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Archive for the ‘News of panelists’ Category

An interview with Jupiter’s Slut

Posted in News of panelists, writers conference, tagged , , on November 10, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Jupiter’s Slut will be moderating this year’s panel on Writing About Sex. She was interviewed by Joan Axelrod-Contrada.

Why did you become a writer? When did the writing bug first bite you?

I’ve been a writer since grade school. I published a chapbook of poetry in high school. I got an MFA in creative writing after my daughter went to school. Every working woman faces the life/work balancing act. Sometimes I’ve been able to write more than others, but it’s always been a passion. However, I was scared I couldn’t really make a living writing. I’ve done everything from cooking on sailing ships to teaching mathematics. I’d planned to invest in enough real estate that I wouldn’t have to depend on my writing income. When I was getting close to forty I realized my someday was always in the future, like chasing a rainbow. I decided to start living my life as a writer now. That changed everything.

You’ve had quite the varied background! How did you get started writing about sex?

The biggest surprise that came out of my MFA was a love of non-fiction writing. I’d never tried it. It sounded dry and I didn’t think I’d like it. I was so wrong. My creativity spikes when confined by strictures of nonfiction. I had tried my hand at everything from poetry and short stories, to novel writing. I’ve always been drawn to write about what is most beautiful, most mysterious, or most painful. For me, sex was a mix of all three, but I was particularly interested in figuring out why it was such a painful part of my life. I didn’t think it should be. I didn’t want it to be. My work falls under the category of memoir, but it’s more nonfiction than most. I write to a central question, using my life like a research project. I spent an entire year researching Masturbation Monday before I started writing.

What are you trying to accomplish with “Masturbation Monday”?

With Masturbation Monday, I’m putting all the new age and self-help rhetoric about self-love and self-acceptance to the test. All my life I’d believed I had loved and respected myself. But I was suppressing the parts of myself I was scared of. My sexuality was so crippled, I couldn’t even masturbate without feeling guilty and selfish. I felt judged, even alone in my bedroom. The book was an exercise in asking, what if I accepted myself unconditionally? I recorded my successes and failures in ways that make me laugh. Laughter is a powerful dispeller of shame.

Tell us about your pen name Jupiter’s Slut.

Jupiter’s a planet associated with expansion, growth, insight, learning, honor, and hope. I thought of myself as a slut before I even lost my virginity. It’s a packed word that holds a lot of baggage for people, myself included. Now when I use the word slut, it embodies an acronym I made up. S.L.U.T = Shameless Luminous Untamed Truth.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received?

“Butt in chair.” That was advice from Jane Yolen, an incredible children’s writer. The advice holds for all writers. You must sit down and write.

What are you working on now?

I am currently working on a few projects. I’ve got them lined up like a race of turtles. One almost ready for an editor, another in the free-write phase. Another is out being shopped around. This week I’ve been working on a keynote address and on a book on spirituality. My religious upbringing was a big part in why I shut myself down sexually at a young age. I didn’t realize I’d shut down spiritually too. Once I started freeing my sexuality, my spiritual life started flooding back in. I didn’t want it, but there it was. Now I wouldn’t wish the joy and peace away now. I love it, but I do find talking about spirituality even more embarrassing than talking about sex, and every bit as personal. When we talk about deep self-love and acceptance we really are talking about spirituality. Masturbation Monday is about that, within the realm of sexuality, where most of us haven’t seen models for self-acceptance. When I set myself on a path of investigating my sexuality, I was also investigating my spirituality, I just didn’t know it yet.

You’ll be moderating this year’s panel on Writing About Sex. Can you tell us a little about what you’re planning?

In the wake of the #metoo movement, it’s clear that silence around sex leads to an environment where victims are more easily victimized. Speaking and writing about sex in ways that steers clear of shame isn’t just good writing, it’s a cultural imperative. This is an opportunity for writers of any kind to hear from experts on writing about sex.

