“A very clever agent once told me to write for the smartest person I know who knew nothing about my subject. I thought this was great advice, and I have both kept it in mind for myself and passed it along to my students ever since“ — Christina Thompson
Splendidly written and deeply researched, Christina Thompson’s Sea Peopleswill appeal to not only specialists on Polynesia but any discerning reader with a broad interest in history—or, I should say, the enduring question of what it means to be human. What brought me to read Sea People is my interest in what historian David M. Wrobel calls the “global frontier.” My own work in-progress is on Far West Texas, which, like Polynesia, saw its first European explorers, then Euro-American colonizers, within roughly the same time frame. One might call Far West Texas a sort of reverse Polynesia: it is a desert land with widely scattered oases. Like Polynesia, anyone who would attempt to travel through it risked mortal danger. When and how did the Polynesians sail into that vast watery expanse of the globe and settle the islands from New Zealand to Hawai’i to Easter Island? Thompson uncovers a riveting and profoundly important story.
C.M. MAYO: In brief, what inspired you to write Sea People?
CHRISTINA THOMPSON: There’s a chapter in my previous book in which I describe the experience of staying behind in Honolulu while my husband traveled with our young son to NZ for his father’s funeral. My husband is Maori and, of course, I knew the big story about Polynesia—how the Islanders in Hawai‘i and Easter Island and New Zealand and everywhere in between were all part of one big family. But the breathtaking reality of what that actually entailed came home to me in a new way when I looked out at the Pacific from Honolulu and thought about how far away New Zealand was. Sea People is an attempt to work out the implications of that understanding.
C.M. MAYO:As you were writing, did you have in mind an ideal reader?
CHRISTINA THOMPSON: A very clever agent once told me to write for the smartest person I know who knew nothing about my subject. I thought this was great advice, and I have both kept it in mind for myself and passed it along to my students ever since.
C.M. MAYO:Now that it has been published, can you describe the ideal reader for this book as you see him or her now?
CHRISTINA THOMPSON: I learned a lot of things in the course of writing this book, and I ended up explaining some fairly esoteric subjects, like the theory behind coral atoll formation, or how radiocarbon dating actually works, or what a reconstructed proto-language is. My working assumption was always that if I found these things fascinating, my ideal reader most likely would too.
C.M. MAYO:In your researches, what are the one or two things that most surprised you to uncover?
CHRISTINA THOMPSON: I was amazed to learn that a very tiny number of potsherds had been discovered in the Marquesas, 3,500 miles from the nearest island in which pottery is known to have been made. The implication is that those sherds were likely carried there nearly 1000 years ago by some very early voyager.
I was also fascinated by the fact that European explorers sometimes found signs that islands had once supported significant populations which had since disappeared, leaving us to wonder what happened to those people.
C.M. MAYO:Can you share any surprises for you about your book’s reception?
CHRISTINA THOMPSON: I definitely did not anticipate how many male readers I would have. A great deal of the enthusiasm for this book has come from men, many of whom work in technical fields. I was so surprised by this that I wrote a little essay about it for the American Scholar.
C.M. MAYO:Which writers have been the most important influences for you as a writer of narrative nonfiction? And for Sea People in particular?
CHRISTINA THOMPSON: Bruce Chatwin’s In Patagonia is one of my touchstones; it opened my eyes to what could be done with travel narratives and history and a geographical perspective. Another writer in a similar vein who had a great influence on me is Jonathan Raban, author of the very wonderful Bad Land. Theoretically I am very indebted to a profoundly creative Australian historian named Greg Dening, and when I want to be reminded how to write about the islands, I look to Somerset Maugham and Robert Louis Stevenson’s masterful descriptive passages.
C.M. MAYO:Which writers are you reading now?
CHRISTINA THOMPSON: I’m currently reading Julia Blackburn’s Time Song, T. M. Luhrmann’s When God Talks Back, and Daniel Mendelsohn’s Three Rings, plus a Brodie Jackson novel by Kate Atkinson.
C.M. MAYO:How has the Digital Revolution affected your writing? Specifically, has it become more challenging to stay focused with the siren calls of email, texting, blogs, online newspapers and magazines, social media, and such? If so, do you have some tips and tricks you might be able to share?
CHRISTINA THOMPSON: I think this depends on what stage one is at in the writing process. When you’re actually writing a book, all this stuff is a distraction and you have to be very careful not to waste too much time on it. But once your book is published, it becomes a lifeline to your readership, and the more you participate the better. So, I think it’s really a matter of making all these opportunities work for and not against you, and that takes a certain amount of discipline.
C.M. MAYO:For writers of narrative nonfiction keeping notes and papers organized can be more than tremendously challenging. Would you have any tips to share?
CHRISTINA THOMPSON: I have a bad system. I take notes on what I’m reading in a series of composition notebooks (the black and white marbled kind). I am always reading several books at once and the notes get all jumbled, a few pages about this book, then a few pages about something else, then some pages about a third thing. I never know where anything is. But then when I read back through the notebooks, it’s like a narrative of my reading history and I can see the threads of ideas and themes that interest me. One thing I am scrupulous about, however, is keeping track of page numbers and bibliographic citations.
C.M. MAYO:For those looking to publish, what would be your most hard-earned piece of advice?
CHRISTINA THOMPSON: Don’t be too impatient and don’t try to publish work that isn’t ready. Also, I do recommend having some readers for your work-in-progress: a writing group or a class can really help you identify weaknesses in your writing that you might not be able to identify on your own.
C.M. MAYO:What’s next for you as a writer?
CHRISTINA THOMPSON: I’m working on a book about early 19th century missionaries in the Pacific. They are a very polarizing group and they had a very big impact on island societies. I want to try to understand their experience, as well as the experience of the people they set out to evangelize, and the lasting consequences of these encounters.
“Every single person alive today was born in a world in which the Odyssey, the Mahābhārata, Don Quixote, and many other classics have been around for centuries. I decided to write Ascent for readers interested in understanding how One Hundred Years of Solitude was made and became a classic that keeps entering the lives of people on all continents.” —Álvaro Santana-Acuña
It was my amigo translator Harry Morales who alerted me to this fascinating, thoroughly researched, elegantly argued, and altogether extra-super-crunchy book by sociologist Álvaro Santana-Acuña: Ascent to Glory,about the rocket-into-the-stratosphere international success of Gabriel García Márquez’s epic novel One Hundred Years of Solitude. As a novelist myself (The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire), I will admit to, maybe, a smidgette of curiosity about the secret sauce behind the marketing of García Márquez’s book. Suffice to say, I found Ascent to Glory so illuminating that I expect to reread it more than once. Apart from opening a window onto this classic novel and Latin American and international cultural history, Ascent to Glory is also vital reading for anyone interested in the history of publishing per se— there is much to learn about the Latin American publishing industry over the second half of the 20th century, and this history is especially important to appreciate now that we are all in this nuevo mundo or, perhaps I should say, on a nuevo planeta, with digital media and amazon.com.
Álvaro Santana-Acuña earned his PhD from Harvard University and is currently Assistant Professor of Sociology at Whitman College. He is a contributor to The New York Times, The New York Times en español, and El País. Recently for the Harry Ransom Center he curated “ Gabriel García Márquez: The Making of a Global Writer,” the first major exhibition featuring documents from the García Márquez’s archives, alongside other materials by William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Jorge Luis Borges, and Julio Cortázar. Look for this exhibition at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City in 2021.
Here’s the official catalog copy from Columbia University Press for Ascent to Glory:
Gabriel García Márquez’s novel One Hundred Years of Solitude seemed destined for obscurity upon its publication in 1967. The little-known author, small publisher, magical style, and setting in a remote Caribbean village were hardly the usual ingredients for success in the literary marketplace. Yet today it ranks among the best-selling books of all time. Translated into dozens of languages, it continues to enter the lives of new readers around the world. How did One Hundred Years of Solitude achieve this unlikely success? And what does its trajectory tell us about how a work of art becomes a classic? Ascent to Glory is a groundbreaking study of One Hundred Years of Solitude, from the moment García Márquez first had the idea for the novel to its global consecration. Using new documents from the author’s archives, Álvaro Santana-Acuña shows how García Márquez wrote the novel, going beyond the many legends that surround it. He unveils the literary ideas and networks that made possible the book’s creation and initial success. Santana-Acuña then follows this novel’s path in more than seventy countries on five continents and explains how thousands of people and organizations have helped it to become a global classic. Shedding new light on the novel’s imagination, production, and reception, Ascent to Glory is an eye-opening book for cultural sociologists and literary historians as well as for fans of García Márquez and One Hundred Years of Solitude.
C.M. MAYO: In brief, what inspired you to write Ascent to Glory?
ÁLVARO SANTANA-ACUÑA: It all happened the fall of 2007, in October or November. I had just started living in Cambridge, Massachusetts. By then, I have read a lot about the city’s history, especially its world class universities MIT and Harvard. But I knew nothing about its weather. That fall it was raining almost non-stop for days. One afternoon I was walking with my umbrella under the rain. I was heading towards Lamont library on the Harvard University campus and, while climbing the stairs next to the building, I could hear my footsteps on the water puddles and the rain drumming on the umbrella. It was at this moment, cornered by the water, that I said to myself out loud “gosh, it rains like in Macondo.” Right there, it hit me the connection between the never-ending rain in Cambridge and in Macondo, which in One Hundred Years of Solitude went on for more than four years. The rain in Cambridge did not last long but it gifted me the idea for Ascent to Glory.
C.M. MAYO: As you were writing, did you have in mind an ideal reader?
ÁLVARO SANTANA-ACUÑA: At first, I wanted to understand why I made such a personal connection between the rain in Cambridge and Macondo. I was puzzled by it because the two cities are so different—to begin with, one is real and the other is fictional. Also, at that time, I had never been to Latin America, where One Hundred Years of Solitude takes place, and I had read the book more than ten years earlier. When I started doing the research for Ascent, about a year after the rain epiphany, I realized that my experience was similar to that of millions of readers whose lives are touched by classics. At some point, classics enter our lives in unexpected ways, stay with us for years, and eventually outlive us. Every single person alive today was born in a world in which the Odyssey, the Mahābhārata, Don Quixote, and many other classics have been around for centuries. I decided to write Ascent for readers interested in understanding how One Hundred Years of Solitude was made and became a classic that keeps entering the lives of people on all continents.
C.M. MAYO: Now that it has been published, can you describe the ideal reader for this book as you see him or her now?
ÁLVARO SANTANA-ACUÑA: I worked on Ascent for eleven years. During that time, I ran into all kinds of people, from apple farmers to taxi drivers to Nobel laurates, interested in my book. To my surprise, they were eager to share their memories of when, how, and why they first read One Hundred Years of Solitude. Many told me great things about the novel and many also expressed their disapproval. They all had something meaningful to say about the book. Thus, over the years, the ideal reader for Ascent has grown beyond sociology to include fans of literature and classics at large.
C.M. MAYO: In your researches, what are the one or two things that most surprised you to uncover?
ÁLVARO SANTANA-ACUÑA: One thing I learned about me is that, in order to write a better book, I refused to take any shortcuts. Let me give you one example. The manuscript was done in early 2017. But in May I received a fellowship from the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, which holds the personal archives of García Márquez, including documentation about the making of One Hundred Years of Solitude. I ventured into his archives with one goal: to factcheck what I had already written. Days passed and I got more and more immersed into his correspondence, notes, and manuscripts. I realized then that I had to choose between doing some facelifting to the manuscript or rewriting it. I decided to sit down and rewrite. This meant that finishing Ascent took me two more years. I think it is a better book because of this choice. Maybe García Márquez had something to do with it, too. As I was going through the manuscripts of his works, I understood his approach to writing, his craftmanship, his obsession with arriving at the best manuscript he could write. For One Hundred Years of Solitude, it took him seventeen years to reach that point.
To make future research about his novel more difficult, García Márquez destroyed all his notebooks and preliminary drafts. If I wanted to tell readers how he actually wrote it, I had to understand that myself first. For years I found myself looking for clues between the lines of unknown manuscripts, rare interviews, and cryptic letters. It was then when I remembered what Umberto Eco said about the writing of The Name of the Rose. His novel tells the story of characters who try to read what is in Aristotle’s famous volume on comedy. The truth is that nobody knows what is in the lost volume of Aristotle’s Poetics. But in the process of writing his novel, Eco discovered it and shared it with his readers. For me, one of the most surprising things I share with Ascent’s readers is information about the alternative beginnings and ends for the novel, the removal of characters, the transformations experienced by others like Remedios the Beauty, and the edits in places where I know he deleted words, sentences, and full paragraphs. I felt at times that I was watching over his shoulder, seeing him typing the story on his electric typewriter. Witnessing that moment has been an incredible experience. Imagine that you could stand next to Shakespeare as he was writing Hamlet. Readers of Ascent will learn how García Márquez wrote his masterpiece.
C.M. MAYO: Can you share any surprises for you about your book’s reception?
