Candace Walsh talks about Licking the Spoon, identity, food, and so much more

I first met Candace Walsh in person, in Manhattan, with her then fiance (and now wife) Laura M. André, at a little cafe--and we had a blast. She's warm, hilarious, smart, and one of the bravest people I know. Her memoir, LICKING THE SPOON is a different sort of memoir, about food and identity and how we come to be who we are. 

She's the managing editor of New Mexico Magazine. She edited Seal Press anthologies Dear John, I Love Jane: Women Write About Leaving Men for Women, (a Lambda Literary Award finalist) and Ask Me About My Divorce: Women Open Up About Moving On. Her essays have been published in the anthology Here Come the Brides, onSlate.com, and in the Santa Fe Reporter. She lives in Santa Fe with her wife Laura M. André, their two children, and two dogs.

Thanks, thanks, Candace! 

Food is such an integral part of our lives--I've always said I don't trust anyone who doesn't have a passion for food because it almost always means they don't have a passion for life. Would you agree? And can you talk a bit about your changing relationship with food?

I honestly can't think of anyone who doesn't have a passion for food. I'm sure they exist, but they haven't outed themselves to me. I can think of people who are very stringent about what they allow themselves to eat, but they simultaneously give off extremely lusty vibes of longing when they're presented with food. I once had lunch at a restaurant with one of those types. She allowed herself to have a piece of chocolate cake because it was her birthday--and she proceeded to make such loud, orgasmic noises as she ate it that it was a little bit embarrassing. 

My relationship to food is always evolving. In the same week that I crave something familiar, like red and green chile-smothered huevos rancheros, I'll also be on a tear, trying to master the art of macarons. When I'm on vacation or not working full-time, I have the bandwidth to try lots and lots of new recipes in a row. But if I'm working full-time (as I am now), I'm thinking about getting my family's basic needs met, quickly and nutritiously, and then I save up my adventurousness for weekend or once-a-month excursions into new recipes and cuisines. On the one hand, cooking is an art form. On the other hand, it's like filling a gas tank. And in the middle, there's lots of room for inventiveness and enjoyment.

What was it like writing a memoir? I so admire the bravery in this memoir! Were there ever moments when you felt you were revealing yourself too much--or not enough? 

It was rather terrifying and also very exhilarating. When I think about how it felt, the image of being at the prow of a ship as it pushes through the ocean comes to mind. I definitely had moments when I regretted choosing to write my story in the form of a memoir and not go the thinly veiled autobiography route. I've put super-intimate stuff out there, because why bother writing a memoir if you're going to be cagey and occluded? It seemed to defeat the purpose. I've always respected the advice of writing teachers, like Tanya Taylor Rubinstein and Theo Pauline Nestor, who encourage writers to write the most cringe-inducing material that they can think of. You may not end up including it in your book--heaven knows I left a lot on the cutting room floor--but when there are elephants in the room of a memoir writer, the reader can feel it and it doesn't inspire them to stick with your story. 

I sometimes flip through my book and get a bit of an "Oh, crap," feeling, when I think of all of the nodding acquaintances who read the book and now know disproportionately intimate things about me. It just comes with the territory.

In terms of not revealing myself enough, I guess the one thing that surprised me was that I thought I'd be more forthcoming when it came to writing about sex. When it came right down to it, I decided that I didn't feel comfortable going into too much detail. I have small kids; I didn't want my exes, or my wife, to feel overly exposed. And I'm glad that I followed my gut. 

I also loved the very matter-of-fact way you wrote about the fluidity of sexuality and how you found your true love, your remarkable wife. Can you talk a bit about that?

The evolution of my sexuality was very matter-of-fact. When my marriage was ending, I said to myself, "I think I'll date women now." Of course that was preceded by a big same-sex crush, and a kind of falling in love with the idea of being in same-sex relationships. It seemed like a fantasy land of mutual empathy, making Caesar salads together every night, listening to Tracy Chapman, hiking, edgy piercings and tattoos, being far away from the stiflingly normal world of middle class married heterosexuality-with-two-kids. 

My relationship with my wife, Laura (we got married in October of 2010) has nothing to do with piercings, tattoos, or hiking (she hates hiking). We do like Tracy Chapman but never seek her music out, per se. We live a very middle class life with our two kids, and the only difference is that I don't find it stifling. It doesn't feel stifling because I am so much happier partnered with a woman that what used to feel like drudgery feels a lot closer to butterflies and rainbows.

The book brings the reader through the journey a lot more specifically and with much more of an arc. When I was in kindergarten, I wanted to marry my best friend Stacy. As soon as I voiced that, I started learning how much pursuing that elemental desire would cost. It took me a long time to be strong enough to take it on, and surprise, it wasn't that big of a deal. I wish I'd been stronger, earlier.

You also went through eating disorders to now come to a very different relationship with food. Can you talk about that, too?