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Interview with Randy Zucco

Posted in News of panelists, writers conference, tagged , on November 9, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Randy Zucco will be at this year’s conference for pre-scheduled meetings with writers. He was interviewed by Jim Barnhill.

What is Levellers Press?

Levellers Press is a full-service publishing house. With the consolidation of major publishers over the years, the increase in online buying, the means of production at our workplace, and one visionary co-worker/owner, Levellers Press was launched about nine years ago. It is a 100% worker-owned press that was spun off from Collective Copies, a thirty-five-year-old print house in Amherst and Florence, Massachusetts.

Levellers Press, like most presses, takes book submissions from authors. We publish all genres. When a book is selected, a point person is assigned to that author. We then work with the author to choose a layout, design, paper, cover finish, etc. that our author will be happy with. We have proofreaders on staff and fee for service proofreaders that we work with. We have several graphic designers on staff who will work on the cover design.

When the title is ready for production, our Amherst print and bindery facility takes it from there. There are close to two hundred years of experience represented in our print/bindery team. After the book is complete, we host a book launch party with the author. The book will go on sale in our stores, our online store, on Amazon, and in select local book stores.

How does Levellers Press decide what books to publish?

When books have been submitted, the title is reviewed by the designated team, non-fiction or fiction. We are currently reviewing our submission process for poetry which to this point has been only through an open reading period. We will also use outside readers to gauge reactions to a potential title. Titles do need to be agreed upon by the entire team.

As you know, we have also received a number of submissions through the WriteAngles conference meetings. DIRT ROAD TO DEATH by you (James H. Barnhill) was selected and published in June of 2018 as a direct result of an author/agent meeting. BAD SLEEP by Siegfried Haug will be out early next spring and was also received at the 2017 WriteAngles conference.

What kind of books is Levellers Press looking for?

When we started, we were primarily a non-fiction, local history press. Since then, we added a poetry team, through our Hedgerow Book imprint, and a fiction team. Our only requirement is that our authors be local. Local is relative in these times, but there is something pure about meeting face to face with our neighbors and community. But, I’m sure if Stephen King knocked on our door, we’d answer!

How do I submit a book for possible publication by Levellers Press?

All inquires are to be submitted to levellerspress1@gmail.com. Submissions will be reviewed by committee.

What does it cost me to publish a book with Levellers Press?

That is the beauty of publishing through Levellers Press. There is no direct cost to the author. We invest the time and money on your behalf in hopes that it will be recouped in the initial print sales. There are some authors, however, who have chosen to use other graphic design firms for cover design and layout. These agreements are usually negotiated and will result in out-of-pocket costs for the author but naturally reduce the start-up cost of the book.

What makes Levellers Press unlike most publishing houses is that once the title has broken even and start-up costs have been met, the author and Levellers Press split royalties after that point 50/50. The author retains the copyright for her or his title.

Can I self-publish a book through Levellers Press?

Levellers Press is Levellers Press and does not offer self-publishing. However, we do have another wing of our book operation, Off the Common Books, which is purely for self-publishing. The big difference with self-publishing is that the author foots the bill for all design work, print and bindery production, ISBN registration, etc. However, the author owns their book outright and all sales are the author’s. We do offer to sell the book in our stores, webstore, etc. for a transaction fee to cover logistics.

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Interview with Sacchi Green

Posted in News of panelists, writers conference, tagged , , on November 7, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Sacchi Green lives in western Massachusetts, with occasional forays into the real world. She’s published scores of short stories and edited sixteen anthologies, eight of them Lambda Literary Award finalists, and two of them Lambda winners. Lately she’s blended the erotica genre with speculative fiction, her first love, whenever possible, and will even have an entire superheroine novel, SHADOW HAND, out next year. She will appear on the panel Writing Sex, moderated by Jupiter’s Slut, who interviewed her.

How did you come to writing erotica and editing?

