Interview with Bernie Mojzes

Bernie Mojzes is a member of my critique community who has some upcoming releases related to fairy tales and folk tales, two things very close to my heart. I’m pleased to invite Bernie to my blog to discuss them and other writerly matters. Welcome, Bernie! Please share something about your approaching releases.

Bernie: Thank you, Gemma. I have two stories coming out right around April Fools’ Day, which I’m sure we all agree shares the honor of being Best Day of the Year with Halloween.

“Hyena Brings Death” is set in North Africa during World War I (1914-18), and draws from two sources. The first is an old Taureg tale of how death came into the world. (Interesting fact that I only became aware of now, but works well for the story—”Taureg” is Arabic for “abandoned by God,” while the nomads’ own name for themselves, “Imohag,” means “free men.”). The second involves the use of airplanes as weapons of war. This was a new technology, and the first time anyone had dropped bombs from above was only a couple years earlier, during the Balkan Wars of 1912-13. For the first time—as a soldier, as a civilian in a war zone—you not only had to look out for danger, you had to look up. In this story, Hyena scavenges far across the Sahara, looking for parts to build her own aeroplane, to wage her own war. “Hyena Brings Death” was written a long time ago, and has finally found a home in the dieselpunk anthology, Grease Monkeys.

Gemma: I’ve read the excerpt of that story, and I’m very glad it’s found a home. And your other imminent release?

Bernie: “Three Days of the Cuckoo” appears in Grimm Machinations, an anthology of steampunk interpretations of Grimm Fairytales. This story is a loose mashup of the first two Elves stories in the Grimm collections (“The Shoemaker for Whom They Did Work” and “The Servant Girl Who Stood In as Godmother for Them”), set on a background of an industrializing world where exploitation and brutal poverty was more the rule than the exception, and the legal framework that protect workers did not yet exist. This was fun to write, especially trying to figure out what a steam-powered helicopter might look like.

Gemma: In our critique group, I had the pleasure of reading the first draft. Despite the rather dark circumstances at first, the brilliance and resilience of your heroine really captivated me, and I felt very rewarded at the end.

Gemma: So when are these coming out?

Bernie: Grease Monkeys and Grimm Machinations are both coming out in late March or beginning of April this year. They’re launching April 1 at the Tell-Tale Steampunk Festival in Baltimore, and are also available through the current Kickstarter campaign (along with a bunch of extra bonuses as stretch goals are unlocked!). The Kickstarter ends February 21st, so if you like steampunk, dieselpunk, or Poe, don’t dawdle.

Gemma: Not to mention if you like fairy tale retellings for adults!

Bernie: How can you not? The magic of old folk tales is that the telling changes with the teller. What the Grimm brothers recorded was more of a summary, a template, upon which a storyteller would improvise and elaborate. It was the storyteller’s job to make the story live and breathe.

The folk tales aren’t just entertainment; they serve other functions. They can be cautionary tales (don’t wander into the woods alone, don’t trust strangers, don’t go swimming in the river by yourself) or morality tales (don’t be mean, share your toys, don’t be too greedy). They can be all about the virtue of respecting authority and knowing your station in life, or about resisting authority and overcoming your station in life. The templates of the stories themselves are full of empty spaces crying out to be filled, and as such contain multitudes, at least potentially.

One thing I’ve noticed about them is that there’s often one little fact that, if you think about it, just doesn’t make sense. In “The Goose Girl,” for instance, the princess and her maid are sent travelling to a distant kingdom, where she’s to marry the king, with a wagon full of treasure that is her dowry. Alone. To me, that’s the piece that doesn’t make sense, and that’s the place to dig in to find a version of the story that makes that anomalous fact makes sense. That’s where the real story is.

Gemma: I know what you mean. It may be a case of not making sense on a gut level. When I was younger, I was charmed by the story “Kari Woodengown.” When I read it more recently, I was indignant and incredulous about how the story ended – I really liked Kari, but the choice she made at the end just made zero sense to me. I was moved to write a retelling. Do you remember when you realized – or decided – that you wanted to be a writer? And what moved you to that?

Bernie: Oh, it feels like it’s something I’ve always wanted, ever since I learned that books were written by people, and not just generated ex nihilo by the library. I think discovering the Earthsea books (by Ursula K. Le Guin) cemented it. I was a voracious reader as a child, and loved nothing more than to lose myself in these worlds. More than that, I wanted to discover new worlds myself and wander through their cities and forests, and maybe find a way to bring those worlds to life for other people. And I still can’t think of anything better to spend my life doing, if only it paid the bills.

Gemma: Nor can I. Can you trace some of your writing history?

Bernie: My first potential publication was in high school, when my English teacher submitted a crappy poem (all my poetry is crappy) I wrote to a poetry contest where it apparently placed high enough to win something more than a certificate of participation and was to be published in the newspaper that held it. Sadly, immediately upon notice, said newspaper (The Philadelphia Bulletin) went out of business, and I don’t remember whether my piece ever went to print. Certainly an auspicious beginning.

Gemma: Well, that’s simultaneously encouraging and frustrating. I’m glad you didn’t give up.