ÁLVARO SANTANA-ACUÑA:Ascent has been well received so far, including generous reviews by literary critics, scholars, and common readers in Latin America, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Bulgaria, Turkey, India, Australia… One of Latin America’s leading literary critics suggested that Ascent may become a “canonical study.” In the United States, a young reviewer, who truly dislikes One Hundred Years of Solitude, wrote a review, highlighting the facts in Ascent that, in her opinion, prove that García Márquez’s novel is pretty bad and overrated. Paradoxically, this is one of the findings in Ascent: bad press helps to build a strong reputation. Classics become classics not only thanks to readers’ praise but also thanks to their entrenched criticism. In the case of One Hundred Years of Solitude, over half a century after its publication, its haters are as bellicose an army as its lovers. So, the global reception of Ascent has brought full circle the point about how One Hundred Years of Solitude has become a global classic.
C.M. MAYO: Which writers have been the most important influences for you as a writer of narrative nonfiction? And for Ascent in particular?
ÁLVARO SANTANA-ACUÑA: I have always been attracted to historical narratives and I have learned a great deal from the works of E.P. Thompson, Eric Hobsbawm, and especially Carlo Ginzburg, author of the classic The Cheese and the Worms, a fascinating study of a 16th-century miller executed by the Italian inquisition. A book that I often reread is Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, one of the most powerful sociology narratives ever written. Other nonfiction influences include Lévi-Strauss’s Tristes Tropiques, Foucault’s The Order of Things, and Margaret Mead’s Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies. Above, I mentioned Umberto Eco, whose fiction and nonfiction work speaks to me from an early age. More recently, I follow the work for large audiences written by one of my grad school teachers Nicholas Christakis. Finally, an important influence has been García Márquez himself, who was a masterful nonfiction writer, too.
C.M. MAYO: Which writers are you reading now?
ÁLVARO SANTANA-ACUÑA: I just finished writing Primeras personas by writer, editor, and journalist Juan Cruz, who recalls his encounters and friendships with some of the most important literary figures of the last half century. Believe or not, I just started reading One Hundred Years of Solitude, once more; this time because I am working on the Spanish version of Ascent.
C.M. MAYO: How has the Digital Revolution affected your writing? Specifically, has it become more challenging to stay focused with the siren calls of email, texting, blogs, online newspapers and magazines, social media, and such? If so, do you have some tips and tricks you might be able to share?
ÁLVARO SANTANA-ACUÑA: While I am writing, I minimize interruptions, including turning off my cellphone and notifications. I only turn it back on when I am having a break. In general, I try to use social media as little as possible. What I do is to log in, scroll down a few posts, and, if I have to post something, I do it and then log off. The truth is that, when we are on social media, we easily loose ownership of our time, which we put for free at the disposal of these companies. We become their workers. I prefer to use my time for other things.
C.M. MAYO: Another question apropos of the Digital Revolution. At what point were you working on paper? Was working on paper necessary for you or problematic?
ÁLVARO SANTANA-ACUÑA: Back in the 1990s, I started writing my manuscripts in longhand and I copied them out on a mechanical typewriter. Shortly after, I transitioned to an electric typewriter and eventually a computer. It took me a few years before I dared to write directly on the computer. Even today I continue to use a paper notebook. I also use my cellphone as a digital notebook for ideas that afterwards I put on paper. I prefer to do the most demanding writing in the morning, usually for up to four hours. After that, my eyesight gets fatigued from the computer screen. Like most people I know, I have become a writing cyborg—an organism that combines mechanical and digital techniques and devices to write.
C.M. MAYO: For writers of narrative nonfiction keeping notes and papers organized can be more than tremendously challenging. Would you have any tips to share?
ÁLVARO SANTANA-ACUÑA: Narrative nonfiction must rely on real facts. Paper management is crucial to organize the facts you need to write your story. For this reason, one tip is to annotate your data’s location in full when you are doing the research and when you are writing a draft. If you are working on something for a few days or weeks, you probably can track down that incomplete reference fast. But when you have done research for eleven years for a book like Ascent, which contains facts from over forty foreign languages, ninety countries, fifty years, and five hundred people and organizations on all continents, it is impossible to recall the location of everything you are using to create the narrative.
Another tip is to not confuse rigor with pointless erudition. It is tempting to cross the fine between the two in search of a surprising detail. But every fact has to contribute to move the narrative forward. Otherwise, you lose your reader.
A final tip is to know when to stop. One can accumulate facts and facts, hoping to have a more detailed narrative and never finish it. I recall that the summer of 2018, when I was about to finish a new full version of the manuscript, I was back in Cambridge, doing research at Harvard’s Widener Library. I gathered data that I was hoping to add to the manuscript. To do so, I would have had to rewrite the second part of Ascent, about three chapters. Luckily, my grad school advisor Michèle Lamont was in town that summer and over lunch, as I explained to her my work on the manuscript, she told me that it was ready to go.
C.M. MAYO: For those looking to publish, what would be your most hard-earned piece of advice?
ÁLVARO SANTANA-ACUÑA: Write as well as you can, take no shortcuts, and surround yourself with people who truly understand why and what you write.
C.M. MAYO: What important piece of advice would you give yourself if you could travel back in time eleven years?
ÁLVARO SANTANA-ACUÑA: Since I did not know back then I was writing a book, I would say to myself to enjoy the process from the moment the Cambridge rain hit my umbrella.
C.M. MAYO: What’s next for you as a writer?
ÁLVARO SANTANA-ACUÑA: I am now working on the Spanish version of Ascent, entitled Ascenso a la gloria: biografía de Cien años de soledad. It is not really a translation but a new book, including new data. I feel the book’s tone has to be different for Spanish readers. I know this is unusual. In nonfiction books, most authors just oversee the translation and change a few things. Some authors add a new prologue to the translated version and only handful go as far as to write a new chapter. I am trying here something new in writing; Ascent and Ascenso will be twin books.
After Ascenso, I will start writing a new manuscript, for which I have already done the research. It is a history book about one of the things made in France that arguably have most shaped the world. And it is not the croissant, but a particular way of representing space: the land survey maps called cadastre. What inspired me to write that book was not the rain but a conversation with an immigrant taxi driver as he drove down a Parisian boulevard.
“Many poets find their voice and stick to a sort of signature style their entire careers. That has never appealed to me. I’d get bored chewing on the same poem for eternity like an indigestible hunk of gristle. My eclectic nature in regards to style and voice remains driven by my eclectic reading habits. I like to read all sorts of things.”—Matthew Pennock
Last year my book, Meteor, won the Gival Press Poetry Award and, as per the contest rules, I served as the judge for this year’s award. In an impressive batch of finalists Matthew Pennock’s The Miracle Machine was the shining standout. Here’s my official blurb:
“With a craftsman’s deftest precision and a thunder-powered imagination on DaVinci wings, the author recreates a lost world within a lost world that yet—when we look—shimmers with life within our world. Elegant, wondrously strange, The Miracle Machine is at once an elegy and a celebration, tick-tock of the tao.” —C.M. Mayo
Matthew Pennock
By the way, the judge for the Gival Poetry Award does not know the names nor anything about the poets who submit their manuscripts. I only found out that the author of The Miracle Machine was Matthew Pennock—whom I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting in person—when Gival Press’s editor, Robert Giron, let me know by email. Well, it turns out that, no surprise, I had selected the work of one very accomplished poet. Pennock received his MFA from Columbia University and his PhD from the University of Cincinnati. His poems have been widely published in literary magazines, including Gulf Coast, Denver Quarterly, Western Humanities Review, Guernica, New York Quarterly, and LIT, and his first book, Sudden Dog (Alice James Books, 2012), won the Kinereth-Gensler Award.
Dear writerly reader, this is one of the pleasures of hosting a blog: I get to talk to people I might not otherwise. Right now, of course, the covid makes most meetings impossible anyway. So here we are, and may you find Pennock’s answers as interesting as I did. And at the end, a treat: one of his poems.
C.M. MAYO: What was the spark— what inspired you to write these poems?
MATTHEW PENNOCK: With too many of my poems, television provides the spark. I had been watching “Mysteries at the Museum,” which is like the TV version of clickbait. They start an interesting little teaser story, and you have to wait through a commercial break (watching commercials, how novel!) to get to end, and then the process starts anew. I think I’ve seen every episode.
Needless to say, I was lying there and this story came on the screen about an automaton in the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. I have always had a fascination with automata, like the miracle monk Juanelo Turriano created for Charles V, or the fraudulent Mechanical Turk, but I had not heard of this one. I did a little more research and found it on the Franklin’s website. I was delighted by the breadth and quality of the drawings it could create, and the fact that it wrote poems was the clincher. I felt I had to write a poem about the mechanical boy that wrote poems. One poem became two, and then I thought, why not a short series? The more research I did for the poems took me to new places and new characters, and the project just kept growing until it became its own book.
C.M. MAYO:As you were writing, did you have in mind an ideal reader?
MATTHEW PENNOCK: Not particularly. When I wrote the poems that comprised my first collection, I definitely knew who I was writing to, but this time was different. I wrote these for myself. By that, I mean I used them to make sense of the world as I saw it. This book began during a heated election year, not the 2016 election but the 2012. Due to the Trump era, I think many people have idealized the entirety of the Obama administration, and seemed to have forgotten how nail-bitingly close the 2012 election was until a few weeks before the denouement. That combined with the subsequent four years of obstructionist politics by Boehner and McConnell gifted us what seemed like a weekly Armageddon of debt ceiling crises and fiscal cliffs. In 2008, for a brief teasing moment, there was so much hope and potential for us to finally start tackling the ills that had so long plagued our country: healthcare, climate change, perpetual war, racism, etc. To have it all come to so little felt truly devastating. Then, of course, came Trump. I finished this book about a year into his reign, so I think that’s why the whole thing has such an elegiac tone.
I do want to make clear though that this book is not solely a political work, I think that reading of it exists, but that’s mainly because of the atmosphere in which it was scrawled, but I hope that’s only one dimension of it. I poured all the angst and joy I had into it, so the book is deeply personal for me, and delves into my struggle with so many other things: time, and its passage; love; the nature of reality, and so forth.
C.M. MAYO:Now that it has been published, can you describe the ideal reader for this book as you see him or her now?
MATTHEW PENNOCK: No, I can’t. I’m sort of a firm believer in once my work has entered the world, it has ceased to be mine. I really don’t have much control over what happens to it, and I’m fine with that. Every person who takes the time to read it has a right to see what they want in it. I really do not want to speculate who would get the most from it, or who would understand it the best. I’d inevitably be wrong, and I would feel like a parent telling my child that they must be a lawyer because I was a lawyer, or something like that.
C.M. MAYO:Which writers and poets have been the most important influences for you?
MATTHEW PENNOCK: I always struggle with this question. I don’t have any writers I return to over and over like a blessing of personal Olympians to whom I must pray. In creative writing, it’s hard to get very far before you’ve heard someone talking about “finding their voice.” A famous poet who led a workshop I was in during grad school once told me I’d never write a successful poem because I was too shifty and couldn’t stick to a consistent voice. I didn’t like that. Many poets find their voice and stick to a sort of signature style their entire careers. That has never appealed to me. I’d get bored chewing on the same poem for eternity like an indigestible hunk of gristle. My eclectic nature in regards to style and voice remains driven by my eclectic reading habits. I like to read all sorts of things.
In addition to fiction and poetry, I love narrative non-fiction about anything: history, science, politics, etc., and I get something from almost everything I read, or watch for that matter. The beautiful thing about writing a book like The Miracle Machine was that I did a good amount of research, and it took me so many places. I took influence from history books about pre-modern medicine, alchemy and mysticism; documentaries/movies like Ken Burn’s The Civil War, and Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York; Novels like Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell; and still other things like Offenbach’s opera The Tales of Hoffman. I studied epic poetry and other long form works of poetry. Too many to list really, A few favorites: The Ring and the Book, by Robert Browning, Eugene Onegin, by Alexander Pushkin, Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto, and of course, The Dream Songs, by John Berryman.
C.M. MAYO:Which writers are you reading now?
MATTHEW PENNOCK: Books that I physically have a book mark in right now an am switching between: The Path between the Seas, by David McCullough, Snake, by Erica Wright, Dream of the Unified Field, by Jorie Graham, and I just finished Number 9 Dream, by David Mitchell and Toy Medium: Materialism and the Modern Lyric, by Daniel Tiffany, which was recommended to me by the great Timothy Donnelly after he blurbed my book.
C.M. MAYO:How has the Digital Revolution affected your writing? Specifically, has it become more challenging to stay focused with the siren calls of email, texting, blogs, online newspapers and magazines, social media, and such? If so, do you have some tips and tricks you might be able to share?
MATTHEW PENNOCK: I am not particularly prolific. I do not write every day, and I’m often distracted by all the shows I can stream, and podcasts I can listen to. Social media has never really appealed to me, so I am okay there, but other than that, someone needs to give me some tips about how to get a little more done.
C.M. MAYO:Another question apropos of the Digital Revolution. As a poet, at what point were you working on paper? Was working on paper necessary for you or problematic?
MATTHEW PENNOCK: I kept a romantic attachment to paper for a little while, but once we got into the late aughts, and I made the permanent switch from having a home desktop to having a laptop I could carry around, writing directly on the computer became way too convenient. I can’t imagine going back to paper now. After all, the internet makes looking stuff up as you write so much easier. You never know when you might need to know an obscure fact about the health of Lake Champlain’s ecosystem, or whatnot.
C.M. MAYO:For those looking to publish, what would be your most hard-earned piece of advice?
