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 all long for something; what if we get it? The characters
in this collection are on the verge of change, if only they could see
themselves or their situations with greater clarity. If only they—and we—could
come to terms with self-identity, perceptions of others, and the photographs
that don’t match the picture in our minds.
Which story did you most enjoy writing? Why? And which
story gave you the most trouble, and why?
I spent a seemingly inordinate amount of time on the
shortest story in the collection: “Paternity Test” is only five pages long, but
it has more characters and connections than some of the longest stories in the
book. I wrote a very fast, very rough first draft in Fall 2020, and it struck
me later that I was seeking out the day-to-day connections I was missing during
the pandemic. It took many more drafts to tighten and figure out the story’s
trajectory. Working in short forms like flash fiction, or in this case, a flash-adjacent/slightly
longer story, is a challenge I enjoy.
As for struggles, a thing about starting some of these
stories two decades ago? It’s shocking how fast society can change in that
relatively short amount of time. “In Search Of” is an early story that remains
set in the early 2000s, at a weekly newspaper where a man and woman take
personal ads by phone for the Classifieds section. That sentence alone, along
with the attitudes of the main characters about gender, bodies, race, and
romantic entanglements, form a kind of time capsule. It doesn’t seem like that
long ago, but it was, at least in terms of how much has changed since
then. I wanted to capture that time, place, and feeling even as I was making
large-scale revisions to the story and seeing it through more recent eyes. These
characters don’t have the same luxury of hindsight.
Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s
road to publication.
A story collection is such a tricky animal. I started a few
of these stories in the early to mid 2000s, in my MFA program. Even though
several were published, they were still taking on different forms post-publication.
Particularly in the revision of this book, I struggled for a long time with the
idea of “doneness.” This could be my journalism background, but to me it felt that
once something was printed, it was finished, at least in terms of my
consideration or attention. It was really a challenge to think about how they
stories could take on a new life in order to operate as a cohesive unit. The
collection went through multiple title changes, rearrangement of story order,
and detailed revision of every story, including the ones previously published.
To become a published collection, it had to evolve into a new creature.
I also entered many contests run by presses and journals, and
was occasionally a finalist, which encouraged me to keep working on the book
and submitting it. The review process of a university press can be intense, but
it helped me see the work through new eyes, which is always the goal for me in
revision: how does a reader outside of my own head read the work? And then, what
am I going to do with that information?
What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?
I have many. But one I often find myself returning to is something
I heard from Steve Almond: “Slow down where it hurts.” That moment in writing
where you find yourself wanting to speed past or gloss over: what’s beneath it,
either for you or the characters? It’s revelatory, the things that happen on
the page when you let your characters fully experience or inhabit all their
messy and true emotions in scenes. People are often trained not to pay
attention to pain, and we can trace countless individual and cultural problems that
stem from unprocessed pain. Terrible for human beings, great for fiction.
My favorite writing advice is “write until something
surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?
At the story level, there was a moment in drafting “I’m Not
Who You Think I Am” when I finally understood what happened to the missing
character, a runaway groom. That cracked the rest of the story open for me, and
I rewrote the whole thing what that in mind.
At the book level, it’s hard to believe how many lives this
collection has lived inside my computer. I don’t know if writing and assembling
a short story collection is a straightforward process for other writers, but it
certainly was not for me. I might be able to identify this as a Sarah problem,
actually, as this trends across many of my life experiences. (Is there an emoji
to convey overthinking while laughing and crying? That’s the right one for this
context.)
How did you find the title of your book?
The title story came late to the collection. When I was
revising and wrote the line, I knew it would be the book title, too. I’ve
always been interested in how we imagine or refuse to imagine the lives of
other people, and what results from connection and disconnection, from
misperception and failure of empathy. I like to think of the title, Imagine
Your Life Like This, as a dare to my characters. Also to me. And you.
Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any
food/s associated with your book? (Any recipes I might share?)
Half-moon cookies are a Syracuse staple and are featured in my
story “Hysterectomy,” which takes place near the Syracuse University campus.
The story was published in Stone Canoe, a journal once out of SU and now
part of the YMCA’s Downtown Writers Center. Two of my former colleagues at the
Syracuse Post-Standard give us the goods on half-moons: this Sean
Kirst column illustrates the significance of these delicious cookies, and
journalist and food blogger Margaret
McCormick recommends this Saveur
recipe (adapted and scaled from the Hemstrought’s Bakery recipe, which
originally made 2,400. Oh, wow. Can you imagine? I can.)
*****
READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK: https://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/6096.htm
ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR OWN TBR STACK: Any site is fine!!
Here’s one:
https://bookshop.org/p/books/imagine-your-life-like-this-sarah-layden/19670177
READ AN EXCERPT FROM THIS BOOK, “Nothing and Nobody”: https://blackbird.vcu.edu/v18n2/fiction/layden-s/nothing-page.shtml