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[img_assist|nid=5090|title=Pig Candy|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=150|height=231]In preparation for Philadelphia Stories’ Push to Publish workshop, keynote speaker and freelance journalist Lise Funderburg spoke with me about her new book, Pig Candy, the ups and downs of writing, and why she wouldn’t be good at writing fiction. Her memoir, Pig Candy, tells the story of Funderburg’s quest to get to know her father through a series of trips down to his hometown in rural Georgia. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, O, The Oprah Magazine, and Time.  Pig Candy was released in paperback this past May by Free Press, an imprint of Simon and Schuster.

What inspired you to write Pig Candy?

As a journalist I make my living getting people to pay me to answer questions I am curious about. And I was curious as to who my father was as a man and as a part of history, American history, apart from being my father — which was how I looked at him for most of my life. I think this is a natural curiosity that arises when you get to a certain age. Usually it is mortality that forces you to wake up and get more perspective. I was getting older and my father got sick from something that he later recovered from, but I realized my father was not going to live forever. And so I felt a kind of urgency to fill in the gaps. I realized there was so much I didn’t know about my dad because of the kind of man he was. So I thought under the guise of being a journalist I could get him to open up and talk about himself.  Since I am a freelance journalist– and especially because to him, and probably to a lot of other people, the word freelance means unemployed   I think he thought whatever he could do to help me out he would do, so he agreed to let me interview him.

You speak of a ‘decoding ring’ that you felt you needed when you were in your father’s hometown. Did you use any research or interviews to aid you in learning the subtleties of your father’s southern small town?

Research was a big part of it, I was fortunate that there were still a lot of people to talk with who knew him, the town he was from and the era. I did a lot in-depth reporting; I would talk to stone fruit peach experts at the agricultural extensions of various universities, I traveled to Michigan to look in the library archives there to find out more about the job he had waiting tables on cruise ships that went across the Great Lakes, now an extinct industry. I read books, found experts in different fields that spoke to his past and really, just being in the place he was from was a kind of in-depth reporting, to eat the food, which was a big part of the book, and to be in that rural landscape, was really a big part of my research.

How long did it take you to write Pig Candy?

Seven years. It took me a while to figure out the way I wanted to do this book. It wasn’t intended to be a relationship story about me and my dad; it was trying to put a person into context, which is a big task to take on. I had to find the right narrative stance, to be both honestly his daughter and the reporter I wanted to be. In the beginning I was writing a history of his jobs. I came back from the trip to Michigan and I wrote a chapter about his work on night boats. A colleague of mine read it and he said, “You know, this reads like you’re showing us you’ve done your homework.” I winced at that but I thought he was right. In a way, what set me in the right direction, sadly, was that my father became ill again and this time it was a terminal diagnosis of prostate cancer. That made it easier to write the book the way I wanted to write it. It took away the sense of obligation and I just wrote what I cared about, and it ended up being the book that I wanted in the first place.

Pig Candy is very relatable in the sense that every person has to ‘relearn’ who their parents are. How was your relationship with your father affected by your writing this memoir?

You do relearn who your parents are, when you get to that point of maturity and capacity and are able to look at them in their full dimension and not just as the child who needs them. That never goes away, and I don’t think it should ever go away, that you need your parents. But for me, my sense of my father was greatly enriched by doing this research. And to learn about the times and place he was from explained him in a way that was very satisfying, enlightening and comforting.

What was your favorite scene in Pig Candy?

 My favorite parts of the book are the parts that are always more than one thing. They might be, for example, the scene where I take my father to his doctor appointment and I let him drive, even though he had a stroke and was probably about to lose his license. The scene is funny and sad and informative. It was a bittersweet experience, the last couple of years of his life. There would be hilarity, grief, pride and grace all bundled together and they often came at points of great challenge. The scene in the car was one of them, and when we busted him out of hospice care to drive him down to Georgia one last time is one as well. One part that’s most moving to me is when I have to tell him his prognosis: a lot depends on him acknowledging something that he didn’t really want to acknowledge and I have to make choices about whether it’s my right to tell him this. That scene means a lot to me.

As the keynote speaker for Push to Publish, you will be sharing your advice and experience with aspiring writers. What was the best piece of advice you received when you first started writing?

One of my professors really impressed upon me the need to step away from your work as you craft it, whether that means putting in a drawer overnight, or walking away for twenty minutes.  Stepping away can give you perspective on your work and aid you in the revision process. That piece of advice has sustained me for a long time and I’m constantly amazed at how going away and coming back will make clear what was so unclear before.

Another piece of advice is when you’re ready to go out into the world and publish,  you have to follow the ‘lotto motto’: you have to be in it to win it. Instead of ‘all it takes is a dollar and a dream’, you could say ‘all it takes is a stamp and a dream.’ For many people, it’s like there is this giant wall between being published and not, and it’s frightening to submit things but you just have to make yourself do it. You have to fake confidence until you have confidence, you just have to. So I think you have to be in it to win it- you have to put yourself out there. There’s so much rejection built into this profession and you have to find a way to protect your ego and sometimes that means having more than ball in the air, sending it out to more than one place. I think there are instances when it isn’t appropriate to send out multiple submissions, but for most of us, we should have the high class problem of having the New Yorker and The Atlantic both wanting to run our piece and being in the embarrassing position of having to tell them they selected the same work. It’s good to be pursuing several avenues at once, so when one rejection letter comes in it’s not that bad.

Have you ever considered delving into fiction writing?

I’m afraid I wouldn’t be very good at it, in fact I took a workshop a couple years ago for fun and wrote a short story and I have to say it is the most plotless, flat piece of writing. Though it’s well written, it just doesn’t have momentum. For me, nonfiction offers up a lot of the satisfactions that fiction does: narrative nonfiction challenges you to shape a plot, develop characters, and to dig into the writers toolbox that is the same toolbox that fiction writers use. Setting scenes, tensions, pacing– all those things are essential in my work, and they are the defining aspects of fiction as well. I like the challenge of something that is real and shaping it into something that has grace and elegance. I’m fascinated by the real world and the many things happening around me .  Writing helps me to make sense of them and answer those questions and curiosities that I have.

