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The Writing Disorder is a quarterly literary journal. We publish exceptional new works of fiction, poetry, nonfiction and art. We also feature interviews with writers and artists, as well as reviews.

chang rae lee

Interview with Chang-rae Lee

THE ART OF THE WRITER

A Conversation with CHANG-RAE LEE, author of the book, ON SUCH A FULL SEA

 On Such a Full Sea

Some writers are gifted, and some writers are truly gifted. When reading a book by a truly gifted writer, we wonder how their writing became so intelligent and inspiring. Was it their upbringing, their education, or were they just born with this talent? Chang-rae Lee is a truly gifted writer. It’s apparent on every single page he writes. When you read one of his books, you know you’re going to get something special—a very compelling story, some deeply felt characters, and beautifully composed sentences from beginning to end.

Chang-rae Lee is a Korean American writer and professor of creative writing at Princeton University. His books include Native Speaker, winner of the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for first fiction, A Gesture Life, Aloft, which received the 2006 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature in the Adult Fiction category, and The Surrendered, a nominated finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. He was also selected by The New Yorker as one of the twenty best writers under forty.

His latest book, On Such a Full Sea, published by Riverhead Hardcover, was released on January 7, 2014. I wanted to learn more about this new work, and why this book is so different from his previous work. I spoke with Mr. Lee in late autumn.

THE INTERVIEW

C.E. Lukather: First of all, I’d like to say congratulations. I really enjoyed reading your new book, On Such a Full Sea. It’s a really great story. Is this an idea you had thought about writing before? Where did it come from?

Chang-rae Lee: I never thought that I would write such a book. The book that I originally conceived, and may still write, was going to be about contemporary China and all the things that are happening there, its economic power in the world, its ascendancy. The focus was on factory workers and the factory towns where they make everything we use here in this country. So I went over there and did some research, which was a fascinating experience, and planned a social realist novel centered on workers and their bosses and the owners. The story was going to have an American component, though not much of one. But when I got home and started writing, I felt I wasn’t adding that much to what I saw, nor to all the good journalism I had been reading about China. I guess I didn’t have enough of a special angle. When you’re writing a novel you need that angle.

Around the same time I was on a train trip, taking the Amtrak along the northeast corridor from New York to D.C. And when you’re on that train, which I’ve traveled all my adult life, you pass a ghetto area of Baltimore. Over the years I’ve seen serial iterations of that area, the houses burnt down, boarded up, abandoned. So at this point they were boarded up but kind of cleaned up, too, like a ghost town right in the middle of a very busy city. And then I had a thought—I wondered why we couldn’t just give these buildings to some people. And my next thought was odd: why not just bring over some people from China—people from some environmentally ruined area where they couldn’t live anymore, and bring them over here to settle and revitalize the place. And then it all just sort of clicked and I thought, maybe that’s my angle. Of course it wasn’t my original story, but it bridged what I was interested in at the start, namely Chinese ascendancy but also American decline.

C.E. Lukather: Yes, I think that comes through in the book.

Chang-rae Lee: The two kind of go hand-in-hand. So I projected out a few generations, setting the story in the future, writing about what America would look like in a future when China was the great power. Then I thought why not write a story about these people who are brought over here as workers to live in factory-like towns. And it just sort of developed from there. I think all of the factory research in China helped, but I didn’t really use that much of the specifics. It was more of a feeling or sensibility of the people that I began to write about.

C.E. Lukather: Was it exciting for you to write a futuristic book—something you’ve never really written before?

Chang-rae Lee: It was exciting. I thought I would be more wary writing it, since I hadn’t written a book like this before. But in fact it wasn’t a different experience fundamentally, for even when you’re creating a “new” world like this it’s not that different from creating a world that already exists. Perhaps I felt I could take a few more liberties but you still have to make the created world absolutely possible and realistic.

C.E. Lukather: And the book does feel very real, to me.

Chang-rae Lee: This book is partly an adventure story, with the main character going off into a strange world, but also it’s a story about community, the place where she comes from. The book alternates between those two worlds, and I had a lot of enjoyment inventing both. I don’t know if it would have been as much fun just writing about one or the other.

C.E. Lukather: Well, you’ve really created three different worlds in your book. There’s the hometown of the main character, Fan, there are the outlying, sort of wild areas, and then there are the more affluent, well-mannered towns that she visits during her journey.

Chang-rae Lee: Yes, three distinct worlds, without much or any mobility between them. Aside from describing those worlds and the divisions between them, I found myself becoming just as interested in who was doing the telling, which in the novel is an unnamed “We.” A first person plural narrator. In some ways this was the part I enjoyed the most, in terms of the process, developing this communal voice and letting it evolve.

C.E. Lukather: So how long did it take to write this book?

Chang-rae Lee: It didn’t take that long, about two years. For some people that’s a long time, but for me it was really short. I usually take four or five years to write a book. But once I started and got into it, it really kind of rolled along. After the first draft I would go back and forth with my editor about certain sections. But the book is pretty much how I wrote it.

C.E. Lukather: The main character, Fan, is a really great, strong character. Is she inspired by anybody?

Chang-rae Lee: Not really. I was simply interested in a strong young female character, this Fan. She’s not very talkative, or anything like a typical hero. She’s not really a leader, but somehow she manages to inspire people by her presence. I liked that idea of a quiet hero, who is sort of a mirror and a vessel for everybody around her. People also use her and take advantage of her, but she draws them out, too, and compels them to reveal and expose who they are.

C.E. Lukather: She draws you in, and attracts people to her.

Chang-rae Lee: She’s a small-statured young woman, who holds all our hopes and wishes as she goes out into the landscape.

C.E. Lukather: The scenes when she’s outside, in a sort of unrestricted zone, are pretty terrifying.

Chang-rae Lee: That’s a funny thought. Compared to my last book, they didn’t seem so terrifying to me.

C.E. Lukather: Well maybe not terrifying, but shocking, the way they unfold and what happens really startled me as a reader.

Chang-rae Lee: Well, that’s good. You always wonder as a writer. But that was part of my interest in writing this adventure story. And I think in a way any kind of speculative fiction is an adventure story—you know, we’re all traveling to a unfamiliar place. Trying to figure out how everything works. Rather than watching people within a context we already recognize, and seeing what they will do.

C.E. Lukather: And some of the more shocking or startling scenes in the book actually take place in the more civilized regions of this world.

Chang-rae Lee: That was why I had these three different places strictly cordoned off by class. I had the idea that within a particularly cloistered section of society, very weird things can begin to happen. Strange practices, strange beliefs. And that’s one of the things I wanted to get to, this idea that these elite people are just as bizarre and absurd as anyone else. Of course the other people back in the counties and B-Mor have their owns problems as well.

C.E. Lukather: They seem like the most civilized of all.

Chang-rae Lee: In a way, it’s the most controlled, being a production facility. It’s a facility more than a town. And that’s one of the things I saw during my research in China. The factory I saw wasn’t a horrible place, being in fact decently clean and well-run. But everything was specified, and that contributes to a certain kind of environment and ethos. In my novel, I wanted all the functionality and specification to ingrain itself into the consciousness of B-Mor and its citizens.

C.E. Lukather: Without giving anything away, was the outcome of your story something you had envisioned from the beginning, or was it something that happened along the way?

Chang-rae Lee: It unfolded as I wrote it. I didn’t know what was going to happen from chapter to chapter. I had no map at all. So I kind of went on a road trip. Usually on a road trip you know where you going, but with this story, I had no clue. Of course I realized some things about halfway through, that certain things would have to happen and that Fan would meet certain people.

C.E. Lukather: So when you were writing this book, did you have to get in a certain frame of mind in order to write, to see these characters and this place?

Chang-rae Lee: Yes. I had to allow myself a lot of flights of fancy. And a lot of startling things began to happen, which also startled me. Like some of the things that happen in the house of the older Charter couple—just horrifying. But then you continue, and you just keep making linkages as you go. Writing a novel is the risking of a certain kind of fright. But that’s what’s fun and challenging about it. But to be honest I was strangely relaxed writing this, which I hadn’t felt in a while. The other novels I’ve written, I felt rather tense the whole way.

C.E. Lukather: Describe what your writing routine is like.

Chang-rae Lee: I wake up early. I have kids, so I usually make breakfast for them before they go to school. Then I go up to my desk. I have an office in the house. And basically I work until lunch. I have a quick bite and maybe I’ll go for a walk, and then I’ll work again until the late afternoon. I also teach, so on those days my schedule is a little different. If I’m teaching in the afternoon, I’ll still try to work in the morning. And I’ll prepare my work for class at night. I don’t tend to write at night anymore. I did when I was younger, but now I mostly just work in the morning. When I’m finishing a book and really pushing to the end, I will write around the clock—for a few weeks usually. But normally it’s a pretty structured writing day. I need a good routine. That’s the only way it works for me. I write one sentence at a time, and I take my time.

C.E. Lukather: Do you work with an editor, or do you finish an entire book and then send it to an editor?

Chang-rae Lee: Yes, I try to finish a full draft before I send it off to my editor. That’s the way I’ve worked with most of my books. I send it off, once I’ve finished the story. Is that crazy?

C.E. Lukather: No, you’re in total control of your work.

Chang-rae Lee: I really don’t want to get too much feedback mid-stream. I always say, you can get really good advice, and really sound technical advice, but if it doesn’t come from you, it might not fit. It won’t be organic. It may lose that special feeling. And special doesn’t mean it’s perfect, it means that distinctive angle or passion you have for your story.

C.E. Lukather: You mentioned that there were projects or books that you worked on in the past, but then moved on to something else. Are there still some projects that you would like to go back to and complete? Or do you just move on and not look back on those at all?

Chang-rae Lee: I may go back and try to totally rework the original China novel. But the others—no. Those are just different versions of the books I’ve already written and published. So there’s no reason to go back and write them. I don’t ever want to write even close to the same book twice. It’s a pity, all the work that went into those projects, but the work comes out in other ways, and it’s all just part of the process. Maybe the novel you read is only possible because I spent a year and a half writing a slightly different version.

C.E. Lukather: So this book begs the question, would you ever bring back a character that you’ve written in another book?

Chang-rae Lee: Likely not. It would have to be such a different book, and I might only be interested if the main character were different enough. Otherwise why bother? But you never know.

C.E. Lukather: Do you work on a computer, a typewriter, or write on a pad?

Chang-rae Lee: Always on a computer. I’m from the generation when people were starting to use personal computers on daily basis. I wrote all my student papers on an Apple computer—those early models. Sometimes I wish I’d written longhand, but I guess I’m just too lazy. Also, my process is that I write each sentence about 25 times. So it makes more sense to do that on a computer. And perhaps the computer enabled that. But I edit with a pen, printing out on paper what I’ve written.

C.E. Lukather: Would you talk a little about your family life?

Chang-rae Lee: I have two daughters, both in their teens. We have a pretty normal family. My wife is an architect. And we both work from home.

C.E. Lukather: Is it sometimes hard to get any work done with your family always around?

Chang-rae Lee: They know that when I’m in my office writing it’s my job. And the kids are in school during the week. And during the summer they have lots of activities. So everyone is pretty busy.

C.E. Lukather: So you teach short fiction at Princeton?