In my early teens, I became a fan of science fiction. I was a big reader as a kid and always thought I’d be a writer. In those days you could even make a living at it. However, that wasn’t really the reason. Maybe it was my idea of some sort of immortality, like Jane Austen. But what I did was raise a family and have a business, and so forth, still thinking I’d do the writing sometime.

Suddenly, in my fifties, I thought, wait a minute, if I don’t start now it’s never. So I started writing science fiction and fantasy short stories. I had some moderate success in anthologies and magazines. Then I saw a call for submissions for Best Lesbian Erotica, which had started in 1996. I thought, “I can do that.” My first erotica story appeared in it in 1999.

What’s been your experience writing erotica?

Many of my science fiction and fantasy stories had a lesbian undertone. I already had some experience in story structure, from science fiction and fantasy, and when my erotica story was accepted the editor said, “Yours is so different!” That wasn’t necessarily true as I went along, but the Best Lesbian Erotica series has always had good stories.

I hate to say this, but a lot of people still view erotica as having no plot. They just will not read it. There’s this attitude. There are some award groups where it’s hard to even find judges for erotica.

Do you think a woman writer of erotica is seen differently from male writers who write about sex?

Women writers are perceived differently in general. How many women writers still use just initials? In erotica right now, though, there is a huge market for gay male erotica written by women. Women like to read it. Whether many males like to read it is a different question. It grew out of the same thing that Fifty Shades of Grey grew out of, fan fiction.

As an editor, how do you approach helping people write sex better?

There are technical points, such as, make sure you know where everyone’s appendages are, so they aren’t trying to do things they couldn’t be doing, because it throws people out of the story, and you don’t want to throw them out at that point.

Another thing is vocabulary. Every now and then, someone will starting using a word that hasn’t been used before in that context, like delve. It’s not great, but not too bad, until everyone does it. Avoid overworked words or tropes. If you really notice other people doing it, it’s been done too much.

What are three of your best tips for writing sex successfully?

1. It’s a huge mistake to think of a sex scene as a single obligatory lump of action inserted into your story. Don’t think of it as a separate thing. Focus on your characters. You know what they do in certain circumstances. What do they do in this circumstance?
2. When it comes to building toward sex scenes, foreshadowing is like foreplay.
3. Sex has accumulated so much baggage in our culture that “dirty” words can carry an erotic jolt of their own, positive for some people, negative for others. You can’t predict how each reader will react. All you can do is be familiar enough with your characters to know whether they’d say (or even think) “cunt” or “pussy” or “vulva.”

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Agent added

Posted in News of panelists, writers conference, tagged on October 30, 2018| 2 Comments »

We have added Ashley Lopez to our line-up of literary agents who will attend this year’s conference. She replaces Julie Stevenson.

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Interview with Lisa Taylor

Posted in News of panelists, writers conference, tagged , , on October 23, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Lisa Taylor will be on the panel titled She Did What? Weaving the Elements of Fiction into a Story. She was interviewed by Ellen Meeropol.

Why did you become a writer? When did the writing bug first bite you?

I began writing at age 12 (sixth grade). We had a poetry lesson in Miss Van Dyke’s class and I wrote a poem called The Storm. The last lines were: The storm was a menace/it made the ships tilt/but as for the sea/it felt no guilt. She put my poem up on the bulletin board and told me I was a poet. I continued to write regularly in my journal after that. I went on to win first prize regionally and nationally in the National Scholastic Writing Awards at age 17. It was another teacher, Mr. Lyons, who entered my poems in the contest. If not for these dedicated teachers encouraging me, I’m not sure I would have continued. I was late to publish and late to give my writing the energy it needed. In my last career (before adjunct work), I was a grant writer and writer-in-residence in schools. I also taught in the creative writing department of an arts magnet high school. I’m grateful every day that I made the decision to go back to school and get my MFA fourteen years ago. The mentors I had and the relationships I made continue to enrich my life.