[img_assist|nid=4680|title=Monkey See by Walt Maguire|desc=|link=url|url=http://www.encpress.com/MS.html|align=right|width=150|height=235]What if apes were living side-by-side the human species, wearing Urban Outfitters, taking public transportation and even talking? What would they talk about? That’s the question author Walt Maguire seeks to answer in his new novel Monkey See (ENC Press, Summer 2009). Laced with wit and satire, Monkey See follows Ed, a Bonobo ape, as he struggles to find his place in society. Complete with a love story, ethical uncertainty and lessons in ape etiquette, Monkey See is sure to leave you seeing the world from a different perspective.

Tell me about your new novel, Monkey See.

It’s set in a time when not only have scientists cracked the code for giving animals intelligence, but it’s becoming a little too commonplace. Ed, a young ape, is trying to find his way through the new social order, stuck halfway between American pop life and what the other apes want – finding a job; getting an apartment; going to parties; planning the overthrow of humans, or not. I’ve described it as Planet of the Apes from the ape’s point of view, but it’s more a coming of age story…with bananas and robot tanks.

What research did you do when writing your book?

Quite a lot – I was already interested in Jane Goodall’s work, and I knew about the Gorilla Foundation’s work with sign language, though like most people I’d never really studied their research. Apes have been studied, trained, and written about since at least the days of the Greeks.

What inspired you to include advice on “throwing inter-species dinner parties, parenting do’s and don’ts, conducting your own fiendish experiments, taunting caged monsters?” It must have been great fun to write such advice.

Fun? It’s very serious stuff. Okay, maybe not. I originally just planned to do a short etiquette book, but I soon found myself filling in a plot. Also, I discovered I don’t know anything about etiquette. But there were a lot of “rules” spread out through the movies, things that had never really been catalogued in one place. I had fun fitting them together coherently.

What was the most challenging part of writing your book?

I was so wrapped up in the story it took me a while to realize that a story about talking animals could be misinterpreted as a metaphor. I wanted to be careful that I wasn’t unintentionally making an anti-immigration argument, for instance.  I’m talking about actual talking animals. The point I was trying to make is that monster stories are moving from being a metaphor for discussing social issues to being an actual, possible situation. Something I hadn’t planned for the book is a running commentary on parenthood – the scientist who’s “enhancing” these creatures is, when you get down to it, a bad parent. He brings them into the world and then abandons them emotionally, not to say twists them to his own ambitions.

What is your favorite scene in Monkey See?

There’s a scene where Ed is worried about Gigi and tries to get help from a militant chimpanzee named Chekchek. The chimp hates Ed for being so easygoing, but he thinks Ed has secret information Chekchek needs for his revolt. The more they talk the more Ed drives him crazy. It’s the closest I’ve gotten to writing a Three Stooges routine.

“They remembered what we had made them think unimportant. We wanted them to type, we wanted them to speak, and we did not care about trees to their way of thinking. Cogitomni watched the great muscled back disappear into a pine and thought We cannot explain ourselves to them either.” This is a central idea to your book. Do you have any underlying social commentary in this passage?

One of the things I ran across in my research was a comment on the nature of language, which said, basically, that even if animals learned English, their frame of reference would be completely different. It reminded me of all the remarks over the years about “people not like us” – it ties back to the old idea that prejudice is largely based on assuming the other guy is somehow sub-human and unworthy of fair play.  The human race is very creative at making excuses.

What do you hope readers think about after reading your book?

Lunch, first. Buying more copies of  Monkey See as presents, second.  And caring a little more about what happens to those who depend on them, which I would count as third unless you plan to invite someone to lunch or buy them a copy of the book, in which case “caring” immediately leapfrogs to first on the list, and well done.

[img_assist|nid=4579|title=tafoya|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=66|height=100]In a phone interview about his first book, Dope Thief, Philadelphia author Dennis Tafoya marveled at his “incredible luck” at being published by Minotaur Books. He talked about a woman who first read him on the web and introduced him to the amazing “big picture editor”, Laurie Webb, and then to a manager, who found him an agent, who then sold the book…“It was like winning the lottery over and over again,” he said.

 

Dope Thief, already highly acclaimed by early reviewers, is worthy of Tafoya’s good fortune.

 

Although Dope Thief is categorized as crime fiction, it is truly a literary novel in which Tafoya says, “I played with the conventions of the genre but didn’t let myself become limited by them.” Early in the book the reader learns that 30-year-old Ray, the principal character, was in “juvie” before his sweetheart graduated high school, before she died in the stolen car he was driving. With a mother who abandoned him and a father in prison, Ray thought he was born to be “in the life” of crime.

 

Readers are artfully transported into Ray’s heart and mind through Tafoya’s straight forward, in-your-face description. Tafoya said, “I have an impulse to be terse. I try to be evocative in a short space.” For example, when Ray’s step mother wishes him Happy Birthday, Tafoya writes, “He could smell her, stale Arpège and Marlboros; and the house, something fried from last night, wet dog and dust and Lysol. The smell of home.” Later Ray’s memories were described as like “reading a terrible book and not wanting to read more pages because you knew the story just got worse”. In the same way, I couldn’t stop reading the book but dreaded how it would end.

 

The action, often searing with brutality yet softened by introspection and glimpses of redemption, involves the lucrative, sordid business of drugs: street dealers, crazed meth-heads and big time syndicates. It is set in Philadelphia’s suburbs where Tafoya grew up and adjacent rural Bucks County where he now lives. “Although I had a conventional childhood, albeit with my share of teenage stupidity, I was always fascinated by crime. I never knew hard core criminals but I understand desperation and like Ray, I often question myself about how we get where we are.”

 

Although Dope Thief is his first published book, Tafoya has been writing since high school. “I had to put serious writing aside after I got married and when the children were growing up,” he said. Continuing to work full time in industrial sales, Tafoya is in the process of writing a new mystery book. “I write in my head as I drive along between clients and then start real writing at home after dinner,” he said.

 

Tafoya says his family is “thrilled, excited and maybe a little surprised” about his new-found success. Although he notes “there is nothing like children and a copy editor to help to control any run-away ego!” Tafoya deserves to feel proud. Not only did his publisher recognize a terrific new author, but the title Dope Thief is his own and he even designed the cover.