Chang-rae Lee: Yes, we only have undergraduates here, so they’re not really writing novels. So they write short stories and we read short fiction as well. That’s a big part of my class, the reading part. They’ll write three or four stories during the course of the term.

C.E. Lukather: For young writers today, what do you see as their greatest gifts and their greatest obstacles?

Chang-rae Lee: They have the ability to write about a lot of different things. They’re not just writing about college kids at frat parties. The subject matter is very diverse and I encourage that. They’re trying to push themselves, and not just write about what’s around them. I think one of their greatest obstacles is that sometimes they write a story in the way that they think a story should be written, rather than just writing. They have this theoretical idea of how a story should sound, and what should happen. And that’s good in the sense that it offers some structure, and a little roadmap. But most often the best writing I see is when they sort of let loose and are free, get a little dangerous, a little transgressive. Young writers are sometimes too careful in a funny sort of way, because they don’t want to make mistakes.

C.E. Lukather: What books did you read growing up?

Chang-rae Lee: Pretty much everybody. James Agee and Joyce, Whitman and Hemingway. I was really into American stories, being an immigrant kid who thought all about this place.

C.E. Lukather: Do you do a lot of social media? Are you on the computer and internet a lot?

Chang-rae Lee: Not really. I have a Facebook page. Sometimes I post things there. I don’t have a Twitter account. Mostly I just use email.

C.E. Lukather: Does the internet or technology interfere with your family life?

Chang-rae Lee: No, not really. When we’re home we try to have a family meal every night. And our kids enjoy our cooking. Even if they have things to do, they always have dinner with us.

C.E. Lukather: Are you a good cook?

Chang-rae Lee: I think so. We cook a lot of different things. It’s important to us. It’s really nice to have everyone home to enjoy a meal. My wife is part Italian and I’m Korean so we and the kids always have these discussions about whether the Korean meal or the Italian meal brings the most pleasure. We go back and forth between the two.

C.E. Lukather: The new book comes out in January? Will you be taking time off from teaching to do a book tour?

Chang-rae Lee: Well, I don’t teach until February. So for the main part of the book tour, I’ll be free. I have a full teaching schedule in the spring, but I can still do events on weekends. I have a really packed schedule for spring. My publicist is great, though. She’s really a fun and smart person and people respect her. She’s really good.

C.E. Lukather: I think your new book will bring you a whole new audience. It’s a really great adventure story. Even the cover is great. I love the image of the main character.

Chang-rae Lee: Yes, I think it came out great.

C.E. Lukather: Thank you very much for your time. I enjoyed speaking with you and I really appreciate it.

 

To follow Chang-rae Lee on Facebook, visit: Facebook

For details about his new book, visit: On Such a Full Sea

Interview with Ivy Pochoda

 

ivy pochoda

THE ART OF WRITING

A Conversation with IVY POCHODA

Author of VISITATION STREET

 

visitation street

 

Ivy Pochoda is someone you can’t miss in a room full of people. She stands out with her confidence and energy. She is someone that you would definitely want to talk to. Ivy just published her second book, Visitation Street, from Dennis Lehane Books. Like Ivy, it’s a book that instantly grabs your attention. From the very first page with its carefully written prose, to the unfolding mystery that takes you along to its compelling and unexpected end. This is a book that is hard to put down. I met with Ivy at a restaurant in downtown Los Angeles one Sunday afternoon not long ago. Although she is in the midst of a long book tour, going from city to city on both coasts, she still made time to sit down with us and talk about her writing. Ivy is very serious about her work, but she also has a great sense of humor. A former professional squash player, Ivy is a writer with a competitive edge.

 

THE INTERVIEW 

The Writing Disorder: Thank you for meeting with me today. Can you talk about your new book, Visitation Street, and how you came up with the concept for the story.

Ivy Pochoda: I was living in Red Hook at the time, which is where the book is set. And I was struggling with another project—I think I will always struggle at the beginning of a book—that was set in Vienna, and I have never been to Vienna, which wasn’t going very well at the time. And I was talking to my mom on the phone one day and she said, why don’t you write about something that’s going on right outside your window. And I took it quite literally. So I just started writing about people who passed by my window in Red Hook. I lived right across the street from a bar. And there’s a lot of activity there. So I just started describing a lot of the activity inside. The bar there is actually called The Bait & Tackle. So that’s how it began. And eventually I expanded it into different areas of Red Hook, the housing projects and other locations. And I made a lot of the characters younger, because there’s a lot of drugs and drinking, and a longing to grow up quickly. So it came from where I was living and that’s where it began.

The Writing Disorder: Is that where you grew up?

Ivy Pochoda: I grew up in Cobble Hill, which is a few miles away from Red Hook. And it’s very different. The way Cobble Hill is now, it’s pretty gentrified. But when I was growing up there, it was more like the way Red Hook is in the book. So it reminded me of the way it was when I was growing up.

The Writing Disorder: Are any of the characters in your book based on people you knew and grew up with?

Ivy Pochoda: Every character began as someone I saw on the street, or perhaps someone I drank with at the bar, or met at the bodega. A lot of the background characters are based on real people, except the more I wrote them, the more I changed them. People may think they recognize themselves. One person is definitely right, he knows who he is. But I don’t know a lot of these people very well, so I had to make up a lot of the details about them. One of the characters is based on someone I went to high school with, another was a teacher I knew. Things like that.

The Writing Disorder: And the two female characters?

Ivy Pochoda: I think those are based on friends I grew up with, and they’re based on me at different stages of my life. I had a friend growing up and I was always the dominant one, always wanting to go out and drink, and she didn’t want to. But I’ve also been in the other position, where I felt left out. So I wanted to dramatize those friendships because that’s what it was like for me growing up. It was important for me to portray that.

The Writing Disorder: Was it difficult to lose one of your characters early on?

Ivy Pochoda: No, it was difficult to decide whether or not to bring that character back. I kept coming up with different scenarios. But I knew deep down what that character’s fate was, and I had to remain true to that feeling.

It was also a way to open up the story, to make one of the characters go missing. And in my mind, whenever I got upset about the character not being there, I would think of some of the more negative aspects of her personality, and that would make it easier for me to deal with. That’s true with most female relationships, girls hate each other, girls are so mean. They don’t mean to be, but they can’t help it.

The Writing Disorder: Your prose is so careful and precisely written. It’s almost as if every word is carefully chosen. It’s very beautiful the way you write.

Ivy Pochoda: I read and edit a lot of books and I’m always shocked how language is almost the last thing people think about. For me, it’s the first thing. That’s why it’s so hard for me to write right now. Language for me is the best part of writing. I mean plot is always difficult. I find the language kind of easy. I have to hear it. And I know when I’m doing a bad job, so I usually just stop. But I don’t like fancy language, either, pretty or over written stories.

The Writing Disorder: So how is life for you now, compared to when your first book was published?

Ivy Pochoda: Well this book has gotten a lot more attention. The first book came out and nothing really happened with it. It was through a publisher that puts out a lot of books, and they try to see what sticks and what doesn’t. So there wasn’t a lot of publicity behind it. By the time it came out, they were on to the next thing. But this book has been great. I’ve had so many amazing opportunities. It’s like a night and day situation, where now I feel like a real writer. But now I have to write another book. (haha) I don’t have to, but I probably should.

The Writing Disorder: You’ve had a lot of people come out for your book signings, like at The Last Bookstore in downtown L.A. And you’ve been on a book tour. How has that been?

Ivy Pochoda: Yes, we’re about to start up again. We’re going to San Francisco, and New England, where my father lives. And we’re going to New York as well. I also did a reading at the bar where the story is set. And that was quite harrowing. But it worked out well in the end. And there will be a few more stops in the fall, like the Brooklyn Book Festival, which is a very big deal for me. That will be fun, and perhaps the L.A. Times Festival of Books next year.

The Writing Disorder: Can you talk a little about your family life growing up.

Ivy Pochoda: Sure, I grew up in Brooklyn in a place called Cobble Hill. My mother was a magazine editor. She was the book editor at The Nation magazine for a long time. She’s worked at a lot of different magazines over the years. She worked at Vanity Fair, also The Post and Entertainment Weekly. Currently she’s the editor of a magazine called The Magazine Antiques. My father worked in publishing at a lot of the big publishing companies like Random House, Doubleday, Simon & Schuster. He had his own agency for a while, and now he’s doing university publishing. He lived in Michigan for a while, but now he’s back in New Hampshire. My parents are divorced. Growing up, our house was full of books. I didn’t even watch television until the sixth grade — then I made up for lost time, and watched a lot of it. I go through fits and starts. I either watch a lot or zero TV. There’s so many choices these days that I don’t watch anything. I lived in Holland for six years and there was nothing on TV, so I used to watch anything I could. But now, with hundreds of channels, I don’t watch anything — really strange.

My childhood was very literary, but my parents never encouraged me to become a writer. I wrote a lot of poetry. I have no brothers or sisters. So I played squash a lot, and other sports.

The Writing Disorder: What attracted you to squash, as apposed to basketball or baseball or some other sport?

Ivy Pochoda: Nothing in particular, my parents had a membership to this fake country club in the city. So they signed me up for lessons, when I was eight or nine. I started playing once a week, and then I did summer camp and I got really good really quickly. My school didn’t have a lot of sports, it was a very artsy school. So I played squash like three to five days a week. I really enjoyed it.

The Writing Disorder: Do you still play?

Ivy Pochoda: Yes, I still enjoy it. There’s a club nearby where I play. And my husband plays as well. I give him lessons on occasion.

The Writing Disorder: Were there a lot of writers around your home growing up?

Ivy Pochoda: Mostly journalists. I don’t remember a lot of novelists. I remember one who was a science fiction writer. My mom had a lot of friends who were writers, but we wouldn’t see them on a regular basis. Most of her friends were writers, but a lot of them were journalists — my parents had a lot of weird friends.

The Writing Disorder: What books did you read growing up?

Ivy Pochoda: I read everything. Every summer my mom would buy me like ten books. But I can’t think of anyone specifically.

The Writing Disorder: Who influenced your work?

Ivy Pochoda: I read a lot of modern fiction in college, it was the farthest thing you could get from reading Ancient Greek. I like reading long books. I thought I was going to write a long book. I love books like War and Peace. I read a lot of Willa Cather growing up. My dad bought me books by Kurt Vonnegut and James Ellroy, Steppenwolf, a lot of ‘60s books as well. My mom got me a lot of Henry James. But I read a lot of mysteries as well. I read a lot of Sherlock Holmes when I was little. I think I read all of them.

The Writing Disorder: When did you first start writing?

Ivy Pochoda: I started writing in high school and in college and it was great. I wrote poetry all through middle school and high school. After college I was living in Amsterdam and I was playing professional squash. It wasn’t all that satisfying, and my parents were harassing me about doing something constructive with my life. So I decided to write a book. But I didn’t think I would make any money from it, so I started another book called The Art of Disappearing, which was initially called The Art of Losing, after a poem, but we had to change that. So I just taught myself to write. And after I sold that book, I went to graduate school, and I realized I needed a little help.

The Writing Disorder: With your parent’s background in publishing, and your reading and writing a lot as a kid, it seems like maybe you were meant to be a writer.