Bernie: I wrote constantly in high school and college, but by the time I’d gotten to grad school, the time I had to give to fiction dwindled, as did the brainspace available for the stories to percolate. I didn’t get back to it until the company I worked for was disastrously acquired by another company, and in the aftermath I found myself shell-shocked and unemployed. I decided then to take that time and rediscover how to write. I worked on a novel or three, wrote some short stories, joined some online critique groups.

In 2006 I went to FaerieCon in Philadelphia and just as we were leaving, I saw a vendor with a lovely little anthology called Bad-Ass Faeries, and spent the last $12 dollars in my wallet to buy it as a gift for a crit partner who had sent me a short story of cantankerous leprechauns. She, in turn, posted a review of it in her blog, which the editor saw, and subsequently invited both of us to submit stories to her second anthology. Bad-Ass Faeries 2: Just Plain Bad came out in March 2007, with not one but two of my stories in it, which is probably bad for the ego of any debut author.

Gemma: Sadly, I understand those books are out of print, but Best of Bad-Ass Faeries is still available.

Bernie: True, and as a result, my first published story (which contains a paragraph that embarrassingly has more point-of-view changes than it does sentences) is still in print. Since then I’ve had short stories published in the genres of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Adult-rated fiction, and even the dreaded “Mainstream.” I owned/edited the online zine Unlikely Story (which went on hiatus back in 2014-ish due to work/life imbalance and whose website (www.unlikely-story.com) has become weirdly broken and needs some attention), as well as anthologies, including Clowns: The Unlikely Coulrophobia Remix.

Gemma: What are some pieces you’re particularly proud of?

Bernie: I’m usually (though not always, in retrospect) proud of the stories I write, often for very different reasons. I am very interested in playing with narrative, form and style. For example, in “From the Horse’s Mouth,” another Grimm retelling (of “The Goose Girl,” which I mentioned earlier), there are multiple narratives nested inside a framing narrative. The framing narrative is in second person, where the “you” in the story could be one of a number of people, and left to the reader to resolve the ambiguity (or not).

Gemma: And readers who want to ponder that ambiguity can find the story in Gaslight & Grimm.

Bernie: In “Reinventing the Wheel,” neither of the two primary characters of the central plot made for good point-of-view characters, so I needed someone more personable to tell the tale. That ended up being a character I’d planned for something else, Wheel-Leg Malloy, who’s happy to interrupt the plot to… Well, maybe I should just let ‘ol Wheel-Leg himself ‘splain it:

That was what they call a rhetorical question. I heard you just fine the first time. “Who in tarnation is she, Malloy?” Well, first of all, them’s mighty strong words, Mr. Ward, for a boy ain’t had cause to pick up a razor yet. Me? ’Course I cuss like a rabid badger. You earn one cuss word for every gray hair, and I got so many I can clear out a church in five minutes flat and get it struck by lightning to boot.

Second, I’m working up to it, building what you call narrative tension. Storytelling ain’t just a regurgitation of the facts. It’s putting those facts into an order, telling them with the right flow, the right cadence, the right rhythm to build to an emotional impact. It’s character development, and plot, and world-building. And most of all, it’s a-weaving all them things together, careful-like, like a spider, and all’a you my precious little flies.

Gemma: Wheel-Leg Malloy sounds like quite a character! He also seems to have quite a grasp on storytelling; I think I’m caught in his web and I’d read that story just because of him. Which tends to come to you first – plot or character, or…?

Bernie: Honestly, I don’t know. Or more accurately, it depends on the story. Stories come from so many places—from dreams, from a fragment of a scene seen almost film-like, from gestures, from a misheard phrase or the feeling a song creates. Like: there’s a gesture, and a sigh, and a frown at someone across a table, and the scrape of a chair as they stand up. Then it becomes my job to figure out who the person is that did these things, and why, and so on. So maybe it’s neither plot nor character, sometimes? One phrase I’ve heard that makes sense to me is that “plot is what characters do,” and I’ve had plots take a hard left turn at Albuquerque because a character has grown into someone who would never do what’s needed to be done to move the plot forward as planned. The story is a thing, for me, to be discovered holistically, building from whatever fragment of it I can get my teeth into first, which maybe throws me off the spectrum entirely.

Gemma: It’s kind of an arbitrary spectrum to begin with. “Plot is what characters do” is an interesting take. Unexpected character growth can be a really excellent outcome.

Bernie: It’s true. Sometimes a character will do or say something that brings the story into a new focus, that really defines the whole meaning of it in a way that you didn’t expect, and then when you go back to make changes to the earlier parts of the manuscript to make it consistent with the new direction, you find that it’s been there all along. It just took that long for the characters to get tired of waiting for you to catch on.

Gemma: Along with characters and all these other influences, are there places that you’ve lived (or visited) that especially affect your writing?

Bernie: Having lived in Philadelphia is certainly an influence. Philly has its own flavor of dysfunctional functionality. I lived in an apartment complex in Mt. Airy that was deeply weird, and was interconnected with what we affectionately called “The David Lynch Memorial Basement.” Lets see, what else? 1980s San Francisco (moreso than its current incarnation). A lonely forest path somewhere in central Minnesota in winter. Novi Sad, back when it was still Yugoslavia, and also Mali Losinj, on the Adriatic Sea. Auschwitz, as a kid, where we found strange stones in the path, and the guard told us those were bone fragments, “more come up every time it rains.” Skopje, a few months after the war, where the pain was written in bullet holes in the walls and half-crumbled homes, still occupied, with the optimism of life pushing up through it as groups of young people walking past it all, excitedly talking about a new band they’d just seen.

