By Jenny Chu and Lyn Chamberlin
First off, what inspires you to write?
I’ll never forget what James McBride, after a talk he gave during my MFA sojourn, said to me: “You’ve got to put your ears to the ground and listen for the hoofbeats.” Writing is my microscope. The magic happens when I suddenly see what’s just below the surface and can run with it.
What's your writing process like?
I start out with a glimmer of a story, something that I need to reckon and come to terms with. It’s a kind of creative rolfing. I’m feeling for the connective tissues which, on a good day, reveal themselves to mine the details. I ask myself "what did that feel like" and "what did that look like" every step of the often painful way.
Do you take plot and character inspiration from books you read in your prose, and if so, which?
This very grateful reader wants to thank Mary Karr (of course), Jo Ann Beard, Galway Kinnel, Jane Smiley, and Patricia Hampl, but most especially John Updike for his “mica in the sidewalk.”
What was your writing journey like? In what ways is it integrated within your professional career, which appears to be brand consulting?
I decided early on that writing was not a career option or viable way to to make a living. It was a guilty pleasure, distinct and separate from my professional life. I went through long periods of not writing creatively at all, except in fiery spurts, too often doused by a nagging voice in my head insisting that I would never be a “real” writer.” Imposter syndrome, writ large.
I’m good at telling stories and I’m really good at making them sound good. It’s both a blessing and a curse that’s served me well working in television and media over the years. Television is about finding stories to tell. Marketing is about making stories that sell. But it wasn’t until much later that I saw the through-line connecting a news spot and a lyrical essay.
What was your proudest writing experience or moment related to writing? Why?
After a long, fallow period of not writing, I fired off a piece in a single, inspired sitting called No Rehearsal, A Mother Reviews ( terrible title/not mine). It was about my son, then a high school senior, and his decision to be an actor. On a lark, I sent it cold to The Boston Globe and was stunned when they published it. All these years later, I’m still immensely proud of that piece. It’s framed and hangs over my desk like a first dollar bill.
The Player explores themes of intimacy, doubt, and sizzling yet realistic sensory imagery. How do you curate your imagery to fit the themes within your work, and what role do you believe it plays?
Forgive me for sounding all highbrow about it, but when I read Death in Venice in college, it was a revelation to me. Weather as character, as antagonist!
Finding the details, the images, the actual things in a story is a mysterious, magical place for me. It’s a treasure hunt. The more I force myself to trust toothpicks in a martini glass or mushrooms the size of elephant ears growing in a closet, the more the story begins to tell itself. Imagery keeps me honest and rarely lets me down. It’s my loyal lieutenant.
The Player also involves a first-person narrative, allowing us to see more clearly into their heads. Why did you choose to write this piece with that perspective, and is it common throughout your other works?
Ah, the first person. I always come back to it. I’ve tried hard over the years to write in the third person but it always feels fake. It automatically puts me at arms length from the narrative, distancing me from both language and my own voice. I’m interested in the rawness of everyday, lived experience, the stuff that breaks you but somehow shapes a path forward. The only way I can access that is with “I.”
Beyond that piece, how would you define your entire body of work? Does your work span all types of prose, or are they of similar lengths and story development to The Player?
I’m smiling when you say ”body of work.” How I wish that it were. For a long time I wrote awful poetry. Off and on I’d pick-up a novel I started decades ago. I spent years working on a memoir about turning a man I loved into the FBI after 9/11. All of these starts and stops led me to where I am now. Same themes, same stories, but in a sandbox of the 400-1000 word lyric essay. That’s my happy place.
The Player checks off my boxes. It went through endless revision as I peeled back the layers of what really happened, of my own shame and vulnerabilities. It’s what a poet friend of mine calls a “bad girl” story.
You've mentioned in your bio that your work explores themes of personal identity. What specific aspects do your work most commonly cover, and in what ways?
My parents were larger than life and my family was governed by secrets, lies, and a carefully curated script. Lost in this was a little girl who was desperate to deconstruct their narrative, find the truth, and come to terms with herself within a universe of half-truths and appearances.
Your LinkedIn mentions you've won an EMMY; does your past experience with television producing affect your literary preferences and/or portfolio, and if so, in what ways?
I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of that EMMY. It’s always the first thing people say to me. “Oh, you won an EMMY?” and while it’s been enormously helpful in my professional life, it’s really just smoke and mirrors.
You've received a MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. What spurred you to decide to get an MFA, and how has it changed your literary perspective and/or your career?
At a particularly rudderless point in my life, I took an adult ed writing class at Brown. The professor off-handedly mentioned a low-residency MFA. I had no idea what that was but tracked down VCFA. I didn’t set out to get an MFA. There was nothing intentional about it. It was a stab in the dark that turned out to be a pivotal life-altering decision. Sometimes life grabs you by the back of your neck and says “do me.” I’m glad I did.
Returning to the thread of a journey, what writing and/or professional advice would you give to your past self and why?
My mother used to say I could make a story out of walking to the mailbox. She was right, but I took this as faint praise. Run with that, I’d say to that long ago self. Run, and don’t look back.