TBR: Our Sister Who Will Not Die: Stories by Rebecca Bernard

TBR [to be read] is a semi-regular, invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released/forthcoming, interesting books who will tell us about their new work as well as offer tips on writing, stories about the publishing biz, and from time to time, a recipe.

 

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

 

The stories in Our Sister Who Will Not Die explore brutal aspects of human behavior and the complex, deeply human individuals beneath these acts. Patricide, enabling addiction, domestic violence, the cruelty of which we’re capable and the mistakes we make, these are stories about finding empathy for even our darkest, most troubling moments as people.

 

 

Which story did you most enjoy writing? Why? And which story gave you the most trouble, and why?

 

“The Pleasures of Television” was probably my favorite story to write, largely because I was wrapped up in Sandy’s voice. I think embodying a voicey first person narrator, letting the character unspool themselves is some of the most rewarding (and pleasurable!) writing. Plus, Sandy and Beau’s game of “Watching TV” allowed for more wordplay than my stories typically offer, and who doesn’t love a good pun. “Our Sister Who Will Not Die” was perhaps the trickiest to write in part because of its large cast, but also the play-like monologues. It’s a story that didn’t feel wholly right until my final read-through of the manuscript post copy-edits.

 

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

 

These stories were drafted over the course of two years of workshop, and my original hope was to wait for that elusive two-book deal. I had an early agent who gave me faith in the stories, but eventually we decided to part ways, largely due to a novel that was giving me a lot of pain. I decided at some point, well, if the two-book deal isn’t going to happen, I’ll submit to some contests because why not. And then, of course, I ended up winning The Journal’s Non/Fiction prize, thanks to their kind staff and Nick White. I was surprised because it was the first contest I heard back from, and because these stories weren’t easy to place. A number of them were those stories that get multiple personal rejections from great journals but just never find a home. But my hope is that collectively they form a whole stronger or more palatable than their parts.

 

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

 

I believe that sheer endurance, perseverance through rejection is likely the best advice or most necessary. To somehow maintain hope and just keep writing—but in terms of concrete advice, I’ve been thinking a lot about what one of my professors said during my defense, Miroslav Penkov, a brilliant writer and teacher. He said, a novel must have memorable scenes. Which probably seems obvious but has been so helpful to me. I tend to write in the page a day, plug away style, and this helps give me focus. What are the scenes I’m writing toward? What are these stand out moments going to be? What do I want readers to remember?

 

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

 

To be honest, what might be most surprising to me was getting my blurbs and realizing how dark these stories appeared to others. Or perhaps, the cohesive story the blurbs painted. I feel such abiding love for my characters, even in their moments of intense failure and frailty, though I also recognize not everyone might feel that way. I didn’t set out to write dark stories, I set out to understand how/why people would do things that seemed inexplicable to me, and through that it meant facing those worst parts of ourselves.

 

How did you find the title of your book?

 

My original title as I was drafting the stories was “Bad Things to Such Good People” which is a song title by the band Pedro the Lion, something I listened to in my early 20s.  I liked this idea of emphasizing these people as good, though I guess there’s the potential to misread it as irony. I was teaching at a men’s prison, and in part that influenced the stories, wanting to compel people to see other humans as having worth beyond their worst actions. The press thought “Our Sister Who Will Not Die” was a much better title, and my agent agreed, and I believe they were correct.

 

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book? (Any recipes I might share?)

 

Maxine’s chicken involtini comes to mind first, though a disclaimer I have never made this myself. I worked at an awesome Italian restaurant during college which is where the inspiration for the dish came from in the story. Here’s a recipe that looks good!

 

*****

 

READ MORE ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: www.rebeccaibernard.com

 

ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR OWN TBR STACK: https://ohiostatepress.org/books/titles/9780814258408.html

 

READ A STORY FROM THIS BOOK, “First Date”: https://witness.blackmountaininstitute.org/issues/vol-xxxi-2-summer-2018/first-date/

 

 

 

TBR: We Were Angry by Jennifer S. Davis

TBR [to be read] is a semi-regular, invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released/forthcoming, interesting books who will tell us about their new work as well as offer tips on writing, stories about the publishing biz, and from time to time, a recipe.