MATTHEW PENNOCK: I don’t think I have to tell anyone that getting published is hard, the odds are long and the expense is hard to justify. I really dislike it when people try to gloss over that fact, and paint a rosy picture of the contest model. I spent nine years with Alice James Books, six of those years as Chair of the Editorial Board, and during that time, I saw around a thousand manuscripts for various contests. The best advice I can give is be adaptable, never stop looking for ways to improve your book. I saw manuscripts reappear unchanged year after year, while others would continuously change and improve. Those in the latter category would eventually break through, if not with us, then elsewhere. Good work will find a home, but sometimes, it takes longer than any of us want.
C.M. MAYO:What important piece of advice would you give yourself if you could travel back in time ten years?
MATTHEW PENNOCK: Forget about academia, go find something else to do to earn your rent.
C.M. MAYO:What’s next for you?
MATTHEW PENNOCK: I’ve been working on a manuscript for a novel. It involves an awful lot of research about foxes.
BROADWAY & ANN by Matthew Pennock From The Miracle Machine (Gival Press, 2020)
“Traven hid his identity for many reasons, and became famous for the mystery of his identity… But people were mainly interested in his identity because of the quality of his works. He wrote 15 books and innumerable short stories, has sold more than 30 million books in more than 30 languages in more than 500 editions.” —Timothy Heyman
Last Monday this blog posted “Traven’s Triumph,” the English original of Timothy Heyman’s essay which was first published in Spanish in Mexico’s leading literary magazine, Letras Libres, in 2019, the 50th anniversary of Traven’s death. This week follows up with a Q & A with Heyman, who lives in Mexico City, where he co-administers the B. Traven literary archive together with his wife, B. Traven’s stepdaughter, Malú Montes de Oca de Heyman.
Official bio: Timothy Heyman is co-manager of the B. Traven Estate with his wife Malú Montes de Oca Luján de Heyman, stepdaughter of B. Traven. He has degrees from Oxford (in Greek and Roman language, literature, philosophy and history, with a specialization in indo-european philology) and from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (in Management, with a specialization in finance and information technology). In 2013 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II appointed him Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire(CBE) for his contributions to philanthropic and financial relations between the United Kingdom and Mexico.
Tim Heyman, co-manager with his wife Malú Montes de Oca de Heyman of the B. Traven Estate, delivers his keynote speech about B. Traven’s origins. For more about this historic 2019 conference at the Mexican Embassy in Berlin, click here. Photo by C.M. Mayo.
C.M. MAYO: Which is the first of the many works by Traven that you read, and what did you think of it?
TIMOTHY HEYMAN: The first Traven work I read was TheTreasure of the Sierra Madre just after marrying Malú, his stepdaughter, in 1981. The main reason was that I had heard of it. I had seen the movie and enjoyed it, but knew nothing about Traven’s biography, partly because at that time there were no satisfactory biographies in English. The only good one, by Karl Guthke, was published in English in 1991, 22 years after Traven’s death in 1969. My misty watercoloured memory is that it was a well told cowboy tale with a Chaucerian touch. As a still somewhat bookish Englishman, I had never read a Western novel, but only seen Western movies. I could not help comparing it with Chaucer’s “Pardoner’s Tale,” and considered it very well constructed with a very ingenious final twist, in many ways more interesting than Chaucer.
C.M. MAYO:Which is your favorite of all the Traven novels, and why?
TIMOTHY HEYMAN: This is a very difficult question for me, owing to my personal involvement. Malú lived with Traven from an early age, and her mother Rosa Elena Luján (Chelena) was his only wife (she married Traven in 1957, having begun to work as his translator in 1953). I have therefore been steeped in Traven’s life and work for a long time. More recently, when there was the first ever Traven exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City in 2016, I understood better the dimension of his life and work (looking at the show as an outsider). I became even more interested in him and realized I was in a unique position to study him, both because I know something about German culture (including the language) and because I have privileged access to his Estate.
Like many, I was intrigued by the “mystery” and began by piecing together his life from his work, and his work from his life. I have come up with what might be considered an original synthesis of proofs of the identity he revealed to Esperanza Lopez Mateos, his translator, and the cousin of his best friend in Mexico, the cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa. I believe that there is strong evidence of Figueroa’s revelation that he was Moritz Rathenau, the illegitimate son of Emil Rathenau (1838-1915), one of the most important businessmen during the era of Kaiser Wilhelm. Rathenau founded the first and most important electricity conglomerate, AEG, in Germany in 1888. His legitimate son, Walther Rathenau (1867-1922) succeeded him as head of AEG and became Foreign Minister of Germany in 1922, the most successful Jew in German political history, until his assassination in June of that year by a group of antisemitic far right activists, a seminal event that was considered the beginning of the Holocaust in Germany. This provenance would make Traven a member of the one of the most important families in Germany and could also shed important light on his work.
Traven hid his identity for many reasons, and became famous for the mystery of his identity, all of which I analyze in an article that was published in Letras Libres, a leading Mexican literary magazine, in 2019 to commemorate the 50thanniversary of his death in 1969. But people were mainly interested in his identity because of the quality of his works. He wrote 15 books and innumerable short stories, has sold more than 30 million books in more than 30 languages in more than 500 editions. More than 8 novels have been turned into movies or TV series, mainly in three languages, English, German and Spanish.
As I have explored his life and work more deeply, I have come to the conclusion that Traven is a genius. Extraordinarily versatile in word and deed, he was larger than life, and did not only deal with different subjects, but different genres, beginning with short stories, moving to novels, and then in the latter part of his life to the relatively new art form of the cinema, which was emerging in Germany in the 1920s when he was still living there. Not coincidentally, the epicenter of quality cinema transferred from Berlin to Hollywood, dominated by Central European emigrés, in the early 1930s, at a time when he was living not too far away in Mexico.
In response to your original question, if we think of creative people who we call “geniuses” it becomes difficult to choose a favorite. What is your favorite work by Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Mozart, Beethoven, or Picasso? In any art form, most geniuses’ work is divided either by genre or by period. In the case of Shakespeare, therefore, it might be more sensible to ask which is your favorite comedy, tragedy or sonnet. In the case of painters or composers, maybe we should ask which period you prefer, Beethoven’s first two symphonies (his first period), his middle symphonies (3 to 8), or his last, glorious one (9): idem for Mozart, or Picasso.
Traven is different from the geniuses I have mentioned above in terms of his development in time and space. When he was Ret Marut in Germany (1882-1923), he was an actor, director, and sometime writer of short stories, plays and novels, then became a political activist and producer of an anarchist magazine. That was temporally almost exactly the first half of his life. When he became B. Traven (1924-1969), and burst on to the literary scene in Germany, he was a fully-fledged writer, having been shocked into fusing his personal experience with his pent-up literary genius.
I consider the best (i.e., my favorite) works by B. Traven to be The Death Ship (published 1926), The Cotton Pickers (1926), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,and the six books of the Mahogany cycle (1930-1940).
The Death Ship is clearly autobiographical and tracks his voyage from Germany to Mexico. But it elevates the personal story to a discussion of identity in the modern world: the lack of the papers necessary to move from one country to another, the power of the state over the individual through petty bureaucracy, the plight of migrants who are victims of both bureaucrats and employers, the general theme of exploitation of the lower classes by unscrupulous employers. The reality and metaphor of the merchant marine is an extreme example of the riskiness of life and employment, as the hero is subject to the arbitrariness not only of countries and companies, but also of the climate. The book has a hero, Gerald Gales (beginning the constant use of the storm metaphor) and a plot, the hero’s journey to a destination, which is made deliberately ambiguous. The narration is spiced with humor, satire and savage criticism of the way the world is organized. Although in the end, apparently, the protagonist survives an extraordinary shipwreck, described in tremendous, realistic detail in the book’s climax, through its overall theme and tone, it could be considered a tragedy.
The Cotton Pickers is also autobiographical, about what happens to the hero when he arrives in Mexico. A hobo, a vagabond, he tries his hand at everything, whatever he can, in and around the town of Tampico, a magnet for many people from around the world because of its oil boom. The book describes how he tries five jobs: cotton picker, oilfield roustabout, cattle driver, baker and waiter. The skills required for each job are described in minute detail as is the socioeconomic reality of each job and the worker’s relationship with his boss, who typically exploits him. The humor, satire and social criticism remain, but because of the subtle irony of its ending this book could be considered a comedy.
Taking the two books together, if The Death Ship is Traven’s Iliad, The Cotton Pickers is his Odyssey.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, on rereading, is more than a Western novel with a Chaucerian twist. It is an extension of The Cotton Pickers, with a vagabond hero, not autobiographical, but also set initially in Tampico. Having tried everything, he decides on gold prospecting, forms a group of three to start a business (a mine) in the middle of nowhere. Fraught with peril due to inclement conditions and the ubiquity of Mexican bandidos, the group find the gold, mine it, hide their trove, bring it down from the mountain in spite of the bandits, then lose everything. A classic novel, it became a classic movie.
The six Mahogany books are not autobiographical. They describe with extraordinary empathy the conditions in and around the Monterías, logging camps, in the state of Chiapas, where Traven (having been on an expedition to Chiapas in 1926) returned to the southernmost state of Mexico and spent most of his time there in the 1930s. Before reading them, it might seem difficult to imagine how Traven could write 6 books, apparently on the same subject: the exploitation of Indian workers in the Monterias (Carreta; Government; March to the Montería; Trozas; Rebellion of the Hanged; General from the Jungle). But each book focuses on a different aspect, normally with a different hero or heroine, although there is some overlap. Carreta on the oxcart drivers and on how they drive the oxcarts to the Monteria, Government on how the state, the towns, and the monterias are managed and how the workers are treated, March to the Monteria on how and why workers are recruited and how they are literally driven to the Monterias, Trozas on how the logs are moved from the monterias to the river, then down the river to their port of embarkation to be taken to world markets, Rebellion of the Hanged on how the workers eventually get their revenge on their bosses, and General from the Jungle on how they march back to civilization led by a natural general from among their number and defeat their bosses’ enablers, taking over haciendas and towns. Meanwhile, there are links through several characters between the different books, arriving at a climax with the last two books when the workers take over. The series forms an epic masterpiece.
C.M. MAYO: Which do you think is Traven’s most underappreciated novel?
TIMOTHY HEYMAN:The Cotton Pickers, for the reasons implicitly provided in the previous section.
C.M. MAYO:Have there been any notable and particular challenges in bringing his works from German into English? (Did he write all of his novels originally in German?)
TIMOTHY HEYMAN: Traven originally wrote his novels in German, for the German public. His first novel, The Cotton Pickers (Der Wobbly in German), was originally serialized in Vorwärts, the newspaper of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) in 1925. It was published the following year 1926 as a book, as was The Death Ship by the Büchergilder Gutenberg. Büchergilder was a publishing house and book club set up in August 1924 by the Educational Society of German Book Printers (Bildungsverband der deutschen Buchdrucker). In the words of Guthke his biographer, “Büchergilde not only ‘made’ Traven – Traven also made the Büchergilde.” Büchergilde gained its greatest visibility in the literary world as the publisher of B. Traven. By the end of the 1920s 100,000 copies of The Death Ship were in print and by 1936the total circulation of Traven’s works in German alone was half a million, covering the German, Austrian and Swiss markets. This was considered an extraordinary success, not least because Traven’s books were not typical “adventure” stories but had social and political content.
When Hitler came to power in 1933, the German market dried up, because Traven’s books were banned and Büchergilder was forced to emigrate to Switzerland. Traven had already considered the US in 1929 and signed a deal with Doubleday for the rights to the US and British markets not only for the books but also significantly for film and theater. After various disagreements, mainly about marketing strategy where he preferred anonymity and did not want to be “hawked like cigarettes, car tires, toilet soap, toothpaste, and the latest mattresses,” he bought back the rights from Doubleday. Then, in 1933, he was discovered by Alfred A. Knopf and reached an agreement with him to publish his books in English. There is an extraordinary exchange of letters between Knopf and Traven in our archive which demonstrates that Traven was not an easy author to deal with, as he set the conditions of their collaboration.
Traven translated his own books into English. He was lucky to have Bernard Smith as his skilled and sympathetic editor at Knopf, and Traven gave Knopf permission that Smith could edit his books if grammatical, syntactic or orthographic changes had to be made. Smith considered the text so Germanic that he had to “treat” at least 25 percent of the text. Meanwhile, Traven in order to preserve his anonymity (as not German) insisted that his books be stated as being “the English originals.” Meanwhile it is clear from the English texts that Traven’s mother tongue was not English, although he spoke it well, adding strength to my view that his mother was a native English speaker (Gabriel Figueroa stated that his biological mother was an Irish actress, Helen Mareck).
C.M. MAYO: The new editions of B. Travens’ novels just out with Farrar, Straus & Giroux, did these involve new translations from the German? Can you talk about this in any detail?
TIMOTHY HEYMAN: Two books were recently published as ebooks by Farrar Straus this July 2020, the first ever ebooks in English, as part of our agreement to make all his works available in English as ebooks over the next 18 months: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Aslan Norval, his last novel (1960). Treasure was also published as a Picador paperback. Treasure is the original Traven translation edited by Smith for Knopf in the 1930s. We are excited that Farrar Straus decided, as part of the package, to publish Aslan for the first time ever in English, fifty years after Traven’s death: imagine “discovering” today an unpublished novel by George Orwell, or Ernest Hemingway! It was translated by Anabel Aliaga-Buchenau, Professor of German at the University of North Carolina.