Gemma: that is deeply haunting. I can’t even imagine the impact those last two places must have left.

Turning from the past to the future, what is your next project you hope to do?

Bernie: Oh, there are so many in flight. I really should finish one of them. Let’s see:

Ari & the Nicer Gang – Dieselpunk novel set in a world where the Mongol Empire still exists in the early 20th century. This is a sequel to a short story about a mind-control device, “The Power of Her Position.”
As-Yet-Untitled Pirate novel (affectionately called “Untitled Pirate Dreck”) – It’s tempting to say “a post-apocalyptic world,” except the apocalypse is ongoing, as insatiably ravenous demons seep up from fissures in the earth and are carried wherever the wind blows them, and the notorious Captain Deadbeef and his crew fight to save as much of civilization as they can.
Kudzu – an illustrated novel with talking raccoons and a possibly sentient giant kudzu plant. In space. This one is up in its unfinished form at http://spacekudzu.com . Artwork by Linda Saboe.
As-Yet-Untitled Faerie novella – Urban fantasy set during World War II. This one is a sequel to my first ever published story, “Moonshine,” and has the hero and the villain of the earlier story teaming up in unexpected ways to defeat the Nazis.

I think Ari gets my attention first, and then I need to figure out what’s next.

Gemma: Since I’m reading Ari & the Nicer Gang in our critique sessions, and I am on tenterhooks wondering what happens next, that definitely gets my vote. I took a glance at Kudzu – and promptly got sucked into reading more than I intended. The art is excellent, too.

Bernie: Linda’s a wonderful artist. She’s done illustrations for several books, but most of her work is more traditional media. She was also the art director of Unlikely Story, and contributed some of the illustrations there. You can see more of her work at https://croneswood.com/.

Gemma: I just visited her website and wow, that’s some beautiful natural and supernatural art! How can readers connect with you?

Bernie: I’m on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/brni.x (I used to have a Twitter account, but that’s been decommissioned).

There’s also a horribly out-of-date website at http://www.kappamaki.com (like, 8 years out of date). I really need to get that fixed up, if I can remember the password… Or maybe I should just start from scratch. I guess it’s time to re-learn WordPress. And maybe fix the Unlikely Story site while I’m at it.

Gemma: Thanks for joining me on my blog, Bernie. I’m looking forward to reading your new stories!

February 12, 2023 2

Kathy Otten Interview

One of the things I’ve found most helpful in coping with the Covid-19 pandemic is to learn something new. So I was very glad and grateful to participate in Kathy Otten’s online writing course hosted by Pennwriters, which frequently offers such courses. Kathy’s class, “Weaving History into the Historical Novel,” was of particular interest to me as I write some historical fiction. Her class was very interesting, practical, and helpful, and I got a lot of enjoyment from it.

Now I’m pleased to invite Kathy to join me on my blog for an interview.

Welcome, Kathy!

Kathy Otten, Historical Romance Author

Gemma: Tell me a little about your writing, and how you came to write historical fiction.

Kathy: Hi Gemma, Thanks for having me. I write mostly historical romance; a mix of short stories, novellas, and novels. My dad loved the old westerns from when he was a kid, so when they were popular in the seventies, we went to see every John Wayne picture that was released.

Gemma: Ah, the classic westerns! I’d like to refer you to VT Dorchester’s blog — VT posts reviews of westerns, both movies and books (along with writing western stories). Pardon my digression – please tell me more.

Kathy: My mom loved old houses and antiques. Our house was full of them, and each one had a story related to some passed family member.

Gemma: Oh, that’s wonderful. Is there any antique with a particular story that really stays with you?

Kathy: The house was filled with things like Limoges china, a spinning wheel, yarn winder, antique sewing table, dressers, hundred-year-old steamer trunks, cooking utensils, furniture, etc. However, it was the more personal things that were passed down, which to me have a deeper connection. I have a recipe book from my great, great grandfather who had come from Sweden to NYC, and all the recipes are in his handwriting. I had thought it would be fun to have his handwriting analyzed to find out about his personality. My mother gave me an old leather purse which had belonged to my great-grand mother and it still had old coins from the 1800’s in it, along with some old fractional currency, which was issued in the mid 1800’s in lieu of coins because of a coin shortage. Old money is cool to think about anyway, but she would have been the last one to handle it and it might even have her fingerprints on it.

Gemma: Those are some amazing family heirlooms. And the thought of having currency with your great-grandmother’s actual touch on it is enough to give me chills.

Kathy: Together Mom and Dad instilled a love of history for both my brothers and me. My writing melds the happily-ever-after of romance with the romantic myth of the old west and my personal love of exploring different eras and stories from history.

Gemma: What are some other eras you’ve written about?

