Daniel Wallace talks about BIG FISH, my favorite novel, film and Broadway Show

Imagine watching a Broadway show where the stage becomes a drowned city. Where mermaids flip their tails downstage. Where your heart gets smashed and rebuilt. That magic comes from a novel (which was also a magnificent film), Big Fish, by Daniel Wallace, about fathers and sons, dreamers, and the stories we tell ourselves and others. Wallace is also the author of Big Fish, Ray in Reverse, The Watermelon King, O Great Rosenfeld, Off the Map, Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician and the Kings and Queens of Roam, and I'm so thrilled to have him here. Thank you so, so much, Daniel!

You've had a variety of odd jobs before you became a writer. Tell us about the transformation.

It actually didn't feel like a transformation to me.  I was a writer long before I was a writer. I negotiated my work life -- every part of my life, really -- so I would have more time to write, more opportunities to learn, to read, to surround myself with words. So I worked in bookstores, helped direct the literacy council, drew pictures. I was lucky never to be too far from the world where I wanted to be. It's overlooked sometimes but the truth is I do the same thing now, five novels into a so-called career, that I did then, thirty years ago, five novels away from my first publication: I sit down and write. Nothing's changed. 

Big Fish is so moving. About fathers and sons, and really, about the stories we tell and the stories we make of our lives, it resonated with me on so many, many levels. Can you talk about what sparked the writing of this novel? And what was the writing like?

Looking back I think about writing this book, my sixth after five unsuccessful attempts, and like to think it felt different than the other ones did, but I don't know if that's true. I may just be making up a past to go with the future this book brought with it. It may be closer to the truth to say that I'd rather be writing than doing almost anything else, and that I get as much joy from  writing badly as I do when I appear to be writing well. I might not be able to tell the difference.  

But the book started with the title. I had those two words -- BIG FISH -- scrawled on a piece of notebook paper and taped the wall of the laundry room where I wrote and I would look at them and think how great a title that was for a book. All I needed was a book to go with it! I'd always been drawn to Greek myth, and my father was (and still is I imagine) both a magnetic and repulsive force in my life. It's always good to write toward your passions, and with this book I think, for the first time, this is what I did. My father was alive and well when I wrote it, though. I don't think I could have written a novel about a dying father if he actually had been dying. The writing came quick; it's a pretty short book. 

I always ask about the craft, because I'm obsessed by it. Big Fish has this perfect structure, where things pay off in the most astonishing ways. When you were writing the novel, did you always know where it was going, how it would end up? Or was that a surprise?

I never know the end of a story, or sometimes even its middle, when I start, and especially with this one I had no idea. I didn't even know it was going to be a novel. I was taking care of my infant son and didn't have as much time to write so the structure was dictated by his reality: I was writing a couple of hundred words a day, tales mythologizing this contemporary man, but I didn't think there was a novel in it until one appeared through the simple accumulation of pages. I didn't know how it was going to end until I was almost at the end, and I was so happily surprised that I was writing a book where such a thing could happen and actually make sense. But I had to go back and rewrite it of course so that it would make sense to somebody other than me.

You have said, "I was capable of writing and sometimes that feels like magic," which is accurate and wonderful. Can you talk about that please?

I tried to do something other than write, to work a real job, because I really do think -- without being overly-dramatic -- that if you can not be a writer than you should not be a writer. It's not remunerative, hard work that often ends in ashes. But it gave me something I didn't get anywhere else, and that's still the case. Just hearing what words sound like when they rub together as I write them -- that's such a simple pure joy to me. I am so easily entertained by that. And that's just the beginning. 

It's rare for an author to have both a film and a Broadway show of his or her work. Did you have any input in either? Was it a strange experience to see your work in another medium?

It's always strange to see one thing become another, completely different thing: the question is whether it's good strange or bad strange, and my experience with the transmogrification has been good. I'm lucky in that my story was adopted and adapted by seriously talented people. I love what they did with the story, movie and musical. I played a very minor part in both. 

What's obsessing you now and why?

The haiku I'm writing, adapted from my novel Big Fish:

He hides behind lies

and charm. I do not know him.

My father's a fish.

Not really. 