 

Dope Thief is available online and in bookstores on April 28^th.

 By Christina Weaver, author of the memoir, What You Lose on the Roundabout

[img_assist|nid=3236|title=marc schuster|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=68|height=100]Local author Marc Schuster sat down with us to discuss his upcoming novel The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom and Party Girl (PS Books May 2009). The tale centers on Audrey, a woman who struggles with issues of addiction and romance. The novel offers a darkly comic look at consumerism and the ideal of perfection.

At what age did you start writing? 

I used to come up with odd little stories when I was eight or nine. One story I remember was about Halloween masks coming to life and terrifying the kids in my neighborhood. I’m not sure how the masks got around once they came to life, but I thought it was a great idea at the time. I also remember stealing the plot of a Doctor Who episode and writing a story called “Killer Robots,” which, coincidentally, was about killer robots. 

What inspired you to write WMPG? 

The novel grew out of a short story I wrote when I was a member of a local writers group. At one meeting, the assignment was to write a short story about an obsession, and I took the liberty of changing "obsession" to “addiction.". Everyone found the premise of a level-headed mom sliding into an addiction seductive, but the overwhelming consensus was that it needed development. I took it as a sign that what I had on my hands was actually a novel in its earliest stages. 

Why did you choose a woman for the main character of your first novel? 

I’ve always enjoyed the “conjuring” aspect of writing—inventing characters whose experiences are vastly different from my own, but at the same time finding common ground with these characters, discovering what we all share that makes us human. I did this in “My Life as an Abomination,” which Philadelphia Stories published a few years back, and it gave me a chance to explore the life of a young woman coming to terms with her sexuality. With WMPG, I wanted to do something similar, to use one woman’s story to examine the notion of addiction and how all of us can be susceptible to it in one form or another—even someone as smart and witty as Audrey. 

Why choose a drug addiction to exhibit the consequences of the double standard society puts upon American woman? 

I almost see drugs as the ultimate consumer product. The promise of every product that’s marketed to us is that that it will make us feel good. I see a real connection between buyer’s remorse and the crash that follows a cocaine high, for example. So we keep coming back for more. This really says something about how we really intuitively understand that we want the products in our lives to make us feel good. For Audrey, turning to drugs makes about as much sense as turning to some other product might make to someone else. Coke gives her energy, makes her feel sexy, and helps her tackle all of the overwhelming chores she faces on a daily basis. Who wouldn’t want that? And what household product doesn’t ultimately promise that? Of course, the promises of all of these products, like that of cocaine for Audrey, turns out to be empty in the end.

Audrey must, by the end of the novel, decide whether to reject the idea of being the perfect woman and accept herself as she is, flaws included, or continue to believe the “perfect woman” is an attainable existence. This is ultimately a question every person faces at some point in their life, regardless of gender. What differences do you see between men and woman and how this ingrained pressure affects them? 

I’m not sure the issue always falls perfectly along gender lines. In a lot of cases, the “ideal” versions of ourselves are based on whatever we value on a personal level. At the same time, though, I think that a lot of people, myself included, don’t take time out to ask themselves why they value certain things. Why is the idea of being “number one” or the best so important in our culture? Can’t we all just be good? The idea of perfection, I think, is largely an idea invented by Madison Avenue to make us feel bad about ourselves. Personally, I see magazine ads in which beautiful and largely hairless young people are lounging around on rolling lawns, and it takes a bit of effort for me not to dwell on the fact that I’m not as young as I used to be, that I’m hairy in places I’d rather not think about, that I have a gut, that I’m a little jowly, and that I never was and never will be one of the “beautiful people.” Even so, I also know that some small part of me believes in that fantasy, that the people I see in ads are real and happy. Unless we get past that, unless we’re all okay with the fact that we’re flawed and that human beings do, in fact, smell bad on occasion (among other imperfections), then we’ll always be miserable.  

The subject matter of WMPG is obviously dark, and yet there are many moments of levity with a wide range of colorful characters. How did you manage to balance the tone? 

Most of my favorite writers strike this balance, so I had many wonderful examples to follow. One of the reasons Kurt Vonnegut is so great is that he simply points out the more ridiculous ironies of life. To some degree, that’s what I was trying to do in WMPG. For example, I think it’s interesting that we’ve evolved in such a way that pretty much anything that makes us feel good will kill us. The other part of the equation is respecting the characters. Audrey is a sharp and witty person with a keen eye for irony. Since the story is told from her point of view, it’s only natural that she’s going to pick up on all of the ridiculous things that happen around her—everything from the bizarre efforts of characters like Captain Panther to keep kids off drugs to her seven year old daughter’s strange fascination with haute couture. It’s tough to have your wits about you in this world and not see that much of what we do is incredibly absurd. 

Would you describe your novel as a feminist novel? 

I think it resonates with a lot of issues that might be termed feminist, but I was ultimately aiming at a more humanist target. I wanted to underscore the dignity of humanity and to explore the ways in which each of us struggles to make something of our lives—basically how we dig ourselves into holes but also have the power to dig ourselves out again.  

Which authors influence your work the most? 

Kurt Vonnegut, of course. Don DeLillo is another big one. I love the epic sweep of Underworld. I’m also a big fan of Chuck Palahniuk and Jonathan Lethem. Lately I’ve been getting into Michael Cunningham and Jonathan Franzen as well. The Loss of Leon Meed by Josh Emmons is another book that I really admire—big cast of characters with a touch of magic realism. I’d like to do something along similar lines

What do you hope readers will take away when they finish your book? 

I don’t want this to be a moralistic book, the kind of book where people can reduce it to a single lesson like “Just say no.” I’d rather have readers come away with a sense of the complexity of addiction and an understanding of the human dimension of addiction. It’s so easy to think of “addicts” as a category and thus to dismiss them as human beings. By painting a portrait of a specific person who has fallen into an addiction and recovered, my hope was to humanize the phenomenon, to allow readers to sympathize with someone they might otherwise be tempted to dismiss, and to allow readers to recognize some element of themselves in the character of Audrey. 

Do you have any signings or readings planned before or once WMPG is released? 