I definitely had an Eating Disorder Lite. On the one hand, my father pushed food on me--on all of us in the family. Seconds on dinner and dessert were very much a default part of every day. On the other hand, my mother was very judgmental of her own body and went on a series of fad diets. She also projected that onto myself and my sister. I wanted very much to keep the peace, so it made sense to eat as much as my dad wanted me to, then to throw it up so that I wouldn't get fat and disappoint my mother. 

As an adult, any time that I ate a big meal that made my stomach feel stuffed, I'd have a very strong desire to throw up (and I did so until I was 35). It was like my stomach was conditioned by those early experiences. But I didn't binge and purge systematically, or feel like I needed to be a size six or anything. 

The first time that I made myself throw up after I started dating Laura, I didn't tell her for two weeks. She didn't know that about me. But I noticed that it created a distance between us, perhaps one that only I noticed. I knew that if I kept on doing that, I'd be isolating myself from her, more and more. I didn't want anything to come between us, so I told her the truth and also told her that I'd tell her if I felt like I needed to make myself throw up, or if I had done it. She was very understanding and yes, empathetic. I've only slipped up one or two times in the last five years. It's much easier to just stop eating before I get too full. 

So without that rewind button, I've embraced exercise more, I've become more mindful of my eating, gotten in better touch with my body. It's been such a blessing to embrace healthier ways of being moderate. 

What's obsessing you now and why?

French macarons with floral or herbal flavorings. I made my first batch of rose macarons last month after tasting one from Laduree in France. It was like eating the sensation of smelling rose perfume on a beautiful woman's neck. I also want to make lavender ones, bergamot ones, violet cassis ones...

I'm also obsessed with the writing conference I'm teaching at March 15-17, the Wild Mountain Memoir Retreat, keynoted by Cheryl Strayed. It's at the Sleeping Lady Resort outside of Seattle, and other teachers include EJ Levy, Suzanne Finnamore Luckenbach, Ariel Gore, and of course, the visionary who dreamed it all up, Theo Pauline Nestor. I'll be teaching on the topics of how to write about sex and sexual identity; and how we can parlay our obsessions into memoir. Here's the link to find out more: 

http://bit.ly/VsNZ5K. 

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

What's your next book going to be about? I would like it to be a work of fiction. I have an idea brewing, and it feels very seductive.  

Thank you so much for sharing my book and this interview with your wonderful, intelligent, and charming readers! I'd love them to to connect with me here: 

@candacewalsh on twitter, 

my writer page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WriterCandaceWalsh

on my website, candacewalsh.com. 

My book's website/blog is lickingthespoonbook.com. 

J. Robert Lennon talks about Familiar, rock and roll, his wife the fabulous novelist Rhian Ellis, and so much more

J. Robert Lennon is one of the most interesting writers around. Not only is his prose gorgeous, but his books are strange, eerie and unsettling in the best of all ways. FAMILIAR, his latest, about a woman who may or may not be leading parallel lives, just knocked me out. Adjectives like "genius," "brilliant," and more bubble up to the surface here. I don't know him, but I actually was thrilled to meet his wife in cyberspace about two years ago when I wrote a blog post about one of my favorite novels of all time, her AFTERLIFE.

The author of six novels (Light of Falling Stars, Mailman, The Funnies, On the Night Plane, Castles, and Pieces for the Left Hand), Lennon also teaches English and creative writing at Cornell. Thank you, thank you so much for coming on my blog and letting me pester you with questions!

I love books that cast you in this eerie, unsettling world where reality and non-reality blur. Elisa could be in a strange new world, or she could be suffering delusions, and the whole novel juggles this uneasy balance. How difficult was it to keep the reader off-centered?

Not too difficult, because I was off-centered while writing it! I honestly didn't know whether I was going to come down on the side of making it a "real" parallel world, a psychotic break, or something else. In the end, I enjoyed the uncertainty and decided that this was part of what the book was about. So I committed myself to not knowing.

As someone who loves anything that even vaguely smacks of quantum physics, I have to ask you about the parallel universe theory that crops up in the novel. What was your research like? Do you think such a thing is possible scientifically?

Well, Brian Greene not only believes it's possible, he believes all the possible universes exist, and are out there. I initially heard him talk about this on the radio show Radiolab, then I read his book on the multiverse. I read a few other books, too, and grabbed some more fanciful stuff from the internet. The science here is wonky, but based in present research--for instance, the vibrating flange experiment at Caltech which Elisa encounters is a real thing.

I also wanted to ask about the gaming details in the book, which were fascinating. You play or did you research? And what was the research like on that?

I'm interested in gaming, but don't really have the time to play many games. (This will change during my upcoming sabbatical, I hope: Portal 2 at last!) My kids are interested in games, though, and have done some hobbyist coding of simple ones, and this got me thinking. As research, I read Tom Bissell's terrific book Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter, and a lot of Silas's rhetoric about games consists of things Bissell argued, filtered through a rather arrogant and cynical fictional consciousness. Tom also proofread the game section for me and suggested changes, most of which I made.

Elisa’s second chance turns out to have surprising ramifications. Was this all planned out before you began to write or did it happen organically? And what’s your daily writing life like?