I'm working on a novel. I've also written a script we're casting now. I love it. It's based on this short film. http://vimeo.com/40915654

-- DHW 

www.danielwallace.org/roam/

Leslie Jamison talks about THE GIN CLOSET, whether people can really be saved, writing, and so much more

My old publicist and friend Michael Taeckens (now the marketing director at Gray Wolf) told me I would love this book, and when Michael talks, I always listen. And he was right. I was so enthralled by this novel, I wanted to reread it as soon as I finished. Set in the late 60s, it's about Tilly Rudolf, who is drinking herself to death in a trailer park. But then her niece Stella shows up and both their lives begin to be impacted. It's raw, graceful, and totally unforgettable, and I can't be more honored to host Leslie Jamison.

What sparked this novel? 

The biographical answer to that question is where I usually go, when asked, so I’ll start with the short version of that: I was living with my grandmother, who was dying, and during those days I started writing about what it felt like to be confronting her failing health, and the possibility of her death; and thinking about that overwhelming difficulty and loss in relation to her long estrangement from one of her daughters—my aunt, a woman I had never met. In that sense, the book was something of a What if? that sprang from real life; I imagined a reconnection that hasn’t—yet—happened in life.

But the more conceptual answer—the one I articulate less frequently, because it lends itself less readily to articulation—has to do with the question of pain. I was interested in representing pain that doesn’t necessarily have a discrete source. As a culture, we’re attached to pain that comes from some conspicuous catalyst—old childhood wounds, traumas, misfortune. But sometimes the roots of pain are harder to trace—or harder to label precisely—and I think this is especially true for women, who often feel a sense of innate lack or wanting, an urge to harm themselves or do everything in their power to redress a sense of inadequacy they’ve almost absorbed osmosis-style from the world around them. This nebulous, sourceless, inexplicable pain is harder to talk about—and it often invites a kind of scorn or impatience. I wanted to illuminate its contours; how it might manifest. It’s also uncomfortable to talk about because it attaches to gender in tricky ways; it feels like there is something “female” about it, or can be, but that essentializing also feels perilous. I’m interested in dissecting archetypes of wounded women rather than simply re-hashing or perpetuating them.

The novel is narrated by both Stella, a young woman, and Tilly, the mysterious aunt Stella connects with, which is a deeply satisfying structure. What made you decide on this structure rather than filtering it all through the eyes of just Stella?

That’s a fantastic question; and somehow intuits the genesis of the book without my having explained it. The novel started out told entirely from Stella’s perspective—in fact, the first few drafts were just her version of the story. But I was feeling increasingly unsatisfied with Tilly’s role in the story (her name was Maddy in those early drafts) for several reasons—she felt too flat to me, as if she were entirely defined by her dysfunction, her pain, her role as a catalyst for the salvation strategies of other people. I wanted to make her fuller; to give her a self that held something beyond self-destruction and wounds. I also wanted to tell parts of her story that Stella might not have access to—more of her early life, and her experience of giving birth; in part because these portions of her history would help to bring out those parts of her (her nurturing impulse, her care for others) that weren’t necessarily illuminated by her adult life. 

I toyed around with a number of structural possibilities—perhaps Stella could find letters or diary entries that narrated these experiences?—but none of these possibilities felt right. Tilly wasn’t someone naturally prone to writing everything it down; it didn’t feel right that she would have committed everything to text. 

It was actually at a hotel in Detroit—I remember I was stuck there on a layover, on one of the coldest nights of the year, and I wasn’t particularly happy to be stranded—that I realized I wanted to narrate some of the book from Tilly’s perspective. This felt simultaneously daunting and liberating: I realized I could do this (no one was stopping me) and that I felt urgently compelled to do so—which meant the book I thought was done was really only halfway done. Moral? The god-function of the author is also a burden! 

But it was incredible: reimagining the structure of the book, and giving Tilly her own voice, really forced me to dig deeper into her character, to sculpt her identity more fully. 

So much of the book is about Stella’s attempt to save Tilly. Do you think people can ever be saved?