I have a couple lined up at Rosemont College—with their literary magazine and through the Rosemont Writers’ Retreat, where I’ll be teaching this summer. I’ll be at Doylestown Bookshop on May 22. I’m also reading in September at Montgomery County Community College. Anyone who wants me to read or meet with their book club can get in touch through my website—www.marcschuster.com. 

 

Some say that the Internet will destroy the written novel as we know it today. However, after hearing the story of futureproof, an argument can be made in support of the World Wide Web as a source for finding the best in new literature. Daniels believed in his novel so much (and after reading it, I can understand why he did) that he put the first fifty pages on his myspace.com page and asked for willing readers. Readers turned into quick fans and soon Daniels decided to self-publish the book. After about a year the connective power behind myspace.com led Harper Perennial to contact Daniels directly with a publishing deal and the rest is history.

 

With this fictional “no excuses” look into the world of Luke, a teen growing up in the early 90’s in Atlanta, futureproof takes its readers on a speeding bullet train ride that refuses to stop even after the last page has been read. Because this book resonated so much within me for so many reasons, I had to contact its author, N. Frank Daniels and ask him a few questions. Below is a look into his creative mind, his writing influences, and his intensely honest novel, futureproof.    

  Where exactly did you live in Philadelphia and did the experience of living in Philadelphia manifest itself anywhere in your novel, futureproof? 

I was born in Philly, but only lived there as a small child, so I’d be hard-pressed to offer up any significant memories of the city itself. As far as the experience of being from there manifesting itself in my novel, there is no way I could deny that being a reality. My entire extended family on both sides is from Philly and I still have relatives who live there. All of them have that accent, and I am in Philly every so often visiting. It is a city that has a definite feel and personality, and although I never lived there as an adult I always feel at home there. Plus, I did my famed "Mexican Wrestler reading" there in October of 2006 (pic of that event can be found on my blog’s ‘about me’ page.)

    For me, writing is an all out blood bath. If I start writing, I won’t stop until I have the first draft done. Explain your method of writing. What things do you need before you can start writing (for me, it’s my Yoda figurine and a Coke Zero)? 

Writing is a bloodbath. The best kinds are anyway. I think, for me, that is the only kind of writing I want to read. Blood, sweat, tears kind of shit. My favorite quote about books/writing is by Kafka. It’s from one of his diaries. "I think we ought to read only the kinds of books that wound and stab us…We need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into a forest far from everyone, like s suicide. A book must be an axe for the frozen sea inside us."

 

I know that sounds dark, and it is (hence this style being referred to as Kafka-esque). But I think what I take from his overall point is that I want art to really emotionally fuck with me. I want to walk away from it and have it not leave me alone, on some level. As far as what I need before I start writing, a few stiff drinks is a good start. It helps me loosen up the stranglehold I normally have on my every thought and just let the writing happen. 

 

 For me, writing is like a spoiled child. What could you compare writing to? 

I think the best way I could describe it is an addiction. Wherein I need to write to maintain sanity. I blame a lot of my life problems on my obsession with writing/getting published. But at the same time I know being able to write things out has saved me many times. So in a lot of ways it’s a love/hate thing.

 

 I saw that some of your favorite authors are: Sylvia Plath, Kurt Vonnegut, Ken Kesey, Neil Gaimen, David Sedaris, and J.D. Salinger (all of which are on my list). What author or authors do you think most shaped your writing style? 

I can’t say specifically who has most shaped my writing style. I know comparisons to my writing style have been made to Salinger and Irvine Welsh. But I have been into Kerouac and Bukowski and Selby and even Whitman for years. So I think when you decide to create, all those who have created before you are sort of channeled into the stuff you make.

 

 

 How many drafts did your novel go through before you felt you were ready to self-publish your novel? 

How many drafts? Impossible to say. I edited and re-edited this book at least a dozen times. It was my first novel, and it was trial and error all the way. When I wrote the first draft I just let myself go wild with the writing. I had no outline, didn’t know where the story was going to go. I just wrote. By the time I was finished I had a manuscript 3 times as long as the final product you can read now. And that’s the Harper Perennial version. The self-published version of the novel, which is pretty much impossible to get now, was about 15,000 words longer than the Harper version. It’s really hard to just leave a book alone, to consider it ‘done.’ After futureproof was picked up by Harper I edited it at least five more times before I finally had to give it back to them for print deadlines. As the great man said, No art is ever finished, just abandoned.

 

 With Luke (the main character of futureproof), I always felt that he just told us his story. He never wanted us to feel sorry or bad for him. He made his own mess and knew when it came time to really clean it up. How were you able to make Luke so strong? Where did Luke’s ideals come from? 

I’m glad Luke comes across so strongly as a character. I just tried to BE Luke as I was writing the book. And yes, the character is based a lot on me, so that made it easier. But it was still a difficult thing for me to fully try to capture because I had to put myself in the mindset of a person 15 years younger than I was when I was writing this.

 

 Why is every chapter in your novel, futureproof split into months and is called a transmission? 

 I wanted the chapters to have months but no years indicated so that even as these characters are crashing through their lives, not giving a damn about what happens to them in the future, or even caring if the future exists, it is known to the reader that time keeps moving anyway. I called the chapters transmissions because I wanted to indicate that these chapters were more than just a ‘chapter’ in a book or a life, they were more like radio transmissions straight from the front lines of a person engaged in a war with life itself.

 Why did you include pen and ink drawings in the novel? 

 I always wanted to have artwork mixed with my writing. My second novel, Sanctuary, will have the same sort of thing, as far as there being art/photography spread throughout. I like having this subtle interpretation given out sometimes during the narrative. It also helps to break up the sometimes-monotonous pages of black letters on white paper.

  Why did you fight so hard to get this book out? What is it about the book that pushed you so far? 

 I pushed so hard because I felt that I had written something I myself had wanted to read, and I think I’m pretty discriminating when it comes to the kind of stuff that I find deserving of my time. Plus I knew that there were a lot of other people who wanted to read the book. I knew this because I had contacted hundreds of people who had then read the first 50 or so pages of the manuscript and were basically demanding that I publish the book so they could read the rest of it. I felt like I had tapped into something and after spending all the time writing and editing it and then trying to prove that it had a market to publishers, I found it impossible to walk away. I had just invested too much of my life and my family’s life to it.