C.M. MAYO:Of all Traven’s novels, which one do you think best stands the test of time– and has the chance to be read into the deep future?
TIMOTHY HEYMAN: The novels which I mention (above) as my favorites.
C.M. MAYO:Do you think Aslan Norval will stand the test of time?
TIMOTHY HEYMAN: The book is unlike any of the other novels written by Traven. It is neither about the oppressed or unemployed white men, as the case with Cotton Pickers, Death Ship and Treasure (written in the 1920s), or the Mahogany cycle about oppressed indigenous people in Southern Mexico (written in the 1930s). It is about a young, rich, American girl in her twenties with experience in Hollywood (married to an older man), who wants to build a canal across the United States and hires an engineer, a Korean War veteran, to help her. The ambiance is very US 1950s, when Traven wrote the book and it is a wry satirical commentary on US capitalism, politics and foreign policy at the time. It is a 50s period piece, somewhere between a Cary Grant comedy, and a film noir. Traven became friendly with Bogart on the set of Treasure in 1947 and, quite possibly, might have imagined casting his wife Lauren Bacall (who was also on the set) in an Aslan movie. I enjoyed it and found it particularly interesting as it is autobiographical and reminiscent of Traven’s first unpublished book, The Torch of the Prince written in German under his earlier pseudonym Ret Marut, about an engineer who wants to build a railway in Vietnam, set in 1900, the time when Marut travelled in the Far East. Coming back to your original question, 3 months after publication, it is probably too early to say whether it will stand the test of time among the reading public in general.
C.M. MAYO:Having handled his vast correspondence, what is your sense of Traven as a creative entrepreneur?
TIMOTHY HEYMAN: Traven was an entrepreneur in many ways. In Germany, he first appears under the name of Ret Marut as an actor, based mainly around Cologne and Düsseldorf but also with a travelling theater company. He also appears to have done some directing. When he settled in Düsseldorf with an important theater company from 1913 to 1915, he was closely involved in the formation of a theater school. At the museum of that theater I personally examined the prospectus he wrote for the school, specifying the school’s curriculum, what was required of the teachers, and who could be the donors. He was clearly involved in the design of the cover of the prospectus. After the beginning of WWI, he moved in 1915 from Düsseldorf to Munich, and became more involved in political activism, having become a declared anarchist. He started an anarchist magazine Der Ziegelbrenner which he started publishing from his Munich apartment in Clemensstrasse 84 in 1917. Following his escape from the death sentence in Munich on May 1, 1919, he continued publishing it when he went underground until 1921. As publisher, he was responsible not only for the content which he wrote entirely himself, but also for design, printing, distribution and finance.
When Traven arrived in Mexico in 1924, he earned a living in the ways described in The Cotton Pickers. Meanwhile, he already began to write short stories, some of which were published in Vorwärts before the serialization of The Cotton Pickers. After establishing his publishing relationship with Büchergilder in 1925, he is continually interested in the sales of the books and even initiates methods of interesting his readers in Mexico, by offering prizes consisting of Mexican artefacts such as necklaces and dolls, which he mentions in his letters to the publishers. We have some of these objects in the Traven archive.
The Doubleday deal struck in 1929 (mentioned above) shows that Traven was already careful not only to grant literary rights, but also rights to movie and theater versions. In his correspondence during the 1930s interest is shown in adapting his works to these media. When war broke out in Europe in 1939, Traven realized that he could not rely only on the US market. Coincidentally he was approached by Esperanza Lopez Mateos, who had read one of his books in English, and wanted to translate him into Spanish. His initial misgivings were overcome when she sent him a translation into Spanish of The Bridge in the Jungle. He liked it so much that it was his first authorized translation into Spanish and published in Mexico in 1941. Esperanza then became his official translator and translated most of his books from English into Spanish, until her death in 1951.
Traven had for a long time wanted to make films out of his novels and Esperanza introduced him to her cousin Gabriel Figueroa, the most important Mexican cinematographer until that time, and it was through Figueroa that Traven made the contacts in Hollywood that led to the making of the movie in 1947 by John Huston of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, starring Humphrey Bogart and Walter Huston, John’s own father, which won 3 Oscars in 1948.
“it was through Figueroa that Traven made the contacts in Hollywood that led to the making of the movie in 1947 by John Huston of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, starring Humphrey Bogart and… which won 3 Oscars in 1948.
Following that breakthrough year, Traven was able to realize his dream of turning several more of his works into movies as filmscripts, in both English, German and Spanish. His most important German movie was of The Death Ship (1959) starring Horst Buchholz and Elke Sommer directed by Georg Tressler, long considered a cult masterpiece. His most important movie in Spanish was Macario (1960), which was the first Mexican movie ever to be nominated for the Oscar for best movie made in a foreign language. Details of the negotiations for these movies are in the archive.
During the 1950s, Traven complemented the various entrepreneurial skills he had already shown, producing material, adapting it to different genres, expanding into different markets, translating into different languages, surviving changes of publishers, representatives and translators, by beginning a proactive marketing campaign for his works with the publication of the BTNews in English and BTMitteilungen in German, that regularly informed the public about his works.
C.M. MAYO:Traven really must be considered a Mexican novelist. Can you talk a little about his attitudes towards and feelings about his adopted country?
TIMOTHY HEYMAN: Having been German as Ret Marut until he arrived in Mexico in 1924, Traven officially obtained papers as a Mexican citizen in 1951. So technically he was both a German and Mexican writer. If we were to take his beliefs into account as expressed in The Death Ship, he did not believe in nationalities or nationalisms, but would probably have considered himself a “universal” writer, or global in today’s terms.
Meanwhile, it is clear from his life and his writings that he loved Mexico. He liked it, first of all, as a place. He had acquired an affinity for the tropics as in his seafaring days as a very young man (until 1907) he had travelled by boat to the Far East. From his first unpublished novel The Torch of the Prince (Die Fackel des Furstens) it is likely that he spent quite a long time in Vietnam. He continued to eat with chopsticks when he made a home with Malú’s family from 1957 until his death in 1969. After living in Tampico in the 1920s, Traven spent most of the 1930s in Chiapas. As Mexico City filled up with emigrés from Europe in the late 1930s and during WWII Traven bought a property in Acapulco (Parque Cachú) and spent most of the 1940s there. He returned to live in Mexico City in the 1950s and 1960s.
“He loved Mexico… After living in Tampico in the 1920s, Traven spent most of the 1930s in Chiapas. As Mexico City filled up with emigrés from Europe in the late 1930s and during WWII Traven bought a property in Acapulco (Parque Cachú) and spent most of the 1940s there. He returned to live in Mexico City in the 1950s and 1960s.”
It is clear that Traven formed an enduring affection for the Mexican people, and showed uncommon empathy for their lives and feelings, as demonstrated in his novels, the most touching being Bridge in the Jungle and Macario, with the extraordinary healing scene in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre also particularly memorable.
Traven was notoriously a recluse. But shortly after arriving in Tampico in 1924, he had gone to Mexico City in 1926 and studied Mexican culture at the UNAM, Mexico’s national university, and made several friendships there and in the city. We know that his friends in the 1920s included Edward Weston, the photographer, along with Weston’s girlfriend, Tina Modotti, and the two of them taught him photography: we had a collection of Modotti photos in the Traven Estate which is now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. This enabled him to be the official photographer of the UNAM expedition to Chiapas in 1926, and to produce his own excellent photographs (we have more than 1,000 negatives in our archive). His enduring interest in technology (supporting my belief about his parentage) is attested by his fascination with flying (he took flying lessons in the early 1930s in the US, and we have an airplane manual of that period in our archive). Through Chelena, he was friendly with Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo as well as David and Angelica Siqueiros and other intellectuals such as the playwright Rodolfo Usigli. Through Esperanza Lopez Mateos he became close to her brother Adolfo, who was President of Mexico from 1958 to 1964, and had a direct telephone to the presidency installed in Traven’s house. Through Gabriel Figueroa, her cousin, he was friendly with many members of the Mexican film community.
“We know that his friends in the 1920s included Edward Weston, the photographer, along with Weston’s girlfriend, Tina Modotti, and the two of them taught him photography“
Finally, when Traven married Chelena, Malú’s mother, in 1957, he considered her two daughters, Rosa Elena (Chele) and Malú as his own, and they considered him their father. He underscored his stormy life by constantly referring to storms, not just in The Death Ship, his first important novel, but also when he formed a publishing company in 1943 with Esperanza Lopez Mateos, to be called Tempestad (storm). As if to stress his final tranquility he referred to his final home as a ship, he was the “skipper,” Rosa Elena was “first” (mate), Chele “second” and Malú “third,”
In an unpublished letter to Malú who was studying in Paris, written in 1967, he sums up his life:
“My dear Malú. Again you’ll have to put up with these crow’s feet which I’ve to use in communicating with you because as I told you before I don’t want to molest that old machine which has been so very faithful for many years, now on the high seas, now in the very midst of dense jungle, now with heavy rainstorms pouring down on the poor thing, that’s so very tired of hard work during so many years.”
In the same letter, referring to Malu’s travels in Europe, he says
“There is nothing like Mexico. If you didn’t know it before, you know it now.”
C.M. MAYO:Are there plans you can share for the Traven archive?
TIMOTHY HEYMAN: We plan to use the archive for at least the next two years to be able to write the definitive biography that he deserves and perhaps turn it into a movie or a TV series. Meanwhile we are exploring alternatives for the Traven archive in the three obvious countries: Mexico, Germany and the United States. Our decision about which institution should house the archive will depend on several factors: capability for storage and conservation, ability and interest to conduct continuing research into his life and work, ability to provide access and encourage interest in his life and work among the broadest possible public.
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> Learn more about B. Traven and his works at the official B. Traven website www.btraven.com
I am not the only one coming to the conclusion, after many years of enthusiastic embrace, that the digital revolution has been a Faustian deal. This month’s “Q & A” is not with one writer but a reprise of a question I have posed to many writers over the past few years, as part of this blog’s fourth Monday Q & A: How have you been coping with the digital revolution? Herewith a wide-ranging selection of their answers. May you find them as thought-provoking as I did.
KATHERINE DUNN:… I have an iPhone that I use mainly for photos…but I’m not attached to it like many people. I have learned to sit down, and state in my head what I need to do, i.e., “I need to get this canvas started and work on it for one hour.”
Simple tiny steps of work. I find I actually get a lot done in a shorter amount of time than when I was younger.
I also do not feel compelled to be in the studio all the time. I’m 62, maybe that is part of it–I have less enthusiasm for other people’s presence.
I think if most people just tried [turning] off notifications on their iPhones it would help! I see some people unable to have a 5 minute conversation without getting interrupted.
I’ve learned to get on and off social media. I deleted 5000 “friends” on Facebook and kept 100 of people I really knew. I never post on it. I only maintain my Apifera Farm nonprofit page. I don’t comment hardly ever on anything of FB. I decided it was a drain and that I was basically entertaining the masses with free photos, stories and more, and was not seeing a return. The nonprofit still can bring in donations through FB. Instagram is eye candy, I use it as a marketing tool for my non profit, and post art when I have it to show.
But that’s it. I don’t interact on it, except to see a baby photo or something of real friends. _____
JOANNA HERSHON:I imagine that, like most people, I’m more distracted with social media, texting and email but I still do feel like when I’m writing… I’m writing, just like I always did before the internet existed. Part of what I love and crave about writing fiction is that it’s a process that feels timeless and part of my essential self. _____
BARBARA CROOKER: …I resisted using social media for a long time once we got a high speed connection, fearing it would be a time suck (it is!). I do try to answer emails in a timely fashion, but I limit Facebook to half hour sessions, confess that I don’t see the use of Twitter, but do use it to post when poems are online or if I have an event, and haven’t figured out Instagram yet. . . . The good part about all of this (the Digital Revolution) is that I can easily share work, especially work that has appeared in print-only journals, with larger audiences. I maintain my own website (www.barbaracrooker.com), posting a new poem every month, plus links to poems published online. The downside of it is that I’d need to be cloned to really be able to be a big presence on social media. But I feel my real job is just to write poems, so I’m working as hard as I can to keep the rest of the “stuff” to a minimum. ________ Q & A with Poet Barbara Crooker on the Magic of VCCA, Reading, and Some Glad Morning, Madam Mayo blog, December 23, 2019
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NANCY PEACOCK: My biggest experience with the digital revolution has been with Facebook. After much cajoling from an agent and the culture, I finally opened a Facebook account. That’s what we’re supposed to do, as writers, right? We’re supposed to promote our work every possible way. I was surprised to find things that mattered to me on Facebook, and then, as those things dwindled, I became addicted to searching for them. In the end, my mind became fractured, and I was unable to focus on what I needed to focus on: the writing. I deleted my FB account. I did not disable it. I deleted it, and I feel my mind healing. It was like coming off a drug…. For me it really came down to either being a writer or presenting as a writer. I chose the former. ________ From Q & A: Nancy Peacock, Author of The Life and Times of Persimmon Wilson, Madam Mayo blog, March 26, 2018
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BRUCE BERGER: I write the same way I did when I began, which is on a yellow legal pad in longhand with a Ticonderoga hardness of 3 pencil, which I transcribe to my laptop, then print for corrections. While I keep up with email and google for info, I don’t participate in social media or text.For the record, I identify as a retro analoggerhead Luddite retard from the Silent Generation. _______ From Q & A with Bruce Berger on A Desert Harvest, Madam Mayo blog, November 25, 2019
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SERGIO TRONCOSO: I think you have to be relentless about getting the word out about your books and appearances on social media, you have to accept this ‘fast world’ as our world now, even though sometimes I hate it, and you have to do your best not to lose yourself in the posting and re-posting and stupid arguments that too often occur digitally. I do it, then I go back to my work. So I feel a bit schizophrenic sometimes, but I do relish the moment when I turn everything off and lose myself in my work or on a particularly thorny issue of craft. I think you almost have to have a ‘segmented mind,’ that is, learn to function in the realms of social media effectively. But then also learn to take all of this digital frenzy somewhat skeptically. The most basic way it’s affected my writing is that now I write about it, in dystopian stories about where I think our country might be headed, with people too quick to judge superficially, so enamored with images, so lost in our digital world that the real world becomes an aside. _______ From Q & A with Sergio Troncoso, Author of A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son, October 28, 2019
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ERIC BARNES:My advice is to turn it all off when you write. Phone. Email. Everything. I write on a computer, but have to be sure all the alerts and notifications are off. Not just emails and the Web, but even alerts about software updates and battery life. Everything. Even the word processor I use, I have it set up so all the toolbars and menus and everything else is hidden. I just want a blank white page on which I can type.