Wow. Big question. Hard question. Great question. I do think people can be saved, but I think that saving is never permanent or final, and “saving” never works as a fully transitive verb. Which is to say: saving is always a process—always fragile, tenuous, a structure we daily construct rather than a destination we reach—and it’s not something one person can “do” to another; it must also involve coaxing or reawakening some self-saving impulse in the one being saved. 

I’d also say—for the record—that my take on whether saving is possible, or how it might work, is pretty different now than when I wrote the book. Which is interesting for me to think about. I haven’t read the novel since before it was published—probably not for four years or so—and I’d be curious to feel my own reactions if I reread it. It might be a few more years before I’m ready to do that.

What surprised you in the writing of the book?

Well, certainly the fact that it ended up including Tilly’s perspective as well as Stella’s. As I mentioned above, that was a third-draft revelation. What else? How much I liked Abe—how I gave him so many traits I admired, even while I put him through quite a bit of pain (though I suppose you could say that about all the characters…) I was also surprised by how much I enjoyed the Rashomon effect of narrating the same scene—or at least, recounting it—from two different perspectives. That’s something I’d love to experiment with even more.

There are so many wonderful moments in the book--Stella remembering a typing course, for example--that I’d love to talk about craft. How did you write this novel? Are you an outliner at all, or do you wade into the darkness and hope the story will reveal itself?

Entirely the latter, and that’s a perfect way of describing it—wading into the darkness and hoping the story would reveal itself.  I was following emotion and intuition and my own life unfolding. I have been trying to write a second novel—very different in subject and scope, about the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua—that involved an outline (an outline pasted on my wall, actually) but found that sapped some electricity from the process, for me. I’m still trying to figure that out.

What is it about the typing scene—or other moments—that makes you want to ask about craft? That piqued my curiosity. One of my big struggles with this book was figuring out how many of my flashback scenes actually belonged in the final manuscript—for both women—and which ones I needed to write mainly to get to know them better. 

What’s obsessing you now and why?

A lot of things! One of them is this whale named 52 Hertz—who has been dubbed “the loneliest whale in the world,” because his courtship song is at a higher frequency than other whales, and he’s always tracked alone. I’m less fascinated by him and more fascinated by how many other people are fascinated by him—artists, writers, ordinary lovelorn folks, singers writing songs to sing back. Of course, I’m writing about it.

What question didn’t I ask that I should have?

It’s not like I missed this question—because I get it often enough, from lots of readers—but it’s one I’m still asking myself: Why incest? It’s not something you see that frequently; and it’s pretty striking—and kind of obscene, seems deliberately shocking—and what is it doing? What is that shock doing? 

I’ve caught myself feeling a bit sheepish about the incest, to be honest, because I’m not sure I have a water-tight account of why it needs to be there—only that it seemed like what happened to these characters when they closer to each other in these confusing and uncomfortable ways. Which is to say: in truth, I’m a bit confused by my own choices. I don’t doubt them—they feel true to the book, spoken in that maddeningly spiritual/intuitive sense that authors sometimes speak about these things—but I can’t entirely provide a conceptual account of them. 

If my literary-critic-self (I’m also a grad student in English) were to swoop down and start dissecting my author-self, I might say something like this: the novel is interested in non-traditional forms of intimacy, relationships that defy traditional categories of intimacy; and this was one of those—the most extreme example of that, a kind of closeness that hadn’t been given any recognizable space to inhabit; that would never be given any kind of permission or permitted category.  Incest also permits a certain kind of emotional concision in the book, by forcing the characters into a more claustrophobic triangle. All three of them have profound investments in each other; it makes a web.

Tamar Ossowski talks about the creative process, having a child with autism, and her luminous new novel LEFT

Sometimes you get lucky and get to see a novel in the early stages. I read early versions of LEFT and was knocked out. The story of two young girls, one of them autistic, and a mother on the run, it's very much a book about the stories we tell ourselves and others in order to make sense of our lives. Thank you so, so much, Tamar for coming on the blog.

I have a child who is on the autism spectrum. 

Things can be confusing for him and he is someone who needs maps to navigate his world.  Or more accurately, he needs maps to navigate OUR world.  When he speaks he needs to remember to look people in the eye.  He needs to remember that most people are not interested in hearing about the history of pinball machines or seeing his collection of used VHS tapes.  He has had to learn that even if someone is not speaking to him they may still be communicating. He thinks differently than me.  He experiences the world differently than me.  But in the end, we are not that different.