 

 

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

 

 

We Were Angry is a linked collection of stories about a group of friends in small town Alabama whose lives are haunted by tragedies that reverberate across generations. In We Were Angry, Alabama is more than a fictional setting. It’s a scene for interrogating power, privilege, pain, and what it means to live in—and to leave—the American South.

 

Which story did you most enjoy writing? Why? And, which story gave you the most trouble, and why?

 

I had a blast writing the titular story, which is the first story I wrote and the story that came the easiest. I had never written in plural first person before, and it was fascinating developing a voice that contained several characters. I am also drawn to the rhythms of that story, the repetitions, the lulling cadence. That last image, Mandy exposed and rage-filled and wholly vulnerable, informed the entire collection as I wrote it.

 

All of the other stories were incredibly difficult to write. I am a slow, slow writer who labors, often needlessly, over every image and clause. There is also a lot of sensitive content in this collection that I wanted to get right. “Those Less Fortunate” was probably the story I lingered with the longest. It is not as complex structurally as a few of the other stories, but it is—I hope—a thoughtful examination of race and class in the context of a small town in Alabama where the power dynamics are complicated by poverty and a particularly brutal and ugly regional history. In all of my stories, I seem to return to a similar theme: how desperately we want to connect meaningfully with other human beings, and yet, how we so often cause harm in our interactions and relationships because we are operating in a social structure designed to cause harm.

 

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

 

My first two collections came rather quickly and easily, both in the writing and finding publishers. Earlier in my career, I had no clue what it was like to scrape together a few minutes a day to write and to hustle to get your work out into the world. We Were Angry was a much different journey. It took me over a decade to finish the collection, and during that time I had four kids and found myself directing the MFA program at LSU. The roles of mother and teacher/director are incredibly rewarding, but they greatly impacted the time I had to work on the collection. It took forever to write these stories. My agent did shop an earlier iteration of the collection to some of the major publishers, and though I got good feedback, they all wanted a novel. A collection of short stories, particularly a non-debut collection, is difficult to place. But I love short stories, and I knew there were others out there who feel the same way. I began researching small presses that support short story writers, and I stumbled upon Press 53, which has published the work of so many wonderful short fiction writers. I thought: why not?  I revised the collection one last time and sent it out to the Press 53 Fiction Contest. I was incredibly fortunate that Kevin Watson saw something in my stories. I have learned so much during this process, and I am beyond grateful for the experience.

 

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

 

I’ve taught fiction writing for over twenty years now, and the most meaningful advice that I share with students is to write what is alive for them, not what they think they should be writing. Sometimes my students will meet with me and describe several potential projects, and sometimes I sense that they are intent on pursuing the project that is seemingly most marketable because it is more marketable. I’ll ask them—which characters are with you as you navigate your day, which characters are you thinking about as you fall asleep? Whatever the answer, that is the project you need to pursue. Yes, this is a business, and I don’t romanticize the idea of the starving artist in any way, but if the work is not alive for you, it won’t be for the reader either.

 

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

 

I generally begin a story with an image, and then I write toward that image. My characters journeys are never clear to me until I complete a story. Yet, with this collection, the stories are never quite complete. A perspective character from one story will appear as a secondary character in another story and completely upend what the reader thought they knew. The narrative arcs and character arcs keep changing and evolving as the collection progresses. Nothing is as it seems. This shifting, the layers of revelation occurring outside of each seemingly self-contained story, happened organically as I was writing, and it was definitely a welcomed surprise. I really loved the shifting narratives once they emerged, as they get at the core of what the collection is about to me: the missed connections and miscommunications so many of us experience when trying to forge relationships, our inability or reluctance to reveal ourselves to another, how trauma destabilizes our sense of self.

 

How do you approach revision?

