Pups of Letters, no. 2: Eileen St. Lauren

Yes, Marly-the-absent-one is back from 25 marvelous days at Yaddo! I came home with the draft of a short novel, written at maniacal speed, and a new story... I'll be off again to New Haven before I can possibly sort out the wreckage of my once-tidy house, but after that I will stay home for a while (cleaning, no doubt.)

It's time for a new Pup of Letters. One has to fulfill those New Year's Resolutions...

A thing I find interesting is how varied--astonishingly so--the Pups in the Litter are. The novice writers who wander into the Palace have a wild variety in their obsessions, life histories, work, religion, locale, politics, taste: indeed, in all things that could affect how one dreams a book. This is a boon to my curiosity that, cat-like and hope-like, springs eternal.

The current Pup is Eileen St. Lauren, a young novelist who says that she is "in the tradition of Reynolds Price, Flannery O'Connor, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, and Willie Morris." I sent her a batch of questions before I roared off to Yaddo, and in my absence she has answered them.

MY:
Eileen, you’re now looking for an agent. Have you learned something from this arduous rite-of-passage? What’s heartening about it, and what’s frustrating?

ESL:
I have had wonderful literary agents and editors to read my samples and write me beautiful rejection letters. I have made some great friends along the way. In truth, no one has slammed me and most have hated to tell me “no.” However, I have come to learn that so far what I have composed may not be the ONE that will break me into the commercial market. That has prompted me to move forward and compose a new work of fiction with hopes that it will be the ONE journey that an agent then the world falls in LOVE with. It’s entitled, Everybody in Town. It’s set in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and about the garbage in our lives.

MY:
Here is a link to your online story, Mozella. Is this a landscape that feels like home to you? Say anything you would like as an introduction to the story.

ESL:
Mozella (and the little grey squirrel) just came to me one sunny day in Amherst, Massachusetts, while sitting on the Emily Dickinson Homestead grounds near dark silhouettes of Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost. I believe Mozella is an ageless spirit who wanted her story told. The seven bells that ring at the end are from the church house where the homeless were being called to supper directly across the street where I was feeding squirrels from a-top of my New Testament Bible purple grapes and crusts of bread. Then I took a walk over to the graveyard was where Emily is buried and used actual names from the headstones in my cemetery. Mozella is about peace.

MY:
Your publication at BigCityLit.com came from a mention by James Simpson in the first Pups of Letters interview. Can you tell us something about this upcoming piece?

Glory, Ananias, is forthcoming in mid-May in BigCityLit.com. I am eternally grateful for James’ words to submit. And more so that poetry editor, Nicholas Johnson, loved the piece. Nick is a gem.

In the story, characters from the unpublished novel, The Adventures of Myra Boone, book one, Goodlife, Mississippi, Myra Boone and Margie Anne Roberts visit a frail, paralyzed, and the fallen old soul, Ananias. Sitting in a wooden wheelchair that sports a jaunty, tiny American flag and a daisy cloth-covered Bible pouch, he tells the girls of a place between heaven and earth called Glory that holds the Saints and protects them from an Enemy called Death before their souls cross over into Heaven. It’s sublime.

MY:
As a Southerner, I look at you and see the unmistakable stamp of the deep South. Tell us where and with whom you liked to play on a hot summer’s day when all the work that belonged to a child was done.

ESL:
Strangely enough, all my friends from childhood are dead save one. At times in my early life, every afternoon after school, I read an entire book then walked down West Cherry Drive to see the pansy beds soaking up the southern sun with my black rabbit named Cricket who I taught how to fall asleep on command... On more than one occasion, my imagination brought voices, characters, and distant lands into my childhood all of which served me well as playmates, friends, and such. Most of my childhood and life has been solitary and lonely yet humorous. Oftentimes I muse, that if it wasn’t for books, my own imagination and ability to create and personal faith in God, I would have nothing. It seems as though I have always been in LOVE with words, and am still. And in truth, I’m blessed to have a supportive, understanding husband.

MY:
Please tell us about the long works you have on hand, finished or near-finished.

Book one: The Adventures of Myra Boone: Goodlife, Mississippi ~ On October 31, 1956, in a remote area of Jackson County near the George County line in Mississippi, nine-year-old Mary “Myra” Boone finds herself at the Salem Camp Meeting a Holy Ghost healing service. It is there that she begins her journey into the spirit world—a world that can only be seen with the eyes of the heart. Through inexplicable spiritualism, Myra hears voices, sees spirits and souls outside herself where the supernatural power of God, the Devil, and their angels exist.