At the age of three my son was non-verbal and communicated by pointing.  As he struggled to make himself understood, I struggled too. I signed up for an online writing class because I needed to find a place to share my voice, a place where I could be heard.  On the very first day, the instructor told us to put 10 meaningful words into a hat, pull out five and begin to write. 

And that was the beginning of my novel, LEFT.   

It took almost eight years to complete. Even though the process was organic and authentic it was also filled with anxiety.  Most of the time I felt like I was blindfolded and trapped in a dark locked room with nothing but instinct to guide me. My child and I had more in common than I thought.

I had incredible support from teachers and writers (thank you Caroline!) to keep going and what finally emerged were passages of writing that seemed both glorious and magical and honest.  I wrote and rewrote and struggled but most of all I tried to have hope. It was also around this time my child began to speak and when he was almost five we learned that he was reading at the level of a twelve year old.  

My son is a teenager now.  He uses graphic organizers to help him compose essays and break down math problems. He is more comfortable and competent with technology than I am. He has finally figured out that I am not being literal when I say something with sarcasm (which I do often).  He has learned to express his needs and adapt to this world and I am proud of his courage and of all that he has accomplished.   

I have tried to adapt as well. I no longer write without an outline because like him, I need structure in order to gain understanding. I need a tool to help me make sense of all that is going on around me.  I need these things to help me find my way through the dark.

For many reasons I am lucky to be his mother. He has taught me to be patient, to be less judgmental and a little more forgiving. Mostly though, by watching him learn to find his map, I have also learned to find mine.

Tamar Ossowski is married and has three children, one of whom was born with special needs and could spell before he learned to speak. She wrote the novel Left to explore the possibility that you can only become the person you are supposed to be once you truly embrace the person you already are.

Ossowski resides in Needham, Massachusetts.  You can follow her on her own web page, as well as Facebook or Twitter:

www.tamarossowski.com

www.facebook.com/tamarossowskiauthor

@TamarOssowski

Paula Marie Coomer, author of the memoir BluE MOON VEGETARIAN writes about how a vacuum cleaner changed her life

I'm a vegetarian so of course I was interested in Paula Marie Coomer's memoir Blue Moon Vegetarian. It's such a fantastic book that I asked her to write something for the blog. Thank you, Paula!

Silent Beautiful

The shift in my life came in the form of a Hoover vacuum cleaner. Sixty bucks, fully refurbished, thirty-day guarantee. An exact replica of the one Phil and I owned, the one he bought when he was single, which I'd brought in to be serviced, and which wasn't worth saving.
So I traded, took home the new one. Plugged it in.
No burning rubber smell. No gears grinding. As Emerson might say: silent beautiful. Meaning unexpected. Meaning a gift from the Great Whatever. Like having your mug of beer turned quick!flash! into a flute of butter-silk champagne.
You know the kind.

The minute I saw that new-red version of our old machine, I sighed. A sign. An omen. I'm getting older now. I don't want to depend on signs and omens too much. I prefer to take things as they come.
Still, I couldn't shake the metaphor: the Hoover changed but not too much, a better, lovelier version of what we had before. And so it was last week: a few very old bills paid off, finally making strides in the now five-year-old renovation of our beloved two-story Victorian, meaning we finally agreed to pay someone to finish the job for us.
And, I sheepishly had to admit to myself, our marriage—three years in—finally becoming comfortable with itself after a world of challenges: imagine Andi Griffith marrying Madonna. That's just about how hard it's been to settle into all the nooks and crannies of ourselves and in a house that has just as many. We've both known it all along. It's not just our house but us we've been trying to restore. When we met, we were both pretty broken. Not two wholes but a conglomeration of parts.

The book I wrote about the year of our wedding, Blue Moon Vegetarian, explores those nooks and crannies. It also chronicles our journey from omnivore to vegan and the way we healed ourselves by changing the kind of food we ate and by creating recipes. Somewhere in the middle there's a crazy shelter dog named Tesla we tried to adopt, who we also thought was a metaphor for our joining, because he was a highly-pedigreed mixed-breed, and so by gosh were we. Of course you know that metaphor was nothing more than camouflage for a big, emotional conflagration that appears just often enough in our story to make you fear the entire blamed house is going to burn down.