 Is writing something you have always dabbled in or do you feel like writing is a part of your DNA? 

 DNA. Period.

     

[img_assist|nid=849|title=Josh Emmons|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=150|height=237] [img_assist|nid=851|title=Prescription for a Superior Existence by Josh Emmons|desc=|link=url|url=http://www.amazon.com/Prescription-Superior-Existence-Josh-Emmons/dp/1416561056/ref|align=right|width=150|height=225]Few writers walk the line between the real and the fantastic quite like Josh Emmons.

His first novel, The Loss of Leon Meed (Scribner 2005), reads like a cross between the works of Philip K. Dick and Jonathan Franzen. His second novel, Prescription for a Superior Existence (Scribner 2008), has been described as “a wicked skewering of religious cults and a finely wrought testament to their power.” Fresh off a stint at Yaddo, the renowned artists’ community, Josh sat down with us to discuss writing, faith, and inventing one’s own religion.

Are you a morning writer or a night writer?
I’m very much a morning person. I get up pretty early and do four hours a day as a minimum, but no more than five. After that, I’m pretty dead. I have to write in the morning with caffeine and sugar. I also need to be in a fairly quiet place, but not too quiet. I do much better when I’m in a city.

The Loss of Leon Meed features an impressive cast of characters. How did you juggle them all?
I began with writing character sketches. I wrote about seventy different characters, many of whom were based on people I’d known growing up, and some of whom I just pulled out of nowhere. When I got to the end, I realized that there were so many relationships between them—that someone was the uncle or the grand-nephew of another character. There was a lot more connective tissue between the characters than I had initially planned for. I decided at a certain point that seventy characters was far too many, and given that there were these relationships, if I didn’t want the character sketches to die on the page, I should probably develop them. So I went back, and I cut a lot of the characters that were on their own or had never met any of the other characters. I just whittled the character palette down to about twelve. With that paired-down group of characters, I began furthering their stories, writing it all in segments and then eventually having them overlap more and more and creating a latticework by the end.

Your second novel, Prescription for a Superior Existence, is a first-person narrative. What’s the difference between writing a novel with a large cast of characters and one that’s essentially focused on one character?
With The Loss of Leon Meed, I really liked writing a big cast of characters. I loved adopting other voices and imagining personal histories. Even though it’s third person, a lot of it is free indirect discourse. I felt I was able to escape myself. I could not be me for three or four hours a day, which was a very nice furlough from myself. I loved it, and I tried to make the characters as different from me as possible. In contrast, Jack Smith in Prescription for a Superior Existence was a very easy character to write, for one, because his language is very similar to the language that I use when writing and thinking to myself. I didn’t have to invent a vernacular for him or do any of the ventriloquist stuff you need to do when you’re writing a character whose syntax and modes of expression are totally different from your own. Additionally, his voice seemed to lend itself better to the project of the book, which is all about conversion and unconversion, belief and then interruption of belief. He really vacillates back and forth throughout the book as the religion waxes and wanes in terms of being believable. To bring the reader through his stages of incredulity, it needed to be in first person.

Faith and religion are major themes in both of your novels. Why the fascination?
I was raised without any traditional or even nontraditional religion. Both of my parents had grown up in something called the Church of Christ, which is extremely conservative and right-wing. It’s very literalist about the Bible. My parents had a terrible time in it, and their own spiritual journeys got a little strange. My dad became a Buddhist, and my mom became a Catholic mystic. That was very much a part of their lives, but they decided not to do with us what had been done to them, so they didn’t force anything on us or expose us to any religion. With Prescription for a Superior Existence, especially, I decided that it would be interesting if I took someone who, like me, had no religious reason to do anything in life, no compelling reason to live small or rein in his desires, and see what would happen if he were thrown into an anti-desire religion. That’s when I put together this Buddhism/ Scientology/Christian Science religion, PASE. I liked putting that together. It’s fun to create your own religion, but I think it’s out of my system now.

So you won’t invent any more religions?
Probably not. I’m done with that for now.

[img_assist|nid=837|title=Christine Weiser|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=150|height=219]

[img_assist|nid=832|title=Broad Street by Christine Weiser|desc=|link=url|url=http://www.philadelphiastories.org/store/|align=right|width=150|height=221]Questions for Christine Weiser About Broad Street by Marc Schuster

Broad Street is set in Philadelphia during the height of the grunge-rock scene of the early-nineties. Why did you choose this setting, and how does it factor into the story?

I was in a Philadelphia band called Mae Pang, which was mainly a chick rock garage band that started in the mid-90s. It was a great time for garage and underground rock. We saw bands like Nirvana at a small Philly rock club called JC Dobbs before “Smells Like Teen Spirit” hit. Weeks later, they were playing arena shows. We saw Dinosaur Jr. and Tad and Mudhoney and they were all great, but it was really the women that inspired us — performers like PJ Harvey and Liz Phair and Hole and The Breeders. I remember this time as being wild and magical, and those moments inspired me to write a book about the time and the experience.

The main characters in Broad Street, Kit and Margo, make a drunken pact to form a band, ostensibly to get back at the overbearing men in their lives, but as the novel progresses, music becomes an outlet for them. Do you see the arts in general and music in particular as liberating?
I think having art in a balanced life—whether it’s writing or playing an instrument or knitting—finding that one thing that you love to do just to do it–can be incredibly liberating and satisfying. Finding that balance is important, but it can be tough. It’s great to pour your soul into a piece of art, but I think you still have to stay connected to the world. I believe life inspires art, and if you cut yourself off from life and focus only on the art, you lose a great source of material. In Broad Street, for example, Kit thinks that if her band just became famous, then all would be right in her world. She learns that isn’t true.

I think women are especially pressured to do it all, and our challenge becomes how to carve out some time for ourselves in a way that doesn’t overwhelm us.