Book two: My Neighbors: Blue Roses ~ Neighborly, but solitary and often hilariously sad, voices of people whom sixteen-year-old Myra Boone lives among in Goodlife, Mississippi, after the tragic death of her family inspire the young writer with their painful humor and heartfelt simplicity in My Neighbors: Blue Roses. The personalities bare their souls, merging the mystical and the real in the towns of Soso, Goshen, Glossolalia, and Goodlife. The essence of My Neighbors: Blue Roses is love, peace, provision, redemption, faith, glory, and death.

MY:
You clearly have been encouraged and helped by a number of writers. Tell us something that you gained from one of these.

New Year’s Day 2007 I wrote Daniel Wallace, author of the beloved Big Fish and forthcoming July 2007 Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician. With grace and professionalism, Daniel told me to submit my work to literary journals, magazines with hopes that an agent would read my work, and contact me for more. And I read an interview he did where he talked of writing FIVE novels before getting that first ONE accepted. Lastly, he said that if the story takes off on page 100 then that is where the book should begin. That prompted me to begin Goodlife, Mississippi, on page 100. And it worked. One more thing, Daniel suggested not spending all my time on trying to get published instead to continue being the writer that I am. Meaning I’m a writer not a publisher. In time but not at first, his words made good sense to me and the light came on to begin a new novel, Everybody in Town. So far, I am having a lot of fun with it and look forward to spending time with my characters. It brings me joy.

It’s rare for an author or a poet to reach out his or her hand to another and if they do be eternally grateful and keep the boundaries. Daniel’s simple kindness and a few words from time to time were invaluable to me and indeed helped me along my way. Other great writers and poets were kind to me over the years too—Anne Tyler, Richard Wilbur, and the now-late Charles Edward Eaton who was my best friend and longtime mentor. These are but a few that I am eternally grateful to have known and read.

I also have learned a great deal from a rare, brilliant giving soul and former New York Times Book Reviewer turned literary agent—Roger Jellinek of Hawaii. Words of agent, editor wisdom that I just learned from Roger are, “Don’t be preoccupied with being a “writer.” Try and be as transparent as you can be. Put all your energy into telling the story, and into the relationships between your characters, and less on your relationship to your reader—less concern with the impression you are making as a “writer.”

All the money in the world won’t buy time or good, sound advice like Roger, Daniel, and the others have given me. And I must thank you dear Marly Youmans for this opportunity to speak via this interview on your breath taking website for it means the world to me. To be in the presence of great company such as yours is priceless.

Back to the interview: in truth, we writers are on our own in the real world. Either we have it (talent, a good story) or we don’t, period. By this I mean, either the book will sell or it won’t. There are no maybes when it comes to publishing. For a well-known successful author to endorse a first time novelist is priceless. Though in the end, it’s all about the story—your story. Either the reader like an agent falls in LOVE with the journey the writer takes him on or he doesn’t. Either the reader will want to keep reading or he won’t. Again, no maybes come into play. It’s just that simple.

Oops! You asked me to talk about “one author that I gained something from…” I just couldn’t help myself to mention a couple!

MY:
Are you still involved in radio? Can you give a nutshell version of your time there?

ESL:
I would LOVE to be on NPR and radio again. Since moving to New England, it has been difficult to get accepted. While on NPR in Nebraska, I wrote State, Nation, and World Commentaries in the satire / humor vein with a southern twist. I look forward to reading my own work in book form on tape.

MY:
Despite the fact that everybody in publishing complains about everybody else—the editors, the agents, the writers (who get it from all sides), the publisher, etc.—it’s a plain fact that writers make money for everybody else in the food chain. They tend to get less of it, of course, and the very great majority of writers will never make a decent living with words. Yet writers keep going. As a writer, what keeps you going?

ESL:
Composing is like washing my hands under cool water filled with early light. I was born to write. Writing is my calling—I cannot not be a writer. If I don’t write, I will die slowly but surely. I HAVE to write, period.

MY:
If you were to create a little museum-in-a-shoebox to explain yourself to us, what five objects would reside within its walls?