Which, not to worry you, it never quite does.


Paula Marie Coomer is the author most recently of the poetry collection Nurses Who Love English and the novel Dove Creek, which was featured at the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association 2011 Fall Tradeshow. Her new memoir Blue Moon Vegetarian will be released Nov. 20 from Booktrope.

The First True Lie, Cartwheel, The Firecracker King, Cash: What I'm Reading

CASH by Robert Hilburn

What I love about this dark, gritty book is how it’s a picture of a whole career. People think of Cash as this icon, but his career had tremendous up and downs, and even someone like Cash struggled with failure. Just a towering book.

FIRECRACKER by Mark Bayan
Richly atmospheric and haunting, this coming of age tale, set against a 1965 backdrop, investigates the murder of a beautiful teenage girl. Fun fact: Bayan is the genius I relied on for all-things-gun research for my novel-in-progress.

THE FIRST TRUE LIE by Marina Mander
A young boy navigates life after his mother dies in his house, a fact he keeps secret. Unsettling, spare, and unforgettable.

CARTWHEEL by Jennifer DuBois

Who wasn’t fascinated by the Amanda Knox case? DuBois imagines the story as fiction in a novel that is all about how we believe what we believe--and why.

The amazing Anne Lamott talks about Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair, loss, life, and so much more

Aces and diamonds. That's beloved author Anne Lamott. I've read and loved every one of her amazing novels like Rosie and Crooked Little Heart. I learned how to raise my son reading Operating Instructions (and I'm learning how to let go from reading Some Assembly Required). Writing woes? I turn to Bird by Bird. Spiritual Ones? Help, Thanks, Wow and now Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair, which I think is her most profound and powerful book yet. This is the book that explores how we can best live in the midst of a deeply troubled world, how we can make sense of tragedy, or at least get through it. Glinting through this wondrous book is wisdom. Help one another. Be Kind. Wait for the real meaning to reveal itself, because it could be a gift.

You can watch Annie on Oprah's Super Soul Sunday and please come hear me interview her in person at Word Bookstore in Maplewood, November 9th, Saturday at two. 

Annie, I remain so grateful to you, and I am so giving you a huge hug when I see you on the 9th! Thank you for being here.



I’ve read and loved all of your books, but this particular one felt different to me--the power was much rawer, the language more beautiful and poetic. Were you aware of this? And why do you think this is?--

-
I don't know!  I started it the day after the slaughter at Newtown, and was filled with fear and grief and being stunned.  I never lost faith in the greatness of God, and of people, but I thought, Where do we find meaning now, after this appalling tragedy?  I have seen so many people come fully back to life after literally unsurvivable loss, one day at a time, through love, profound loyalty, maybe...dare I say it?  Grace.  I mean grace in the sense of buoyancy, when you think you are going down under the waves--but it turns out the Love is like water wings.

Newtown was uniquely awful, but every day, we live with terrifying images, of polar bear cubs floating away, and all these shootings, and the crazily wailing roaring addictive sickening pace of our lives.  I wondered, where is the meaning for us ow, in the modern era?  

The opening struck a chord with me, where you talk about how anything can and does happen. You find love and there is a school shooting. The baby you lovingly raised turns out to be a stripper. How can we go on in the face of this? In a way, this book, your attempt to find meaning in the face of terrible tragedies like the school shooting.

-
I think the question is not so much, How do we go on, because life naturally wants to stay alive.  But how do we live again fully both in the face of devastation, AND in the modern world's chaotic technological frenzy?  In this bizarre, new science fiction world?  How do we stay, or become,  who we were born to be, when we are pummeled with both feelings of loss and confusion, AND the information bombardment--to which we are often magnetically drawn?  And to which some of us feel somewhat addicted?  

What actions do we take to insist on a rich, present human life, where we are not strung out over meaningless multi-tasking bullshit, helicoptering, or unresolved grief and damage from possibly VERY crazy childhood situations?