JOSEPH HUTCHISON:I don’t have a writing routine, but when a poem does rear its Hyacinthine head, I become obsessive—preoccupied, distracted—and I pretty much stop answering emails. I have my blog set up so that my posts automatically flow through to a few social media sites, but I don’t generally visit those sites myself, even less so now that I’ve turned off notifications. Unfortunately, I follow numerous sites for political and poetical news, so that when a poem’s finished, I have to wade through days of unread articles. Overall, I’d say that I don’t feel much of a stake in social media, which is generally antisocial and trivializing. I don’t consider it a writerly medium. _______ From Q & A: Joseph Hutchison, Poet Laureate of Colorado, on The World As Is, April 22, 2019
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MARY MACKEY: I’ve been using computers since the early 80’s, so the Digital Revolution did not come as a surprise. It hasn’t affected my writing, but, like all writers these days, I have to spend time on social media that I would have otherwise spent writing, so I ration my online time carefully. To write poetry, to create anything, you need long periods of silence and intense concentration. You need to be able to hear your inner voice. You can’t do this if you are always checking your phone. My solution is rigorous compartmentalization. I set aside times to write and times to do social media. _______ From Q & A: Mary Mackey on The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams, Madam Mayo blog, November 18, 2018
What works and doesn’t work for you?
My own sense is that accomplishing anything in this midst of the digital revolution requires clarity of one’s intentions, as well as self-awareness and self-honesty when it comes to assessing one’s own strengths and weaknesses, and time constraints. Hence, everyone’s answer will differ. But we are all struggling with something tremendous.
Throughout this month of August I am on vacation, nonetheless posting each Monday– herewith, one of my favorites from this blog’s archives:
On Francisco I. Madero as Medium: Q & A with Rev. Stephen A. Hermann, Author of Mediumship Mastery
Originally posted on Madam Mayo blog July 15, 2015
Francisco I. Madero, leader of Mexico’s 1910 Revolution, President of Mexico 1911-1913, and author of Manual espírita (Spiritist Manual), 1911— subject of my book, Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution.
The astonishing thing about Francisco I. Madero’s Manual espírita of 1911 is that it lays out his philosophy so passionately and precisely, and yet, with counted exceptions (among them, Mexican historians Enrique Krauze, Yolia Tortolero, Manuel Guerra de Luna, and Alejandro Rosas), apart from cursory mentions, historians of the Mexican revolution have told us nearly nothing about this text, its origins, broader esoteric cultural context, and profound implications for understanding Madero’s actions as leader of the 1910 Revolution and as President of Mexico. My translation of Madero’s Manual espírita— the first into English and, as far as I have been able to ascertain, into any language— is included in my book, Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual.
>>Click here to view a one minute-long Mexican government video which gives a very basic idea of the official version of Madero’s importance in Mexico.<<
Madero was a medium in the Spiritist tradition of the late 19th and early 20th centuries of France and Mexico. While Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution is a scholarly contribution, I write about Madero and his Spiritist Manual not as an academic historian, but as his translator and as a creative writer who has lived in and written about Mexico for many years. I presumed that most of my readers would encounter Madero’s ideas about communicating with the dead extremely peculiar, even disturbing. For the most part this has been the case. To give one of several (to me, amusing) examples, one prominent Mexico expert who shall remain unnamed felt moved to inform me that, though he very much enjoyed my book, he would not be reading Spiritist Manual.
That said, I am grateful to have been invited to speak about it at the Centro de Estudios de la Historia de México CARSO, Mexico City’s National Palace, Rice University, Stanford University, UCSD Center for US-Mexican Studies, and elsewhere, and to date, historians of Mexico and other scholars in these audiences have been both thoughtful and generous in their comments.
To my surprise, however, the Internet has brought my and Madero’s books another, very different audience, one that encounters the Spiritist Manual as, shall we say, a vintage text out of a well-known and warmly embraced tradition.
Rev. Stephen A. Hermann, author of Mediumship Mastery www.stevehermannmedium.com
In his review for the National Spiritualist, Rev. Stephen A. Hermann writes, “Anyone interested in the history of international Spiritualism as well as as mediumnistic unfoldment will find this manual invaluable.”
With the aim of providing further historical and philosophical context for Francisco I. Madero and his Spiritist Manual, I asked Rev. Hermann if, from the perspective of a practicing medium and teacher of mediumship— and author of the just-published Mediumship Mastery: The Mechanics of Receiving Spirit Communications— he would be so kind as to answer some of my questions about Madero as a medium and about his philosophy.
ON MADERO AS MEDIUM
C.M. MAYO: In your book, Mediumship Mastery, you distinguish between two broad types of mediumship, mental and physical. “Automatic writing” you categorize as both. Francisco I. Madero was a writing medium, that is, a medium who channeled messages from the spirit world through his hand and pen onto paper. Can you explain this? And, is this type of mediumship still common today?
STEPHEN A. HERMANN: Madero practiced automatic writing in which spirit personalities would control the movements of his arm and hand to write messages. It is common for many people, not knowing the difference, to confuse automatic writing with the phase of mediumship known as inspirational writing. With inspirational writing the medium’s conscious and unconscious mind are very much involved with the process. Genuine automatic writing occurs typically quite rapidly with the medium unable to control the movements taking place. The conscious mind of the medium is not involved in the process and the medium could even be engaged in a conversation with others while the writing is produced.
In the period that Madero developed his mediumship the practice of automatic writing, the use of planchette and table for spirit communication was quite common for many mediums. Madero was heavily influenced by the writings of the French Spiritualist Kardec, whose classic Medium’s Book was widely used by students of spirit communication as a standard for mediumistic unfoldment.
As a phase of mediumship automatic writing is not commonly practiced the way it would have been a century ago. In most countries around the world most mediums practice mental phases of mediumship such as clairvoyance, clairaudience and clairsentience (psychic seeing, hearing and sensing). There are also many mediums who practice controlled speaking or trance channeling.
C.M. MAYO: How how would you, as a medium, evaluate Madero’s mediumnistic notebooks? (These are preserved in his archive in Mexico’s Ministry of Finance; in my book, I quoted from some of them, communications in Madero’s handwriting signed by “Raúl,” “José” and “B.J.”).
STEPHEN A. HERMANN: I was impressed by Madero’s dedication to God, the spirit world and his mission to help Mexico. He certainly appears to have lived by higher spiritual principles. The communications that he received I feel were genuine and indicate the great effort of teachers in the spirit world to use him as a positive influence in the material world. I would love to see all his notebooks published and your book distributed even more as Madero’s work is an excellent example of a politician motivated selflessly out of love and duty.
[C.M. MAYO: The mediumnistic notebooks have been transcribed and published in volume VI. of Obras completas de Francisco Ignacio Madero, edited by Alejandro Rosas Robles, Editorial Clío, Mexico, 2000. For more about the work of Alejandro Rosas Robles and other Mexican historians on Madero and esoteric philosophy, see my post Lifting the (Very Heavy) Curtain on the Leader of Mexico’s 1910 Revolution].
C.M. MAYO: It seems that by the time Madero became president he was no longer channeling written messages but instead relied on “inspiration” or telepathic communication from spirits. My understanding is that Madero considered this an advance in his mediumnistic abilities. Would you agree?
STEPHEN A. HERMANN: A student of mediumship is always progressing and as such the manner that his or her mediumship functions will evolve accordingly. I assume that Madero would have put considerable effort into growing as an individual as well as enhancing his own mediumistic skills. It is not that one phase of mediumship is better than another. All spiritual gifts are ways for the spirit personalities to bring love and healing to people in the material world. It is very common for mediums to develop new phases of mediumship as they gain experience and are ready. Madero was very progressive in all aspects of his life.
C.M. MAYO: One of the questions I invariably hear in any presentation or conference about Madero and his Spiritism is that, if he really were hearing from spirits, why did they not warn him about the coup d’etat of 1913, so that he could save himself? (Perhaps because as President coping with the challenges of governing, he no longer had the peace of mind to listen?) In Mediumship Mastery (p. 154-155) you write, “While warnings might be given in order to prevent a mishap, telling the recipient negative information such as he or she is going to die next week or be involved in a serious accident, generally would not come through with controlled regulated mediumship.” Can you explain and/or elaborate?
STEPHEN A. HERMANN: Madero would have been under great stress so it is very possible that his own mind would not have been receptive to warnings given by his guardians in the spirit world. On the other hand, we do not know the full picture in terms of his karma or lessons in this lifetime. Madero performed great works when he was physically present. I am sure that these great works would have continued in other realms after his physical death.
C.M. MAYO: In the introduction to your book, Mediumship Mastery, you mention that you trained as a hypnotherapist. From his personal library we know that Madero was intensely interested in hypnotism. Would this knowledge have enhanced his abilities as a medium and as a political leader? And if so, how?
STEPHEN A. HERMANN: Kardec and many of the pioneers of the Spiritualist movement studied Mesmerism and altered-states-of-consciousness. The awareness of inducing trance states is crucial for the development of mediumistic ability. For example, with clairvoyance the more the medium is able to place his or her mind into a receptive state and get the analytical mind out of the way, the easier it will be to receive as well as accurately interpret spirit messages given in this manner. Mediumship mastery requires considerable discipline on the part of the medium. Hypnosis is an effective tool for helping student mediums train their minds and open up as instruments for the spirit personalities to work through.
ON SPIRITISM, SPIRITUALISM, THE PHILIPPINES, AND PSYCHIC SURGERY
C.M. MAYO: Spiritism developed in France from the root of Anglo-American Spiritualism. As a medium who has practiced and taught in various countries from the U.S. to New Zealand and including in the Philippines, do you see important differences in these traditions, Spiritualism and Spiritism, today?
STEPHEN A. HERMANN: Spiritism and Spiritualism are branches of the same tree. A Spiritist is a Spiritualist who follows primarily the doctrine found within Kardec’s writings. Anglo-American Spiritualists do not limit themselves to Kardec’s writings and as a whole have not officially embraced the concept of reincarnation. The Spiritist approach generally places more emphasis on higher philosophy and less on phenomena or providing evidence of survival as the Spiritualist approach emphasizes. I think as a whole the Spiritist approach tends to be more progressive than what is found in many Spiritualist churches. However, Spiritists can be a bit dogmatic in adhering to Kardec’s writings. .
C.M. MAYO: In your chapter “Spiritiual Healing” you discuss psychic surgery in the Philippines. Though Madero does not discuss psychic surgery in the Spiritist Manual, in my book, Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution, I mention the Filipino and Brazilian psychic surgeons as well as some Mexicans including Niño Fidencio and Doña Pachita because they are well-known in Mexico and I felt they represented traditions that could claim at least some tangly bit of roots in the early 20th century Spiritism of Madero. Would you agree? Also, have you practiced and/or witnessed any psychic surgery yourself?
STEPHEN A. HERMANN: There have always been mediums or healers in all cultures. The Philippines were a Spanish colony for almost three hundred years. Many of the leaders of the revolution against Spanish rule were involved in the practice of Spiritualism. Kardec’s writings were again a major influence in this part of the world.
I teach mediumship and healing worldwide and the Philippines is one of the countries I regularly visit. Over the years I have witnessed and experienced many remarkable physical and emotional healings with my own mediumship as well as the mediumship of others. With healing God is the healer and we are only vehicles for God’s unconditional love to work through. Yes, I practice psychic surgery with the help of spirit doctors. However, I do not pull blood and guts out of people and drop it in a tin can as many Filipino healers do.