Kathy: Contemporary is not my usual time period, though I did write a short contemporary romance years ago. Mostly I write out west during the open range cowboy era. I did write a middle-grade historical short story which took place in the 1850’s and I have a soon to be released World War I short story. Since my characters come to me first, I tend to write whatever time period they drop me into.

Gemma: That’s cool to follow the characters to their time period! Do you write in other genres?

Kathy: I’ve written some contemporary romance and a YA novel yet to be published.

Gemma: Tell us a bit more about the YA novel.

Kathy: The YA book is a contemporary story about a teenage boy dealing with past trauma and self-doubt. I’ve submitted it to over twenty agents and editors, but it has been rejected every time. For now, it’s on the back burner. I may go back and rewrite parts of it and try the process again someday when I have the time.

Gemma: It sounds like you have the persistence so vital to being an author. Do you remember when you realized or decided that you wanted to be a writer?

Kathy: I’ve always made up stories in my head, so I don’t really remember when I decided I wanted to be a writer. My mom tells the story that when we went grocery shopping, if she had enough money she’d by each of us one of those Little Golden Books. One day I wanted one, but she didn’t have enough money. When I became upset she told me to write my own and that’s when I started putting stories on paper.

Gemma: Oh, the Little Golden Books – I have some fond memories. What a great response from your mother – and from you, to take her up on it. Can you trace some of your writing history?

Kathy: I’m guessing when I say I must have been in about second grade when I remember writing “Lucky the Dog.” I wrote simple sentences on the lower half of the paper and colored pictures on the top half. The book had a paper cover and I had tied it together with yarn. My mother kept it, that’s why I remember it. I went on to write “The Lost Uranium Mine” and “The Mystery of the Old Yellow House.” When I was sixteen, I wrote “The Letter” for a contest and it won and was published in a Christian magazine for teens called The Young Ambassador. That was the first time I saw my name and my story in print. That really hooked me and I’ve been writing steadily ever since.

Gemma: That first time of seeing yourself in print is so exciting! What’s the first piece you wrote that you’re still proud of/happy with?

Kathy: Aside from that first short story in print, I’ve been happy with each story I’ve written. There are aspects to each one I’m proud of.

Gemma: That is excellent. What’s the hardest part of writing for you?

Kathy: Not procrastinating. Sitting my butt in the chair and doing the work. There are some days cleaning the bathroom seems preferable.

Gemma: You know the procrastination bug is bad when cleaning the bathroom looks better! I know the feeling well; and even when my butt is in the chair, I often feel compelled to straighten my pens and notebooks, and then wonder if I should dust the desk…What’s the best part of writing for you?

Kathy: Sometimes going back and reading a sentence or paragraph from an older work, and I read it and think, Wow, I can’t believe I wrote that.

Gemma: Oh, that is a wonderful feeling! Where does your writing fall on the plot-driven vs. character-driven spectrum?

Kathy: I used to say my stories were character driven, until I read something that James Scott Bell wrote in one of his books on writing. That without a good strong plot the characters have nothing to react to, and without that reaction there is no catalyst for change. I’ve read a lot of romance where the characters are flat and boring. Stepping back, now I can see that it’s the weak plot and lack of conflict that keep the characters, flat and one dimensional.

Gemma: That is an excellent insight; I’ve never thought of it, and it rings very true. What books and authors did you love growing up? Did any particularly influence you?

Kathy: I used to read a lot of books by naturalists, then I fell into the westerns of Louis L’Amour. I love his historical detail and sense of place. Elmore Leonard is another, either his westerns or contemporary police dramas. I love his characters and dialogue.

Gemma: What are you reading presently?

Kathy: I read mostly history on whatever topic I’m researching. If I ever have time I’ll read historical romance or some contemporary.

Gemma: What are you working on now?

Kathy: I’m working on another historical romance novel that touches a bit on the views of sexuality in the Victorian period.

Gemma: That sounds intriguing. I remember being surprised when I realized that the Old West and the Victorian Age overlapped – they seem so different. What is your next project you hope to do?

Kathy: Ideas and characters constantly tumble around in my head, who know which one will jump out at me next. I’m trying to stay focused on one project at a time. No more three novels at once.

Gemma: Wow! Three at once sounds daunting, to say the least. What were the three novels, and what brought you to write them at the same time?

Kathy: In hindsight, I wouldn’t recommend doing it. Because writing and researching one book is time consuming, doing multiple stories takes that much more time. It created a gap of years between release dates which in this day and age of search engine optimization and readers who binge read backlists, keeping a steady stream of product is important if you want people to remember your name. At the time I was working on the YA novel, my Civil War novel, A Place in Your Heart, and the rough draft for the novel I’m currently rewriting. I’m having to learn not to listen to the muse and work on the story I might feel like working on and focus on keeping in the zone and sticking to one story at a time.

Gemma: I’ve felt challenged by that, too, and it’s resulted in some stories left unfinished for long periods. For readers who want to see what you’ve been up to, how can they connect with you?

Kathy: Email me at Kathy@kathyotten.com
Web site www.kathyotten.com
Facebook www.facebook.com/kathyottenauthor

Gemma: Thank you for joining me on my blog, Kathy!