This is the least preconceived book I've ever written. Most of the stuff in it that's any good arose naturally during the many rewrites I did. My daily writing life is nonexistent at the moment, as I'm teaching and promoting the book--but on breaks I try to write a few pages daily. I've mostly been writing short stories this year--weird little things between 4 and 12 pages long. When I'm off from work, I generally write in the mornings and do other things in the afternoon--reading, taking photos, hanging out with my family, playing music.

Your wife Rhian Ellis wrote a novel AfterLife that I blogged about a while ago as being one of my favorite works of all times, that’s been reissued by Nancy Pearl. What’s it like being in a household of writers?

It's great. Rhian is my first and best critic, and we talk about books and writing every day. Our kids are great readers, too, and they are beginning to join in the conversations. Collectively, we have the approximate earning power of, say, a third-rate liquor store, but we have a good time together.

What’s obsessing you now?

Rock and roll! I'm in a band for the first time in many years--it consists of four writers and a lawyer. I don't want to speak too soon but this may figure into some writing I may be doing.

What question did I totally forget to ask?

A lot of people ask how teaching writing affects my writing. The answer is, I'm not sure. Teaching is time-consuming and emotionally demanding, but it also puts me in a position to have interesting discussions about books with energetic young people every day. On balance, it's a good way for a writer to pay the bills. As long as we have to have bills!

The incredible Megan Abbott talks about Dare Me, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, feeling slightly crazy and so much more

Come on, who doesn't love The End of Everything and Dare Me? Both novels are gorgeously written and filled with unease, dread, and yup, brilliance. I've admired Edgar-winning author Megan Abbott's work for years and when I saw she had befriended me on Twitter, I pounced and begged her to come on the blog. 

The End of Everything was on the Best Books of the Year lists from Publisher's Weekly, The Boston Globe, Baltimore City Paper and the Washington Examiner. Megan now teaches at the Crime Fiction Academy at New York City's Center for Fiction and her work has appeared in the New York Times, Salon, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Believer, and more. And, she's also the author of The Street Was Mine: White Masculinity in hardboiled Fiction and Film Noir, and the editor of A Hell of a Woman, an anthology of female crime fiction. She's been nominated for three Edgar Awards, Hammett Prize, the Macavity, Anthony and Barry Awards, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Pushcart Prize. Oh, and did I mention she is writing the script for her Hollywood optioned, Dare Me?

I'm thrilled to have her here. Thank you, thank you, Megan.

What I so deeply admire about your work is the lean, mean and fiercely gorgeous prose you employ. So, what kind of writer are you? Do you plot things out or fly by the seat of your pen? Do you write every day or when the muse’s whispers begin to turn into shouts? What’s your writing life like?

Thank you for your kind words! I force myself to be rigorously disciplined because I find writing it infinitely hard and isolating and would like to be doing almost anything else. (At the same time, however, I only feel truly happy when I’ve written, so there’s the rub.) Because I’m slow I have to block out the day and even though I don’t write the whole time, I need to live in the world of the book all day, writing it fits and starts off and on from early morning through the afternoon. Which makes me pretty unpleasant to be around in the daylight hours!

You tunneled into the dark heart of girls in Dare Me so expertly that it felt as if you were chaneling them. What kind of research did you do for this novel, and what was that like? And why do you think the territory of adolescent girls is so rich--and such a minefield for events?

About half of it was compulsive online eavesdropping, primarily through chatrooms and message boards focused on cheerleading. The other half was my own vivid memories of being a teenager. The intensity of feeling at that age, the yearning, the passionate friendships—filled with highs and lows, betrayals, breakups. It’s your practice for adult (or young adult) relationships. And it’s thrilling and devastating. I thought I’d forgotten all that until I started writing the book. It all came flooding back, all the heartbreak, exhilaration and humiliation. That stuff is ageless, and leaves it marks.

So Dare Me is headed for the Silver Screen and you’re writing the script. Is it hard to re-envision your novel as a film?

I tend to be pretty inspired by movies and this book in particularly so. The cheer stunts seem to call out for visual spectacle. The trickiest part is a somewhat unreliable narrator that means I need to find different ways to render her interior life. But the challenge is exciting.

Does anything surprise you about the writing? Anything make you want to hurl yourself out of a window?

It always feels slightly crazy to say so, but my characters constantly surprise me. The protagonists inevitably turn out to harbor darker motives. The more troubled characters, or antagonists, tend to work their charms on me. That’s the best part. The “hurl out the window” part for me is revisions. That sudden awareness that the world you thought you’d rendered so perfectly, so richly isn’t working yet. And you’ve got to find a way to make it work, to live for the reader as it lives for you. Thankfully, my two first readers, my agent Dan Conaway and my editor Reagan Arthur, are so expert I feel unduly lucky in that capacity.

You said on your blog that “writers and artists really have no choice but to convey their own peculiar views, no matter how strange the picture may be.” I think this is one of the most astute descriptions of what it means to make art that I’ve read. Can you talk a bit more about this, please?