C.M. MAYO: My understanding is that Spiritism arrived in the Philippines with Spanish translations of Kardec’s works. Presumably many of these came out Barcelona, an important center for esoteric publishing (and indeed, many of the books in Madero’s personal library were from Barcelona). When I discovered that Madero’s 1911 Manual espírita had been reprinted by Casa Editorial Maucci in Barcelona in 1924, I immediately wondered whether any copies had made their way to the Philippines and so played some role in the spread of Spiritism there. Do you know anything about this?
STEPHEN A. HERMANN: I do not know anything about this. Don Juan Alvear in 1901 founded the first Spiritist center in San Fabrian, Pangasinan. I have worked at this center many times and the energy is amazing. Alvear was a great political leader, educator and prominent intellectual. Like Madero, Alvear authored a book on mediumship and was a hero of the revolution. His statue is outside the government building and across the street from the Spiritist center he founded.
[C.M. MAYO: See Hermann’s blog post about some history of Spiritism in the Philippines here. And for more about Spiritism in the Philippines, a subject on which I am admittedly very foggy, one place to start is Harvey Martin’s The Secret Teachings of the Espiritistas.]
ON THE BHAGAVAD-GITA AND REINCARNATION
C.M. MAYO: In many places in your book, Mediumship Mastery, you quote from the Bhagavad-Gita.This was a work that fascinated Madero; he not only mentions it in his Spiritist Manual, but under the pseudonym “Arjuna”— the name of the warrior in the Bhagavad-Gita— he wrote articles about it and was planning a book about its wisdom for the modern world. The Bhagavad-Gita also had an important influence on Gandhi, Emerson, the Theosophists, and many others. One of its many teachings is about reincarnation. In your book’s chapter “Past Life Readings,” you mention that you have recollections of some of your past lives and also have received communications from spirits about others’ past lives. Would you elaborate on reincarnation as explained in the Gita?
STEPHEN A. HERMANN: The Bhagavad Gita is a conversation between the Supreme Personality and Arjuna. I try to read it as much as possible. Life is eternal as the personality continues into the world of spirit. The Bhagavad Gita explains the science of connecting with the Godhead and how to cultivate devotion or love of God. Every seven years pretty much all the molecules in our physical bodies change. So we are always changing physical bodies. Based on our consciousness at the end of this physical life we will end up having to take another physical birth. The Gita explains the process of transmigration and how we can ascend to higher levels.
C.M. MAYO: Like Madero in his Spiritist Manual, in your book, Mediumship Mastery, you advocate a vegetarian diet. Is this an idea that came to Spiritualism / Spiritism from Hindu philosophy?
STEPHEN A. HERMANN: Higher teachers on both the physical and spiritual worlds always advocate vegetarianism as it is very bad to hurt animals and cause suffering to others. A true follower of Jesus would not want to hurt others as would a true follower of Buddha. There is only one God and we are all God’s children. I am sure Madero was influenced by Vedic teachings which is why he loved the Bhagavad Gita.
MORE ABOUT MADERO’S SPIRITIST MANUAL
C.M. MAYO: What surprised you the most about Madero’s Spiritist Manual?
STEPHEN A. HERMANN: I really loved reading the Spiritist Manual. It didn’t really surprise me as I am familiar with everything he wrote already. However, I especially loved reading the extra sections about your research and his notes, etc. I think you did a fantastic job.
C.M. MAYO: In terms of his understanding of mediumnistic unfoldment—or anything else—are there any points where you would disagree with Madero’s Spiritist Manual?
STEPHEN A. HERMANN: Madero approaches mediumship heavily influenced by Kardec’s Medium’s Book. Nothing wrong with that as Kardec’s work was way ahead of it’s time when it was published in 1861. However, the methods and approaches used by the spirit personalities to communicate, train and interact with mediums have greatly improved.
Back in the early years of Spiritualism there were no teachers of mediumship. Mediums learned through trial and error and with the assistance and input of teachers in the spirit world overtime created structured approaches to the unfoldment of the various phases of mediumship.
Madero was brilliant and had he not have been murdered his mediumship would have expanded even more. Love, harmony, enthusiasm, and higher purpose are the qualities needed to create the best conditions for successful mediumistic communications. Madero possessed all these qualities and more.
In the early years of Spiritualism there was much physical phenomena or manifestations of spirit power that could be directly experienced through the five physical senses. Nowadays, people are much more intellectually oriented and as such the mediumship practiced is mainly mental or telepathic in nature. It is not that one method is better but just better suited for the age. The methods for training mediums have greatly improved and expanded in the last 168 years.
C.M. MAYO: As you were reading Madero’s Spiritist Manual, or before or afterwards, did you ever sense that you were in communication with / sensing Madero’s spirit? Is there anything you would like to say about that?
STEPHEN A. HERMANN: I would think that Madero most likely would have been around you a lot when you were researching and writing the book. I do not know if he was around me when I was reading the book, but I do feel that he and I would have a lot in common if we were to meet. I think we would get along pretty well as I can relate to where he was at in terms of his mediumship and his spirituality in general.
C.M. MAYO: In your book, Mediumship Mastery (p. 9) you introduce the subtle bodies that interpenetrate the physical body. As I read it, this is a somewhat different explanation from given by Madero where he, following Kardec, talks about the “perispirit.” Can you explain?
STEPHEN A. HERMANN: The perispirit is the subtle or astral covering. Madero uses Kardec’s terminology. We have a physical body with subtle bodies interpenetrating it. After physical death the soul continues to function through the astral body and travels into the spirit world.
ON MEDIUMSHIP AND ENERGIES
C.M. MAYO: My experience has been that not all but most people either dismiss mediumship as impossible or, believing it possible, are frightened that, in calling on the spirit world, they might encounter negative entities. In particular, the Catholic and many other churches sternly warn against dabbling in conjuring spirits, especially with Ouija boards. In the introduction to your book, Mediumship Mastery, you write, “In all my years of working as a medium, I have never experienced anything negative or that made me feel uncomfortable. My experience of mediumship has always been genuinely positive, loving, and comfortable.” It would seem, from my reading of the Spiritist Manual, that Madero would have agreed. But has this been the case for others you know?
STEPHEN A. HERMANN: Mediumship is all about love and healing. However, training is important as is proper motivation. Someone could have a bad experience with mediumship if they dabble in it or go about doing it in a superficial way. Spiritual mediumship is completely orchestrated by higher spirit personalities. Mediumship is not a board game for drunk teenagers to play at 2 AM. Like attracts like.
C.M. MAYO: In your book’s final chapter, “Dealing with Skeptics,” you write, “People who are closed off and negative for any reason, which would include hardcore skeptics, are exceptionally more difficult to work with as the energies are not as strong, the links to the spirit world weaker, and the connections more incomplete and vague.”
It seems to me that U.S. Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson, who disdained Madero as mentally unbalanced and who, for his support for the coup d’etat that ended with Madero’s murder in 1913, has gone down as one of the archvillians of Mexican history, had much in common with the rigidmindedness of celebrity skeptics such as the Amazing Randi. Would you agree?
STEPHEN A. HERMANN: I don’t know Randi personally nor do I know the US Ambassador of that period. Who knows what motivates people on a deeper level? However, Randi does seem very closed off to higher consciousness and intuitive ability. I suspect that Ambassador Wilson was motivated completely by lower, selfish interests and as a result would have cut himself off from higher spiritual influences.
Skeptics are not necessarily immoral or callous individuals. They just do not often believe in the mystical and are highly suspect of claims that do not fit their rationalist view of the world. I appreciate skepticism as many people are completely gullible and easily misled. It is important to not throw out your intelligence when dealing with mediumship as there is a fine line with genuine psychic impressions and your own imagination.
This month’s Q & A is with visual artist and writer Katherine Dunn, whom I admire more than I can say. I have one of her artworks in the entrance of my house, and another framed in my office, such that I see them both every day–and they always lift my spirits. And I’ve been reading her blog, Apifera Farm, since the dawn of blogging. Her blog can be charming, but dear writerly reader, it’s deeply wise, and it oftentimes features posts about and photos of death (read what she has to say about that here). Her farm, originally in Oregon, is an unusual one. Now relocated to loveliest Maine, Apifera is an incorporated non profit and registered 501[c][3] with a mission to adopt and care for elder/special needs barn animals/creatures and to bring the animals together with elder/special needs people for mutually healing visits.
Katherine Dunn’s latest of many books is the exquisite four-color and offset-printed White Dog, and apropos of that, she agreed to answer some questions.
C.M. MAYO: What inspired you to write this book?
Katherine Dunn: White Dog! The mystery of where he really came from was always on my mind. Many opinions were given at the time. But in the end, I stayed with the ‘magic’ of his arrival. All my life I find I am put in situations, that if I had been somewhere else on that day my life would have taken another path. I feel that way with White Dog, I believe he came to help me as much as me to help him.
C.M. MAYO:As you were writing, did you have in mind an ideal reader?
Katherine Dunn: I’m self-taught really. I never think about who is reading or viewing my art. C.M. MAYO:Now that it has been published, can you describe the ideal reader for this book as you see him or her now?
Katherine Dunn: I just don’t think in those terms I guess. I feel my work is cross generational. When I tried to get into publishing houses for my children books, I was often told they were too adult. When I shared memoirs or story ideas with some agent or editors I was told they weren’t adult enough or did not have an easy to label genre. YUCK. I gave up trying to find an agent or editor after about 5 years. C.M. MAYO:Which writers have been the most important influences for you?
Katherine Dunn: E.B. White. Marquez. I loved Watership Down. Bob Dylan. Nick Cave. I don’t differentiate between mediums. I think music has been more important to me versus books, although I love books. C.M. MAYO:You are also a wonderful artist. Which artists have been the most influential for you?
Katherine Dunn: I was surrounded by art and books as a child, my father was an artist/architect. Matisse was an early influence… but Paul Klee I think influenced me the most as child. I was a ceramicist first, and 3d is still part of my work. I need to always be working in a flow of what I want to work on. Lately I’m working on some needle stuff (slowly). C.M. MAYO:Which writers are you reading now?
Katherine Dunn:On the Brink of Everything by Parker Palmer, Two Prospectors, the collected of letters between Sam Shepherd and Johnny Dark. C.M. MAYO:How has the Digital Revolution affected your writing and your art? Specifically, has it become more challenging to stay focused on artistic endeavors with the siren calls of email, texting, blogs, online newspapers and magazines, social media, and such? If so, do you have some tips and tricks you might be able to share?
Katherine Dunn: Well…I could not do what I do, as a freelancer since 1996, out in the country without it. I think it is the political and chaos we are in as a nation that is more distracting right now. I have an iPhone that I use mainly for photos…but I’m not attached to it like many people. I have learned to sit down, and state in my head what I need to do, i.e., “I need to get this canvas started and work on it for one hour.”
Simple tiny steps of work. I find I actually get a lot done in a shorter amount of time than when I was younger.
I also do not feel compelled to be in the studio all the time. I’m 62, maybe that is part of it–I have less enthusiasm for other people’s presence.
I think if most people just tried off notifications on their iPhones it would help! I see some people unable to have a 5 minute conversation without getting interrupted.
I’ve learned to get on and off social media. I deleted 5000 “friends” on Facebook and kept 100 of people I really knew. I never post on it. I only maintain my Apifera Farm nonprofit page. I don’t comment hardly ever on anything of FB. I decided it was a drain and that I was basically entertaining the masses with free photos, stories and more, and was not seeing a return. The nonprofit still can bring in donations through FB. Instagram is eye candy, I use it as a marketing tool for my non profit, and post art when I have it to show.
But that’s it. I don’t interact on it, except to see a baby photo or something of real friends. C.M. MAYO:Another question apropos of the Digital Revolution. As a writer, at what point were you working on paper? Was working on paper necessary for you or problematic?
Katherine Dunn: I kind of worked on paper, and still do, if I’m creating a book, because I am so visual. Especially if it is an illustrated book. I need to see thumbnails over and over as it evolves. but I don’t write on paper. All my books, I think there are 6, were always typed on the computer…I keep lists and ideas here and there, but I work on the computer. C.M. MAYO:For those looking to publish, what would be your most hard-earned piece of advice?
Katherine Dunn: Oh man….
If you are looking to publish with a publisher…I don’t even know what to say because of my experience. I hired a former editor of Chronicle books back in 2010 when I was working on what was then called Raggedy Love but became Donkey Dreams. He helped enormously. He helped me learn the importance of shaping a book, editing, etc. And focusing. He would keep the story on track…it was so helpful. Especially in today’s worlds of blogs–some peoples’ books just feel like blogs. Anyway, it was one of the best investments I made. And we really thought we had a book, and he pitched it to about 15 places.
Illustrated memoir is hard to place. It was disappointing. That is when I first self-published about a year later. I did publish with a publisher for a how-to-art-inspiration book back in 2008 or there about, it was a good lesson on how a book comes together.
Self-publishing is rewarding and cost effective. But lots of work. I use offset printers, more cost effective but also more upfront money.
To be honest, I got so sick and tired of sending query letters that went unanswered, or had no feedback…or got good feedback and then…silence. I just got tired of it. Same things with agents.
I like being my own band. Life is too short.
On the other hand, if you have a connection with someone, that makes all the difference in the world. But my days of having connections like that are over, and I am fine with that. C.M. MAYO:What important piece of advice would you give yourself if you could travel back in time ten years?