How do we trust that God or Life has something better in store for us?  And how do we begin or sustain this process and path of Seeking?

As I said in the book, I think these questions are worth asking.

I also loved what you said about grief, how the books are all wrong, how it does not go away--no, not ever--but you learn to live with it alongside you and even find meaning, whether it’s by honoring someone who has died by living in a way that they might have, with grace and kindness. 

I started to have a suspicion ten, fifteen years ago that we may NEVER get over the hugest losses of our life, contrary to what society and family tell us--that time heals all.  When you can't "get over" someone's death, is it you that is crazy?  And are we even SUPPOSED to?  Who got this meme started?  Maybe I am willing to pay for sorrow in my heart that my dad and mom and Pammy's deaths caused, because they are very much alive to me.  They're right here, and maybe that has to do with my lack of willingness to "get over" their death.  To tell an older person that time heals all, and they will "get over" their spouse' death or dementia, seems abusive to me

“We live stitch by stitch.”  I know what this means, but can you talk about it for readers?  

When we have a huge change, or loss, empty nest or divorce, or a public catastrophe, like Newtown, it's so daunting. It leaves us stunned, raw, speechless, feeling like little children.  It seems hopeless.  Our minds tell us that we can't get over this, or make peace with that, or have a big rich trusting life again; let alone joy and laughter.

     
But all around us are people who can and do help, who rush to our sides, like white blood cells.  I love that Mr. Rogers' mother told him when he was a boy that after a tragedy, he should look towards the helpers--that's where we'll see the miracles.  And all around us are people who did lose their spouses to death or divorce or Alzheimer's, who did resurrect, over time and with infusions of grace, and the revelation of life's difficult, gorgeous truths.  And one of these truths is that we just have to make a knot in a piece of thread, and make one stitch, in fabric that will hold a knot, and then figure out one place on the other side of the torn fabric, that will hold one stitch.  How can that POSSIBLY be enough?  I just know that it is.

The book is also about all kinds of other stitches, not just emergency ones but ones we take in creating beauty, and connection; and in helping lost causes find their way back to cool lives, and in finding very surprising patterns and connections, where we had thought none existed.

My favorite part of the book was the most devastating, about your friend Pammy and her blouse and how you wore it until it was a rag and then you had to let it go. But even in letting it go, you still carry Pammy inside of you. This felt like the truest metaphor for grief that I’ve read in a long time. 

Thank you,my honey.

I also loved your line that comfort and isolation--the ways we try to protect ourselves--comfort and isolation are not where surprises are, because that’s where I feel safest, I’m sorry to say.

I completely hate this, too, and am most comfortable in isolation.  I also hold resentments, and hold my breath, and hold onto the old ways, even though over and over again, when I let go, here and there, Life surprises me, and God is such a show off.  Left to my own devices, I am positive that if I get what I think is best, then I will be happy and safe....but (horribly) this is just not true, or at least, the feeling doesn't last very long. And thank God I am NOT left to my own devices.  I have friends!  The greatest miracle and gift of all.  At the same time, I can't get safety from something outside, that I can buy, lease, date, or manipulate.  Safety is an inside job.  Safety comes NOT from clinging and holding on to what I love, but letting go, breathing deeply, practicing radical self-care, repeating and affirming myself.  Left foot, right foot, left foot, breathe.......

The search for meaning is where we find meaning is a lot like the whole idea of the journey being more important than the destination. I hate thinking this is true, but it is, isn’t it?

I think so.  I hate when people say cheerfully, "Life is a journey."  I find that I want to attack them.   And yet, I read Cavafy's  "Ithaca" several times a year, and to me it is one of the greatest, truest, loveliest poems ever written, and it totally convinces me that fully engaging in our own unique journey is the greatest way to live this one precious life we've bless with.

What surprised you in writing this book? What were the discoveries you made? What do you hope people will bring to it? Or have it bring to them?

It surprised me that I wrote it at all.  

It sounds so depressing, especially after Help, Thanks, Wow, which was pretty cheerful--the search for meaning, like something you' should think about in college.  But it is exhilarating stuff to ponder--why are we here?  How can we become more awake, more alive, and break the trance of being so busy, yet so shut down and small?  How can we become big and juicy?  How can we possibly come through the dark and scary times that are inevitably a part of each human life, and help those we love, too?