A Bible plus a writing journal, a recording of Bruce Hornsby’s Greatest Radio Hits, paintings of the ocean’s waves, a kaleidoscope, and a lilac lead pencil with a hand-held eraser that I have always composed with.

Bio—Eileen St. Lauren is a Southern literary writer and poet from Petal, Mississippi, who has over 80 publications. A graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a former Commentator on Nebraska Public Radio Network, she is an award-winning photojournalist, news, and feature reporter.

At present, she is composing Everybody in Town. In 2007 she completed two novels, The Adventures of Myra Boone: Goodlife, Mississippi, and My Neighbors: Blue Roses. Glory, Ananias, an excerpt from the unpublished series is forthcoming in the online magazine, Big City Lit.com, New York City. She has had work published in The Antigonish Review. She lives near Boston, Massachusetts, with her husband in a golden neighborhood where 100+ years ago Henry David Thoreau and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow planted trees and composed. http://mysite.verizon.net/eileenstlauren.

As always,
Eileen St. Lauren
http://mysite.verizon.net/eileenstlauren

Pups of Letters, no. 1: James Simpson

I have a lovely, cosy feeling of satisfaction. I'm actually doing my New Year's Resolutions! Normally I never even remember what they were by March. Here is the first of my interviews with some of the younger writers (they don't have to be young in years, but they are novices) who have contacted me. They are drenched in aspiration and perspiration on the road to a first book.

Number one is James Simpson. I hope he will forgive me for pillaging the accompanying photographs off his Flickr collection. I'll swap and forgive him for quoting some of my immortal poetic wisdom!

And here he is.

* * * * * * *

MY:
I am up here in Cooperstown, writing a novel about the South. You are down South, writing a novel about Cooperstown. Explain yourself.

JS:
Both of my parents are from New York State (my mother in Lebanon, my father on Long Island), and my sister was born in Brooklyn Heights. Although my brother and I both were born in Florida, I've always felt a connection with the Empire State. My maternal grandparents owned a summer home in Cooperstown, and from the time I was four until the time my grandmother died when I was seven, we spent summers at their house on Leatherstocking Street, and later, Grove Street.

To me, Cooperstown is a place that has remained relatively unchanged. Long-time residents would probably disagree, what with the baseball theme park and influx of increasingly rude fans, but it's arguably one of the most unique villages in the country. It's a place I've always wanted to write about, but for the longest time I hadn't a clue what that might be. I'm sure there were many things at work lurking in my subconscious all these years, but basically, Cooperstown seemed a perfect and iconic setting for me to explore memory and history. The town simply exudes history.

MY:
Can you tell us about the book? (That can be done obliquely, if you don't like to talk about something "in progress.")

It's about a man who moves his family to Cooperstown after inheriting a large chunk of land from his uncle. Not knowing quite what to do with it, he visits the village and is surprised to find his grandparents' house for sale. With the proceeds of the sale of the land, he buys the old house and a small business off Main St. Through many seasons there he learns more about his parents than he ever thought possible and discovers the true story of his uncle's tragic death. He also reconnects with his globetrekking older brother and suffers through his wife's retelling of his childhood through a series of highly successful children's books featuring a pair of wacky penguin brothers.

MY:
Is the act of writing a novel: a.) a Frodo-esque quest; b.) an Ishmael-esque whaling adventure; c.) an investiture of the self in poky corners and bottom-to-chair velcro; or, d.) something entirely different, which you are not at liberty to explain. If you cannot answer by letter, explain yourself once more.

JS:

Definitely (c). It's about setting aside time each day to write, finding a routine and sticking to it. A wise and wonderfully unique writer once fed me some hortative doggerel advising me to write a page a day, to "sit my butt in chair, write in vestments rare, write in woven hair, write when dratted bare." I don't always get that page a day, but I try at least to follow the spirit of those sage words: I keep my feelers out all the time, looking for anything that might work within the story.

MY:
Write a 100-word sketch fit for a stuffy biographical tome, bragging on yourself and your writing strenuously but with dignity.

JS:
The bio would probably mention something about a heartbreaking work of staggering genius, but unfortunately that phrase has been taken. Instead, I'll point you in the direction of my favorite defunct literary journal, Big City Lit, founded and produced by the late Maureen Holm. She edited and published my first story, which she later nominated for a Pushcart Prize. I worked with her on two subsequent stories, and she was a true writer's friend, as sharp an editor as there ever was. I get teary whenever I think of her. Seriously. Go here while I take a moment:

http://www.nycbigcitylit.com/mar2003/contents/fictionsimpsonmar03.html

A short bio appears at the end of the story.