Katherine Dunn: hmmm….I think I lived as I wanted, and still do, so don’t think I have any advice like that…
Maybe …. “It will be okay.” C.M. MAYO:What’s next for you?
Katherine Dunn: Good question. I still want to market White Dog more, it came out during Covid. So I am percolating that.
I had a stretch of good painting, large canvases for Sundance which was a nice change.
I have some creatures warranting books or something…The Goose, Walter the cat…I don’t know…
I have to tell you, the world situation is very upsetting. So I’m letting myself do what feels right at the moment of each day.
“In Flyshoals, Georgia, karma is writ small enough to witness. When Doreen Swilley discovers that her boss and lover of thirty years intends to fire her to placate his dying wife, she devises a plan to steal his business from him. Her plan just might work too, if she is not thwarted by a small town’s enmeshed histories and her family’s own dark secrets. Set during the 2009 recession, The Nature of Remains rests at the intersection of class, gender, education and place. Through extended geological metaphor, readers witness the orogeny, crystallization, and weathering of the human soul. Doreen’s journey reveals the ways even a woman’s most precious connections—her children, her grandchildren, her lover—operate within larger social structures capable of challenging her sovereignty.”
C.M. MAYO: What inspired you to write this novel?
GINGER EAGER: I’d gone with a friend to look at a farmhouse for sale. It seemed perfect in the listing, an older home that was both livable and “a handyman’s dream,” on acreage with mature hardwoods and a pond.
The drive in was gorgeous. It was August, and the hardwoods were thick enough for the road to be mostly in shadow with just a bit of dappled light. We drove through a wide, shallow creek, and I found it terribly romantic to consider living in a place I’d need vehicle clearance to reach.
The trees thinned as we approached the house. The sun beat down and insects screamed from the overgrown fields. There was no shade, just the inarguable fact of August in the Georgia. My friend parked, turned off her truck off. We heard the roar of an interstate. The house was difficult to reach by vehicle, but if you were on foot it was just a few acres from I-20.
We stood looking at the house. It needed quite a bit of work. The owner told us there were tenants in the process of moving out. They should be gone, he’d said, and the door’s unlocked. Ours was the only vehicle. We climbed the porch and knocked.
“Who the f*** is it?” shrieked a woman’s voice from inside.
“We’re here to see the house,” said my friend. “It’s for sale.”
The heat-swollen door was forced open just enough for us to see a slice of the woman’s face. I’m not sure when she’d last eaten a decent meal, and her eyes darted about. “My husband is down at the pond.” She scratched at scabs on her arms. “He’ll shoot you if he sees you here. He don’t welcome visitors.”
We thanked her and left. I don’t know if she had a husband or a gun, but she needed the privacy she asked for. Something mean had her in its grip.
That afternoon, my friend called the owner, and he confessed that the home was occupied by squatters. He was unable to get them out of the house.
The theory that there should be no homeless because there are enough homes for all feels morally right to me. But what does this look like in practice? What does this look like in a deeply rural area where the social safety net may be only what your friends and family are able and willing to provide? A home—only a home—is never enough. I kept thinking of that woman, and wondering how she’d ended up in the situation in which we found her.
The first scene I wrote occurs near the end of the novel. Doreen, the protagonist, goes to help her son who has lost so much he is now squatting in a house much like the one I encountered with my friend. I thought I wrote a short story, but the characters haunted me, and soon I was working backward, writing the story that preceded the event.
C.M. MAYO: As you were writing, did you have in mind an ideal reader?
GINGER EAGER: Myself at eighteen.
I was in an abusive relationship from fourteen to twenty. I didn’t find much help for this in my family culture or in the religion of my childhood. I’d long been a bookish kid, and literature became my teacher and advocate. When I was in high school, writers like Toni Morrison, Flannery O’Connor and Harry Crews helped to unveil for me the place and the culture in which I lived. In college I found books like Alice Walker’s The Color Purple and Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina. It took time, but I began to see that what I believed to be true about men and women, about love, about “goodness” and “badness,” simply wasn’t true. Women’s Studies courses helped with this too. Literature and education save lives.
C.M. MAYO:Now that it has been published, can you describe the ideal reader for this novel as you see him or her now?
GINGER EAGER: My goal was to write a book with a plot line exciting enough for any fan of gritty Southern fiction to enjoy. If you like Daniel Woodrell and David Joy, you’ll like The Nature of Remains.
C.M. MAYO:Which writers have been the most important influences for you?
GINGER EAGER: I’ve already listed so many, haven’t I?
I need to add Margaret Atwood to the list. Cat’s Eye is the finest novel about girlhood that I’ve read. I return to it every couple of years, and thus far my opinion remains unchanged. I also return to Atwood’s Oryx and Crake. That these novels were written by the same person stuns me. She’s such a brave and nimble writer.
Poetry is important to me. Jane Hirshfield, Mary Oliver, Wendell Berry, Kay Ryan. I have works from these folks on a low shelf near my desk and will grab one of their collections when my words start to feel thick and wooden.
C.M. MAYO:Which writers are you reading now?
GINGER EAGER:Tap Out, Edgar Kunz’s first poetry collection, is so good. I’ve been returning to it for months.
My family went to Scotland last year, and in a local bookstore I bought The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall. I fell hard for the protagonist, a biologist from humble roots who discovers she’s pregnant just as she’s leaving a job in Idaho to return, alone, to her hometown in northern England. She becomes a single mother and reintroduces wolves to an earl’s estate all at the same time. I’ve since read two more of Hall’s novels, and each one has been fantastic.
C.M. MAYO:How has the Digital Revolution affected your writing? Specifically, has it become more challenging to stay focused with the siren calls of email, texting, blogs, online newspapers and magazines, social media, and such? If so, do you have some tips and tricks you might be able to share?
GINGER EAGER: The Digital Revolution is a blessing and a curse, isn’t it?
Information—knowledge!—is so much more easily available. There are several podcasts that are like church to me: Buddhist Geeks, Medicine Stories, On Being, DharmaPunx NYC. What did I do before I could listen to things like this while running errands?
I also love the availability of music. My family has a Spotify subscription, and we share songs and albums and new artists with one another. I remember having to choose between books and cds. I almost never chose cds. I’m catching up now on all sorts of music I missed in my twenties. The flip side of this availability is that musicians now have to tour to make a living. That’s so hard on the body and mind. I think of the Gillian Welch song, “Everything is Free.”
As much as possible, I make my office a quiet space. I don’t bring my cellphone into my office. On my laptop, I don’t have notifications turned on for emails or text messages or social media, and my cell doesn’t ring through to my laptop. I’ve only ever allowed myself to check social media on my phone, so my brain doesn’t reach for the escape hatch of Instagram when I’m working at the computer.
Email is the hardest for me. I’ve lost so many good working hours to emails. Someone smart, maybe Glennon Doyle, described email as a to-do list that anyone can add to, and I definitely have this relationship with it. I go through phases where I do a lot of flagging and categorizing, and then I forget to tend to things because they feel complete once they’re flagged and categorized. So then I’ll go through a phase where I try to just answer everything once a day. This doesn’t work either. It’s either noon before I’m settling down to work, or I’m dealing with emails at night, when I’d rather be reading. I need help with email!
C.M. MAYO:Another question apropos of the Digital Revolution. At what point were you working on paper? Was working on paper necessary for you or problematic?
GINGER EAGER: I keep several journals in composition style notebooks. I have one related to my reading life, one related to my daily tasks and accomplishments, one related to my tracking of the seasons, one for ideas for future novels, one for my moody outbursts—the list goes on. Some fill quickly and others fill over a period of years. I mine these journals for all sorts of information that finds its way into my fiction and nonfiction.
For any sort of work that isn’t a type of journaling, I work on a laptop. This includes drafting, revision, and editing. I don’t like to draft, revise, or edit in longhand. My process for that type of writing is different—I go fast, and I delete a lot. When I do this on paper, I end up with whole pages of scratch outs, and I sometimes can’t read my own words. It makes me nutty. I’ve never written work I intend for the public on paper. When I began doing more than journaling, I wrote on a word processor.
C.M. MAYO:For those looking to publish, what would be your most hard-earned piece of advice?
GINGER EAGER: When I was in grad school, the director quoted the movie, Glengarry Glen Ross: “Always be closing.” The idea is that one should be ever on the lookout for new opportunities. One should be making connections, and finishing pieces, and submitting to journals. Network, network, network! I was told that publication is a numbers game, and that she who submits the most publishes the most. Finding an agent is said to be a numbers game too—a friend advised I query three hundred people. All of this is excellent advice in regards to publishing and building a career as a writer. It’s vital if you want to land (or keep) a full-time job in academia.
I’m only now able to do many of those things I was advised to do in grad school. The reasons for this are many, but the strongest is personality. “Always be closing” suits best the writers who are fast and bold. I’m neither of these things. In fact, I’m the opposite, slow and anxious. But I’ve kept at it, and doors have opened, and with each door opening I’m able to do a little better the things I know I must. Maybe the only trait you absolutely must possess if you want to publish is stubbornness. I joke that my spirit animal is the pack mule. Pack mules are never the fastest or prettiest ones to reach camp, but they always show up, and they arrive bearing dinner, whiskey, and the tents.
C.M. MAYO:If you could travel back in time ten years, what is the most important piece of writerly advice that you give yourself?
GINGER EAGER: There is this Buddhist story about a farmer whose son breaks his leg just before rice harvest. “Bad luck, bad luck,” say all of the villagers. But then, during the harvest, the army whooshes through town on the way to war and conscripts all of the young men. The boy with the broken leg is left behind. “Good luck, good luck,” say the villagers. The story goes on like this, good luck and bad luck unfurling from the same event.
I’ve just released my debut novel during the global Covid-19 pandemic. It was a virtual event. A virtual release wasn’t the original plan, and there are other events canceled that cannot be replicated. This might seem like bad luck.
But I had so many people rally behind my book and invite me to be a part of their events—I was able to launch my book as part of the Decatur Book Festival’s online programming. I was able to be part of the Joshilyn Jackson Reads track. Local libraries and the Georgia Center for the Book all promoted the event. A smart and scrappy indie bookstore, Acapella Books, sold books for the event. This not the sort of community and press that a literary debut novelist with a very small press typically encounters.
And my good luck didn’t end there—during the event itself, so many people I know and love showed up virtually, far more than would have come to an in-person launch. There were almost 250 people in attendance, and I recognized most of the names. It’s permanently mind-altering to feel that supported. It’s permanently mind-altering to experience as much gratitude as I have.
Who knows what event will unfold next? It might be very bad luck indeed. The point is that nothing is predictable. My advice to myself would be to enjoy the process. We should enjoy writing. We should enjoy our lives. We could be conscripted for war tomorrow.
C.M. MAYO:What’s next for you?
GINGER EAGER: I’m working on a new novel. I don’t want to say too much about it because I feel that could jinx it. I will say that it’s set on the Altamaha River in coastal Georgia. If anyone is heading that way, reach out to me through my website for the name of an excellent tour guide.
“The border between so-called ‘literary fiction’ and ‘genre fiction’ is increasingly porous, of course, but some people still resolutely read on one side of that fence and might even be dismissive of fiction on the opposite side. My ideal reader might have a foot in both camps—and since a couple of pieces here are more experimental in structure, they’d ideally be willing to venture out a bit further too.” — Art Taylor
Most people when they think of Washington, well… there’s Washington Monument! Cue spy movie music… secret service limos streaking by…. But I lived there for a spell back when and I, I who live on Planet C.M. Mayo, found Washington to be a roaringly rich literary scene. In Washington I never lacked for events, whether for my own work or to celebrate / learn from others: book launches, poetry reading series, workshops, writers groups, book groups, conferences, book fairs… Did you know, dear writerly readers, that the Washington DC metropolitan area (which includes northern Virginia and close-in Maryland) is one of the top literary centers of the United States? And one of the most talented writers in Washington is none other than my guest for this month’s Q & A, Art Taylor. He has a new book out, and it promises to be a most excellent read. Read on!
Catalog copy: The Boy Detective & The Summer of 74 and Other Tales of Suspense features 16 stories that have collectively won an Edgar Award, two Anthony Awards (one as editor), four Agatha Awards, three Macavity Awards, and three Derringer Awards. From his first story for Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine in 1995 to his latest for Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine— the title story, 25 years in the making–this collection charts the development of Art Taylor’s career so far… and turns the page toward more stories still ahead.
Official Art Taylor bio: Art Taylor is the author of the story collection The Boy Detective & The Summer of ’74 and Other Tales of Suspense and of the novel in stories On the Road with Del & Louise, winner of the Agatha Award for Best First Novel. He won the 2019 Edgar Award for Best Short Story for “English 398: Fiction Workshop,” originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and he has won three additional Agatha Awards, an Anthony Award, three Macavity Awards, and three consecutive Derringer Awards for his short fiction. His work has also appeared in Best American Mystery Stories, and he edited Murder Under the Oaks: Bouchercon Anthology 2015, winner of the Anthony Award for Best Anthology or Collection. He is an associate professor of English at George Mason University, and he has contributed frequently to the Washington Post, the Washington Independent Review of Books, and Mystery Scene Magazine.