For you, what’s the most rewarding part of being a writer? The most frustrating?

There is no feeling comparable to being in the “zone” or having a good writing day. I don’t believe in writer’s block but there are definitely days when words flow easily and days when it is a struggle. Writing is like breathing for me; I have to do it. The most frustrating part of being a writer is the marketing, submitting to magazines, and lining up events. I love doing readings, panels, or workshops; I just hate organizing them. I prefer to promote other writers. Those of us who publish with small presses take on a lot of the marketing. We do it because we believe that writing needs to be in the world and we want these literary presses to survive. I know my publisher (Arlen House) puts nearly everything back in the press so my success will ensure another worthy writer can be published.

How do you balance writing time, with the rest of your life? With political activism, the need to earn a living, the need to stay sane in a crazy world.

Finding time for writing is necessary. I’m in the process of developing a daily discipline after finishing the book, but activism, family obligations, and my teaching all take time. One thing that helps is to remind myself that writing is a form of activism. Words are powerful and they are one way we can move a culture forward.

At this year’s conference, you’ll be on the “She Did What? Weaving the Elements of Fiction into a Story” panel and will be focussing on plot. This is a craft element that many writers have trouble with. Can you explain to us how you approach plot in your stories?

I struggle with the idea of plot as somehow separate from character. In my fiction, plot is character. A character voice comes to me and I follow it down the road, into the coffee shop, or up the mountain. My process is all about character. If I cannot hear a character’s voice, I don’t have a story. I trust the character to reveal the complications of his or her life. Of course I throw obstacles in the path but only after I have developed the character voice. One rule I teach my students is that a character must somehow change by the end of the story. I also teach that emotional truth rules over literal truth – that is, it must feel authentic even if it is preposterous. Rising action, falling action, denouement, and resolution can be subtle. Some stories play out backwards. Some characters end up worse off because of the action of the story. What is important is that protagonists are altered in some way.

I’ve had the pleasure of reading your new collection of short stories. Tell us a bit about the collection, and about the title, IMPOSSIBLY SMALL SPACES.

IMPOSSIBLY SMALL SPACES was born out of the idea that many of us periodically find ourselves in tight spots, literally or figuratively. In the title story, Hildy locks a man in an airplane bathroom because he interrupts her while she is vaping. The confinement is symbolic of her emotional state, her feeling of being trapped in her life after her mother’s death from alcoholism. The varied characters that embody my stories often create obstacles for themselves or they rail against the obstacles imposed upon them by the world. In BABY ANGEL, a girl is chosen by a pre-adoptive family only to be returned when the supposedly infertile foster mother becomes pregnant. Enid displays lasting damage but also resilience, and humor. I am drawn to non-conforming characters and unconventional solutions to the problems they invite. I also fly a lot, which might explain why airplanes are featured in this collection.

You write both poetry and fiction. How do you decide what form an idea will take?

Currently I am dwelling exclusively in the world of fiction. Maybe it is the landscape of the country that has led me deeper into my imagination. I don’t go back and forth between fiction and poetry though I admire writers who can do this. Occasionally a situation will warrant a poem but that is rare these days. I do believe that my training in poetry has made me pay attention to detail, image, and metaphor. I also favor stories that open to a larger truth at the end. This probably comes from my love of poetry. I honor white space and believe that what you don’t say is important too.

What are you working on now?

I’ve returning to the novel I’ve been working on for three years. It came out of a short story in my GROWING A NEW TAIL collection. I knew this character had a great deal more to say. I’m currently on the third draft of the novel. I continue to write short stories and I have also written creative nonfiction, mostly personal essays. A couple of these have been published in online magazines.

How can we find you online?

You can find me on Twitter @dreamingchange, Instagram, Facebook, or my website. I hope to see you at a reading or event.