There’s a certain irony in the name of the band, which also happens to be the title of the novel. “Broad,” of course, is generally considered an obsolete, sexist term, but Kit and Margo appropriate it for themselves in a way that’s empowering. Do the characters see themselves as “broads” in any way? Alternately, how do they redefine the term to suit their own needs?
Margo love to embrace sexist, backwards terms like chick, skirt, and broads, and flaunt them in a tongue-in-cheek way that make these words silly, rather than degrading. This is a challenge for Kit, who has been raised by sixties-era radicals who think life in a girl band is not the best use of her intellect and schooling. When Margo first introduces the name, Kit questions how this reflects her parents’ ideals:

“I thought about this, feeling a slight tug on my feminist upbringing. My parents had spent many hours dishing out the importance of equal rights to my sister and me. I wasn’t sure they would agree that this was a fucking cool name. But this was different, I rationalized. This was just a tongue-in-cheek poke at the gender of our band.”

But, Kit begins to find a way to move beyond these expectations through the music. In one scene, she comments on their music:

“One song used these chords for a surf instrumental. Another song rumbled over a primitive African rhythm to proclaim, “never pick a man who’s prettier than you are.” Our songs were about living out repressed post-feminist fantasies in glorious ass-kicking frenzy. No more dick rock. Enter three girlie feminists not afraid to wear a dress, makeup, heels. What the hell was wrong with being a chick?”

I think that sums it up pretty well.

On a related topic, do you see yourself as a feminist writer?
I think “feminist” has many meanings to many people, and unfortunately not always positive. To me, a feminist is someone who advocates equal rights for women. Based on that definition, I suppose you could say I’m a feminist writer. Broad Street illustrates the challenge of being a girl in a boys’ rock club. Kit and Margo strive to be equal to their male musician peers, but they don’t necessarily mind that they get attention because they look good and are considered by some a novelty act.

This metaphor could ring true in a lot of areas of work and life. Sex is such a huge part of our culture, it’s hard to figure out how everyone can be treated exactly the same way when so many judgments are made based on the way someone looks.

In addition to making a name for their band in the music industry, Kit and Margo also have to deal with a number of personal issues. For example, they both have interesting relationships with their parents: Kit thinks she’ll never measure up to her father’s expectations, and Margo’s parents worked on the fringes of pop-music superstardom before settling down to raise a family. Why the interest in family? What draws you to such issues as a writer?

I think the power of family history is huge. We’re all shaped by the way we’re raised, whether it’s rebelling against our families or striving to be accepted by them. Often times, this behavior is repeated in our lives with parent substitutes, like a boss or an audience. I’m fascinated by people’s family histories and what that often reveals about their choices and personalities. For example, like Kit, I am very influenced by my father who always pushed me to question authority, strive for social justice, and pursue a balanced life of work and art. I have a job, a kid, a husband, a band, a book, a charity – and it’s tough balancing all of these things sometimes. But I feel I wear all of these hats better because I am lucky enough to have this whole package.

Your novel is the first from PS Books, the publishers behind the widely read Philadelphia Stories magazine. What’s your relationship to Philadelphia? Do you find that there’s a thriving literary community there? What does Philadelphia have to offer the burgeoning (or established, for that matter) author that other cities might not have?
I think Philadelphia has a bad cultural rap. People who aren’t familiar with the city still hear “Philly” and think: Rocky, cheesesteaks, and The Hooters. And while these are all great Philly icons, we also have a rich, diverse cultural voice that often gets drowned out by New York. I’ve lived in many places, but when I moved to Philadelphia, I fell in love with the city. It’s humble, and raw, and welcoming. Philly is nothing like New York or Chicago or Paris. It’s more like a big town with lots of neighborhood flavors that become rich sources of inspiration for writing and art. I’ve never felt more at home.

Any plans for a follow-up to Broad Street?
I have completed a sequel that picks up with Kit and Margo ten years later. Without giving too much away, things don’t turn out exactly as they expected (otherwise, what would I write about?), but their adventure continues in a new and surprising way.

 

Read an excerpt from Broad Street

Hear another interview:

Christine Weiser on Rowan Radio 89.7 WGLS-FM, 9/22/08
Download [mp3]

More at christineweiser.com

 

[img_assist|nid=863|title=Adam Rex|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=150|height=189][img_assist|nid=864|title=The True Meaning of Smekday|desc=|link=url|url=http://www.amazon.com/True-Meaning-Smekday-Adam-Rex/dp/B00196PD9M/ref|align=right|width=150|height=224]profiled by Aimee LaBrie

Adam Rex understands children. As both a writer and illustrator of children’s books, his work captures the imaginative world children love to inhabit. His characters are heroic kids in cowboy boots who face the world fearlessly, taking on aliens and rambunctious zoo animals. His characters also include a lumbering, strangely human Frankenstein and assorted other monsters who somehow don’t seem so scary in the pages of his books.

Kirkus heartily praises one of his books, saying, “As if more proof were needed that Adam Rex has a strange and goofy mind, here’s a visit to a meta-fictional zoo with some uncommonly crafty residents…Rex gives the whole episode a surreal, expect-anything feel…[A] gleefully postmodern romp” and Publisher’s Weekly classifies his illustrations as “oil paintings [that] hearken to 19 th Century Barnum ads—or 1960’s counterculture poster art—in Rex’s offbeat tale.” Most recently, his novel, The True Meaning of Smekday was nominated alongside Harry Potter for the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy.

Despite his success in the highly competitive market of children’s book, Rex’s feet remain firmly planted on planet Earth.

Are you more invested in writing or drawing?
They’re both just different aspects of storytelling to me, so they’re somewhat intertwined. Of course, I illustrate books that I haven’t written from time to time, and I like the idea of writing something that I don’t go on to illustrate.

How did you get connected with Cricket Magazine, Spider Magazine, and Amazing Stories?
I really just did illustration work for these magazines.  I never submitted any writing to them, apart from one poem that was published in Cricket.  That was the first of a number of monster poems I’ve written, and I didn’t submit any more after deciding that I was more interested in seeing them collected in a book.  That book became Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich.  

What were your favorite books as a kid and did they influence your approach to writing and illustrating?
One of my favorites was certainly The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, and I think its influence is pretty obvious in my own The True Meaning of Smekday.  I’m beginning to think one of the greatest influences on the illustration work I do now is actually Chuck Jones.  When I began to concentrate more on humorous illustration, I found that, in my mind, humor and illustration intersected squarely in the center of animated shorts like The Rabbit of Seville and What’s Opera, Doc?