C.M. MAYO:What inspired you to write the stories in The Boy Detective & The Summer of 74?
ART TAYLOR: The stories in The Boy Detective & The Summer of ’74 and Other Tales of Suspense weren’t originally written with an eye toward being part of a collection; all of the stories were previously published in magazines or anthologies or online—over a period of 25 years, in fact!—so putting the collection together was more about looking back and deciding which stories seemed to stand out as important over all those years (a greatest hits?) and also which fit together well; as it turned out, many of the stories here are about relationships (romantic relationship, family relationship, friendships), about betrayals in those relationships, and about the consequences that follow. I’ll admit, it was enlightening to revisit older stories and to see how consistent some of my focus has been. I hope the collection comes together in a satisfying way for the reader too.
C.M. MAYO:If a reader were to read only one of these stories, which would you most recommend, and why?
ART TAYLOR: “The Care and Feeding of Houseplants,” originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, is a story that seems to have stood out for readers and it’s also one that strikes me as representative of some of my interests and ambitions too, I guess. It’s the story of a love triangle—a husband and wife and her lover—and what turns out to be an ill-fated backyard cookout arranged by the lover, who wants the chance to strut a bit before that cuckolded husband. The story is told in alternating sections from the point of view of each main character, revealing some of their backstory, their desires and fears, their hidden selves—even while the action of the story proceeds ahead, step by (inevitable?) step.
C.M. MAYO:Which of these stories is your personal favorite, and why?
ART TAYLOR: The title story was published most recently—in the January/February 2020 issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine—but it’s one I’ve worked on for a long (long) time; I wrote the first draft of it in the mid-1990s, inspired by an incident in my own childhood in the mid-1970s—the time when some friends and I found a large animal bone in their backyard, a mystery to be solved! The story has evolved over those many years—short story, longer story, one strand of a novel, a standalone novella, etc.—and I’m both proud of what it evolved into and pleased it’s finally done and out in the world.
C.M. MAYO:As you were writing these stories did you have in mind an ideal reader? And can you describe how you see the ideal reader for these stories?
ART TAYLOR: I don’t find myself picturing a specific reader while I’m writing—I’m struggling just to figure out what I’m trying to do! But in terms of which readers might be drawn to these stories…. I write primarily in the genre of crime fiction, so I think readers of crime fiction would be my core audience, but I find myself drawing as often on what might be labeled literary fiction. The border between so-called “literary fiction” and “genre fiction” is increasingly porous, of course, but some people still resolutely read on one side of that fence and might even be dismissive of fiction on the opposite side. My ideal reader might have a foot in both camps—and since a couple of pieces here are more experimental in structure, they’d ideally be willing to venture out a bit further too.
C.M. MAYO:Can you talk about which writers have been the most important influences for you?
ART TAYLOR: Following up on the above, the short story writers I’ve learned from have been traditionally canonical—Chekhov, Hemingway, O’Connor, Welty, Joyce Carol Oates, William Trevor—as often as they’re more crime-fiction-specific: Stanley Ellin, Patricia Highsmith, Ruth Rendell, Peter Lovesey, and David Dean, just to name a few.
C.M. MAYO:Which writers are you reading now?
ART TAYLOR: Taking this one literally—with emphasis on now! I just finished Martin Edwards’ new novel Mortmain Hall—a nice mix of Golden Age Detection and contemporary noirishness. Also on my nightstand: 101 Years’ Entertainment: The Great Detective Stories, 1841-1941, edited by Ellery Queen; Simply the Best Mysteries: Edgar Award Winners and Front-runners, edited by Janet Hutchings; Fifty-two Stories, a new translation of Chekhov’s lesser-known tales; and an advance copy of my friend James McCrone’s forthcoming novel, Emergency Powers.
C.M. MAYO:How has the Digital Revolution affected your writing? Specifically, has it become more challenging to stay focused with the siren calls of email, texting, blogs, online newspapers and magazines, social media, and such? If so, do you have some tips and tricks you might be able to share?
ART TAYLOR: Yikes! Yes… Answering these questions, I’ve flipped to email, Facebook, Goodreads, the online discussion board for my class, and a couple of article in the Washington Post, plus I’ve been helping my son navigate his own online learning, which has involved Google, YouTube, and more. I wish I did have tips to avoid all that!
C.M. MAYO:Another question apropos of the Digital Revolution. At what point, if any, were you working on paper? Was working on paper necessary for you, or problematic?
ART TAYLOR: I draft and revise almost exclusively online, but I still keep a notebook for jotting down thoughts and ideas and sketching out possibilities—though I have to transfer those quickly back to the computer, because I have trouble reading my own handwriting! (That may provide a clue why I’ve written on the computer for nearly as long as I can remember—since college, in fact.)
C.M. MAYO:What is the most important piece of advice you would offer to another writer who is just starting out? And, if you could travel back in time, to your own thirty year-old self?
ART TAYLOR: Make your writing a priority for at least some portion of the day—that’s advice to aspiring writers and advice to my younger self. It’s advice I wish I could follow myself, amidst not only those “siren calls” you mentioned above but also the demands coming from so many other directions.
C.M. MAYO:What’s next for you?
ART TAYLOR: Mid-semester and mid-pandemic (mid?) I’m having trouble writing anything new. But I do have stories in two new books—“A Close Shave” in the novel in stories The Swamp Killers and “Both Sides Now,” co-written with my wife Tara Laskowski, in The Beat of Black Wings: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Joni Mitchell—and another, “All Tomorrow’s Parties,” forthcoming in the anthology Chesapeake Crimes: Invitation to Murder. I’m also editing the anthology California Schemin’, produced in conjunction with this year’s Bouchercon, the World Mystery Conference; the conference was, sadly, cancelled, but the anthology goes on!
One of my favorite American writers is my esteemed amiga, Ellen Prentiss Campbell. She’s the author of a splendid historical novel, The Bowl with Gold Seams, as well as an earlier collection of short stories, Contents Under Pressure. May 1st is the pub date for her latest, Known by Heart: Collected Stories.
Here’s the catalog copy for Known by Heart:
Love is necessary but not easy in these stories of love’s joys and challenges, regrets and uncertainties. Complicated people fall in and out of love, care for each other, delight each other, disappoint each other, yearn for each other. Ellen Prentiss Campbell tells of all sorts of love: young love, lost love, love found perhaps too late, family love, love between friends. Her writing has been praised for its realism and grace. These untraditional love stories illustrate that love is essential, but not for the faint of heart.
“Keen psychological insight and a poetic flair for language bring these stories to vivid life. Campbell’s characters struggle to escape their dilemmas, whether the confines of stifling families or their own minds. To the reader’s delight, some characters pop up in multiple stories, weaving a world of recognizable human longings that are credible, poignant, and beautifully described.” —Donna Baier Stein, author of Scenes from the Heartland
Ellen Prentiss Campbell
C.M. MAYO:What inspired you to write short fiction, as opposed to a novel?
ELLEN PRENTISS CAMPBELL: The two inspirations—short fiction, novel—aren’t mutually exclusive. Sometimes they overlap, sometimes run on parallel tracks. These stories were written over a period of many years. During that time I began a story which jumped the short story track and became my first novel The Bowl with Gold Seams. And while working on that novel, I wrote other stories, and once again, a story jumped the track and became my current novel in progress. And although this collection Known By Heart is not a novel in stories, some characters—the couple, Meg and Walker—appear in more than one story (in fact, Meg and Walker were also in a story in my first collection, Contents Under Pressure). It’s been said that short stories are close kin to poetry. That makes sense to me. I don’t write poetry, but a story does have, within it, a complete arc. It’s not a part of something smaller, it’s not a chapter in a novel. It’s a mystery why some stories jump the track and demand the longer journey.
C.M. MAYO: How has your background practicing psychotherapy informed your fiction?
ELLEN PRENTISS CAMPBELL: As a psychotherapist, I listened closely to stories, endeavored to help clients identify threads of meaning in their dilemmas, their pain. It’s a privilege, to do the work. I kept an absolute firewall between my work as a therapist and my writing, never wrote and would never write about my clients. But from doing the work I know that everyone of us, every single one of us, has a story, has longings, joys and sorrows. When I was listening to my clients, I was trying always to understand. And writing fiction is a different but related kind of listening—listening to my characters, trying to understand.
C.M. MAYO: If a reader were to read one story in your collection, which one would you mostrecommend and why?
ELLEN PRENTISS CAMPBELL: Catherine! You are asking me to play favorites! But if I had to choose, I would say Ruby. Partly perhaps because I wrote it most recently, it’s close to me in that immediate way. But also because—and this is partly due to my work with aging clients as a therapist, but more because of my own experience growing older—the story is told from the point of view of an older character, looking back, but still very much, very passionately engaged in the present human moment.
C.M. MAYO: As you were writing these, did you have in mind an ideal reader?
ELLEN PRENTISS CAMPBELL: I don’t consciously write for an ideal reader, but I do write what I love to read myself—fiction about people, relationships, the stakes and cost of loving, of trying to connect. And I am fortunate to have several close to ideal readers with whom I share my drafts, whose responses inform my work—my husband, my best friend (we’ve been reading and writing together since we were eight), a dear friend and writer I met while doing my MFA at Bennington.
C.M. MAYO: Can you describe the ideal reader for these stories as you see him or her now?
ELLEN PRENTISS CAMPBELL: Well, Catherine, as you know spring of 2020 is an odd season to be bringing out a book, and this is a collection of stories that are really love stories—untraditional love stories, but stories about yearning for shared connection and meaning. This is certainly a moment when we’re aware of needing each other, needing to care. So I hope for a reader with an open heart and mind, a reader who is looking to be reminded that social distancing doesn’t have to make us emotionally cold or distant from others.
C.M. MAYO: Which writers have been the most important influences for you?
ELLEN PRENTISS CAMPBELL: William Maxwell has been a huge influence on me. His novel So Long, See You Tomorrow, is among my very favorites. He gets right to the quiet emotional heart, and his prose is simple but lyrical. I just wrote an essay about his correspondence with Eudora Welty. Marilynne Robinson is another, my copy paperback copy of Housekeeping is almost disintegrating.
C.M. MAYO: Which writers are you reading now?
ELLEN PRENTISS CAMPBELL: Right this moment, this quiet interior life we’re living, is a good time for reading, isn’t it? I am reading War and Peace for the first time, with the online reading group A Public Space offers. And I am reading my way through the mysteries of Ross MacDonald. I discovered him through William Maxwell, indirectly, as he was also one of Eudora Welty’s friends and correspondents. Luckily my daughter has a shelf of his books and has lent them to me.
C.M. MAYO: How has the Digital Revolution affected your writing? Specifically, has it become more challenging to stay focused with the siren calls of email, texting, blogs, online newspapers and magazines, social media, and such? If so, do you have some tips and tricks you might be able to share?
ELLEN PRENTISS CAMPBELL: The Digital Revolution is certainly a blessing and a curse! More blessing than curse, especially now as it enables connection with so many writers, and friends, and the news from around the world. But it is easy to fall into the rabbit hole of reading, and posting, and tweeting, and reading. I try to set some limits—have screen-free time, put my phone away. It’s harder to do now but especially during this season of quarantine I am experimenting with having the weekend be a time for not a complete break but reading only on paper. We have an old farm in Pennsylvania, without wi-fi. I love to go up there by myself and write. I even have a green Hermes 3000 in the attic and can bang away on it (just letters, not fiction)—not something my apartment house neighbors would like. I long to go up to the farm when quarantine lifts.
C.M. MAYO: Another question apropos of the Digital Revolution. At what point were you working on paper? Was working on paper necessary for you or problematic?
ELLEN PRENTISS CAMPBELL: I returned to writing fiction after a long hiatus about 20 years ago, and at that time started writing on my computer. So my current writing practice has been and remains working on my laptop. My fingers and my brain are totally connected on the keyboard. However when I have a draft to revise I print it out, and then make pencil edits, and re-type the new version from the print manuscript. It’s a trick author Alice Mattison taught me and I recommend it.
C.M. MAYO: For those looking to publish, what would be your most hard-earned piece of advice?
ELLEN PRENTISS CAMPBELL: You taught it to me at one of my first workshops with you at the Bethesda Writers Center. “Success goes to she who pays the most postage.” Of course now, no postage, but success still requires submitting, submitting, submitting, and developing the infamously thick skin necessary to cope with rejection.
C.M. MAYO: What piece of advice would you offer to another writer who is just starting out?
ELLEN PRENTISS CAMPBELL: Read, read, read, read—and find people who, like you, are writers who love to read.
C.M. MAYO: What important piece of advice would you offer if you could travel back in time, to your own thirty-year old self?
ELLEN PRENTISS CAMPBELL: Write. Don’t wait. As Ovid said, “Sing your song now, you cannot take it with you when you go.”
C.M. MAYO: What’s next for you?
ELLEN PRENTISS CAMPBELL: Well, aside from my fantasy of going swimming again when the quarantine is over? (It’s a part of my routine than helps me write and stay sane!) I have a close to completed second novel I hope to get out into the world—historical fiction again, inspired by renowned psychotherapist Frieda Fromm Reichmann. And I have started researching another new novel—for the first time a novel that intends to be a novel from the outset, not a story first that jumps the track…