October 16, 2020 14

Joint Interview with Gemma and Aud

Writers Aud and Gemma have two things in common: they attend the same critique group and both have short stories in Running Wild Anthology of Stories, Volume 3. (Available at independent bookstores, through Bookshop.org, and from Barnes and Noble and Amazon.) They are also good friends who, during the pandemic, came together via Zoom to talk about writing and to share their creative plans for the future.

Gemma and Aud across space!

Gemma: So, Aud, it tickled me that our short stories were next to each other. And you have a story in Running Wild’s third Novella Anthology, too!

Aud: First, me too! I’m excited that we’re not only both in the short story anthology, but my story comes directly after yours!

G: So tell a little bit about both of your stories.

A: My short story in Running Wild Anthology of Stories, Volume 3, “Monkey in the Middle” is about a marriage falling apart as seen through the eyes of the couple’s young daughter, who has no clue what’s going on. My novella in the Novella Anthology volume 3, book 1 is called “Broken Soul to Broken Soul,” about two characters, suffering from separate traumas, who come together to form an unorthodox friendship that might lead toward healing.

Home of Broken Soul to Broken Soul

G: I love both of those stories – in different ways because they’re so different. My piece in the Anthology of Stories, “The One that Got Away,” catches a group of fishermen in the middle of swapping tall tales. The one my story’s about is the tallest one of all!

Our Shared Anthology

A: I reread your short story and liked it even more this time around. It is so well done and with such a short number of words!

G: Thanks, Aud!

A: I don’t know if I ever told you this, but your blog inspired me to start one. I had one years ago, but not about writing. Can you talk a little about your blog?

G: Wow, I didn’t know my blog inspired you to start yours – I’m glad you did. My blog’s focus is reading and writing, and also my love of words. That’s why I subtitled it “Writer and Word Explorer” – also ’cause it’s a fun sorta-pun. I love words. I haven’t explored that facet as much as I want to on my blog, things like word origins.

A: You’ve done some of those. I remember some of those, yeah.

G. It’s one of the things I love. And highlighting other authors, giving them one more opportunity to be out there. It’s a nice way of networking and I get exposed to new things that way, too. And I can’t wait to start posting character interviews. Including one of yours! How about you, Aud? What’s your blog’s focus?

A: The writing process and how to get there, namely through living, reading and writing, which is what it’s called, “Live, Read, Write.” That’s my process; have experiences, read early and often and after that’s all done, digest it, and spit it out in the form of fiction.

G: [Laughter] So what are you currently reading?

A: I am currently reading a travel memoir by an English guy named Tony James Slater and it’s called Kamikaze Kangaroos! It’s about his year traveling through Australia with his sister and his sister’s Australian girlfriend. I’m almost finished that one, so on deck is a cozy mystery that takes place on a Caribbean cruise ship. I never heard of the author, but I like cozy mysteries, I like Caribbean cruises and I like 99¢ for eBooks on Kindle.

G: [Laughter]

A: And, there’s a reason that I like 99¢ eBooks – they’re not always good. I learn more from the bad stuff than the classics.

G: That is an excellent point. I think you have a lot of patience because I want to get lost in the books I read. I don’t want to be critiquing them.

A: Well, I’m not really critiquing them either, but I’ll read something and think, “Aww! I wish that person had a critiquing group because they wouldn’t have done that!” But it doesn’t stop me from enjoying the story. And I read so fast, that I just zip right through them. [Editor’s note: Aud has already read 12 more books since this joint interview. She is currently rereading Judy Blume’s classic middle grade novel, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. ]

G: You’re a fast reader. I know there have been some books I’ve read where I thought, “Oh man! My critique group wouldn’t let that fly!”

A: That’s exactly it, yeah! I know you’re also a big reader, Gemma. What book is on your nightstand right now?

G: I’m not nearly as fast as you, though! Right now I’m savoring Circe, by Madeline Miller. It’s the story of the nymph Circe from The Odyssey. She welcomed Odysseus and his crew to her island and gave them a feast. Because the men acted like pigs, they were turned into pigs. That’s the myth, and we’re seeing her from her birth. She’s just a minor nymph at the beginning and she’s not loved by her parents. The gods and Titans are very human in some sense – they squabble – but they’re also bigger than life. I’m really enjoying it. It’s an interesting view of mythological things. It’s well written, detailed but not too detailed. She captures the scene with just a few words and I love that. I’m trying to learn from that. [Editor’s note: since this interview, Gemma has finished Circe, still loves it, and is now reading The World of Odysseus by M. Finley.] So, tell us a little bit about what you’re writing.

A: I am editing the never-ending upper middle grade novel, This Way/That Way about a girl drummer who learns about love and acceptance after befriending a schoolmate whose father is suffering from cancer. I might change the title because during this latest edit, it seems to be heading toward the spiritual. I’m wondering if I can make a cross-over story. I don’t want it to be 100% Christian, but God will have a cameo. What are you currently working on?

G: I am working on a novel that the idea for came to me decades ago. It’s about a girl who finds out, when she’s a teenager, that there’s a prophesy that she will become so beautiful that people will wage war, there will be battle and bloodshed and death over her. And she’s horrified. She thinks, “No! I’m not going to be responsible for the ruin of my people. I’m going to do everything I can to prevent that.” To do that, she has to become a warrior. That’s where I am in the story right now. I have the general course of the story planned out. And I know how it’s going to end, but between here and there a lot will happen.