Ah, that’s not me, that’s the wonderful writer Karolina Waclawiak (How to Get into the Twin Palms), who guested on our blog, though I absolutely agree. While we perhaps do have a choice, I don’t quite understand what the purpose would be. To me, the primary pleasure in writing is in the relationship between author and reader. It’s what I love about reading too. There’s this crackling possibility that you will connect—that your weirdnesses may be theirs too, or will become so. It makes the world feel more intimate, richer, less lonely. And that, in turn, they will share something with you that makes everything look and feel different. That opens up new vistas. That exchange between writer and reader is about as magnificent as life can get.

What’s obsessing you now and why?

I’m reading the most wonderful biography of Charlotte Brontë, by Rebecca Fraser. I’ve always been fascinated by the Brontë household, these elaborate fantasy worlds—Angria, Glass Town, Gondal—the siblings created, growing up in such a remote yet exotic location as the moors. And I don’t think I ever realized quite how maligned all three sisters were for the subversive qualities of their books. What they were writing was seen as radical, dangerous, wild. And, of course, it is. I’ve always been drawn to writers or artists who formulated full-scale imaginary universes—another obsession is the work of Henry Darger, a self-taught artist who devoted most of his solitary life to creating these elaborate collage paintings chronicling the heroic adventures of the “Vivian Girls,” seven little girls who faced war, enslavement and countless travails. They’re powerful to see.

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

Do you faithfully DVR The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and watch it with unabashed delight? And I guess that’s its own answer.

Filmmaker Steve Jones talks about Cracked Eggs, screenwriting, novel writing, and so much more: an interview by Meg Pokrass

 I'm thrilled that Meg Pokrass is interviewing author, playwright, screenwriter and producer Steve Jones here. His film, Cracked Eggs, was selected for the London Independent Film Festival, and you can watch it here.  It featured Jared Harris, who plays Ulysses S. Grant in Spielberg's Lincoln. As well as co-authoring a memoir, Steve is currently working on a novel, a play, and a black, comedy drama feature film as writer producer. Thank you, Meg (and thank you Steve) for this wonderful interview.)

Steve, how did your interest in becoming a screenwriter and film producer begin? Where did you begin your journey?

I guess it started out as a mix of inspiration and ignorance -- blissful ignorance!

How do you mean?

In the early ‘90s I worked for a design agency in Frankfurt and wrote my first ever article on the subject of digital design for a German magazine called “Page.” One day I was sitting at my desk writing Apple Mac troubleshooting guides for the designers and I thought to myself, I could turn this stuff into a book. 

I didn't know anything about publishing but, by coincidence, I found out that the Frankfurt book fair was kicking off the following week. I somehow managed to get an entry pass and walked in, found the publisher that I thought would be suitable for  my book, pitched the guy on the stand, showed him my magazine articles and he said, "Great, we'll send you the contract next week." That was it. 

I wrote the book in 6 months and it was published a year later. I really thought that this path of zero resistance from idea to manifestation would be the model going forward in the creative world. Oh boy, how wrong I was on that one. I was blissfully ignorant of the challenges that lay ahead and this naivety, coupled with an inspiration and a passion to write, eventually propelled me into new adventures further afield, whether it was pitch meetings on Hollywood studio lots or on the terraces of the beach hotels in Cannes. But those are long stories.

So you transitioned into creative writing?

Yes. I moved back to London and -- having written some poems in college, just for myself really – I decided that I wanted to write a novel.

Was it published?

Not even close. I abandoned it after about 6 or 7 pages.

What happened?

Theater is what happened. I discovered the works of playwrights such as Pinter, Beckett and Mamet. I was also inspired by Tarantino's “Pulp Fiction” which was out at the time. Setting aside the arguments regarding gratuitous violence, the dialogue in that film just blew me away. It was the first time I'd ever heard friends and work colleagues rave about dialogue. And I guess dialogue was something I honed in on; especially in the context of darkly-comic pieces that had an absurdist skew. 

How does this relate to the novel?

I was watching a lot of theatre at the time and the osmosis of that experience kicked in. Whenever I sat down to write, these three characters -- who were sitting in this dingy room -- kept popping into my head. But there was a problem: these guys weren’t out of a book; they were out of a play. And they were demanding my attention. I was curious to know what was going on in that room so I switched to play format and began hammering out dialogue. And I just kept on writing. This then turned into the play, “Charlie Don’t Surf.”

What’s the play about?

Three drug addicts in a squat waiting for a drug dealer -- who never turns up.

The Beckett influence?

Indeed. An agent described it as “Waiting For Godot” meets “Trainspotting,” although, as the play has evolved over time and transitioned into a non-linear screenplay (with multiple story lines), the Beckett influence is less apparent.

Please talk about the evolution of your short-film "Cracked Eggs." What an engrossing twelve minutes of a movie, both spooky and at times, darkly funny. Watching feels like a world you don't want to leave, as though you could jump in and learn more, like the best short stories do...