What advice do you have in terms of the creative process for those of us struggling to get something on the page or canvas?
I think I’m always trying to trick myself into thinking I’ve started already, so that I feel more comfortable making marks. In both illustrating and writing, that seems to be a matter of making a lot of careless messes at first, and giving myself permission to do badly, or to create something that may never develop or see the light of day.

Do you draw and paint on a regular basis or just when you’re inspired (or have a deadline?
I suppose I only draw and paint when I’m inspired or have a deadline, but that covers pretty much every hour of every day.  I can’t remember the last time I didn’t have a serious deadline.  I do miss drawing and painting for the sheer pleasure of it–just sitting in cafes, sketching people, exploring ideas–I haven’t been able to do that in years.

What are the differences between children’s illustration and fantasy art?
I’m tempted to say there aren’t any, though I’m not sure anybody would believe me. Mostly it’s just a matter of content–most fantasy art is aimed at an early teen to adult audience.  Fantasy lends itself to complex compositions, while art for younger audiences tends to work better when the images are a little more straightforward.  Fantasy art also tends toward hyper-detailed minutiae and, ironically, fairly traditional realism–anything to help sell the authenticity of the imagined world.  It’s the difference between an anatomically plausible dragon designed from the study of bats and snakes and lizards with hundreds of finely rendered, battle-scarred scales on the one side, and, on the other, Puff the Magic Dragon.

What are you reading right now?
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer and an issue of McSweeney’s.

How is it that you are able to relate to kids so well?
I don’t think it’s too difficult to relate to kids.  I just try to be honest and open, and actually talk TO them.  Not at them, not to their parents through them.  I see a lot of people talk to kids in a way that shows that they’re really talking to the kids’ parents–they’re not actually interested in the kid as a person, they’re more interested in sending some message to the world about what a kid-friendly, young-at-heart sort of person they are.  Most kids can tell the difference.

Where do you come up with your story ideas?
I never know how to answer this question, because I don’t think I’ve ever gotten ideas in the same way twice, and after the fact I often forget what my thought processes were in the first place.  I couldn’t tell you how I came to think of whatever I was thinking of, but now, hey, this idea is living in my head.  It’s almost similar to the way dreams fade on you–I can no longer relate all the details of what or how I was thinking right before waking this morning, but, regardless, I’m going to be thinking about losing my teeth for the rest of the day.

What are you currently working on?
I’m finishing the illustrations for a book in which a boy is given a pet blue whale as a punishment.  I didn’t write that one, so I can honestly say it’s hilarious. And I’m supposedly writing my second novel.

You mention on your website that you have two huge, gigantic cats. What are their names and occupations?
The youngest is Dr. Simon Dicker.  He’s not a medical doctor, obviously–he’s an astrophysicist at the University of Pennsylvania .  Little Nemo is our oldest.  She’s a stay-at-home-cat.

To view Rex’s work, visit adamrex.com

Aimee LaBrie’s stories have been published in many literary journals. She recently received the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction, which will publish her short story collection in December. Aimee serves on the Philadelphia Stories Planning & Development Board.

[img_assist|nid=823|title=Kelly Simmons|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=175|height=326]Like most writers, novelist Kelly Simmons admits to having some anxieties. But instead of letting them get the better of her, she has found a way to translate them into a haunting and compelling novel of tension and self-discovery. Standing Still, Simmons debut novel, describes the ordeal of journalist Claire Cooper, who suddenly finds that her anxieties have a real world focus. When an intruder breaks into her home and attempts to kidnap her sleeping daughter, Claire immediately offers herself instead. For the next several days, she will face the terror of living with her unknown captor, trying to uncover the reason for the crime and, perhaps most significantly, struggling to make sense of her own life, her anxieties, and her identity as a wife and a mother.



[img_assist|nid=695|title=Standing Still|desc=Standing Still is available wherever books are sold. To find an independent bookstore near you, visit booksense.com|link=node|align=right|width=150|height=234]Standing Still received advanced praise from Entertainment’s Weekly, which credited the novel for having “invigorating prose” and Publisher’s Weekly in a starred review naming the story “an electrifying debut” and “the perfect read for a stormy night.” And Philadelphia Stories was fortunate enough to publish excerpts of the novel in our premiere issue. For our exclusive excerpt from the novel, go here.



When asked about her success and her approaches to writing, Ms.Simmons showed herself to be as honest and engaging in her interview as she is in her prose.



What got you started writing fiction?


I've always been good at writing -- but it took me a long time to sort out what kind of writing I should pursue. I didn’t write a lot of fiction in college or my 20s, like most people. Journalism was my first calling but I did not have a good relationship with truth. It became clearer that I preferred to make things up!



How do you juggle your writing life with your every day responsibilities?

What works best for me is getting writing done first. I try to get up early and write for a few hours before the workday kicks in and people start calling me.



You mention on your blog (bykellysimmons.com) that one way to get motivated for writing is to include something intensely personal or autobiographical. How has this translated into your own novels?

For years, I avoided the personal -- but when something comes from the gut it sears on the page. I think that's the difference in the novel that finally got published--Standing Still. It has a raw quality to it that comes from honesty--I gave the main character one of my afflictions--panic attacks.



Could you say a little something about the challenges you had in getting an agent and what allowed you do continue to submit your work despite the difficulty?

When you know you can write (and it’s the only thing I ever knew for certain about myself) no ones opinion can take that away from you. Finding an agent can get very needle-in-a-haystackish. It’s a weird process that alternates between feeling like computer dating, a mass direct mail campaign, and total serendipity.



What authors do you enjoy reading?

I read and love a lot of modern authors, like Anne Beattie, Jane Hamilton, and John Irving. But I’ve probably learned the most, in terms of style, from studying F. Scott Fitzgerald.



What's the best writing advice you can offer for individuals embarking on starting his or her first novel?

If you write two pages a day, your first draft will be done in six months. But make sure you’re writing the right book. Is the premise original? Do the characters yearn for something? Is the plot and setting something you can fill a book with, and not just a short story?



Can you think of any writing missteps that actually taught you something important about the process?