Ivy Pochoda: I just knew that I didn’t really want a regular job, so I’ve gone out of my way to figure out ways that I didn’t have to. And being a writer seemed like a very reasonable one. I had one office job in my life. And it was fun. But I didn’t want a regular life. I wouldn’t mind teaching, though.

The Writing Disorder: You’ve been successful in squash, and you’ve been successful in writing. What are you working on now?

Ivy Pochoda: I’m ghost writing a celebrity biography for a TV/Hollywood actress. They are mostly based on interviews. My agent keeps telling me to stop doing them. But I like the work and it pays the bills. I did a biography on Rhoda, Valerie Harper. And I recently wrote a book on a polygamous Mormon family with four sister wives. I wrote their book, called Becoming Sister Wives. I went out to Las Vegas for ten days and interviewed them. No comment on the sister wives.

The Writing Disorder: And your husband is a filmmaker.

Ivy Pochoda: Yes, he’s made some short films, written some screenplays, and he currently works in TV.

The Writing Disorder: Has there been any talk of turning your book into a film?

Ivy Pochoda: There’s been some interest, so we’ll see.

The Writing Disorder: How did you come up with the structure for your novel?

Ivy Pochoda: When I started writing this book I was in graduate school and I went to a low-residency program — which means you go to class a few times a year and you send your work in. And you turn in your work every month for about five or six months. Each month is about 20-30 pages of writing and four essays on books I’ve read. And I didn’t know where I was going yet. So instead of going from chapter to chapter and following one character, I kept switching perspectives. It made it so I thought of each chapter as a short story. And once I came up with the idea of the two girls on the raft, I made that the through line. For me it’s a very easy and very hard way to write a novel, not knowing if it’s all going to come together in the end. I thought that maybe I would try that again in another book, but maybe not.

The Writing Disorder: Where did the visual idea of two girls on a raft come from?

Ivy Pochoda: It just came to me. I wanted something that would open it up like a prologue, something that would set the stage for a hot summer. I recently read Ian McEwan’s, Enduring Love, that opens with a balloon accident, and the accident — it’s such a dynamic chapter. It doesn’t really have anything to do with the rest of the plot, but someone that the main couple meets during it, becomes this stalker character and it changes their lives. So I thought it would be interesting to have an isolated incident to set a story in motion, but my initial idea was that it would just be a stand alone piece, but then it became the backbone of the story.

The Writing Disorder: There’s a hint of a supernatural element in your book.

Ivy Pochoda: You can read it however you want. Do some of the characters really hear voices? That’s up to the reader to decide. I have my own opinion, but I think it can be read different ways. The city does have a certain ghostliness to it. The old city lying underneath the new one. There’s definitely a ghost city shimmering under the surface. There was a lot of violence there in the 1980s. People grieve in different ways. I can only imagine how many people died there over the years. So I wanted to dramatize that in a psychological way.

The Writing Disorder: Does a cruise ship really dock in the city?

Ivy Pochoda: Oh yes, the Queen Mary docked there when I was living there. We all went down there at five in the morning to see it, thinking it would bring a lot of change to the city, but it came and went and that was it.

The Writing Disorder: So everyone thought it would change the city.

Ivy Pochoda: Oh yes, all these businesses made all these changes, to their names, etc. — and nothing happened. One Swedish tourist wandered off the boat. That was it.

The Writing Disorder: What is your writing process like, or what is a day of writing like for you?

Ivy Pochoda: In an ideal world I will start writing at 9:00 or 9:30 a.m., and write until 2:30 or 3:00 p.m. But I know that during that time, I will do a whole bunch of other stuff. But I try to get at least three solid hours of real writing done. If I can get three pages a day, that’s fine. If I can get five pages, that’s amazing. If I write more that that, I might consider taking the next day off (haha). I set myself goals, though. Like today I need to get my character from point A to point B. I always try to have a goal in mind for what I’m going to write about. I write on a computer and I have notebook next to it. I only write at my desk — nowhere else. I can’t write in a coffee shop, or a restaurant or on a plane.

the art of disappearing

The Writing Disorder: Who reads your work first?

Ivy Pochoda: Nobody. I don’t let anyone read something until it’s completely done. I might let my mom read something. She’s a really good editor. She’ll tell me if I’m being lazy or if I’ve overdone stuff — I tend to overdo things. She’ll say, “We get it, they’re ghosts,” or whatever. Towards the end of a project I’ll let someone read it. I let someone read this at sixteen chapters, when I had a problem with certain things. And I got one good note on it. But I think I know those answers all along. I don’t really love feedback – about plot.

The Writing Disorder: And your husband doesn’t read your work as you’re writing it?

Ivy Pochoda: No. He only read Visitation Street a few weeks ago. It would make me crazy to have him read it while I was working on something — not that I don’t value his opinion. He’s very smart, but he’s very plot-driven.

The Writing Disorder: Do you write any poetry?

Ivy Pochoda: I used to, but that was back in high school. And I don’t play any musical instruments. I can barely turn on the stereo.

The Writing Disorder: What was it like playing squash competitively, and living overseas as a professional squash player?

Ivy Pochoda: Yes, it was really fun. I’m not sure if I should have done more of it or less. I had figured out that when I got up to my highest (world) ranking, which was 38, that I can get in the top 20, I know I can, but I don’t want to, I’m not going to put in the work that it would take to reach that goal. It was also not lost upon me that living in Amsterdam and playing professional squash was a very strange decision. But I wanted to travel in Europe and I wanted to have a job. So I tried to do both, go out and have a life, and play squash. I was really good at it. I always wanted to win the U.S. National Championship, and it kind of bothers me.

I also know that when I was training my hardest and putting in the most amount work and hours – playing twice a day, six days a week, and not drinking — that it wasn’t really satisfying. But I love to socialize and go out with friends.

I also was a head case. Like I would train all year, and then at the tournament I would be totally ready to win, but then I couldn’t even tie my shoes, and I wanted to throw up. So I made a pact with myself that I would mentally let go of winning a national squash championship — if I sold a novel. That I would never be nervous about writing a book. I put all the belief that I didn’t have in squash, I put that into becoming a writer and writing — which is silly because writing was in other people’s hands, but squash was in my hands. But that’s okay. But I loved playing on the U.S. National Team. I always played well in team events. Two of my best friends were on the team. One of them because an artist and the other published a novel. The three of us went to El Salvador together for a tournament, and Colombia. It was really fun, and it’s great to travel with your friends. We all went to Harvard. So after a tournament we would go back to the hotel and hang out, and no one would talk about sports.

And my senior year in college I won the college individual championship squash title. That was the big one. See that I wanted, and that I killed myself to win because I wanted it so badly. That’s all I wanted. I can still remember it. The three years leading up to that, my team was the national championship team, we were the women’s team champions. And I got to the finals when I was a sophomore. So I came back the two years later and won it. It was great. I remember everything about it — every detail. I have a videotape of the match that I won. You should see the outfits we wore. I cried afterwards. It’s not an Olympic sport yet, it’s still in contention — the vote is coming up — but it doesn’t really televise well.

The Writing Disorder: Have you ever thought about coaching?

Ivy Pochoda: Oh yes, I’ve coached for a long time. When I was working on my first book, I got a job at the Harvard Club of New York coaching squash. I thought I would be there for about a year and I ended up coaching there for about four years. I’m a good coach but I get frustrated and impatient sometimes. I loved training the U.S. National Junior Team.

The Writing Disorder: You have a really great website by the way. What do you do when you’re not writing or working on a book?

Ivy Pochoda: I basically do three things: I write, play squash and cook/eat/drink. I love to cook. I had a horrible experience playing squash when I was 23. I trained all year for the national championship, but I had a complete meltdown in the first round. I was so upset. And that was the time my parents said to come back home. So I stayed with my mom for a few days. And I remember being in the kitchen I saw these two cookbooks one for Indian food and one for Thai food. So I got home, and I said I’m not going to play squash for about two months, so I cooked everything in those two books. I practiced so hard. And now I still prefer to cook either Thai or Indian food. That’s what I like to do. And I think I’m pretty good at it. It’s all about the seasonings.

The Writing Disorder: What are you working on now, or do you know what your next project is going to be?

Ivy Pochoda: No. I sold my current book in the summer of 2012. And normally a book takes over a year and a half to come out. But I finished the edits in October of that year. There’s a lot of work you have to do once you turn a book in. You have to keep editing it. And its been a sort of whirlwind ever since. You know selling a book, along with the publicity, which started in March of this year. And we did this pre-publicity tour. So I just haven’t really had a moment to take a break and relax. I tried to write something, but I think I just need to take a breath. I’ll start writing again. I did three ghost writing projects while I wrote Visitation Street, so I need a break. And I just started a creative writing program at The LAMP Lodge on Skid Row. So I’m going to be working on that. I live right near there and pass by everyday and I thought I wanted to do something for the community. I did some research and emailed a few people, and I found out about LAMP, and they have a really good LGBT community. So I’m really excited about the project. They have art and music facilities — it’s better than some high schools. We’re going to do a two-hour workshop once a week. And we want to do a newsletter, or a literary magazine. The people that I’ve met there are phenomenal.

The Writing Disorder: What kind of music do you listen to, and what kind of music did you listen to growing up?

Ivy Pochoda: I don’t listen to a lot of music. And when I write I need absolute silence. I like The Clash, Elvis Costello or Tom Waits. But my musical education has been hampered by a few things. My parents listened to a lot of music, so I listened to their music — Bob Dylan, John Coltrane, things like that. But they never thought to engage me with radio or others kids music. I never thought to go outside their interests. I wasn’t a normal kid. Then, in college I listened dance music. But when I moved to Holland, before Napster, music was so expensive there. I could barely pay my rent. But even if I did have money to spend, it was not to buy CDs. So I missed about six years of TV and six years of music. And it’s hard to catch up.

But when I’m writing, I demand silence.

The Writing Disorder: How did you go from writing your first book, to getting it published?

Ivy Pochoda: Through my agent.

The Writing Disorder: How did you get an agent?

Ivy Pochoda: Well, I have some friends in publishing. And when I finished my first book, I sent it to a few of them to read. And one woman actually read the book, and thought it was good. So she suggested that I send the book out to five or six agents that she suggested, and that I had to contact them on my own, but I could mention her name — and just see what happens. So I sent it out to everyone, it was actually eight agents, two of them men and six of them women — and all the women accepted it, and the men did not. So I went with the first person who accepted it, and she turned out to be the best agent. I love her so much.

The Writing Disorder: Is she still your agent today?

Ivy Pochoda: Yes. So she said that first book wasn’t ready to publish yet, and gave me some extensive notes to work on. And so I revised it and she sent it out ten times over eight months, and it was rejected by everyone. Then she did a second pass, and sent it out twenty times, and it was rejected again. So she said we could do two things, that I could either start a new book and put this one aside, or I could do another rewrite and submit it again. So I rewrote it again, and she submitted again ten times and it was rejected again. And I thought, Oh, my God. So I did one more rewrite and she sent it out again, and she got the tiniest offer, and we took it. But I don’t know if anyone else would have gone through all that. So after that I decided to go to graduate school, that I never wanted to go through that again. And this next book was a totally different story. We sold it in like two days. Thank God, because I think I would have had a nervous breakdown. I was nervous everyday to do this book, so it was a pretty bad start.