Thank you. Well of course film is a collaborative medium, and we were lucky to have such a great cast: Carol Starks; John McGuiness; Jonathan Hansler; and of course Jared Harris, who was recently Emmy-nominated for his role in “Mad Men.” But cast on its own does not guarantee the success of a film. I think we’ve all seen plays or films, with great actors, fail because of misdirection. So, I have to give credit to my long term collaborator and the film’s director, Eric Loren. Eric, a seasoned actor himself, is brilliant at steering actors in a subtle but incremental way, guiding them from cold reading to blistering performance. On first glance his directorial style appears to be quite calm, gentle but after a while I realized that he’s boiling the frog slowly. 

How do you mean?

It’s subtle but demanding; an incremental turning up of the heat so that, by the end of the rehearsal period, the actors are performing at their peak. You see it in those final, climatic scenes of “Cracked Eggs.” And of course Eric’s visual talent was key when it came to adapting the short play into a film especially in the egg scene which, in the play, was left to the audience’s imagination. That’s the subtle interplay with theatre: the audience fills in the gaps. 

So “Cracked Eggs” was a short play initially?

Yes. And that’s an interesting story. Going back to my journey as a writer: after I’d knocked out a first draft of “Charlie Don’t Surf” I looked round and thought to myself, who do I know? The answer came back: no-one. I had no contacts in either the theatre or film industry. I knew Eric was a professional actor but we didn’t really know each other. I also didn’t know that Eric was a director. All I knew was that he was the only name on my ‘warm contacts’ list. I got the script to him via a mutual friend. In the meantime, I sent out the script to agents and artistic directors and experienced the baptism of fire that is the ‘rejection letter.’ 

How did that feel?

As a first-timer, it was tough. In those early days a rejection letter could throw me off kilter for one or two days but later I learned to shrug them off much faster. The best mantra for rejection is one word, “Next!”

What happened next?

More rejection letters: some encouraging, some not. Then Eric called. He told me that he liked the play and wanted to organize a reading with some of his actor friends. This was a defining experience for me. These were all professional actors and two of them went on to become household names in the UK. To see actors of that caliber read my words, and to respond in a very positive way to a play which started out as a kind of tangential detour, was an exhilarating experience. It was the first time that I thought to myself, maybe I can do this. 

I then received a letter from a London-based fringe theatre saying that they had read “Charlie Don’t Surf” and wanted to commission me to write a short play, as part of a new writer’s season.

And that’s when you wrote “Cracked Eggs?”

Yes and no. The theme of the writer’s season was, “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It.” So I dreamed up this post-apocalyptic, wacky, light comedy set in New York. I went through weeks of work-shopping the piece and I had about one week left to submit the final draft. Rehearsals were pending and Eric was attached to direct. He called me. He wanted to meet up. I assumed that he wanted to give me some last minute notes. I was wrong. 

We met in a coffee shop in Oxford Street and he hit me with the news: he didn’t feel that this was the right play for me, at that time and that my first staged play needed to be have more impact. I agreed. What that meant however, was this: all the weeks of work-shopping with the artistic directors and the other writers was now lost time. I had a week to write a short play that would have to be written, submitted and accepted from the get-go. 

On the way home certain images came into my mind: stories I’d heard, distant ‘80s London experiences recalled, urban myths remembered. By the time I arrived home I had the bare bones of the darkly-comedic “No Exit”-like scenario that is “Cracked Eggs.” I wrote the play over a weekend and it premiered a few weeks later.

So, how did “Cracked Eggs” end up as a short film featuring Jared Harris?

Well, that’s a long story but it ties in with my transition from a writer to a writer-producer. I turned to producing on the advice of a Hollywood agent who offered to meet me, but not, represent me. We met for breakfast one morning in a cafe on Santa Monica Boulevard. And it also ties in with my other film/animation projects; the commissioned book-adaptation work; and to the memoir that I am co-authoring. In fact, the memoir project only came about by chance, as a result of another film meeting in Santa Monica itself. Sometimes you don’t find stories – stories find you.

NYT bestselling author Lesley Kagen talks about Mare's Nest, the brave new world of publishing, horse people, and so much more!

Lesley Kagen is not only hilariously funny, whip-smart, and generously warm, she's also the New York Times bestselling author of such acclaimed novels as Whistling in the Dark, Good Graces, Land of a Hundred Wonders, Tomorrow River, and her newest, Mare's Nest. I'm thrilled and honored to have her here on the blog to talk about it. Thank you, Lesley!

Publishing is a brave new world. Recently, the acclaimed novelist Jon Clinch outed himself as the self-published writer Sam Winston. You're a NYT bestselling author and you've decided to self-publish your new novel, Mare's Nest. How did this decision come about? What's the process been like so far? Would you go back to traditional publishing or do you feel this is the wave of the future?

The decision to publish MARE'S NEST myself was years in the making.  I could go on and on, but the crux?  I'd grown disenchanted with traditional publishing and began to yearn for a different, happier experience.  One, in which, I called the shots.  (I'm a live-by-the-pen, die-by-the-pen kinda gal.)  The self-pub process has been fantastic so far.  I've enjoyed designing the cover, picking the type, deciding on the formatting...all the things that are required to create a book.  It's a little like wrapping a Christmas present that I made from scratch for someone I love. 