MY:
Write a 100-word sketch fit for the highly cool 'zine, Solar Necktie.

JS:
I'm not nearly cool enough to appear in Solar Necktie. Sorry.

*

MY:

Tell me about the most secret corner--the place most satisfying to a child--of your grandparents' house on Leatherstocking St.

JS:
The attic. This is odd because attics weren't places I frequented as a kid due to the ever-present possibility of monsters and other unspeakable horrors (a madwoman in the attic?). But directly under the roof of the Coop house there lived the most wonderful old toys. I remember an old red fireman's helmet, Tinker Toys, trucks. I can still smell the musty wood, see the rain streaming down the tiny window and hear its gentle patter above me.

MY:
You evidently are enmeshed in some sort of critique group. Is this jolly? Is this useful? "Do you think, at your age, it is right?"

The coffee's nice, as well as the camaraderie. And the criticism ain't bad either! Besides, I don't incessantly stand on my head during our meetings, and if I feared it might injure my brain, I'm perfectly sure I have none. (Wink, wink).

MY:
What is daunting and dampening to the heart of a novice writer?

JS:
Beginning is the most daunting, facing that blank page and trying to push aside the fear of failing by allowing yourself to write what Anne Lamott refers to as the "shitty first draft." My blog is the G-rated version of that -- I've got young impressionable kids! [They won't read this.] As for writing a novel, I've got E.L. Doctorow's well-worn quote in a tiny frame on my desk: "Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way." It's true, but my problem is that I have horrible night vision.

MY:
What is encouraging and enlivening to the same?

JS:
I'm encouraged when someone is moved by something I've written, when connections are made. That's deeply satisfying. Also, when I'm writing and totally immersed in the characters or some dialogue, a scene perhaps, my brain firing away on all cylinders and suddenly something jumps out on the page. It's usually totally out of the blue, nothing I've planned (consciously, at least) but it works perfectly for the story. Those are the moments of the creative process that amaze me. After those moments, I'm often reminded of a scene from The Last Waltz, Scorsese's 1978 documentary on The Band's final tour. The keyboard player, Garth Hudson, begins a song with this swirling, otherworldly riff that goes whirling around above the stage, and Robbie Robertson and Rick Danko look up, smiling, shaking their heads in wonder as if to say, 'How'd he do that? That was awesome!' Who knows; maybe they were just stoned. I like to think it was magic.

MY:
You appear to be a fan, shall we say, of Fan Yang's bubbles and of toast. Do these things have anything to do each other? Do they have anything to do with your novel, directly or in some subterranean way?

JS:
Who doesn't love bubbles and toast? (Separately, of course.) Neither has anything to do with the novel. I saw a photo of Fan Yang in Parade Magazine in the Sunday paper a few years ago. He had this supernatural look on his face, very mesmerizing. I researched the guy and discovered this bizarre subculture of professional bubble blowing performance artists. Now there's a fun story waiting to be written. And toast? Well, toast and I go way back.

MY:
Is there such a thing as useful advice for a youngish, as-yet-unpublished novelist? What is it?

JS:
Read everything. Everyone says it, but it's true. Even if it's bad, read it -- you don't have to finish it, though, just learn from it. Above all, write. Rewrite. Edit. Write some more. Revise, read aloud to yourself what you've written. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

MY:
What pleases you most in a book?

JS:
An engaging, believable (within the realm of the book's world) story. Realistic dialogue. Nothing turns me off more quickly than stilted, affected dialogue. I also love a good Acknowledgments page. I don't know why, I just do. Ask Ingrid Hill.

MY:
What three revelatory, enlightening questions did I fail (miserably!) to ask? Do not answer them.

JS:
1). Why do you spend so much time working on something that people might never read? (I'm not good at much else.)

2). Who's your favorite Stooge? (Moe.)

3). Ginger or Mary Ann? (Jeannie) Sorry, I can't let questions go unanswered.

Thanks, Marly, this has been fun. I feel like such a minor celebrity!

You can find more about James Simpson at his blog, Shoddy First Draft.