 

I love revision. I find revision far more satisfying than the early generative stages of writing because the heart of the story is there and I just have to find its shape and voice. I practice radical revision. I start with a clean document and keep the original in my lap, referencing it as infrequently as possible. If not, I just end up moving text around the page and I can get too precious about what I want to keep. I’ll often switch perspectives, tenses, begin at the end or combine two drafts of two different stories that aren’t working on their own. Most of writing is revision, and for me, it is the best part by far.

 

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book? (Any recipes I might share?)

 

There is a surprising lack of food in this collection, but “Those Less Fortunate” is all about Thanksgiving turkeys, and I have a wonderful recipe I use for leftover turkey each year: Turkey Pot Pie {Great for Leftover Turkey!} - Spend With Pennies

 

 

*****

 

READ MORE ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: www.jennifersdavis.com

 

ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR OWN TBR STACK: We Were Angry: A Novella and Stories by Jennifer S. Davis — Press 53

 

READ A STORY, “We Were Angry”: Issue 227, Short Fiction — Press 53

 

 

 

TBR: Infinite Dimensions by Jessica Treadway

TBR [to be read] is a semi-regular, invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released/forthcoming, interesting books who will tell us about their new work as well as offer tips on writing, stories about the publishing biz, and from time to time, a recipe.

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

 

It’s a collection of 12 stories about people who try but often fail to live up to what they would say are their own moral standards, then have to face the consequences of those failures. The stories are loosely linked by character, setting, and the motif of a talking sugar bowl that appears in the work of a Russian fabulist author. My primary themes are fidelity, betrayal, self-delusion, and the power of hope.

 

Which story did you most enjoy writing? Why? And, which story gave you the most trouble, and why?

 

I enjoyed writing the title story the most, because I wasn’t writing it with an eye toward publication. I wrote it for my husband after his father, who was a mathematician and mathematics professor, died. I wasn’t worried about whether I was being “too sentimental”; I didn’t care. And I think the not caring was what allowed me to write as freely as I did, and to come up with a story that meant something to me and my family personally, regardless of whatever might happen beyond that.

 

The story that gave me the most trouble was the longest one, “Sky Harbor,” which is almost a novella. It wasn’t the length I struggled with, but the final scene, because I wanted to render it in such a way that the reader might wonder even for an instant what’s real and what isn’t, just as my character does.

 

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

 

Not many if any lows—I’m always happy and grateful to have a book published! A high was having a manuscript that’s entirely new stories, because originally I’d set out to combine new stories with some favorites from my previous two collections.

 

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

 

“Not without doubt, but in spite of doubt.” A Rollo May quote I came across when I was in college. Sometimes I even write the sentence at the top of my own pages to remind myself that feeling inspired isn’t a requirement for me to keep working. In the same vein, Mary Karr once reminded me that “Faith is not a feeling; it’s a set of actions.” Same thing. You can act, or write, without necessarily “feeling it.”

 

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book? 

 

That I can write short short stories as well as long ones. And in some ways, it’s harder, as in that saying “I was going to write you a short note, but I didn’t have time, so I wrote you a long one.” Everything has to be distilled to that much sharper a degree. Now I’m writing short short stories almost exclusively, and though it’s difficult, it’s very rewarding when I feel that I’ve pulled it off.

 

What’s something about your book that you want readers to know?

 

A few of the stories in this collection came from an assignment to myself, which was to write stories without entering characters’ heads or hearts (because that is my default, inhabiting their internal landscapes). All the emotion in those stories have to be inferred from dialogue, gesture, or action. I hope I’ve succeeded; it was definitely an eye-opener for me, realizing how automatically I tend to say how someone’s thinking or feeling, when it can often be more powerful to let the reader discern those things from how the character behaves in the world.

 

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book? (Any recipes I might share?)

 

The only food I can think of is a store-bought chocolate cake one of my characters steals from a car she walks by! I guess you’d have to ask the bakery at Stop & Shop for the recipe. 