Yeah, I'm positive that you'll see more and more well-known authors moving in the same direction in order to keep a roof over their head on food on their tables.  From what I can tell, the Big 6 seem primarily interested in debut authors or mega-sellers right now.  I can't tell you the number of my friends---wonderful authors all--- who do not fit into these categories.  As a result, they are finding it almost impossible to secure deals.   It's disheartening.  And shocking.  A brutal reminder that as much as we all revere books---publishing is a business. 

As far as going back to traditional publishing, if the situation was right--if I connected with an editor I admire, who felt the same way about my work, or a house that was enthusiastic about my book and would do there best to market it-- then sure, I'd consider it.  On the other hand, I was in the record business for a lot of years.  If you had told me back in those days that there'd come a time that there wouldn't be records, or record stores, I would've called the men in the white jackets to come pick you up.  If the book business follows the same path, which it looks like it's doing, e-pubbing will be where it's at.

Mare's Nest took you ten years to write! Tell us about that. Was there ever a moment when you felt you were in over your head? How long does it usually take you to write a book?

Everything about this book is different than my previous four.  It usually takes me around a year and a half to complete a story, so working on Mare's Nest sporadically over the past ten years has been an odd way to go about it.   It's a novel based on a true story, and I'd never written anything like that before.  It's also told over a fourteen year period, more, if you consider the narrator's backstory, and most of my stories take place over a summer.  Was there ever a moment when I felt like I was in over my head?  Are you kidding?  Was there ever a moment that I didn't?  I'm incredibly pleased and proud of the book, but wow...blood, sweat, and tears, ya know?

You've said that Mare's Nest is based on a true story. What was that story and what was it about it that caught you and wouldn't let go? 

The book is a heartfelt and redemptive love story about mothers and daughters.  But it's also serves as a caveat emptor.  Mare's Nest is set in the horse  world, which is not what most people think it is.  All high-falutin'.  It can be very nasty, and sometimes--deadly, both for horses and their owners.  Riding is dangerous, not only physically, but fiscally.  And...emotionally.  I am passionate about writing, and horses, and most of all--parenting.  Keeping our kids safe is a theme in all my books, most especially in this one.  Over the years, I've seen families swindled, lied to, childrens' hearts and extremities broken, horses drugged, or killed for insurance money, and so on.  As a recipient of a few of the heinous acts,  I wanted to put others in the know.  To the best of my knowledge, nobody's written a book about the down and dirty of the sport, the behind the scenes stuff.  I'm sure there are parallels in other sports, gymnastics, ice skating, etc., but horseback riding and showing...it's the little girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead.  When it's good, it's very, very good, and when it's bad it's horrid.

Mare's Nest is very much about horses, which makes me want to know how do you know what you know? Are you a horse person or did you research? What sparked the whole idea of the novel?

I've been riding since I was eight years old.  I'm now...cough...cough...which is quite a bit older than that.  My parents were in the business of buying and selling horses before they were driven under financially and ended up going bankrupt, and divorcing, remarrying, and divorcing again.  As a kid, I was their little salesgirl.  I showed horses all over the Midwest, won tons of awards, ribbons, and championships.  But considering how that all ended up, the last thing in the world I wanted was for my daughter, Casey, to get on the back of a horse.  But she was not to be denied.  She's been riding and showing first saddlebreds and then hunter/jumper ponies and horses for over fourteen years now, and we're still involved.  Most kids in the sport are girls, so I imagine when she has a daughter, her girl will ride as well.  Seems to be something in our wiring.  

One of the themes of the novel is whether or not history repeats itself. Do you think history usually does? And is that necessarily a bad thing?

If you had a loving, supportive childhood, history repeating itself is what we're hoping for when we parent.  But a replication of my childhood , which left quite a bit to be desired, was not what I wanted for my daughter and son.  I was so desperate to prevent traumatizing them, that I think I overcorrected, the way you do when you're trying to avoid a head-on crash.   In the book, I wanted to explore the power of redemption.  And what influence our parents have on our own parenting.  Do we all try to set the record straight?  To give to our children that which we feel we still need?  Do we end up creating an entirely new set of problems?

What's obsessing you now?

I am an obsessive, so unless you have a couple of hours... (Laughs.)  If you mean writing-wise, I've begun a new story about an emotionally troubled middle-aged woman who finds herself disenfranchised from her family. When she's diagnosed with a life threatening disease, she comes up with a rather unusual support system to help her make it through the crisis.  It's funny and sweet, I think.  I hope. 

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

If after exposing its underbelly, I fear repercussions from the horse world, which can be notoriously vindictive.

My flip answer is---You mean like a horse head in the bed thing?  Not really too concerned.  I'm kind of a bad-ass, myself.  But it'll be interesting to see the reactions to the book from both horse people and non-horse people.  I wrote the story keeping both in mind and hope like heck that I pulled it off.  Fingers crossed.