The Writing Disorder: Do you spend a lot of time on the internet, like Twitter and Facebook?

Ivy Pochoda: I can be on the internet for hours — nothing constructive, though. But there are so many cool writers on twitter and we start talking. And someone might be talking about my book, or vice versa, and they might say let’s get together. It’s great. I don’t know any other way to meet writers like that. It’s kind of cool.

The Writing Disorder: Do you have a lot of friends who are writers?

Ivy Pochoda: Yes. I have a lot of writer friends like in the last two weeks. But seriously, I have made a lot more writer friends since I became a writer. And I have a lot of squash friends, too. Half the material on my Facebook page is about writing, and the other stuff is about squash, or food-related stuff.

The Writing Disorder: Have you written any short stories?

Ivy Pochoda: I wrote one short story, and it was published, in a magazine nobody has heard of. But I was really excited at the time. And they spelled my name wrong. I think I’ll probably stick with novel writing for now.

The Writing Disorder: Have you thought about taking this story or these characters further?

Ivy Pochoda: No. I think that’s it for them. They don’t need me anymore. I think we’re done.

The Writing Disorder: Do you ever write with a pen and paper?

Ivy Pochoda: Yes, a lot. I don’t have great handwriting, but sometimes I like to write things in longhand. Like when I get an idea, I’ll usually write in out on paper first. I always keep a paper note pad by my computer. And I’m very particular about the pen I use. I’d like to have nice handwriting, but sometimes it’s indecipherable. But I can make it look nice when I want.

The Writing Disorder: What are your impressions of Los Angeles? Was it a big adjustment from life in Brooklyn?

Ivy Pochoda: Yes and no. I mean, my life didn’t change a whole hell of a lot. I work from home and I go and play squash. I do enjoy driving however, and I get a particular thrill when I encounter something uniquely Los Angeles, like the neon lights on Sunset Boulevard. All in all, I like it here. But part of me wants to move back to Red Hook.

The Writing Disorder: What are some of your favorite places in Los Angeles, or favorite things to do here?

Ivy Pochoda: I love my neighborhood, The Arts District and I like all the abandoned warehouses nearby. I love downtown as well. When I lived in Echo Park, I really enjoyed walking the loop in Elysian Park. Oh, and I love Thai Town. I eat there all the time.

The Writing Disorder: Thank you for your time. It’s been a pleasure meeting and talking with you. Thanks again.

 

To follow Ivy Pochoda on Twitter, visit: Twitter

For details about her book, visit: Visitation Street

Interview with Steph Cha

 

steph cha

THE ART OF WRITING

A conversation with writer STEPH CHA

Author of FOLLOW HER HOME

 

follow her home

 

Steph Cha is relatively new to the writing world. She just wrote her first book, Follow Her Home, published by Minotaur Books earlier this year. Of course, she’s been working on this book for years. But to the average reader she’s just arrived. Follow Her home is the story of a young woman who becomes a reluctant detective in present-day Los Angeles. It’s an homage to Raymond Chandler and his great noir stories set in the same city. Steph Cha takes her character down her own unique path, and comes up with a story that is both compelling and exciting. It’s a definite page-turner.

 

THE INTERVIEW 

The Writing Disorder: Congratulations on your new book, Follow Her Home. I really enjoyed reading it. I also grew up in Los Angeles. So it was easy to visualize all of the streets and locations you write about. I love reading about familiar places.

How did you come up with the unusual concept for your book? How long did it take to write?

Steph Cha: I read Chandler in college and I just loved those novels — the style, the sense of place, the kind of noble, weary hero. On the other hand, I knew what I was reading was outdated in many ways, and that the diverse, sprawling Los Angeles I know was not really in Chandler’s imagination. I wanted to write a contemporary L.A. noir that showed the city I know, from a point of view based on my own — something like Korean-American, feminist, twenty-something shithead. Once I came up with the character and started writing, I got a draft out in about a year and a half, with several breaks. The editing took longer, about three years all told, though most of that was waiting time.

The Writing Disorder: Tell us about the process of writing your first novel? Was this your first attempt?

Steph Cha: This was my first attempt. I started writing it because I didn’t like my summer job, which is such a bratty thing to say, but it’s true. I was in school and decided that if what I was studying to do didn’t fulfill me, maybe I should give that pipe dream a shot. I started writing it a couple pages at a time, and the more I wrote, the more I thought I might finish the thing. I didn’t outline, and I wasn’t very disciplined, so there were weeks at a time when I wrote nothing, like when I hit a snag in the narrative. I’ll have to keep myself more on task going forward.

The Writing Disorder: Did you have a publisher before you finished, or did you start looking once you finished? Where did you begin to look?

Steph Cha: Oh man, I found my publisher a year and a half after I finished my first draft. I took almost a year getting my agent on board, and after that, we revised for three months before submitting anywhere. Once my agent decided the manuscript was ready to go, he pitched it to a short list of editors, and somebody bit.

The Writing Disorder: You grew up in Los Angeles? Talk about your life growing up here — your family life, friends, social activities? Where did you go to school?

Steph Cha: I grew up in Encino, so the valley, mostly. My family life was tame. Parents, two younger brothers. My grandma lived with us for a while when I was very young. I went to private school my whole life (Oakwood for a bit, then Mirman, then Harvard-Westlake), so I led a pretty sheltered, privileged existence. I was an obedient, studious sort of kid. My social life was entirely wholesome, maybe even a bit bland. I didn’t start seeing my friends outside of school with any regularity until I got my driver’s license.

The Writing Disorder: Do you follow Los Angeles history — crimes, architecture, movies, etc.? What are some of your favorite stories about the city?

Steph Cha: I follow it loosely — I’m interested in stories about L.A. but definitely more movies/books than minute local current events. I love L.A. noir as a genre, so Chandler, Mosley, Ellroy, and the accompanying class of movies. Good God, Chinatown.

The Writing Disorder: What are some of your favorite books about Los Angeles?

Steph Cha: You know, I just went through my GoodReads, and it looks like about half of my exposure to L.A. literature falls under the noir umbrella. Outside of that, I really like Elsewhere, California by Dana Johnson, Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion, and Southland by Nina Revoyr, which is sort of cheating because it’s also a mystery, at least in part.

The Writing Disorder: When did you pick up your first Raymond Chandler book, and what was it?

Steph Cha: The Big Sleep, freshman year of college.

The Writing Disorder: What is your favorite book of his? What other crime authors do you read/admire?

Steph Cha: I have a special fondness for The Big Sleep, but The Long Goodbye is his best novel. It’s pretty incomparable. Other crime authors — well, outside the usual suspects, I like Denise Mina, Gillian Flynn, and when he goes that way, Jonathan Lethem. I’ve also really enjoyed books by Attica Locke, Naomi Hirahara, Daniel Friedman, and Joy Castro in the last year, and will probably keep reading them. And oh — I guess he might be canon, but Ross Macdonald.

The Writing Disorder: Are you a fan of film noir as well? Which movies do you like most?

Steph Cha: Oh yeah, though I suppose I’ve only seen the big ones. As mentioned, Chinatown, but also Maltese Falcon and Double Indemnity. I also like movies like Brick and L.A. Confidential. Neo-noir is sort of my jam. Drive was my favorite movie of last year.

The Writing Disorder: How do you begin a story?

Steph Cha: An idea and a little bit of discipline. I find that if the idea’s any good, it’ll bloom a bit as long as I do the work of writing words on a page.

The Writing Disorder: Do you write poetry or short stories? Anything published?

Steph Cha: I’ve been tinkering with short stories over the last several months, but I haven’t even submitted anything at this point.

The Writing Disorder: What was your youth like, and what made you want to become a writer?

Steph Cha: It was privileged, peaceful, and probably a little bit boring. My mom was strict, and I studied a lot. I was always a big reader, even when I was small, so I think that’s what did it. I fantasized about becoming an author starting around third grade.

The Writing Disorder: When did you begin to think of yourself as a writer?

Steph Cha: Ah, that’s a tricky one. I didn’t start calling myself a writer until I landed an agent, more than two years after I started writing. I probably started thinking of myself (very cautiously) as a writer once I made the decision to finish this book, maybe halfway through the first draft of the manuscript.

The Writing Disorder: What does your family think of your work and success? Do you ever get their input on your writing?

Steph Cha: No one in my family follows publishing/books very closely, but they’re all proud and happy. My grandma, who speaks no English, has been selling the book to all her friends, who also speak no English. I don’t get any input from my family on writing, but they’re enthusiastic about the end product and that’s good enough for me.

The Writing Disorder: Who influenced your work early on? What books, authors did you read growing up? Who do you like to read now?

Steph Cha: As a kid, I read Roald Dahl and a lot of those hardcover classics bound and marketed for children — Grimms’ Fairy Tales, Heidi, that kind of thing. I read Poe around fifth grade, and I think my first stab at creative writing involved a blood-splattered wall. I think my favorite book between the ages of eleven and fifteen was Catch-22. At the end of my junior year of high school, though, I read As I Lay Dying and Lolita in the span of a couple months, and I started reading furiously after that. I still read fiction almost exclusively, mostly literary stuff, a healthy amount of crime, a classic that I missed now and then.

The Writing Disorder: When did you first get published?

Steph Cha: This book. Officially, April 16 of this year, then.

The Writing Disorder: Describe what happens when you are working on a story or book.

Steph Cha: I don’t have a lot of data points, but I will say that I have a hard time sitting down and writing for eight hours. I tend to have productive spurts and dry spells, and I’m working on pushing through those dry spells with a bit more discipline. I do work much better when I’m on deadline — huge procrastinator, but I respect deadlines.

The Writing Disorder: How much of what you write do you throw away?

Steph Cha: Scraps here and there. I do edit a lot, but I haven’t trashed too many large segments of irredeemable writing.

The Writing Disorder: What are you working on now?

Steph Cha: I have a few things going, including a literary novel and bits of short stories, but the primary project is a sequel to Follow Her Home.

The Writing Disorder: What do you do when you’re not writing? What do you do for fun?

Steph Cha: I read! Ha, is that boring? I guess I also hang out with my basset hound and my fiancé and my family and my friends. I like to eat, and since I like to write, too, I post a lot on Yelp. I also like to drink, mostly in moderation.

The Writing Disorder: What are some of the challenges of being a writer today?

Steph Cha: I think I’m still too green to speak competently about the changing marketplace, or ebooks or whatever, but there are a few things I would guess are pretty timeless. It doesn’t help that most writers don’t make minimum wage doing what they love, and the constant battle of ego and self-doubt is certainly wearisome.

The Writing Disorder: Where and when do you write? Describe the space?

Steph Cha: I write on my couch, under a throw blanket, with my dog either at my side or my feet. I write throughout the day, rarely in the morning. I goof off in the morning.

The Writing Disorder: Was writing encouraged at home?

Steph Cha: In a way. When I was very young, my mom had me write stories in order to learn vocabulary words. She’d give me like ten or twenty new words, and I’d have to incorporate those into stories. I think she was more concerned about the memorization than the creative bit, but I did enjoy those exercises.