A: Do you know, This Way/That Way is over 80,000 words long right now?

G: Wow.

A: I can’t have that for middle grade or upper middle grade. No way. I’ve gotta cut some of that back. There’s a question they ask in the Quaker Sunday school after they tell a Bible story: “What can we take away from this story and still have everything we need?” That’s a really good question that I want to answer while editing.

G: Yes. I’m telling myself that now as I’m writing a scene. “Do I need that?” Nope. It can go. That’s the challenging thing. But you’re the one who told me this — you don’t know what you need until you get to the end.

A: That segues us to the benefits of a critique group. I’m impressed that you’re able to be in two critique groups. You read everybody’s pieces, comment on the pieces, write your own piece, plus do your blog! I don’t know how the heck you find time to do all of that!

G: It’s challenging sometimes. I used to take people’s pieces out to Starbucks or the library or a bookstore and enjoy reading them over a coffee. I miss that.

A: Do you think there’s a time when a critique group gets too comfortable since we’ve known each other so long? I wonder if we ever let each other sort of get away with stuff because we know the story. Like if we’ll read one of the pieces and fill in blanks that aren’t technically there.

G: That can be a good thing, because you’re supposed to trust your reader and let them fill in the blanks. But it can also be a troublesome thing. In our own group I think we do cut each other some slack. We have faith in each other. But on the other hand, we don’t necessarily let each other get away with stuff. Like you guys will call me on things. It’s not just typos, it’s like, “Wait. Don’t you remember this?” or “Would somebody really say that?” or “Wouldn’t somebody ask this?” So, I think we can get too comfortable sometimes, but we can remind ourselves, “Okay, I’m coming to this as a reader.”

A: The bottom line is, you as the author, have to decide what’s right for the story. Sometimes our group says majority rules but maybe not. It might be the one person is correct and the other two are not quite right.

G: Once it was told to me by a wise person, “A tie goes to the author,” so if you’ve got opposing opinions, go with yours. There can be times where someone makes a really valid point, or somebody comes up with a cool idea. And I think, “Yeah, that would be cool, but that’s not the story I’m telling.”

A: Sometimes when a critiquer asks, “What’s the person thinking here?” There isn’t really an answer. Sometimes, the character doesn’t have time to think, she’s just acting.

G: And that’s tricky to bring the reader along with that. There was a PennWriters session once where an author was saying, “Don’t overuse emotional words, but in the first draft use them all you want.” Then, when you’re rewriting it, try to bring the reader with you so the reader doesn’t need to be told the character is heartbroken, the reader is heartbroken with the character. But not in the first draft, because that’ll just paralyze you.

A: Right. Make it authentic. For me, the first draft is the hardest thing to write. My work around is I’ll use present tense. I’ll write, “Nickie looks up and asks if classrooms are up there.” When my inner editor sees that it thinks, “Oh, we’re not serious because we’re not in past tense.” That’s how I get past the inner critic.

G: That is so tough.

A: How do you handle your first draft? Your blank page as it were.

G: I guess I try to write when the inner editor’s not looking. [Laughter] “You go do something else. Your turn will come when I revise.” Sometimes I hear – I’m not proud of this – but I’ll hear the voice, “Well, Aud would catch this,” and “Steve would catch that, and Laura would say this.”

A: That’s what I do! Yup, I’m doing the same thing. [Laughter]

G: And I have to say, “They don’t always. I may be wrong.” I find first drafts easiest if I’m not thinking about all the revisions I’m going to have to make. [Laughter]

A: That makes me feel better, knowing I can fix it if it’s not quite right. [Laughter]

G: There’s that too, there really is. What does your writing schedule look like right now?

A: I’m out of school for the summer, so I take early morning walks. I keep a pen and little notepad in my pocket. As I walk, I think about the story. Whenever I hear dialog or description in my head, I’ll stop cold and start writing. Sometimes I don’t even stop. I walk and write.

G: Cool!

A: I try to type my notes as soon as I get back because writing while walking isn’t always legible. Then I try to work on my computer outside until it gets too hot. I try to work until lunch and then I read in the afternoon. Sometimes when I’m just not feeling it, I don’t write at all. Which I know isn’t good. You have to make yourself sit in front of the computer. It’s been said before: Just put your butt in the chair and work. One thing I love is my laptop can read to me. When I hear back what I wrote the day before, it gets me in the mood to write. But even with that, I don’t think I’m as productive as I should be.

G: It goes both ways. Sometimes you have to sit down and do it. I’ve told myself, “Oh, I never got anything written today, but I don’t write after dinner.” I remember one day I just sat down after dinner and wrote. “What do you know? I can do it.” But generally I’m kind of a morning person. It often works well if I get up early and go for a walk and think about what I want to write next. I’ll often rehearse scenes in my head. On a good day, once I’m home I’ll sit down and write it. Revising usually happens after my second group has met. I’ll go through and think, “these are the little things I can do right now.” But for big things, I have a file of notes to revise – “Think about this in the future.” If I can’t decide if I want to go this way or that way – no pun intended – I will make notes about it, or if it’s too big of a change and I can’t face it right now – “Let’s not and pretend I did.” [Laughter] So, it’s a lengthy process but that’s sort of what mine is like right now.