I hope this book is very nourishing for people, and that they find it funny, and encouraging, that we can and do come through it all, together, one day at a time.  And that we do grow, and our lives can become more expansive, and immediate, and sweet.

What’s obsessing you now and why? 

Publication!  I think you know the drill. The whole month before is such a nightmare.  I'm so positive that if this or that happens, with reviews and sales, that I'll be completely healed of all my self-doubt and Swiss cheesey-ness.  

Adriana Trigiani talks about The Supreme Macaroni Company, food, fate, and so much more

I first met Adriana Trigiani at BEA, at a special luncheon for the American Library Association. I was one of four authors speaking, and Adriana went last, which was a good thing, because she was so hilarious that none of us could have followed her. Way more famous than any of the other writers there, she climbed to the podium carrying all our books and said a bit about each one, urging everyone int he audience to buy our books immediately! My editor introduced me to her afterwards and Adriana gave me a huge hug. How could you not adore a person like that?

And adore her I do. She shot to fame with Big Stone Gap, followed by Big Cherry Holler, Milk Glass Moon, Home to Big Stone Gap, Lucia, Lucia, The Queen of the Big Time, Rococo, Very Valentine and Brava, Valentine, all of which top the bestseller lists. She's also written a cookbook, Cooking With my Sisters, and her books have sold in over 35 countries. Viola in Reel Life, is her young adult novel, and Don't Sing at the Table: Life Lessons from my Grandmothers is her peak into the lives of the women who meant the most to her.

But wait, there's more! A former writer/producer on The Cosby Show, A Different World, and executive producer/head writer for City Kids for Jim Henson Productions, she wrote Growing up Funny for Lily Tomlin, which won an Emmy nomination.She's also a screenwriter, who has written the adaptation of Lucia, Lucia and Very Valentine.

Her new novel, The Supreme Macaroni Company is the final installment in the Valentine trilogy. About juggling family and business, it's truly a book about the paths that fate takes us, and what we do when we get there.

I'm thrilled to host Adriana here. Thank you, thank you, Adriana.

Did you always know that you were going to do a trilogy about Valentine? And since, this is the final installment of the Valentine trilogy, I have to ask, do you miss her already? (Because I do.)   

I do miss Valentine! My dream was to follow a woman from 30 to 40 and tell her story in work and love and family. She's gotten more complex over time, but every woman I know becomes more interesting and more complicated as she faces life, figures out her career, motherhood, caring for aging parents and grandparents- being a good and faithful friend.  

You’ve been called a master of visual detail (Washington Post), an epic writer, and an ambitious and daring one, which is absolutely spot on. Your pages virtually breathe. So let’s talk about craft. How do you write? Do you know where the story is going or do you have only the barest idea? Do you map it out before hand or let it find its way organically?

Thank you for these beautiful compliments. I'm one of those people who has to write everyday- and I like a good eight hour schedule. I break it up- I rise very early and do several hours before my family is up- then, once the school day begins, I get back to it. I work at home, often outside in our backyard when the weather is good. Even when it gets cold, I head outside. Sometimes I know where the story is going, but even when I do, I allow for sudden inspiration that gives way to surprise. Surprise is often the mother of wonder.  Novels are such a great home for the art of wonder. I do an outline, and I spend months noodling with names. I keep a gold box of memorial cards with saints on them that my grandmother collected at funerals. Maybe this is why I write about Italians so often! 

All the information about shoes and cobblers just fascinated me. Tell us about the research, and could you make a pair of shoes if you had to?  My work is really about honoring the working person. And then, I dig in deep, honoring the person in my family who could do that particular work. I felt close to my grandfather when I went to Italy to learn how to make shoes by hand. I handled the tools he used on a daily basis, and learned how to discern the quality of suedes, leather and fabrics, not an easy task in Italy where everything has aesthetic appeal.
             