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Interview with Jennifer Acker

Posted in New book by panelists, News of panelists, writers conference, tagged , , on October 22, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Jennifer Acker is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Common and has published several short stories, translations, and essays. Her forthcoming works in 2019 include a long personal essay from Amazon Original Stories and her debut novel, THE LIMITS OF THE WORLD. She will appear on the panel Writing the Short Story. She was interviewed by Linda Rowland-Buckley.

Why did you become a writer? When did you get the urge to begin writing?

I’ve loved both reading and writing since I learned to follow words on a page. My great-grandmother was an amateur poet, and although I don’t remember her, my grandmother used to read me her verses. I won a statewide poetry competition when I was young and was flattered to read my piece in front of the governor! Sad to say, my poetry abilities left me a long time ago, and I’m now squarely a prose writer.

Would you tell us about your writing process?

I usually start with a character in a situation I find interesting. Some kind of “fish out of water” story or a vexed ethical dilemma. I love building characters and setting scenes; it’s creating a tight narrative that is the bane of writing for me. Getting through a first draft is therefore pretty painful. I relax when I enter the revising and editing process.

What are your writing goals?

To write something that other people want to read! And that explores some thought or issue that’s been bubbling up inside me.

What inspired you to found The Common?

Being a word person who had worked in a variety of trade and freelance publishing jobs, I wanted to start a literary venture closer to home, one that would build literary community. I was also beginning to notice the many ways in which the constant mobility of modern society is somewhat in tension with many people’s desire to be from somewhere and to identify with a particular place.

The Common has published several reputable authors and poets including Lauren Groff, who is shortlisted for the National Book Award for FLORIDA, her new book of stories, Rafael Campo as well as Sarah Smarsh, who is also shortlisted for the NBA in Nonfiction for her memoir HEARTLAND. Can you offer a piece of writing advice you have garnered over the years as Editor, or just the best suggestion you have received as a writer?

Publishing is a dance between one’s own ideas and language, on the one hand, and the concerns and expectations of readers on the other. In America, we have a wonderful editorial system that connects editors and writers so that they can work together to honor both forces/constituencies. It’s essential, in this process, to be both honest and humble. I’m very grateful for what I’ve learned from the writers I’ve had the pleasure of working with, and I believe they have learned something from me as well.

Would you like to give us a hint about the writing project you’re working on now?

Right now I’m revising a long personal essay that will be published with Amazon Original Stories next year. It’s about the impacts of illness on my marriage. I’ve never written so revealingly about myself, so facing up to these revisions is a bit intimidating!

Your debut novel THE LIMITS OF THE WORLD will be released in 2019. Can you describe it for us?

Thanks for asking! The novel is about three generations of an East African Indian family, the Chandarias. The book explores cross-cultural and intergenerational conflicts, and the ways in which we think about making moral decisions.

You’ll be a part of the Short Story panel this year. Can you say a bit about what you are planning?

I’m looking forward to talking about what goes into selecting, editing, and publishing short fiction in The Common.

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Announcing featured speakers for 2018

Posted in News of panelists, writers conference, tagged , , , on July 24, 2018| Leave a Comment »

We are thrilled to announce that Edie Meidav and Andrea Hairston have accepted our invitations to speak at this year’s WriteAngles conference.

We hope to publish our full program soon, and to include information about literary agents who will be available for individual meetings.

If you have not yet subscribed to our site, please do so and you will receive further announcements (via email) as they are made.

Registration is expected to begin about six weeks before the November 17 conference.

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An interview with Deborah Noyes

Posted in News of panelists, writers conference, tagged , on November 15, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Deborah will be a panelist on the historical fiction panel. The interview was conducted by Wendy Vowell.

Why did you become a writer? When did the writing bug first bite you?

When I was a kid, definitely. It just felt like a natural extension of reading.

What’s your writing process like?

