and in background

The monuments become like friends, which goes some way to explaining why Parisiens were so upset by the burning of Notre Dame earlier this year. For Trevor the iconic relationship is to the Sacré Coeur that sits atop the hill of Montmartre and pops up on the horizon from many points in the city. Since he first caught sight of the church as a child, he associated the towers with his family before his father and sister died. The one big and the three small ones that were visible represented his mother and the three children, the basilica his father. As a young man he saw it from a room he rented. Now he sees it every day when he walks out of his bicycle shop Mélo-Vélo.

Like a friend Paris helps in times of trouble. While recovering from an accident and a betrayal as a young man, Trevor finds that the city coaxes him out of his pain and misery. Ditto in the second half of the novel, when walking becomes an integral part of his daily routine. The city helps him see beyond his own troubles, to feel part of a bigger story. It’s done the same for me on many occasions.

All of which doesn’t mean the city is static. She continues to evolve. Fortunes change; quartiers rise and fall. The rue des Martyrs, for example, may have been deemed unremarkable by Trevor in 1995 but it’s since been gentrified, has moved upscale.

Change or no change, Paris remains a steady friend to the end.

Excerpt: The Art of Regret, Part I, Chapter One

          For many years, in what might have been the prime of my life, I lived and worked on the rue des Martyrs. This narrow market street, which begins its climb at the northern edge of the banking and insurance district and ends in the skein of streets that wraps around the Sacré Coeur at the heart of Montmartre, is not on the tourist circuit and has no pretensions to Parisian grandeur. Behind and above its modest shop fronts are forgettable lives. Lives like my own, which I had reduced to a box, a one-room apartment on top of a one-room shop. Though the two were once a unit, at some point and for some reason—to make more space, to rent the shop and studio separately—the connecting stairs had been disconnected and my room could only be reached by an enclosed stairway in the courtyard. It’s not unusual in a city with a long history. Buildings change their function and configuration, and one structure is squeezed in front of, behind, or beside another. It’s just such quirks that have made Paris Paris, a city of endless layers and perspectives, a city of story upon story.
          Though my story began in New York, the firstborn son of two Americans, it was moved across the Atlantic with a mother and a brother, minus a father and a sister, when I was eight. There on European soil the story reluctantly remained, until near the end of a resentful adolescence. Unfortunately, the long-awaited return to the United States of America, via a small college, proved a disaster, and back the story came to Paris, where it drifted into young and not so young adulthood. By the time it had settled on the rue des Martyrs, I had hoped that that was where it would end, the unremarkable tale of a not-so-proud bicycle shop owner.
          One October morning in 1995, I pulled up the orange security grille to Mélo-Vélo. No matter how carefully I coaxed it, the clang of juddering metal scraped my nerve ends. It seemed such an offensive start to every day, I was thinking, as I walked to the back of the shop and assessed my morning’s work, a bicycle that had spent the last twenty years in a basement. The airless tires were cracked, the handlebars rusty. Cobwebs draped every spoke, and the leather saddle was speckled with mold. The wheels squeaked and wobbled. A complete overhaul was in order, but for Camilla Barchester, the name I had noted on the repair slip, it might prove to be worth the trouble. I turned the bicycle belly up on the repair stand.
          The Tibetan chimes jangled while I was contemplating which bit of the wreck to attack first. It was Madame Picquot, the concierge, with the morning post. Though I had long ago made it clear to her that I was not receptive to morning chatter, that I had no interest in the secrets and rumors, the scandals and grievances that scurried through the building and up and down the street, that I wished she’d just drop my post at the bottom of the stairs to the studio, she passed by the shop every morning to deliver my letters in person.
          “Voilà, Monsieur Mic-fa,” she croaked. “Registered letter. I saved you a trip to the post office and signed for it. Ca va?”
          “Yes, thank you.”
          Normally, since I received little of interest, registered or otherwise, I would have been in no hurry to look at my correspondence, but for some reason—perhaps a fundamental lack of interest in the task at hand—I went straight to the counter and looked at my misspelled name: “Monsieur Trévor MACFARQUAHAR.” If my name is systematically shortened when spoken in French, it is lengthened when written, unfailingly adorned by superfluous vowels and unnecessary accents, and forever a reminder of my general square-pegged existence in a round world.
          I sighed, ripped open the envelope, unfolded the slim sheet of white paper, and in the few short paragraphs saw my life crumbling before me.