The Writing Disorder: Does anyone else in your family write?

Steph Cha: No.

The Writing Disorder: How much research do you do before you begin a new project?

Steph Cha: Very little, to be honest, unless you count whatever knowledge I get from pleasure reading. I research as needed — I tend to avoid it unless I have a specific question.

The Writing Disorder: Once you have the basic story written or first draft, is the editing process longer than the initial writing?

Steph Cha: This time around, it was, but I think that’s because I spent long periods of time waiting around. I think the cycle tightens up after the first book.

The Writing Disorder: Do you have other creative talents — music, art, etc.?

Steph Cha: I play piano and sing on a pretty basic level. I also used to play cello but I don’t even have access to a cello anymore. I’m a fair doodler, too.

The Writing Disorder: What is a typical writing day for you?

Steph Cha: Wake up, roll downstairs, dick around on the internet, eat something, walk dog, write.

The Writing Disorder: Do you spend a lot of time on the internet? What do you do, what sites do you visit most often?

Steph Cha: So much. It’s terrible. I always have Facebook, Twitter, and GoodReads open, and I frequently Google myself and spy on my Amazon page. I also spend a lot of time on Yelp and on Videogum, which is a medium-sized pop culture blog with a great commenting community.

The Writing Disorder: Do you have a lot of writer friends?

Steph Cha: I have writer friends now! I didn’t until fairly recently, but now I have a little group of people to get beers with in the middle of a random weekday.

The Writing Disorder: What kind of music do you listen to? What groups were you into growing up?

Steph Cha: I stopped listening to new music almost altogether when I was in college. I “discovered” Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, The Clash, Pixies, etc. in high school, and got into like Built to Spill, Beulah, Rilo Kiley, Modest Mouse in college. I have an ex who will send me cool new music now and then and I enjoy that, but I think my days of being very into music are basically over.

The Writing Disorder: Who reads your work first?

Steph Cha: I showed the first draft of Follow Her Home to my roommate and one of my best friends, who reads a lot. Now, though, my agent.

The Writing Disorder: Do you miss Los Angeles when you’re away? What do you miss most about it?

Steph Cha: Tons. And this is easy — my family.

The Writing Disorder: Was it difficult to structure your book and maintain the tone?

Steph Cha: No. Noir has constraints, and those constraints made it relatively easy to keep things consistent.

The Writing Disorder: Are the characters in your book based on people you know?

Steph Cha: Not really. I borrowed characteristics here and there, but no one whole.

The Writing Disorder: What do you do for fun? Where do you like to go?

Steph Cha: Well, this week I’ve watched an insane amount of RuPaul’s Drag Race but that isn’t typical. I mostly read and eat and drink. I live in Los Feliz, and I love my neighborhood, so I like walking around here. We have the Observatory up the street, Skylight Books down on Vermont. I go there a lot.

The Writing Disorder: I think your book would also make a great movie. Has anyone discussed this with you?

Steph Cha: Yeah, it’s been discussed, but not in a lot of detail. I think it would make a good movie, but I don’t know anything about that industry.

The Writing Disorder: What was it like going to Yale Law school? I assume you wanted to become a lawyer — what changed?

Steph Cha: It was okay. I made some very good friends while I was there, including my fiancé. I liked being in a class with so many smart, talented people. The school part, though, wasn’t my favorite. I just didn’t find it that interesting. I don’t think I ever wanted to be a lawyer, not especially anyway. I went to law school straight out of college, and I guess I didn’t have the imagination to do anything else at that point.

The Writing Disorder: You also attended Stanford. What did you study there and what was the experience like?

Steph Cha: I studied English and East Asian studies, with a minor in psychology. I loved it. I miss English class. As far as the college experience goes, I had a good time. I just went to my five-year reunion in October and a wedding on campus in April, and I really only have fond feelings for Stanford.

The Writing Disorder: So once you finished school, what was your plan — to become a writer, or something else?

Steph Cha: College? I was planning to be a lawyer, or something like that. Once I graduated law school I knew I wanted to pursue writing in a serious way.

The Writing Disorder: Are you enjoying the life of a published writer, book tour, etc.?

Steph Cha: Oh yeah. I feel very blessed, and I’m grateful for all the support I’ve received from my family and friends. Touring is stressful sometimes (you caught me at the end of a particularly rough week), but I’ve had fun doing it. I’m glad my book is out there in the world, and I plan on writing a few more before my time is up.

The Writing Disorder: Thank you very much for your time.

 

To follow Steph Cha on Twitter, visit: Twitter

For details about her book, visit: Follow Her Home

THE GREAT EMPTYING OF THE THREE TRIANGLES

by Marianne Villaneuva


A presentation by Brian Siy

      The present condition of the area known as the Three Triangles, is desert. The desertification occurred around 1511. Several decades later, the first instances of human migration to the coast began.

      Our first clue to what may have occurred came with the discovery of the Aurora Trench. By monitoring its striations closely, I have been able to ascertain that the area had, for a period of over 500 years, suffered from intense precipitation, unusual wind strength, and heat. This was undoubtedly the reason behind the Great Vanishing.

      In the space of little more than 100 years, 323 cities, most of which had flourished on the alluvial plain for millennia, disappeared. It was clear from detailed analysis of total organic carbon (TOC) that the degree of vegetation cover began to oscillate in a manner inconsistent with normal summer monsoon patterns.

      The climate grew appreciably colder and dryer. There is scientific confirmation in the archaeological evidence of the trench, which henceforward was given the name Maowusu, which in the ancient language meant: the Supreme Utilization.

      Now let us turn to the thirty-four cities whose archaeological evidence is most verifiable. These were clustered at the edges of the plain. Astonishing detail was provided by the populace’s habit of record-keeping. Everything, from the weather to the types of vegetation and the specific locales in which they flourished, were recorded on clay tablets, which collectively were known as The Annals. The Annals recorded the yearly arrival of the sparrows, and the dates on which the river (the Mother River was named Zhu, or “Discord”; the secondary river Araw or “Day”) began to freeze, were set down.

      The first onset of the strange weather was recorded, as were the years of terrible drought which followed.

      It was also recorded that the river Zhu, previously muddy and brown, turned clar. While the river Araw, whose waters were clear and sparkling, grew sluggish and heavy with silt and other decayed matter.

      There had apparently once been a network of waterways and canals that the populace used to move food and other necessities to one another’s villages and towns. There was evidence of exchange of goods (what we today refer to as barter).

       Whole communities were cut off from one another. The estuaries silted up.

      Inevitably, the population declined. One can cite the usual reasons: starvation, epidemics, and migration. Trouble and disturbances were widespread. Slavery became commonplace. Not only that, there was a plague of locusts. Cannibalism became a way of life.

      It is of no surprise then, to note the appearance of The Diviner’s Handbook, whose publication dates from a period roughly between 1622 and 1681. This handbook was the work of one man, who signed his name Jo-yu. The handbook begins with this sentence: “There was a great drought.” The handbook is little more than a compilation of exotic rituals, rituals which, for the inhabitants of the region, seemed to contain a form of transcendent significance. Rituals to accompany the rising and setting of the sun, of the stringing of bows (archery contests were a frequent occurrence, right to the very end of this civilization), births, funerals, weddings, and sacrificial offerings.

      The strangest artifacts from this period were the drawings of two-headed creatures left on cave walls. It is not certain whether these were mythical or actual beings. Certainly, the occurrence of conjoined twins is a sad anomaly, but in the period of the Great Drought, it seemed there was a proliferation of such births.

      Beneath one such drawing of conjoined heads were the words: “Our mother has abandoned us.” Since the word “Mother” at the time had a multiplicity of meanings, one could infer that it referred to the fecundity or lack of fecundity of the soil; to the river water, which had for so many centuries sustained commerce and life; or perhaps to an actual person, a woman, who had run shrieking with horror at the blight produced by her womb. All is left for scholars to conjecture.

      Gradually, the people of one village lost the ability to communicate with those of another village, even though the two might have been less than two kilometers apart. Each village began to establish its own customs.

      The people, therefore, had good reason to abandon their ancestral graves. Mother, father, grandparents and children were buried at a point just south of the Altai River. The populace was already very weak, the rulers unable to staunch the flow of new people, barbarians wearing bear skins, from the far north.

The Sadness

      The first group left for the northwest in March. They settled at a branch of the Ma-I River and arranged their homes in a defensive position.

      The earlier settlements were strung out along Ma-I like beads on a string.

      On of the earliest group of refugees to settle by the river was led by a most devout monk named Dao-an. Fifty-eight years old at the time of the migration, he is described in a fragmentary work of questionable reality as having a beard as white as snow, and back bent almost double from some childhood trauma, perhaps a fall. He was carried everywhere by four men in a palanquin.

      In the next few decades, these settlements began to conduct minor skirmishes against each other. Most of these skirmishes were conducted over the attempt to control the waterway. Other villagers attempted to band together and to dig new canals. One of these was quite long, almost 400 li. But, ultimately, this attempt failed. The villages on the opposite bank sent fire arrows which burned the supply boats and the men were forced to swim for the shore, where they were cut down by hails of arrows.

      In addition, these river settlements were continually harassed by a brand of marauding, dark people who came down from the hills. They had lived in that area probably for centuries. Perhaps they were off-spring of the men from the south, but having lived so long in the hills they had evolved a completely different language. Their main purpose was to acquire young woman to bear their children.

      There was also the need for the construction of wells.

      The next campaigns were the Campaign for the Freeing of the Mountain Routes, and another the Campaign for the Crossing of the Treacherous Cliffs.

Conclusion

      In effect, what the trench tells us is that the plain of the Three Triangles experienced devastating drought and freezing weather patterns, which caused the complete disintegration of human civilization. Whole settlements of people vanished, and it is not yet clear whether the emptying of the plain was due to emigration, internecine strife, or epidemics and starvation.

      I cannot tell you how much it has meant to me, dear ladies and gentlemen, that you have remained seated there, so quietly, in spite of the abysmal state of the airconditioning in this august building and my shortcomings at Power Point. I am perhaps a Luddite: technology is a barrier to truth. This is no doubt amusing to those of you in the audience who cannot remember an age before Apple. But I assure you, I assure you, that I am most humbly cognizant of your discomfort, and trust that my words have provided you with at least some measure of entertainment and distraction, no matter how brief.

BIO

Marianne Villanueva was a finalist for the UK’s Saboteur Award, in 2014. And a full-act opera based on her novella, Marife, received its world premiere in New Hampshire in 2015. She is currently teaching a class called, One Story: Six Ways for UCLA Extension’s Writers Program, Aug. 3 (six weeks, online).

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DUST

by Marianne Villanueva


      Vincent was standing at the door. He said, “Hurry up, Mom.”

      It was 10:30 in the morning. She was always watching the clock, anticipating the time when he would step out to see his friends.

       She ran to him, her hands still slick with dishwashing soap.

      “Will you be having dinner here?” she asked.

      He shrugged.

      She was sure there was a girl in his life, someone he didn’t want her to know about; he’d become so close-mouthed, the last year. And he was the type of son who had liked confiding in her. Still, she told herself, it was for the best.