Fairly structured. I get up, head to a coffee shop, and do my best to write for five hours (five pages when I’m drafting, whatever comes first). Research is a favorite part of the process for me and can over-absorb me, so I’m finding I have to schedule it. Sometimes I set my alarm.

What are you trying to accomplish as a writer?

A big question! I can only answer it one book at a time, and each has a different trajectory, a different destination.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received?

I think it was Jane Yolen who prescribed somewhere, “butt in chair.” A variation on “you can’t ‘find’ time to write; you have to make it and then guard it.”

What are you working on now?

A book of linked short stories about P.T. Barnum (or some of the people whose lives he touched) for a YA/crossover audience.

You’ll be a part of the Historical Fiction panel this year. Can you tell us a little about what you’re planning?

I think one focus will be the way I try to reach back with all five senses . . . and some strategies for doing that.

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An interview with John Elder Robison

Posted in News of panelists, writers conference, tagged , , , on November 13, 2017| Leave a Comment »

John Robison will be participating in the Memoir panel. He was interviewed by Kate Hartford, who has edited the interview for length. For more about his book SWITCHED ON: A MEMOIR OF BRAIN CHANGE AND EMOTIONAL AWAKENING, see excerpts from NPR’s Fresh Air interview of John and Alvaro Pascual-Leone by Terry Gross on the research in transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) that formed the basis for the book.

 

Why did you become a writer? When did the writing bug first bite you?

I don’t think that I would say that the writing bug bit me. I have always communicated my ideas through written words. As an autistic person, I have often been disabled in my ability to engage people face to face because of my limitations [in] reading body language [or] expressions and my unexpected responses to other people’s language. But in the area of written communications, having practiced it for a long time, my ability is the opposite of disabled. It’s far better than the average person’s. For me, communicating in written form is simply maximizing what you’re good at, and minimizing your disabilities, not a bug at all.

When I was in my thirties, I began to feel like I should try and give something back for younger people who were coming along, like me, who had had bad childhoods. At first, I started talking to young people about growing up in bad circumstances. Then when I learned that I was autistic, which was when I was forty years old, for the first time in my life I had a nonjudgmental explanation for why I was this way. I realized there were millions of other young people just like me. And I began talking about that. So that generated such a tremendous response, that I thought well there must be people that would be benefiting from this message all over, not just in Western Massachusetts. My brother [Augusten Burroughs] had written a story about our lives, RUNNING WITH SCISSORS, that had turned out to be a fairly big hit, and I would go to events when my brother was around here, and a great many of the questions were people asking what about the autistic brother – who was, of course, me. I decided that I should write my story in book form, rather than just telling the people in local elementary schools and such. LOOK ME IN THE EYE was the first effort I ever made to write a book. That’s what it sprang from, it was just a realization that there were a great many people who would be likely to benefit from the story about an autistic person who grew up and did okay because so many of the books about autism are frankly really bleak and clinical and depressing. And I thought that an autistic person should be able to tell a better story than that.

LOOK ME IN THE EYE was really meant as an entertaining life story that illustrated the life of an autistic person, but people very quickly took it to be a book about autism, to be like a guide about autism, not a memoir – and it really was never that. And that’s what prompted me to write BE DIFFERENT, which is a guide for autism. I never tried to write books before doing those, so that was something I came to late in life, but I had been practicing writing in the context of my cars and such for quite a long time before that.

What’s your writing process like?

I just write things when they need to be written. There’s a constant demand on me to write things. Today I’m writing accounts of the automotive projects that are in our shop. I have an idea that I should write an article about how they might change ADA therapy for autism, because I saw that that was a very contentious topic at the federal autism meeting last week, and people have been commenting on it still on Twitter and such to me. So, I see things that need writing, whether for work or for autism advocacy or whatever, and I write them.

That’s not all I’m engaged in. I’m engaged in photographic art and discussions of photography, and in history and genealogy and other things, and [on] those things, I do communicate with all those people through writing. I also communicate with photographic imagery, but most of the communication is in written words.