My first book with my first agent was “sold” and then “unsold” in one weeks’ time. Someone tendered an offer and then had to withdraw it because her boss hadn't approved it. So I went from champagne joy to beer sorrow in just a few days. But ultimately, that person’s boss rejected it because she found the whole premise of the book to be unbelievable. It all hinged on one person’s action that she didn't buy.



Where do you get your material/ideas? How do you manage to sustain an interest in the characters and plot in each novel?

For me, a book starts with a certain kind of character in a situation or setting. I see that lead person first. Sometimes I just sit and brainstorm, sometimes something in the paper sparks something, and sometimes another person tells me a story about a friend or relative that makes me think whoa, I'd like to know more about that.



Can you tell us a little more about sponsoring the Philadelphia Stories First Person Contest that focuses on first-person essays featuring women triumphing over domestic violence or mental illness?

For years, I promised the universe that if I ever got published, I would share that good fortune by helping someone else who needed it. The lead character in Standing Still has a history of domestic violence, so I chose that as a theme and started building a donation program around it. I'm doing the contest, and donating a percentage of the books' advance and subsequent sales to a domestic violence outreach center. 

 

Kelly Simmon’s 7 Quick Ways to Reinvigorate Your Novel



    * Think Small. Going deeper into the details of a room or scene will present more possibilities for action.

    * Make It Personal. Combine the lead character's actions and persona with some intensely autobiographical element      of your own. Your understanding will shine through.

    * Write It As A Short Story. If you're getting lost in your plot, condense it to ten pages and see what it looks like.

    * Start Differently. Open your novel later, or earlier, or in a different setting.

    * Play What If. Brainstorm lots of possibilities for each character. See if any two characters have common ground.

    * Rearrange Your Chapters On The Floor. Does moving things around make it better?

    * Put Your Characters In Therapy. See what the therapist tells them to do. 

 

	

	Read an excerpt from

	Standing Still 
	
	

	Read an excerpt from the earlier draft,

	Skylight 
	

 

Aimee LaBrie’s stories have been published in many literary journals.
She recently received the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction,
which will publish her short story collection in December. Aimee serves
on
the Philadelphia Stories Planning & Development Board.

[img_assist|nid=685|title=Barbara Berot|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=150|height=196][img_assist|nid=686|title=|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=98|height=150]What began as a fictional rendering of Barbara Bérot’s five month European journey in 1972 has developed into a book series that spans across Scotland and into the French Pyrénées Mountains. Bérot’s self-published and critically-acclaimed debut novel, When Europa Rode the Bull, is a novel about love, commitment, and passion that traverses two continents. Its success inspired Bérot to embark on the sequel, the recently published Lies & Liberation: The Rape of Europa. And she is not finished with her characters yet. Already in the works is a third book in Bérot’s intriguing and complicated series.

Q: What are the biggest challenges in writing novels that you will be developing into sequels?
The biggest problem with writing sequels is keeping your story straight; I have newfound respect for pathological liars and wonder how they manage it day by day. But in fact, the characters are so real to me it’s relatively easy to imagine their lives and convoluted relationships. And no, I don’t map out their story, I simply try to make them as multidimensional as possible and then follow their lead, although it sometimes takes me into murky waters. And that’s where we’ve gone with the second novel; I’m afraid I’ve disturbed some fans who where hoping for a tidy, more comfortable ending with this one.

Q: Place is very important in your fiction. How does setting/location enhance the plot for you?
Place is as important to me as character. St. Andrews, for example, is to me a living organism, vibrant and alive with history and culture and personality. Effectively communicating that to the reader—capturing its essence—was essential to the story, because I needed the reader to fall in love with the town just as Annie did. And this is one of the things that people tell me they most enjoy about my writing: that intense experience of place.

Q: Where and when do you do most of your writing?
I’m fortunate enough to have an office in our 200-year-old farmhouse, with views of the pond and garden, and I can only really write when there is no one else in the house. After 25 years as an R.N. working in big city hospitals, I have retired, so I’m able to devote as much time as I like to writing. That said, I still struggle with distractions, and there are never enough hours in the day.

Q: The Philadelphia Inquirer has written that your work is lightly veiled autobiography. Is this true? If so, to what extent is your writing based on experience and how much of it do you invent?
When you read about Annie’s life in the seventies and her journey to Scotland , you’re essentially reading about me as a young woman. But everything beyond that time is fiction, and writing that bit—the fiction—was worlds easier, because some of the memories from my youth were exceedingly difficult to revisit.

Q: What advice can you offer beginning writers who are struggling with their work?
Get feedback from someone you respect who knows good writing, and get involved with the many writing workshops and courses available in the area. And never, ever skimp on the editing; it’s in many ways the most crucial part of the whole process. I remember what James Rahn, the director of the Rittenhouse Writer’s Group, told me when I finished my first draft: “Congratulations. Now the hard work begins.”

Q: Who are some of your favorite authors and how do they influence your writing?
I stand in awe of Flannery O’Connor’s stories; what an incredible talent she was! The social commentary in Dickens’ works combined with his gift for creating unforgettable characters makes him one of my favorites, and I enjoy the brooding, existential musings of Camus. I can also admit unashamedly how much I loved du Maurier’s Rebecca: dead from beginning to end but deliciously present in each and every detail. Of course, whenever I need a shot of excellent dialogue and exquisite use of the English language, there’s no one like Jane Austen.

Q: Your work is not only emotionally powerful, but it also contains detailed historical details as well as intertwining many classical elements. How much research do you have to do to write one of your novels?
Although I write fiction, I do research, because I like to be as accurate as possible with the details. I think that making the effort enhances the fiction, and my character Andrew—with his ancient, aristocratic lineage—demands the ring of truth.

Q: Can you give readers any hints as to what the novel will be about?
I have introduced a new character: Valentina. She intrigues me, because I think she will be the key to unraveling some mysteries. I am also bringing back a much-loved character from the first book. This is the fun part, the time when the story unfolds, when I wake up in the morning excited to see where the characters will lead me today. And as I think of it now, this is likely why I need to be alone when I’m writing; it’s such special experience, it’s almost as though I don’t want to share it with anyone—at least, not yet. Aimee LaBrie’s stories have been published in many literary journals. She recently received the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction, which will publish her short story collection in December. Aimee serves on the Philadelphia Stories Planning & Development Board.