The sublime Anne Lamott talks about Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers, being raised a nonbeliever, spirituality on a need to know basis, why love is sacred, doubts, and so much more

How do I love Anne Lamott? Let me count the zillions and billions of ways. She taught me how to parent with Operating Instructions and Some Assembly Required. She helped my writing with Bird by Bird and inspired me with her novels: Hard Laughter, Rosie, Joe Jones, Blue Shoe, All New People and Crooked Little Heart. She infuses comforting and thoughtful new life into all things spiritual with Traveling Mercies, Grace (Eventually) and her newest, the wonderful Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers. But also, she's generous. She's got a heart the size of Jupiter, and when she agreed to interview me for the Algonquin Book Club webcast, she made sure it was a major league event. (And don't forget to check out this wonderful interview with Annie and the great Cheryl Strayed.)  Also, she's the kind of person who reaches into her purse and gives you half a sandwich, who genuinely wants to know how you are and who really lives her life out loud and courageously. She's incredibly kind, warm, hilarious and I'm dazzled and honored that have the great fortune to know her. Huge thanks, Annie.

Can you talk about how your religious feelings have changed through the years? I find it fascinating that you grew up in a family of non-believers. Did that have any impact on your beliefs? And did you ever feel that you impacted their beliefs?

 It's funny that I was raised in a non-believing family, because all 3 of us kids ended up being believers.  I always believed in god, from my earliest memories, but I had to keep it secret.  I found friends from religious families because I loved the prayer, church, acknowledgment of a divine presence. I was fed deeply by the spiritual love of my friends' families and religious practice--also I always loved Catholic food, esp Friday nights before Vatican 2.

One thing that was helpful about growing up with atheists, was I never had religious doctrine shoved down my throat, and never had anything I had to resist. I think one of my brothers was sort of horrified when I converted at 31...and then he became born again ten years later.  My younger brother was always quietly adhering to the Catholic path, from friends he had at 20+.  It's been 27 years since my baptism, and 26 years since I got sober, so you just KNOW my first year was a little loopy--but all that shame and pain softened the ground of me, so that I didn't fight against my blossoming faith all that had.  Being sober and a church goer both drained off and transformed the shame and tremendous anxiety.

Tell us about the three kinds of prayers. 

Help is the prayer of the desperate--someone really exhausted by his or her best efforts to fix/resolve a deep problem or a terrible fear.  A good acronym for God is Gift of Desperation.  It's the prayer of blessedly giving up, of surrender, which is the greatest condition for finding faith.

Thanks is that incredible feeling of gratitude, that you or your family cut a break; that somehow, against all odds, there was healing or progress or resolution--it's thankyouthankyouthankyou--that could have been SO much worse.  Or I cannot BELIEVE that situation straightened itself out.

And Wow--amazement.  Us when stunned by beauty or majesty or grateful disbelief.

I'm not aware of a prayer requesting proof--but am sure there are lots of them.  It hasn't been a deal-breaker for me, that God is so often silent, or working through ordinary circumstance and people, instead of flaming bushes and tongues of fire, or a voice from above. 

Do you think there is also a prayer that asks for proof of being heard by a higher power? (I admit that is one of my prayers, and it's probably a bad idea.)  

I'm really glad to glean spiritual truth bit, by bit. Bird by bird. I'm fine proceeding on a need-to-know basis.

What I love so much is the calm, open way you present your belief and then invite everyone else to the banquet, not taking offense if they don't RSVP. I also love the way you talk about prayer, that it's a union, a going deeper.  You talk about "the silence, pain and pause" that force you to turn inward, which is always hard. My big question is always, WHY is it always hard to do this? Why can't growth come from something easier? 

My experience is that in "real" life, when we're busy and racing around being important or needed. We have so much armor on. So much of our energy goes into creating false fronts to keep people from knowing us too well, and being able to see our weakness or shadow or falsity. But when we are challenged to our core, we HAVE to peel off some armor, and layers, so that we can focus on what is true and real and therefore useful, instead of extraneous or protective.  I hate this too.  If I were God, I would have a MUCH easier and benevolent system.

I'm curious how you deal with the arguments about the not-so-great side of religion, where people use their beliefs to keep gay people from marrying, to keep women housebound and covered up, and like the Westboro Baptist Church, generally for hate. How do you even attempt to change the minds and hearts of people like that, and outside of their God coming back to earth and telling them to cut it out, do you ever see this rigidity of belief changing?

I never try to get people to change their minds about religion or politics.  It just makes everyone crazier than they/we already were.  I totally understand why people feel appalled by most organized religion.  I do, too.  But at my hour of my drastic need, I feel like God picked me up by the scruff of my neck, and brought me to St. Andrew--it's VERY disorganized, and there are about 25 of us, and I have witnessed the greatest beauty and tenderness and sacrifice in the chairs and homes of St. Andrew.  Most fundamentalists of every stripe are deeply wounded and damaging to peace and goodness.  I just try to help God take care of His or Her other kids who come into my sights or awareness-ii get all thirsty people water. I try to be a good listener.  I try to keep things simple, because my mind is so complex and wild and fearful and grandiose and brimming with bad self-esteem.  I really have plenty on my hands with me and my nearest and dearest.

Would you say that love is a prayer?