What are you trying to accomplish as a writer?

Well, I started out trying to be successful creating things that would be useful to people, whether those were musical instruments, or restored or repaired cars, or pictures put on billboards or walls, or books that people would read and take some benefit from. I wrote things that were viewed as doing those things successfully.

I view [my books or my writing] as having a purpose; they’re not really just to be entertaining. I thought LOOK ME IN THE EYE would be an entertaining story of my life, but specifically to people who were affected by autism. I felt that those people were likely in need of an entertaining story because the stories they had before were very bleak and depressing, and I thought somebody should paint a different picture of life for autism. And that was a very definite purpose; it wasn’t just for fun.

I’m not really an artist with these written words; I’m much more of a tradesman. I think that you have people at these writing conferences, those people [who] are aware of subtleties and language and turns of phrase, and so forth. I don’t really have a sense of that, I just think that you have to be able to explain things in a language that people understand. That means that you have to be adept at using common words. Because sometimes I am in government meetings (you know I’m on the autism committee in Washington) and I listen to scientists and government bureaucrats using these complex terms, and I think to myself: I’m an educated person, and I don’t understand what they’re saying. And I’m supposed to be a specialist in this. What is the average person on the street going to make of it? I think they’re going to make of it that it’s gobbledygook.

You have to be able to explain any issue that you want to communicate about in a language that will be understandable for 6th graders – if you haven’t done that, I think that you’ve failed in your job as a communicator. A lot of college faculty, a lot of educated people lose sight of that basic truth, that when you use words that people don’t understand, or you use them in ways that people don’t expect, they are not impressed with your language skills; they think you’re a fool, or they just turn away from you. I’ve always had that in mind in communicating, and I think for that reason my stories are simple and direct and easy to understand. Because I’m autistic, there’s not perhaps a lot of subterfuge or fine art in them. I think that some people appreciate that. Other people probably think it’s simplistic and stupid, and that’s okay. But I think that’s the essence of communicating stuff successfully, more than the art of it. It’s got to be told in a straightforward way that anyone understands.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received?

I’m not really sure what to say to that. My mother [also a writer] and my brother would both say to me: show things with illustrations in writing, not just tell them. So I learned to describe things in scenes, as opposed to just stating the facts. I think that that contributes to storytelling as opposed to logical recital of facts. And it makes it more interesting.

You might be asking if there’s some kind of one-line bit of wisdom that people could take away. And I just don’t know that there is.

I don’t really think of myself as a writer. I think being a writer is an ability I have that I have to have to practice my trades: I’m a restorer of cars, and an artist with photography, and I’m an advocate for autistic people and people with developmental differences, and I’m successful at doing those things to a significant degree because I can communicate the written words about what I believe in.

What are you working on now?

I’m working on a story about autism in the southwest Pacific, and whether the original navigators who colonized Tahiti, Hawaii, and the other islands were enabled by being autistic, and therefore autism was a key human ability in the colonization of the southwest Pacific. So Hawaiians and Tahitians today owe their ancestry on those islands to the ancestors of the autistic kids that we now see.

And I’m working on a story about autism and life in the 17th century in the establishment of British North America.

I’m working with a screenwriter at Focus Films on a film adaptation of the SWITCHED ON book.

I always have things that I’m writing; I write some thousands of words of stuff of all kinds every week. I don’t at this moment have another book in mind, but my agent and publisher think I’m certainly capable of writing more books. I guess that’s probably true.

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An interview with M. P. Barker

Posted in News of panelists, writers conference, tagged , on November 9, 2017| 1 Comment »

Michele Barker, who publishes under the name M. P. Barker, will participate in the historical fiction panel. She was interviewed by Wendy Vowell.

Why did you become a writer? When did the writing bug first bite you?