 

*****

 

READ MORE ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: https://www.jessicatreadway.com/

 

ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR OWN TBR STACK:   https://bookshop.org/books/infinite-dimensions-stories/9781953002112

 

READ A STORY FROM THIS BOOK, “Kwashiorkor”:   https://coloradoreview.colostate.edu/features/kwashiorkor/

 

 

TBR: Bookish People by Susan Coll

TBR [to be read] is a semi-regular, invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released/forthcoming, interesting books who will tell us about their new work as well as offer tips on writing, stories about the publishing biz, and from time to time, a recipe. 

 

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

 

A vacuum cleaner, events in Charlottesville, a solar eclipse, a couple of Yiddish jokes I stole from my husband, and an independent bookstore came together to inspire Bookish People. A screwball comedy set in Washington DC during one soggy August week, the novel captures the spiritual depletion of a recently widowed bookstore owner and her overeducated, underpaid crew of booksellers. They are caught in the middle of a controversy: A reviled British poet who is scheduled to appear at the store has just been cancelled because of his misogynist behavior. What is a progressive bookstore owner to do?

 

 

Which character did you most enjoy creating? Why? And which character gave you the most trouble, and why?

 

I have begun answering this question about six times now, and I’m still not satisfied with the answer. I feel I ought to say that I most enjoyed writing Sophie, the bookstore owner, or Clemi, the events manager, both of whom I can relate to, and who I understand intuitively because they are each, in a way, a little bit of me. But in the end, I confess that I had the most fun writing Raymond Chaucer, the misogynistic poet who, in the pages of this book, is on one long bender. He’s on tour for his new poetry collection, and he’s been cancelled before being cancelled was even a thing. The reading public believes that he is responsible for his wife’s suicide, and he’s being compared to Ted Hughes. Fun fact: Raymond appeared in my previous novel, The Stager, in the context of his other, other family. He has a complicated life.

 

Raymond was also the most difficult character to write. I worried that he was too dark, and that he might alienate readers. My editor suggested cutting his point of view, which I did, but then I found I missed him, so I wound up sticking bits of him back in.

 

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

 

It’s never easy, this publishing thing, and each book is its own challenge. I had the same agent for nearly 20 years and had also worked with the same editor for more than a decade.  My editor’s namesake imprint folded, and I switched agents, all of which was somewhat traumatic. Also my timing wasn’t the best—shortly after the book went out on submission, the pandemic began, and for months I didn’t hear anything. But in the end serendipity prevailed: My new agent learned about a new imprint at Harper, and he sent the manuscript off.  I am incredibly fortunate to have found an amazing editor who made this a much stronger book and am grateful for this fresh start.

 

 

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

 

It sounds cliché, and it is cliché, but write because you love to write, and because you have to write, and because you love the bookish life, and not because you think the outcome will be life-changing. Even if the stars align for you and your book, the challenges will keep coming, and it’s important to stay centered and remember why one writes.

 

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

 

I love that advice! In my previous novel, The Stager, I was taken by surprise when the pet rabbit in the book began to talk. I used to roll my eyes when I heard authors say that their characters took on lives of their own, but in this case the rabbit quite assertively inserted himself into the narrative and had a lot of things to say. I had a similar experience in Bookish People, when the vacuum cleaner developed a distinctive personality. Ditto for the Russian Tortoise, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. I suppose the common thread here is that animals and inanimate objects ought not be underestimated in their supporting roles.

 

What’s something about your book that you want readers to know?

 

I hope readers come to the book understanding that it’s intentionally screwball, with a lot of manic action and zaniness.

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book? (Any recipes* I might share?)

There is, alas, a lot of unhealthy food: Buffalo Ranch Pringles and French fries are consumed, as is craft beer and a couple of skim cappuccinos.

Two party scenes feature distinctive alcoholic beverages: Malort, a famously foul-tasting spirit from Chicago, is chugged in the opening scene. The penultimate chapter features a solar eclipse cocktail called Penumbra Punch, which includes three different kinds of rum from a private Bermuda reserve, pineapple juice, and grenadine. There might be more ingredients, but my character is interrupted mid-sentence, so we’ll never know what else is in there.

 

****

 

READ MORE ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: www.Susancoll.com

 

ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR OWN TBR STACK: https://www.politics-prose.com/book/9781400234097