I think I could make a pair of shoes- but you're also talking to someone who thinks she could ice skate in the Olympics with enough practice. By the way, I've never ice skated, but when I was a kid and saw the Ice Capades, I was crazy about the skaters and those wild Vegas costumes and thought, "That's the career for me." I'm one of those people who thinks she can do anything- and I can, I guess, in my imagination. However, the art of shoemaking, like any art form, is based in technique- and technique is hours of practice. Then, the designer has to have an eye- and the strength to deliver elements that will please the customer. I like the unexpected element in a shoe- that makes my happy when I look down at my feet. I am a lover of the craft, not a designer, and certainly not an artisan. I believe the artist becomes a master craftsman when she spends decades refining her craft. It's not about liking shoes- it's about living shoes. 

There is such feeling in the book--and such food! And there is my favorite line,  “Love is only real and true when it makes you feel safe.” Can you talk a bit about that glorious line, please?

Well, I think about this a lot. I am married, and I think about commitment a lot. As an artist, I hope to be adventurous- but the truth about love is that over time, you have to love security as much as you love discovery. When I fell in love, and I remember this, I needed dramamene. I had to really navigate that surrender- as it's not really a comfortable place. I need my solitude and I like standing outside the circle and observing everyone else- but when it's your heart you're giving away, to someone, who hopefully deserves it, it's the ultimate sacrifice. As an artist, it's as if I observe the world in a state of challenge- and as you know, as you read my books, I'm fascinated by work and love- I'm forever fascinated by why we choose the person we choose to love- over say, that person over there. And then, that great mystery, a long marriage, is a rubics cube. And it's different for everyone. Now you know why I write so many books- I really haven't come close to figuring it out. 

The Supreme Macaroni Company has a lot in it about fate. Do you believe in fate or do you think we make our own destinies?

I really don't know! If you want to see the world differently, have a baby. I used to believe in fate, but as a mother, all I have is control of this moment- and even then, it's an illusion.  The best part of my job is hearing the stories of the women who read my books. They have such an effect on me- A young widow in Youngstown, Ohio shaped The Supreme Macaroni Company. When a woman tells me she's a widow,  I always ask, "Did you like him?" We always have a big laugh over that. And sometimes she says, "No I didn't." but most of the time she says, "I was crazy about him."  I guess the best answer for your question is- yes there's fate, but you have to make your destiny too. 

You’re both an award-winning playwright, television writer and documentary filmmaker. Do you prefer one medium over the other? is it difficult to switch gears? You’ve written a script for Big Stone Gap, which you are also going to direct, and I’d like if it was difficult to change the story so it would work for film (if indeed, you did change it). Did the book come alive for you in different ways as a script? Was there anything you had to give up?

As I write this, I'm up early in Big Stone Gap prepping for the day to go out with our cinematographer Reynaldo Villalobos. The script is written, the roles are cast- the producers are the plane on their way here. The best way I can describe it is this. It's as if all the elements of the novel have come to life and I have invited them here to play their parts. Every location is a pop up book that folds out and opens up, and I stand before it, acknowledging the layers.  I will write about this experience later, but for now, I don't know where the writer stops and the director begins. I was on the phone with one of our actors the other day and he spoke of the character with such knowledge, it was as if he wrote it. And I put my feet up and surrendered. In the beginning was the word- but in the middle and at the end is also the word. The story. 

I would be amiss if I didn’t mention your extraordinary generosity towards other writers (what other writer would bring up the books of the other writer/speakers and promote the before launching into her own hilarious sparkling speech?) How and why does such kindness come about?

Kids, I'm a middle child. Once a middle child, always one. I want everybody to get their share of m&m's- and by the way, they deserve it. I know what my fellow authors go through- and any way I can help ease their burden, I will do. I didn't get here because I deserve it- I got here because I was surrounded by love and support and a keen understanding that the world needs art. Needs writers. Need stories. Like a good cook feeds your body, we're in the feed your heart and imagination and soul business. Anything I can do to help- I'm there. 

What’s obsessing you now and why?

I'm obsessed about the American dream. I am the beneficiary of some big immigrant dreams, and in my gratitude, I look for signs of it everyday, and hold out hope that it is alive for the new immigrants.

What question didn’t I ask that I should have?  
They were perfect- thank you! xoxo