      She watched him get into his car. She noted there was a new dent on the passenger side door. Vincent didn’t care. The car had over 120,000 miles when they bought it for him, when he graduated from high school. Jocelyn remembered how his eyes shone when they handed him the keys. That was almost three years ago.

      It was sunny, a glorious day. April was sometimes cold, but Jocelyn thought she could sense summer coming, just around the corner.

      The girl who clipped them, that afternoon in April, was just 18. Driving her red Ford Mustang at a speed that was just short of criminal, she’d gotten her driver’s license only that month.

      The Ford Explorer rolled over and over and over—for almost two years she saw the image flash into her mind, often just before she lay her head down to sleep. Then she had to get up and pace the bedroom, or take two Ambien if there was something important she needed to do the next day.

      By the time the vehicle came to rest, by the center divider on southbound 101, her son was dead. She was glad it had happened quickly. Perhaps there had not even been time for him to register a few seconds of fear.

      He had just returned from a backpacking trip in Yosemite.

      He arrived late at night on a Tuesday and he was dead on Wednesday. And there were still text messages coming in on his cell—that day and for almost a week after, from friends who, for one reason or another, hadn’t yet heard the news.

      The summer before, her husband had asked her why she still had Vincent’s baby things stored in boxes in the garage. She’d given them away, she forgets now whether it was to the Salvation Army or to Goodwill. Now she blamed her husband. If she hadn’t listened to him, she would have had something from that earlier time to hold.

      In the first moments of her grief, it sometimes seemed to Jocelyn that her son had returned expressly to keep that certain appointment. The appointment with the girl in the Ford Mustang.

      Her niece, Audrey, who’d been in the passenger seat, was just 19. She was a freshman at Stanford. She was dead, too.

      Audrey was majoring in Linguistics. She could speak Japanese, Arabic, and even a little Farsi. She was going to travel the world and maybe she would become a spy. At least, she liked to joke that she would.

      It had caused Jocelyn endless hours of amusement to imagine her niece wandering Beirut or Dubai in a bhurka. Now, of course, she could no longer imagine such things. She only wished that when her niece passed, she passed quickly. She couldn’t bear to think of the happy young woman she’d known being trapped in the car, waiting.

      She had kept a small newspaper clipping of the accident. Every so often she would remove the clipping, smooth it out on the kitchen counter top, and look at the words. She found it increasingly difficult to make any sense of them. The accident was four Aprils ago. Her son was dust in the earth, or soon would be. Unless the wooden coffin held true.

      She’d had it blessed by her old friend, Father Hidalgo, who’d come all the way from Manila for the funeral. Wood burnished to a high gleam. Her husband couldn’t look. How could he? He kept his head lowered the whole time, already defeated. Everything, from the pink satin that would couch her son’s body, to the make-up she had the morticians apply to hide the bruising on his face, was her own responsibility.

      And then she had to hold Audrey’s parents while the coffins were being lowered into the ground. It was awful the way Emily’s mother sank to her knees and lost her mind there, in the memorial park.

      It was an unseasonably cold day and the wind blew the other woman’s graying hair about her face as she knelt on the ground and keened. Jocelyn could only stare, dry-eyed, at her own boy’s coffin. It moved smoothly, as if lifted by invisible gears. Then it was positioned in the hole and she picked up a clod of earth and threw it with such force that a few particles rebounded onto her clothes. She took off her skirt later and saw the brownish stains. She wondered at them, their strange shapes. She folded the skirt and put it away. She would never send it to be cleaned.

      But she was not to be destroyed. Even in her blackest moments, her deepest despair, she knew she was not going to be destroyed. At the funeral, she looked proudly and stoically ahead of her. She could feel the rippling whispers behind her, around her. Women looking with something like envy because in her pride she had become something she’d never been before, almost beautiful. She blazed with an inner fury. Her skin, her eyes, were incandescent.

      All right, so the girl was 18. She was driving too fast, she just didn’t know how to handle a car like that. It was her cousin’s.

      18, and a bank teller. At a Bank of America a few miles south of Belmont, where Jocelyn lived. She might have even have met her a few times at the bank.

      Funny how these things go.

      Anyway, it had been four Aprils since then. Her life had gone on in a fashion, and even though her husband was absent a lot of the time (absent emotionally, though physically he was far too present) she had made do, she had learned to fill up the spaces and silences with busy work, like doing crossword puzzles and watching Dr. Phil and Oprah. It hadn’t, after all, been the end of her world.

      For years and years, since she only had the one child, she feared a calamity. She feared that the loss of her child would be cataclysmic, soul-destroying. Looking at him in his crib at night, she felt the pain of his loss as if it were inevitable. She knew there would be no others. Even the one child was a miracle. So old, she was, when it finally happened. 40. But after she and her husband had decided to have the child, he came easily to her. Too easily.

      He was born in the year of the Dragon. That meant he was special. Or so she thought. She consulted Chinese astrology books and feng shui books and she took to heart their superstitious admonitions. She put little turtles and elephants on his windowsill, facing a certain way. She hung a crystal from the ceiling of his room, to deflect evil spirits. She hadn’t thought to put one in his car; she had not thought of that.

      The fear of losing her son was so great, so overwhelming, that it steeled her, caused her to prepare.

      So when it happened, she somehow found herself ready. Unlike her husband, who was totally witless, beyond salvation.

      Men, she liked to tell her friends afterwards, are weak.

      She remembered when Vincent was four. How he’d wanted to go to the circus. But her husband wouldn’t go, he simply wasn’t interested. That was his word exactly. What interest, she thought. What does that have to do with taking your four-year-old to the circus?

      So she herself had taken Vincent. The boy was excited by his first taste of cotton candy, by the ladies riding around on elephants and horses. They’re so beautiful, Mom, he kept saying. But she had to admit, she secretly agreed with her husband that it was tacky. This was the Ringling Brothers and already the acts seemed from another age. The ladies were plump and their flesh-colored tights could not conceal the thickness of their thighs. She was tired and got a headache afterwards. But she had taken her son, that was the important thing. In her mind, she placed a mark against her husband: his first betrayal.

      Over the years, she stored them up in a little book in her head: there were the times when she’d had to stay late at work and asked him to come home early so that Vincent would not have to eat dinner alone in the house. She could imagine the boy, settled on the couch watching TV, and it made her heart ache to think of him eating macaroni and cheese that he’d heated up himself in the microwave. But oh, so many times she’d come home and there would be no husband, there would only be her son, drifting off to sleep on the sofa, his mouth smeared with the remnants of his dinner. I’m OK, Mom, he would say sleepily. You don’t have to worry about me. I can take care of myself.

      She raged inwardly at her husband, at such moments. That thoughtless man, who was always worrying about something or other in the office. No wonder they had had only the one child.

      But Vincent loved his father, so she had forced herself to forgive. When the angry words rose to her mouth, she quelled them, but always with a great effort.

      Afterwards, it was her husband who wailed and cried. This astonished Jocelyn utterly. That the man had feelings, that he was not totally oblivious to the existence of their child, who had wandered in and out of their house with barely a nod from her husband, was a revelation to her. She found herself studying him as though he were some odd being who had crawled up from some primeval marsh. Who would have thought that the man she saw every day suited in grey pinstripes would have, somewhere on his person, a primitive, unruly heart?

      How odd it was, how odd. Afterwards, her husband couldn’t stop talking about their boy, and she’d find him in their son’s room, looking at the pictures they had framed: Vincent on his first basketball team. Vincent chasing a ball down a soccer field. Vincent at his high school graduation.

      He had aged overnight, her husband. The gray in his hair was the uniform color of steel, and his skin lost its elasticity and sagged around his jowls. Sometimes she barely recognized him. And, apparently, his work at the office was suffering and his boss was encouraging him to take more vacations, and in the past year they had hired younger men to assist him, men who exchanged brief, knowing glances that Jocelyn always caught when she attended the office parties. This all meant, she knew, that they were getting ready to nudge her husband into retirement. This, too, was another cause for her rage.

      Why, she sputteringly wanted to ask her husband’s boss, a bluff, hearty man who had a beautiful blonde wife and four perfect teen-age children, why would you do that to us? Do you realize how much we have suffered?

      Her husband left the house each morning with stiff, robotic steps. She watched him from the window, ducking quickly behind the curtains if she thought there was a chance he might look back at the house. He would put his briefcase into the trunk and then remain staring down with the trunk open for long moments. Then, startled by something, a passing car, he would look up, look around, and go back into himself. Yet she couldn’t shake the idea that when he entered the car he too was entering a kind of coffin.

      And now they read the obituary pages together, with a kind of stoic morbidity. And if it so happened that they recognized a name, they both chewed their food slowly and thoughtfully and without tasting anything. Neither of them could speak, so lost were they in their own private reflections.

      The days went on like that, for months, for years.

      Then, one day, there was an occurrence. A singular event. A young woman showed up at the front door. She was dressed in baggy jeans and a pink tank top and she was carrying a bouquet of pink and white roses. She was blonde and had the pink-cheeked health of the new German immigrant. She asked to speak to the lady of the house, and when Jocelyn responded that it was she, she simply handed over the roses and smiled.

      “You’re Vincent’s mom,” she said. And Jocelyn, who had not heard herself called that for several years, felt with sudden alarm the pressure of tears building behind her eyes.

      “Yes,” Jocelyn said. “And you are–?”

      “I’m Caroline,” said the young woman. “I knew Vincent in college. We were both in Physics. He helped me a lot—homework and stuff. I wasn’t very good at math. I took terrible notes. Vincent always shared his. I’m sorry, I couldn’t come to the funeral but I felt bad and since I was visiting someone close by I thought I’d bring you these.”

      She thrust the roses forward awkwardly.

      None of this made any sense, Jocelyn thought. Why had the girl waited four years? A half dozen of Vincent’s classmates had attended the funeral, and they had seemed uncomfortable, unsure of where to put their hands and feet. Afterwards, none of them had attended the reception. Red-faced, they’d come up to her and expressed their regrets. She couldn’t remember anything they had said.

      “Caroline,” she said. “Caroline. I think Vincent might have mentioned you. You were the one who was thinking of leaving school, because of your mom. Was that you? You have a single mom and you live in Visalia?” It amazed Jocelyn to remember these details.

      But Caroline was smiling. “Yes, that’s me. And I did leave school for a while. But now I’m back. I’m graduating next semester.”

      “I’m glad to hear it, Caroline,” Jocelyn said. She opened the door wide. “Won’t you come in? Do you have time for coffee? I would love to talk more.”

      But the young woman stayed where she was and shook her head. “No, I’m sorry,” she said. “My friends are waiting in the car, they’re just around the corner. We’re late for a dinner. I’m sorry.”

      “Caroline,” Jocelyn said, “It was so nice of you to come by. It means a lot to me. I wish you’d come back. Anytime. Don’t hesitate. Anytime you’re in the neighborhood.” Her arms reached out as if to hug the girl, but the girl stepped back and Jocelyn’s arms reached out to an emptiness. She let her arms drop and stared helplessly at the girl.

      “I’m sorry,” Caroline said. “I’ve made you feel bad.”

      “No,” Jocelyn insisted. “No, don’t think that. I’m glad to have met you.”

      “Don’t worry, Mrs. Gonzales,” the girl said. “You’ll be with him soon.”