A: Have you ever gotten inspiration in the middle of the night?

G: Not so much in the middle of the night, but sometimes when I’m getting ready for bed, or reading before bedtime. I do have a pen and a pad of paper next to me so I can scribble it down. More than one time, I looked at it the next morning and thought, “Oh what the heck was that?”

A: [Laughter]

G: I must have been half asleep when I wrote that.

A: I’ve got a clipboard and a pen on the floor beside the bed. In the middle of the night I’ll write it down but can’t always read what I wrote. For some reason, when I get a magnifying glass and look through it, sometimes I can figure out what the letters are and then it’ll click. “Oh, right, that’s what I meant!” Or I’ll get inspiration in the night and some of the times you’re thinking, “This is genius!” Then the next morning go, “This isn’t genius at all. This is stupid.”

G: [Laughter]

A: I’ll write it down any way, just in case.

G: You never know. It might be good.

A: So here we are, stuck at home. How has covid19 affected your writing?

G: It’s been hard sometimes, admittedly. It’s just because it’s so overwhelming. On the other hand, sometimes writing’s been a real welcome release. I can make happen in a fictional world whatever I want – I can tell myself that it doesn’t even have to be good. I can see that justice prevails in my story. Things will be done right in my story. And that’s helped. But sometimes I’ll have to go off and read something totally unrelated to world events and to my own writing. How about you?

A: I would say Covid gave me some writer’s block. What saved me from that was when a local theater group, the People’s Light, offered prompts for people to write about what they were experiencing. Later, the actors acted them out on Zoom. The prompts they suggested were things that I never in a million years would have thought to write about. I really liked that it got me writing again.

G: That was wonderful, and I’m so glad it helped with your writer’s block. What would you like to do differently in your writing life going forward? For me, I want to get back to taking morning walks and writing. I want to get more into the part of the story that matters. And to have a sense of urgency about it so it doesn’t take me another twenty-five years to finish it! How about you?

A: I want to be more productive than I am right now. When I start school in the fall, I’m going to look back and think, “Look at all these full days I had where I could have spent all this time writing and didn’t.” I have a tablet with sound effects. So, I’ll sit outside under my umbrella with my ice tea and my laptop with ocean waves playing in the background while I write. Boy oh boy, that’s fun! It got a little hot yesterday. I had some water and I doused my head and pretended I went swimming. [Laughter]

G: [Laughter] That’s cool. I used to go to Starbucks, especially when I was writing Green Midnight, I had earphones and I would play forest soundscape while I was writing. It put me in the mood.

A: Yeah. That’s cool. Anything that can get the creative juices flowing. Speaking of that, we better stop and get back to work! Happy writing!

G: Thanks for this chance to chat together, Aud! Happy writing to you, too!

P.S. from Gemma: check out this interview on Aud’s blog – she’s got fun audio snippets! And you can read a transcript of Aud’s piece, and the others, on People’s Light here.

August 14, 2020 4

VT Dorchester’s Interview of me

I’m pleased to note that my writing colleague VT has posted an interview of me.

Desk of Gemma Brook

VT was an excellent host, and asked some very good and thought-provoking questions, some of which actually took days of thought for me to put answers into words. I hope you’ll have a look. And while you’re there, have a look around the blog; VT writes very good and candid reviews of books (especially Westerns) and movies (not just Westerns), not to mention recommendations of Old Time Radio shows to listen to.

Thanks, VT!

June 29, 2020 1

Interview with Ed Burke

Ed Burke reading Maia’s Call at Write Action gathering, 2019

I’m very pleased to continue my interviews of Running Wild Anthology of Stories 3 colleagues, this time with author and poet Ed Burke. His story, “Maia’s Call,” truly moved me.

Welcome, Ed! Please give us a taste of what your story is about.

Ed: “Maia’s Call” begins with a phone call to the protagonist, Tom from his former lover, Maia, who asks him to come see her because she is dying. Tom travels from San Francisco to Maia’s home in a remote corner of Vermont. There they spend a night sharing the story of their lives over the intervening years and what has brought them to this point.

Gemma: How did you find out about this anthology?

Ed: I was searching for a small independent publisher for my novel, Christine, Released and came across Running Wild Press in Poets & Writers Magazine’s list of publishers. I liked what I read, researched further and appreciated many of the novels, and the short story and novella anthologies because they contained excellent cutting edge work.

Gemma: They truly do – it’s a real strength of Running Wild Press.

Our New Anthology

Gemma: Do you remember when and why you started writing?

Ed: I’ve been creating stories since forever but didn’t start writing until high school as best as I can remember. I’ve always had movies running in my head and I put some of those fictions down on paper. Poetry is a different matter; channeling lyric reality is a gorgeous passion that I am compelled to express.

Gemma: That’s a wonderful description of poetry. And I love the image of movies running in your head! What’s the first piece you wrote that you’re still proud of/happy with?