Mary Fleming

Mary Fleming, originally from Chicago, moved to Paris in 1981, where she worked as a freelance journalist and consultant. Before turning full-time to writing fiction, she was the French representative for the American foundation The German Marshall Fund. A long-time board member of the French Fulbright Commission, Mary continues to serve on the board of Bibliothèques sans Frontières. Having raised five children, she and her husband now split their time between Paris and Berlin. THE ART OF REGRET is her second novel. Find her online at https://www.maryfleming.co/.

Don’t forget: Enter the giveaway by Tuesday, October 29th,
for a chance to win a copy of The Art of Regret!

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Q&A with Jackie Shannon Hollis, author of This Particular Happiness: A Childless Love Story

“This is what I did. This is what my girlfriends did. With dolls, with little sisters and brothers, with children we babysat. We pretended. We practiced. We prepared. Our mothers said to us, ‘When you grow up.’ ‘When you have your own children.’ No question. We would grow up. We would have children of our own.”

~ from This Particular Happiness: A Childless Love Story

From the title and from the quote above, you might think Jackie Shannon Hollis’ new memoir, This Particular Happiness (Forest Avenue Press) is simply about one woman’s decision not to have children. But this book is so much more.

As women, we revolve around expectations passed down through generations: we will get married; we will have children; we will live happily ever after watching those children grow into adults, marry, have babies of their own. Those expectations may serve one woman well but may cloud the journey of another woman walking the same road.

Jackie Shannon Hollis’ new book digs into beliefs taken on so easily and grapples with the weight of them. When she meets and marries a man who does not want to have children, she must take a closer look at the vision of her life as she had planned it and redefine who she is outside of those expectations.

Written in a structure that mirrors the way we often reason things out, we walk alongside Hollis through past and present, as she studies one moment in relation to another, beginning to see how everything she has experienced is connected, not by the thread of desire to have children but by something much deeper and more vital to the core of her being: the desire to be happy, to love, and to be loved.

I’m thrilled to host Jackie today for an interview about her book, community, and the gift of travel. There’s also a book giveaway! Enter your name HERE by Tuesday, October 8th, for a chance to win a copy of This Particular Happiness.

And now, welcome Jackie Shannon Hollis!

Christi Craig (CC): Your memoir unfolds in a fluid way, moving back and forth in time, and several chapters work as stand-alone essays. Where did you begin in writing This Particular Happiness and when did you know it would become a memoir?

Happiness: Jackie Shannon Hollis

Jackie Shannon Hollis (JSH): I remember the exact moment. I was with my writing group. I brought in what I thought would be  an essay about being childless. I was in my mid-fifties and the essay was intended to explore what it was like to be at that point in my life when the possibility of pregnancy was long past, but the experience of being childless kept unfolding.

As often happens when I am writing these nonfiction pieces, I struggle with the awarenesses that context and personal history are such an important part of our current story. It’s hard to contain a story just in the present because I feel the need to understand how the present experience is informed by the past. As the group was critiquing my piece, they asked questions. “But why didn’t you have children.” “Why was it so important to you to stay with your husband when he didn’t want children and you did.” Well here was the whole entangled story to unravel and explore. I knew right then I wanted to write this longer story. 

CC: One of my favorite passages is in the chapter “A Path to Somewhere New,”where you write, “A friend said, ‘I look at your beautiful garden, your house, even the way you dress. It seems like something is trying to rise up in you.'”

She gently points you toward your creative self and writing, but really, what she says is indicative of how life works. As we go in search of who we are or what we are capable of, the pieces of the puzzle often lay right in front of us, if we are only willing to see them. Your book is testament to discovering those pieces and putting them together. It’s a book that will leave an impression on any woman struggling to move beyond the expectations society places on her. What impression has writing your memoir left on you? Or maybe a better question is, How has writing your memoir changed you?

JSH: Christi, I am so pleased that you were drawn to this chapter because, for me, this was a turning point in my life, for exactly the reason you express here. And it can get lost in the idea that this book is solely about childlessness. I see This Particular Happiness as being about the discovery of self and an exploration of meaning. I think most women go through this at some point, whether they have children or not, a turning point where we look at what we are doing and ask the questions: Is this what I want, or is it someone else’s want? How do I carry the expectations of others? How do I move forward when I know I am turning away from what is expected of me?