      Jocelyn stared at the girl. Had she heard right? And then Caroline, observing the confusion in Jocelyn’s face, said, “I only meant that, for Vincent it wouldn’t seem long. Don’t you think the dead have a different sense of time than us? For us, it might seem like decades since they left but for them it must seem like only a moment, an instant.”

      “Oh,” said Jocelyn, and her breath caught. “You don’t know how much I’ve worried about that. Worried that he’s alone—over there, wherever there is. I know it’s silly. But I don’t want him to be alone. Not ever. I can’t stand the thought.”

      After the accident, she found she couldn’t believe in a heaven, and so she really had thought of her son lost somewhere in a void, in a wilderness of strange, indistinct shapes.

      And she grew angry again. It was all so unfair, that her cherished boy should be cold in the ground. 19 years! There hadn’t even been time to take him to the Philippines, where she and her husband had come from. They kept telling their families, soon, soon. But it had never happened. Then, there was a period of political turmoil when it seemed that no sane American would take the risk of visiting. And then Vincent was grown. He didn’t want to go to a country where the only people he knew were old.

      “You’ll be with him,” Caroline repeated. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Gonzales. It won’t be long.”

      Then, with a flashing smile, the young woman turned and almost ran down the front walk.

      That evening, at dinner, Jocelyn could not make up her mind whether to tell her husband about the strange visit. She drank some red wine, an uncharacteristic gesture, but it left her feeling giddy and light-headed and she didn’t want to sound maudlin so she kept silent. If her husband noticed anything, he didn’t give any indication. Their entire meal passed with only the briefest exchange about the usual mundane things.

      But during the next few weeks, Jocelyn mulled over the encounter. With each passing day, the features of Caroline’s face seemed to become more and more indistinct. Jocelyn struggled against the imprecision of her memory with a feeling of increasing panic.

      One afternoon, she spent a few hours poring over the photographs she’d found stored in a file on Vincent’s computer. The keyboard was dusty and she had to wipe the keys carefully with an alcohol prep pad. She’d never ever sat at this computer, even when Vincent was alive. It would have seemed like a violation. But now she looked for the “on” key and found it and waited as the computer sprang noisily to life with what seemed, to her sensitive ears, like a great whirring of internal gears, followed by the faint sound of a fan blowing somewhere inside the mechanism.

      She didn’t have long to search, thankfully. She embarked on a file search and limited it to the two years Vincent had been away at college. Almost immediately a folder called “Pictures” appeared on the screen. Two brief taps of her index finger, and the folder opened up to reveal a file called “Birthdays.” Here were pictures of Vincent in a series of parties, with his arm affectionately thrown over the shoulders of this or that young woman, none of whom even remotely resembled Caroline. Another file, called “Summers,” contained pictures of his old high school classmates, and even one or two of Jocelyn and her husband, puttering around the house. The final set of pictures was in a file called “Beaches.” There were several pictures of Vincent spreadeagled on the sand, and one of him leaping over a sand dune. In every picture he was with a group of friends. None of them, however, was Caroline.

      What she saw, though, saw so clearly it almost took her breath away, was that her son loved his life. He loved his school and he loved his friends and they did everything together: camped on the beach, hiked in the hills, kayaked, drank. There was party after party. In one picture, he and three other boys held beer bottles aloft. In another, her son had his back to the camera, but his face was half turned and she saw he was laughing while apparently peeing into some bushes.

      This shot made her catch her breath and almost cry. Vincent had an imperfect nose. There was a prominent bump that she could see outlined very clearly as he turned his head toward the camera. She’d asked him once if he’d wanted it fixed. He’d shaken his head at her. “Mom,” he said, “Girls don’t seem to mind.” She’d let it go.

      And he hadn’t been a very good student. In fact, he’d almost gotten kicked out at the end of his freshman year. His GPA hadn’t even made 1.5. She and her husband had been furious. There was a summer of slamming doors and hateful looks. That was the summer before he died.

      Sitting there, in her son’s room, she found herself getting angry once again. She thought: There are two of them in the ground who shouldn’t be.

      She clicked on the Firefox icon and found herself a search engine. She typed in the name: Remedios Delgado. There were a few newspaper items; she chose the most recent ones.

      The girl had been released. She had been sentenced to the maximum of eight years, but had served only three. She was out now. She was free.

      But Jocelyn and her husband would never, themselves, be free. And Vincent was waiting.
      One of the articles had a picture. Yes, she recognized the girl, even after all these years. She was only 21, after all. There was still a whole life ahead of her. In the picture, Remedios was smiling.

      She’d moved back in with her parents. In the interview, she said she needed time to get her life back together. She looked good, with none of the baby fat from her earlier pictures. She wore skin-tight jeans and there was not a bulge anywhere. She had a tattoo in the small of her back that, according to the reporter, just showed when she bent over.

       So. Jocelyn sat there at Vincent’s computer. She thought. And then she thought some more. She knew where Remedios’ parents lived because it had all come out at the trial. They were in Redwood City, only a few miles south. For weeks after the accident, and during the trial, she had driven around the city in slow, meandering circles. But she never once encountered the Delgados, even when she took to shopping three times a week at the Safeway closest to their apartment building.

      Perhaps they went to a Mexican market. She tried that, too. But there was zip, nada, nothing. After a while, Jocelyn gave up and went back to her normal routes, and now she hardly went to Redwood City anymore.

      She wondered if Remedios might have tried getting her old job back, the one at the Bank of America on Woodside Road. One day, she went there. She stood in back of a long line of tired, impatient people. It was 4:30 PM, a Monday. She waited patiently for the line to move. And finally, finally, when she was at the front of the line, she forced herself to look up, to look carefully at the bank of tellers. Her gaze went from girl to girl slowly. That one had a face that was too square; that other one was too short; still another had a large mole by her lower lip. When there was only the last girl in the row, she stopped and considered. This girl had hair highlighted with gold and reddish streaks. She’d covered her eyelids with glittery purple eyeshadow. When her gaze stopped, the girl looked up. For a moment, their eyes locked. Then Remedios put a hand to her mouth and screamed.

      The scream seemed to go on and on and on, as Remedios stumbled backwards from the counter. She put out her hands, like a blind man feeling his way around a strange room. Jocelyn looked calmly at her. But she herself was badly shaken by the girl’s high-pitched screams and the blindly groping hands. Obviously the girl had seen something in her, some kind of vision. Everyone, she’d read in some book, had an aura. Perhaps hers was black now, or deep purple.

      Jocelyn turned on her heel and left the bank. She drove straight home, and it surprised her greatly when she arrived without mishap. For a while, her therapist had always warned her to be careful driving. But now it was as if she’d been doing this every day of her life, driving to Redwood City and back.

      After she climbed the stairs to the bedroom, she sat on her bed, kicked off her shoes and stared at the ceiling. She was very tired. She decided to run some water for a bath. She checked the time: her husband would not be home for a couple of hours.

       When the tub was full, Jocelyn lowered herself slowly, gratefully into the warm water. She hadn’t estimated right and some of the bath water sloshed over the sides and on to the bathroom floor. She looked at it blankly. Oh well, she thought. I’ll take care of it later.

       She put her head back and let herself feel the water cradling her. She closed her eyes. With each breath, the water around her ribcage trembled and she loved the sensation of movement. Her hands rose involuntarily to her face.

      “I must have looked a sight,” she thought now. She’d left the house without putting on any make-up. Her face must have looked pale and ghostly to the young girl.

      “You know, Remedios,” she said to the air above her. “You’ll always be a part of me, now.”

      And indeed, she could see herself, five years from now, reading about Remedios’ wedding in the newspaper. She could see Remedios surrounded by her happy family, see her mother lifting Remedios’ heavy tresses and arranging the bridal veil. The groom would not be handsome, because Remedios didn’t seem to have that kind of luck. But he’d be a stalwart young man, who would make sure Jocelyn never approached. And that was fine with Jocelyn, too.

      When her husband came home that evening, he called her name but she didn’t answer. He found her still in the bathroom, lying back in the tub and staring at the ceiling with a strange and unfamiliar look — a look, almost, of happiness.

      “Jocelyn!” he called sharply.

      Slowly, she lowered her gaze and looked at him. “Dear,” she said, still smiling. “I’ve had a wonderful day.”

      She could never understand, afterwards, why her husband, still in his dark suit, dropped to his knees at just that moment, holding out his hands to her and weeping.

BIO

Marianne Villanueva was a finalist for the UK’s Saboteur Award, in 2014. And a full-act opera based on her novella, Marife, received its world premiere in New Hampshire in 2015. She is currently teaching a class called, One Story: Six Ways for UCLA Extension’s Writers Program, Aug. 3 (six weeks, online).

Tina May Hall Interview

The Art of Writing

 

tina

 

Tiny May Hall is a very good writer. That’s what I thought when I first read one of her stories. Well, actually, I hadn’t even finished it. I was just a few sentences in. But I instantly got the feeling that she really knew what she was doing. Then I proceeded to read the rest of her book. It was every bit as amazing as the first part. And while she takes the reader on some very strange, humorous, and often unexpected journeys, you get the feeling that Tina May Hall is a born storyteller. It’s what we, as readers, are always searching for—the perfect book.

Winner of the 2010 Drue Heinz Literature Prize, a competition Raymond Carver once judged, Tina May Hall’s outstanding book, The Physics of Imaginary Objects, is a true masterpiece, an instant classic, and a book that should be read by everyone. If you’re a writer, it will make you want to write more. If you’re a graphic designer, it will inspire you to write as well. Even if you’re a politician, it will inspire you to write. This is one of those books that makes everyone want to become a writer.

With so much enthusiasm for her work, I couldn’t help but contact Tina May Hall on behalf of The Writing Disorder. I thought an interview would help readers understand where a person who writes like this comes from, and how she became the writer she is today.

So I used my various resources and came up with an email. I sent off a note to Ms. Hall, and presto, she agreed to be interviewed for our literary journal. Not only was Tina a great person to interview, she also provided us with an example of her work to reprint on our site. With kind permission from the University of Pittsburgh Press, we thank you. And we’d like to thank Tina for taking valuable time away from her writing, teaching, and family, to participate in this interview. Thank you, Tina.

 

tinabook

THE INTERVIEW

THE WRITING DISORDER: Where did you learn to write?

TINA MAY HALL: I learned to write by reading a lot as a child and then later in a more disciplined fashion at the University of Arizona, Bowling Green State University, and The University of Missouri.

TWD: What books did you read growing up?

TINA: Everything by Jane Austen and the Brontës. Louisa May Alcott, L. M. Montgomery, Madeleine L’Engle. It was pretty typical girlhood fare.

TWD: Tell us about your family life growing up. Were there any creative people in your life?

TINA: My father is an electronic engineer who is immensely talented at rigging up all kinds of devices. My mother is an artist who cycled through pottery, painting, stained glass, porcelain dolls and now is back to oil painting. She has always been incredibly, inspiringly creative in all facets of her life. Both of my parents demonstrated on a day-to-day basis how one might cobble together something beautiful and functional out of unlikely materials.

TWD: How do you begin a story or piece?

TINA: I usually start with an image and write from there. It is a bit like walking into a dark cave with only the tiniest light—very fun and a little scary.