When I was a kid, I wrote stories to entertain myself and my siblings. I loved to read, and it seemed very romantic to write novels and get them published. Then I put aside fiction writing for many, many years, thinking how unlikely it was that I’d ever get published. (Besides, I was very good at beginning stories, but not at ending them!) But all of my jobs since college have required some sort of non-fiction writing, so I kept on writing—not always exciting stuff, but it was still writing.

I didn’t return to writing fiction until I was in my thirties, when I was working as a costumed historical interpreter at Old Sturbridge Village. That job allowed lots of time for musing in between talking to visitors and working on projects, so I began to get story ideas and write them down. This time, I wasn’t thinking so much about getting published as just writing as a hobby. I took some classes and joined a writing group just for the fun of it. Then a combination of the social history I’d learned at Sturbridge Village and an 18th-century document I discovered while working in the Springfield History Museum archives inspired my historical novel A DIFFICULT BOY. With lots of encouragement from friends and family, I turned my unwieldy (and very scary!) 700-page manuscript into a manageable—and eventually publishable—novel.

What’s your writing process like?

It’s pretty random. I’ve been in various free-writing groups that used Pat Schneider’s Amherst Writers & Artists technique. I often use the free-writing exercises to play with characters and situations—that’s how my first novel evolved. I tend to be a seat-of-the-pants kind of writer. I don’t really know where a story is going (or even if there’s a story at all!) until I have several dozen pages stacked up. I don’t write in a linear way, but tend to hop around a lot from one part of a story to another as I go. My characters tend to lead me, rather than the other way around, so I have to follow them for quite a bit before I know what they’re going to do!

What are you trying to accomplish as a writer?

Good question! I think mostly I’m just trying to figure out who my characters are and how their stories end. I don’t sit down at the beginning of a story with a plan to explore a theme or teach a lesson—I just kind of throw things against the wall and see what sticks.

As a writer of historical fiction, I enjoy exploring the lives of ordinary people in daily life situations, rather than major historical figures and events. I like learning about both the differences and similarities between past and present and sharing what I find, so that the past doesn’t feel like such a foreign and distant place to readers. I hope readers will come away from my books feeling they’ve lived in and can better understand the era they’ve visited in the story.

I hope readers will be able to identify with my characters while seeing that those characters aren’t just modern people wearing funny clothes and living without indoor plumbing. While my character’s thoughts and beliefs might be very different from ours, they grapple with many of the same problems and cherish many of the same things that we do today.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received?

Persistence pays off—sometimes even more than talent!–whether it comes to research, writing, revising, or getting published.

What are you working on now?

I’m working on a historical novel that involves a sea captain’s wife and daughter during the 1840s and 1850s, after the captain is lost at sea. In the wife and daughter’s journey to self-sufficiency, they blossom as artists and question their roles as women in Victorian society.

You’ll be a part of the historical fiction panel this year. Can you tell us a little about what you’re planning?

I’m intrigued by the idea of “alternative truth”—not in the sense that there are conflicting “truths,” but in the sense that there are a lot of levels or facets to the truth that we rarely get to see. For me, exploring alternative truths is a good way to describe the sort of stories I write. When studying history, we may forget or ignore the stories of ordinary people, whose experience can be quite different from that of the famous people who star in our history books. Those ordinary, daily-life stories—those “truths”—deserve to be told and can show us how “big-picture” historical events affected folks who were much like us, and can make it easier for us to picture what our own life might have been like in the past.

Also, the idea of “alternative truth” kind of captures the way we sometimes think history is fixed and unchanging, but in reality what we know (or think we know) about the past constantly changes as new research unearths new information. Think, for example, about the way King Richard III has been reassessed, thanks to the efforts of persistent researchers and also of historical novels like Josephine Tey’s THE DAUGHTER OF TIME and Sharon Kay Penman’s THE SUNNE IN SPLENDOUR. So many of the things we once thought were “truths” about the past have been supplanted—and will continue to be–by newer, (hopefully!) more accurate truths

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