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Q&A with Liz Scott, Author of This Never Happened

We came from no one and we were attached to no one. I could make that sound like a bad thing but I have worn my rootlessness like a custom-made, one-of-a-kind, jewel-encrusted cloak adorned with shiny medals that read “grandparent-less,” “aunt-less,” “uncle-less,” “cousin-less.” I say I have a gypsy soul. I like the sound of that, all wild and romantic. But a gypsy probably does not crave to fill in all the blank spaces.

~ from This Never Happened

Years after I left home, I began to see my life as a puzzle with missing pieces. So I started asking questions. I read my mother’s journals after she died. I filled the pages of my own journals. I spent one November staying up late every night and, by the light of the computer screen, poured out word after word in an effort to write a novel, which turned out to be a cathartic release of fragments from my own story. I am still writing from bits of memory and experience–I have plenty to work with–and am recognizing patterns, making connections, filling in the gaps.

But what does a writer do when memories feel like grains of sand, small and slippery, and fragments are full of holes more than they are solid forms?

Liz Scott faces this question in her new memoir, This Never Happened (University of Hell Press, 2019). Growing up in a family where her parents kept their past hidden and vague, Scott turns to photos and letters to try and bridge one experience to another, to search for answers and for truth.

Deborah Reed (The Days When Birds Come Back) calls Scott’s book an “honest look at what it means to have compassion, however flawed, for the people who hurt us, and for whom we can never truly know or understand.” This Never Happened is a compelling and unique memoir that reads as a collection of tiny essays and leaves a lasting imprint.

I’m thrilled to host Liz Scott to talk about her memoir and about writing. Plus, there’s a giveaway! Enter by Tuesday, January 28th, to win a copy of This Never Happened, one of my favorite reads in the last few months. Now, welcome Liz!

Christi Craig (CC): Your memoir is a collection of very short chapters, with a few longer ones mixed in and some reading in just one sentence. This structure mirrors the way we sometimes process memories we question or difficult experiences we hesitate to revisit—in bits and pieces. Did that structure unfold naturally as you began writing or was it a decision made in revisions?

Liz Scott (LS): I’m so glad you felt that the form mirrored the way memory works. I did not write this book in a linear way or, indeed, in the way the chapters ultimately were arranged. Something would come to me—a memory, an image, a feeling I wanted to explore—and I would write that piece.

It wasn’t until I was done that I began the process of ordering the chapters. And I totally agree that memory comes in unpredictable, not-very-orderly ways. I do not think that’s limited to difficult or confusing memories though. In my experience, a memory can be triggered by so many different things and sometimes seemingly out of nowhere.

CC: Several passages in your book stand out to me, this one in particular,

“I’ve come to believe that all of this—the facts about your ancestors, the truth about your family story, the reliable connections—are what create ballast in life.”

So much of writing is about examining and understanding ourselves and the world around us. How did putting your story to the page change you as a writer or provide more balance in your life?

LS: The impact on me as a writer is easier to answer: in my book I talk about how for most of my life I’ve had an almost phobic reaction to the idea of being a writer. I had spent my early life wanting NOT to be my mother. She was a writer and had an excessive need to be famous as a writer. So I came to writing tentatively and with not much confidence. It’s still hard for me to claim the identity of ‘writer’ but creating something that a publisher wanted and people are buying has given me so much more confidence.

I think the impact on me personally is more cogent though. I’ve had years of my own therapy and as a psychologist have thought deeply about family dynamics and how our emotional lives work. I didn’t even start writing this book until I was in my late 60s so I had a more than average understanding of my own psychology. I did not embark on a project intended to be cathartic or therapeutic. Imagine my surprise when I finished and realized that in writing my book I had indeed been changed. And it has to do with this idea of ballast.

As I talk about in the book, given the strange and particular features of my family, I grew up feeling quite untethered, kind of floating from one thing to the next without ballast. When I wrote the last chapter, I realized I felt more connected to all my relatives and ancestors, none of whom I had ever met. I saw myself in that long line, the chain of people whose DNA I share and I felt much more anchored than I’d ever felt before.

CC: In your essay, “Why We Need Memoirs,” you say, “My old writing teacher always stressed the importance of fully digesting material—events from one’s life, difficult experiences, etc.—in order to tell a good story….” Distance, I would add, makes it possible to tell that story in the first place. Was there ever a time in writing your book when you took a necessary break, and if so, how did you find the time/energy/courage to return to the work?

LS: I agree. Without that distance—especially with memoir—you run the risk of writing what sounds more like a diary. That kind of undigested material can lack perspective and frankly be cloying. As I said, I had considerable distance from my childhood given how old I was when I started writing and also had a significant degree of psychological distance given my personal work and my profession. Also, I did not start writing until after both of my parents had died which is another kind of distance I think.

In terms of necessary breaks, oh yes! But for me I think it has to do more with the fact that I have a very short attention span. I do all my writing in coffee shops and find that I can sit and write for maybe an hour at a time before I want to move on to something else. It has less to do with time/energy/courage than my tendency to flit from one thing to the next. I will say though that since I was determined to be as open and honest and unflinching as possible, I put a post-it note on my laptop that said, “Be Brave”. So anytime there was a choice to demure, I marshalled my courage. Personally, I did not see the point in writing this book without being as baldly honest as possible.

CC: What are you reading these days?

LS: I always move between a couple of books at a time—that short attention span thing. I just started Trust Exercise by Susan Choi which won last year’s National Book Award. I’m also reading All This Could be Yours by Jami Attenberg. And I torture myself by obsessively consuming the New York Times, Washington Post and about a zillion political blogs.

CC: What do you hope 2020 holds for you as a writer?

LS: I just published an essay in The Big Smoke called Post-Partum Publication. It’s about this interesting, particular and often challenging time in the months after a book launch. In it I talk about what I would call the active life of a book—the writing, the work to find a publisher, the launch, the readings and publicity. My book felt so alive during all of those phases and I was so emotionally attached to all parts of the process that I did not have much brain space to start another project. I have had the germ of an idea way far back in my brain and now that I feel the particular aliveness of a new book slipping away, I just might be able to start in on it. Maybe. Hopefully. Please.

Liz Scott has been a practicing psychologist for over 40 years. She has had numerous short stories published in literary journals and her memoir, This Never Happened, was recently released. Originally from New York City, she currently lives and works in Portland, Oregon. 

DON’T FORGET: Enter the book giveaway by Tuesday, January 28th,
for a chance to win a copy of Liz Scott’s memoir!

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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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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.