Writing this memoir deepened the sense that this path I am on is where all the various threads of my life were leading me. I feel a sense of confidence in myself that comes of no longer being secretive about the fact that I longed for a child, and the times where that longing still rises up. And I feel a confidence that comes from having chosen this different path, one I am happy about and likely would not have found had I followed the expected.

CC: Several years ago you wrote a beautiful guest post for my blog, “Writers as Witness,” where you talk about being in community and the rhythm of writing. What has been the greatest gift in sharing with other writers this journey to self, story, and publication?

JSH: The community of writers IS the gift of this whole experience for me (and I must say my community of non-writers had been delightfully excited about my writing all along and especially about this book).  

Happiness: Writing group gathered at table with pen and paper

I am part of a writing group that meets weekly. We call ourselves The Dreamies. We’ve been together for many years. We know each other and know and respect the unique angle each of us take in critiquing a piece of work that one of us brings in. My memoir was shaped in this group. I cannot thank them enough for their ears and eyes on my pages, and for listening to revision after revision of chapters I was struggling with.

Three of the five other writers in the group have previously published books and their guidance has been so important to me, both in the querying and submitting to publishers, and now in bringing the book out for publication. This is a long and vulnerable process and it helps to have people who have had similar ups and downs offer support, encouragement, advice, and reality checks.

I’ve wanted to have a book out there for a long time. For a while, I’d made peace with the possibility that this might not happen. Now that it is happening, I don’t feel like I am more or less for having a book published. I still feel like me. And yet, I do feel a new kind of confidence that goes with having made it to this point. And there is a certain external validation that comes of having a solid book to hold in my hands.

But most joyous to me is being part of the literary community, being celebrated for showing up, for writing, for continuing to write through difficult times, for risking on the page. This is what the writers I know and honor do for each other. 

CC: What are you reading these days?

JSH: Over the summer I read three ARC’s. Two debut memoirs which captivated me. Codependence: Essays, by Amy L. Long, is an exploration of chronic pain and opiate addiction told from the perspective of someone who understands her addiction and sees it as vital to management of her pain. This Is My Body: A Memoir of Religious and Romantic Obsession, by Cameron Dezen Hammon, is a very personal exploration of her faith and of love. And I read The Royal Abduls, by Ramiza Koya, which is the next book coming out from Forest Avenue Press. I’m really excited about this book. 

I am just now finishing Sion Dayson’s debut novel, As a River.  She writes beautifully and with a sureness I admire, and the story is powerful.

I also listened to two very brutal and deeply researched and beautifully reported non-fiction books on audio. Missoula, by Jon Krakauer. I’m a bit late coming to this book, which came out in 2016. It’s about the sexual assault cases at the university there and the minimal response by the University and law enforcement. And Columbine, by Dave Cullen. Wow is this a powerful book.

CC: In your memoir, you touch on some of your travels. Where is one favorite place to visit?

JSH: I’ve had the good fortune to travel many places. I’m drawn to any place that offers me a view of other ways of living, new perspectives, different foods and landscapes and languages. But also, Bill and I now travel to the same places more than we go to new places. We go to London and Switzerland, to see friends whom we met on our travels. They have become family, which is something I write about in This Particular Happiness.

Happiness: desert land, The Wave Trail in Utah.

Of the places I’ve been, if we’re speaking of landscape alone, I am still most captivated by the southwest desert of the US — Southern Utah, Arizona. I also write about this in my memoir. In the desert you can see, so vividly, how the land was formed — under water, through earthquake and upheavals. The layers of time are painted into the landscape. The colors, the sense of unmarred history consistently draws me back. It’s a beautiful area to hike and to experience solitude.

Jackie Shannon Hollis, a lifelong Oregonian, resides with her husband in a home her friends call the treehouse. Her education and work as a counselor also pushed her to hold up the mirror to her own self. In addition to thinking she would be a mother, she once dreamed of being a June Taylor dancer or a racecar driver. Her short stories and essays have been published in The Sun, Slice, Inkwell, High Desert Journal, Rosebud, and other publications. Read more about Jackie and her writing on her website.

*Photo of group above by Dylan Gillis on Unsplash
*Photo of desert: The Wave Trail, Utah by Gert Boers on Unsplash

Don’t forget: enter the giveaway by Tuesday, October 8th, for a chance to win a copy of This Particular Happiness.