Ed: It’s hard to say. There is a lot of poetry that I am very proud of that date back a ways. Written fiction was a latecomer. I got a kick out of my school days pieces but barely remember them. When I began the novel Christine, Released I knew immediately I was writing something excellent. That is the first piece of fiction I was and am truly proud of.

Gemma: Tell us a bit of what that novel is about.

Ed: Here’s a short synopsis.
Sixteen year old Christine Bancroft is desperate to escape her depressed Vermont hometown. She runs off with a small-time cocaine dealer and quickly descends into a harsh world with punishing consequences. Taken into state custody, Christine is placed at a foster home in a remote corner of Vermont where she searches for answers that may explain her suffering and her need to return to her imperfect mother. Opposing her return to her mother are the state child protection services and her estranged father who is determined to “save” his daughter. It is during the climactic custody hearing that Christine grasps her past which enables her to seize control of her fate.

Gemma: That really sounds like a gripping novel, especially knowing your skill and your voice in “Maia’s Call.” Do you remember what the seed for Christine, Released was?

Ed: I do. I had a case where the state had taken a 16 year old girl into custody because she was “unmanageable”. Her mother was a single, working mother. The girl’s estranged father hired me. In his mind the whole case was about him. I wondered how difficult it must have been for the mother to deal with a narcissist jerk like my client. The novel came into creation with the sound of a cigarette butt being dropped into a near-empty beer can, the resulting hiss. The camera in my mind’s eye drew back, and there was Christine huddled against the cold in a dank living room in a winter morning’s first light.

Gemma: Wow, that’s is an amazing story behind the story.

Christine, Released

Gemma: I’d like to hear more about your writing history.

Ed: I’ve written a lot of poetry over the years. Some has been published in journals, most recently Ginosko Literary Journal in 2018. By the way, Ginosko is an amazing publication that I encourage folks to submit to.

Winter 2018 Cover Canyon Water by Noelle Phares

Ed: I’ve written a fair number of decent short stories over the past fifteen years. Running Wild Press published my first short story, “Maia’s Call,” in Anthology #3 in September, 2019; my first novel, Christine, Released, in October, 2019, and will be publishing my first novella, Allure, in the novella anthology coming out in the fall of 2020.

Gemma: That’s a very nice run of publications! What are you working on now?

Ed: I am in the throes of writing a novel that is blowing me away, about a remarkable young woman, a nurse, during World War I. And I’m always writing poetry.

Gemma: I must ask you about that photo. Where is that street?

Ed: ee cummings Blvd. is in Old Orchard Beach, ME. I’ve been going there nearly every year for the past 20 years. It makes me smile. I love his poetry!

Gemma: I love ee cummings’ poetry, too! My older sister introduced me to him.

At Old Orchard Beach

Gemm: I’d like to hear a bit about how your writing has changed over time.

Ed: My fiction now rolls out along a clearer narrative arc now, almost effortlessly. That’s how it happens with anything that is good. My poetry is constantly shifting in theme, temperament, form, lyricism.

Gemma: I admire your ease with narrative arc – mine always seem to have some potholes and blind turns in the first draft. And I admire the poetry of yours that I’ve read, too. What’s the biggest challenge for you to write?

Ed: I have a hard time with memoir, with the demand to get the details properly remembered. When I have allowed details to come forward of their own accord, bearing their own significance, I have written much better memoir.

Gemma: What do you like best to write?

Ed: I love poetry, fiction, memoir for its own reasons. Each is rewarding in very different ways.

Gemma: When you get an idea for a story, what comes to mind first, the plot or the characters? Or does it vary from story to story?

Ed: It always starts with an image, then my minds-eye camera pulls back to reveal a scene, a character, and I follow the camera as the character is depicted in more detail, through his or her actions and the reactions of those s/he encounters, and the set of interactions and reflections coalesce into a plot, subplots and divergences.

Gemma: Just like the movie running in your mind that you described. What authors did you love most growing up? What authors have influenced your writing most?

Ed: Growing up? Fiction, I have madly loved James Joyce (Dubliners! Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man!), Louise Erdrich, Annie Proulx, Edna O’Brien, Ken Kesey, Alice Munro, Arundhati Roy, Baron Wormser (Tom O’Vietnam!), Robin MacArthur. They must have influenced my writing without my intending them to, as I deeply cherish them all (and plenty others).

Gemma: Is there a place that you’ve lived that most influences your writing?

Ed: Vermont, where I have lived, studied, raised a family and practiced law the past forty years.

Gemma: Tell me more about what you’re working on now.

Ed: I am writing the first draft of a novel featuring a nurse during World War I with astounding healing power (a saint?) amidst the carnage. It’s been wild writing this, the reveals.

Gemma: It sounds amazing. What do you plan to work on next?

Ed: Either a crime thriller set in the collapsing world of 2037. Or return to a novel that I broke from to write Christine, about three lives that intersect through one event during the Vietnam War, changing the remainder of each of their lives.

Gemma: Those are very intriguing projects! How can readers connect with you and keep up with your news?

Ed: I have a facebook page Ea/ Ed Burke, focused on literary posts.

Gemma: Thank you so much for joining me on my blog, Ed! I look forward to your future novels.

May 29, 2020 8