TWD: How long is the editing process?

TINA: Probably because the starting is so undirected, the revising takes a long time. I usually take a few months to write a draft of a story and then work for a couple of years on revisions. This is why I usually have two or three projects going at once!

TWD: Do you write at a specific time of day? What do you use to write?

TINA: I used to only like to write in the morning, but now that I have a child, I’m much more pragmatic and I write whenever I have the time to do so. I always write on the computer; if I try to write longhand, everything that comes out is unbearably sentimental for some reason.

TWD: Have you ever published something before you felt it was ready?

TINA: One of the benefits of having a long revision process and being generally reluctant to send work out is that the work normally feels pretty complete by the time it is actually published. That said, I’ve had invaluable help from the editors I’ve worked with who have taken the stories I’ve sent them and refined them with really beautiful suggestions.

TWD: What is your workspace like?

TINA: Cluttered. I like to imagine a clean desk, maybe with a vase of lilacs and a white curtain blowing at the window, but it hasn’t materialized yet.

TWD: Do you have other creative talents – music art, etc.?

TINA: Nope. I’m a one-trick pony.

TWD: What is it like to be a critically-acclaimed author?

TINA: I’m not sure I’d claim this title for myself. It is lovely to have the book as an object and such fun to hear from people who have read it.

TWD: What is your home life like now?

TINA: I have a four-year-old so my home life right now revolves around superheroes, Legos, and Ben 10. That Ben 10 theme song is catchy. I find myself singing it all day long. It is an existence rather steeped in testosterone and myth, for the moment.

TWD: What is a typical writing day for you?

TINA: As I said before, I have to fit the writing in where I can, which is wonderful and aggravating at the same time. A few years ago, my idea of a writing day was a whole uninterrupted day when I would get up, make myself a pot of tea and then sit and contemplate the story, write for a while, contemplate some more, write, repeat. Then I’d pour myself a glass of wine and read until bedtime. Nowadays, a more typical writing day consists of writing for a bit, getting distracted by the desires of the people around me for clean socks and underwear, packing some lunches, teaching a couple of classes, writing a little bit more after class, going to the grocery store, putting my child to bed after telling him multiple completely inaccurate stories about Superman, and then writing a bit more. Writing is a much more organic part of my life now—it really isn’t sacred in the way it used to be.

TWD: What’s the longest time you’ve gone without writing?

TINA: I write in fits and starts. There have definitely been months at a time when I don’t write fiction. So far, I’ve always been relatively secure in the knowledge that the writing will be there when I come back to it. It helps to keep a list or notebook of ideas and snippets of images, just to feel like there are things to prime the pump, need be.

TWD: Do you enjoy editing, or the initial writing process more?

TINA: Editing, by far.

TWD: How much of what you write do you throw away?

TINA: Probably about 80%.

TWD: How do you feel at the end of writing a story?

TINA: Like most writers, I feel ecstatic for about a day and then reality sets in. It always does feel like a bit of a miracle to have the whole thing in front of you, even if you are already starting to see the flaws.

TWD: What are you working on now?

TINA: I’m working on a novel about an encyclopedia entry writer who gets obsessed with Victorian arctic exploration.
TWD: What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

TINA: Hike, camp, snowshoe—anything that gets me away from desk and outside. There is something so heartening about nature; it is a relief to just enjoy trees and stones and great drifts of snow after struggling with a story.

TWD: What are the challenges of being a writer today?

TINA: I think we have a lot of very attractive things to do in front of the computer besides write. It can be hard to turn away from the email and the blogs and all that. There are so many enticing ways to spend our time talking about writing rather than actually doing it!

TWD: What do you read now, who do you admire?

TINA: I read Carole Maso, Jayne Anne Phillips, Lydia Davis, Kate Walbert, Kathryn Davis, Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein, Neil Stephenson, Don DeLillo, Michael Ondaatje and a whole bunch of others. I have pretty broad reading tastes and love suggestions. I still make a summer reading list each year.

Tina May Hall is assistant professor of English at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. Her stories have appeared in 3rd Bed, Black Warrior Review, Quarterly West, minnesota review, descant, the Collagist, and Water-Stone Review, among others. She is the author of the chapbook All the Day’s Sad Stories.

For more information, please go to: tinamayhall.com

 

AND NOW…
From The Physics of Imaginary Objects (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010)
a story from TINA MAY HALL

 

Faith Is Three Parts Formaldehyde, One Part Ethyl Alcohol

 

Rosa keeps her finger in a jar on the nightstand. In the morning, it twists to feel the sunlight. She watches its gentle convulsions and holds her other fingers up to share the warmth. Since she cut off her finger, she has worked in the diocese business office, filing and answering phones. Mostly, she answers questions from parents about the parish schools and fields requests for priestly appearances. While at work, she doesn’t think about her finger too much. It is just her left pinkie finger; she can still type seventy-five words a minute. In fact, some people don’t even notice it is missing. Those who do usually look appalled and ask, almost reverently, how it happened. Then she has to lie, all the while praying for the Lord to forgive her.

She used to carry the finger with her in a large shoulder bag, the jar wrapped carefully in a bath towel. For a while, she needed it with her all the time. She would take it out at work when no one else was around and in restaurant bathrooms to assure herself that it was still there, that it hadn’t dissolved, that the glass of the jar hadn’t cracked, leaving it withered and gray. She never showed it to anyone. This was partly because she didn’t want anybody to know about it. Cutting it off had been enough to make the nuns expel her from the convent, even though she was, by their account, the most promising novice they’d seen in years. If the fathers found out she had kept it, she would probably be excommunicated. The other reason she never showed anyone is because she was afraid that sharing it would diminish its potency. Her severed finger is a miracle, a divine link. Every time she unwrapped it in the darkness under her desk or in the chill of a bathroom stall, it would glow love. It is a piece of her that is always praying, a sign of the preservative power of God’s grace.

She worried so much that she finally stopped carrying it with her. During the day it drifts at the edge of her imagination, two and a half inches of waxy faith suspended in a globe of silvery liquid. At night, she dreams of watery expanses and moons shaped like fingernails.

One Thursday in April, a man in his thirties enters the diocese office a few minutes before closing. He crosses to Rosa’s desk and stands in front of her, apparently studying her name plate. His silence makes her nervous, and she tucks her left hand under her thigh before asking how she can help him. He doesn’t speak, and she wonders whether she should try to get past him to the outside door or dash into the copy room behind her where her most lethal weapon would be a five gallon bottle of toner. Just as she starts to pray to the Lord for divine intervention or at least a little timely guidance, the man pulls a small silver box from his pocket, parts the edges of his collar, and holds the box to the bit of clear tube that protrudes from his throat. “Rosa?”

She thinks it is the most beautiful and terrifying sound she has ever heard. It is a cross between a whisper and a deep bass with overtones of metal, but it is not mechanical. It is a sound she imagines stones make when mating or dying. He repeats, “Rosa?” Again the sound amazes and humbles her, provokes a feeling she has only experienced after praying for hours, late at night, when the other nuns were sleeping and she was alone in the cold arch of the chapel. There is an almost sexual tightening of her abdomen, a powerful contraction deep in her stomach.

“Yes,” she whispers.

“I didn’t mean to frighten you, it’s just that this is the only way…”

He says he has a spiritual problem. His voice still startles her, but she is becoming used to it and its effect on her; however, this question throws her into a panic because all of the priests are out of town for a convention on venial sin except for Father O’Rourke who doesn’t approve of conventions and went to Las Vegas instead for the weekend. The man looks distressed by this.

“Well, then maybe you can help me. I guess it is sort of an administrative matter.”

“I’m not really an expert,” Rosa says. “Don’t you think you’d better wait for the fathers to get back?”

The man plucks at his collar in agitation. “If I don’t resolve this now, I’m afraid I’ll lose my nerve.”

She wants to say something reassuring, but her stomach growls and the man smiles and says, “I’m keeping you from your dinner.” He holds out his left hand because he is still clasping the silver box to his throat with the right, and she hesitates but finally gives him her left hand to shake and is surprised when he doesn’t say anything about her missing finger. That’s when she finds herself asking him if he’d like to eat with her at the deli next door so they can talk more about his problem.

Over corned beef and coleslaw he asks about her missing finger, and because he asks so casually, she tells him the truth. He is the first person she has told the story. Everyone else who knows the truth heard it from the nuns who found her in the kitchen, on her knees, her severed finger beside her on the stone floor, her hands clasped, forehead pressed against the avocado metal of the refrigerator. They said she was in rapture; the doctors called it shock. She tells him how it didn’t bleed at all and how this disappointed her, how even at that time, even when she was having the most meaningful religious experience of her life, she felt somehow cheated by the absence of blood. She tells him without prompting, almost shyly, about the voice she heard before it happened, except it wasn’t a voice. It was more a feeling, a shifting of weights and forms around her. That’s how she explains it after the waitress asks if she wants cheesecake—it was as if her perception of everything slipped for a moment and she knew what she was supposed to do. He asks only one question.

“What does it mean?”

“It’s proof, of course.”

It isn’t until she has accepted his offer of a ride back to her apartment that she realizes they haven’t talked at all about his problem. He is quiet when she reminds him of it. The artificial voice box is a moth, still in his cupped palm. Then he says he was wondering if it was possible to bury objects, not a person, just an inanimate thing, in consecrated ground. She thinks for a long time before she has to say she doesn’t know, but she doesn’t think so. He sighs when she tells him this. The noise comes from his mouth, not the box; it is a painful sound that makes her knuckles ache. When they reach her apartment, he asks if he can come in for a moment, says that there’s something he’d like to show her. And because she feels this bond with him, this recognition, she doesn’t even question him, just nods and leads him down the sidewalk to her door.

“Do you have a tape player?”

His voice seems weaker, more metallic than before, and she wonders if he isn’t used to talking so much. So, as if her not speaking could conserve his strength, she simply nods again and points to the corner of the living room. He stands in front of the machine for a while, both hands pressed against it. When he does move, it is to reach into his pocket, but this time he brings out a cassette tape, not the silver box. He places it in the deck and presses play, and for a few minutes the room is quiet except for the murmur of the tape cycling into the machine. Rosa is still standing in the entranceway, the door open behind her, and she can see the dark form of his car in the mirror on the opposite wall, and strangely, she can see another reflection within that image. She recognizes the cold blur of the moon on his windshield as a voice comes out of the speakers and she knows without him telling her, for he is not talking or even looking at her, that this is his voice, was his voice. It is a child singing a song about a spider and a rainstorm, and as the rain starts falling, there is a click where the recording stops.

“May I leave this with you?”

This surprises her but she knows she will say yes, knows she won’t be able to help herself, and the sound of the tape player continuing past the voice, scanning silence, brings back that feeling of praying in the empty chapel and another memory, the rasp of metal against stone tile, the smell of onions, the whine a bone makes when it is lost. Rosa wants to give him something in exchange, to show him the thing she holds secret. She says, “I’ve been keeping something too,” and places her left hand on the coffee table, spreads her fingers until they are shaking with the effort, and uses the forefinger of her right hand to trace the cold transparent space where her pinkie used to be.

STAY IN TOUCH