Love is sacred. God is Love. Love is where we feel most blessed and blown away--and vulnerable. Where we literally tremble with devotion and fear.    I don't have great theological insight, but I think a lot of love is love--and that prayer involves more of an intentionality to communicate or hook into something bigger than our human minds and self-contained lives.

Do you ever doubt?

I have terrible and scary nights like everyone who loves their family more than life itself. I don't seem to give up on God and Goodness at those times, but I DO feel more strongly that this incarnational life SO hard--life can just be impossible and cruel. This place has not been a good match for me! I get furious at God when kids and young people get sick. But I always know that it will pass, and transform into blessing, healing, understanding, compassion...eventually. The "eventually" is the real fly in the ointment.  

What's obsessing you now? 

Oh, you know--the usual.  My son, my grandson, my butt, the election.  Survivor.  The Good Wife.  Global warming; how the new book will do....Sigh.

Steven Salardino of Skylight Books talks about his fave three titles, what author will stand the test of time, and more, more, more

Skylight Books is truly one of the great indies. Smack in the heart of L.A., it prides itself on doing really well with literary fiction (sigh of joy, here). Thank you to the very wonderful Steven Salardino for letting me pester him with questions. I'm honored.

You've been open since 1996, and you're smack in the middle of L.A. culture! I'm curious if you think that people in different areas have different reading sensibilities?

 I know that one of the reasons Skylight Books survives in changing times (economic instability, electronic reading devices, internet-based monoculture mega-stores) is that we are located in an area where people care about books, literacy, and literature. And not just on a romantic level but on a political level as well. The people that shop here really want bookstores to exist and like supporting a place where a community can gather around the ideas of expression, creativity, and knowledge. Our base clientele does have particular tastes which, hopefully, we are in tune with and can also help shape. We have done very well with literary fiction and I am proud and happy that our staff favorites (see below) often become our bestsellers.

 What three books are you pressing into everyone's hands these days?

I have many favorite titles I always recommend when asked: the works of Jeanette Winterson, Scott Bradfield, Dodie Bellamy, Matthew McIntosh, John Fante, Lorrie Moore, Tom Drury, Dennis Cooper, James M. Cain, and Richard Yates make wonderful jumping-off places.

One of the most recent of my favorite titles is A.M. Homes new novel May We Be Forgiven - a modern family disaster handled just right with Homes’ stupendous sentences. At first so much is falling apart in the life of the main character that one could compare it to a classic 1970’s disaster drama like The Towering Inferno or those Airport movies. But Homes brings it around in such a surprising and interesting way that at the end we feel hopeful and satisfied.

Other recent titles I love to talk about are Building Stories by Chris Ware and Pulphead by John Jeremiah Sullivan.

Authors are so indebted to the indies and I'm going to speak for them by asking you, what can we do to make our events most exciting, more interesting, more fun?

After 16 years of hosting events I think I have an idea of what makes a good author event. The first important thing is to be nice, grateful, and humble to your booksellers at the event. These are the people that will talk about you, talk about your book and your event, and hopefully sell your book after your 45 minutes in the store. It really pays off in dividends to treat them well. I guarantee they will not care about you or your books if you do not treat them with respect.

I think the attention spans of today’s audiences are short when it comes to listening to an extended piece of writing. So pick parts to read that are not over 15-20 minutes. Two 8-10 minutes pieces or five 3-minute poems…those will work too. My suggestion is to read for 20 minutes or less, and then talk about your writing or your thoughts through a Q&A period. After that comes the book signing portion, and again the main thing you want to do here is be respectful to your audience by giving each person a little time but not enough to alienate the others in line.

Food and wine is always good!  As a store we can not provide this but that doesn’t mean you can’t bring your own! You don’t have to make it a giant production, just something to help break the ice and give the evening a joyous atmosphere.

What's obsessing you now and why?

I like to ask the authors that come here that same question! I am always interested in what writers I enjoy and respect are getting into. Lately I have been getting back into the short story form. I used to read a lot of short stories but dropped into novels (and endless internet search chains) until a few months back when I discovered a few authors I had not read before, namely John Collier and Andre Dubus. This led me back to rereading some of my other favorite short story writers and starting a blog: www.palmtreex3.com. There you will find some short story authors that I think are masters of the genre.

I also have been excited by: wheat-free toaster waffles with almond butter, trying to turn my brown thumb into a green one, walking through small towns, being inspired by photos on Instagram, and new, seemingly mundane experiences that are not mundane at all.

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

“Can you name a contemporary author that we will be studying and talking about long after they have departed this life?”

 My answer would be David Mitchell. The devotion his fans have to his book Cloud Atlas is unprecedented in my experience as a bookseller. I have seen strong enthusiasm for the works of contemporary literary heroes like David Foster Wallace, Haruki Murakami, Jeanette Winterson, Joan Didion - or even J.K. Rowling and David Sedaris – and all of it deserved. But the shine in the eyes of David Mitchell devotees coupled with his personal demeanor makes me put my money on him as someone that will appear in many graduate theses. He is all at once smart, humble, authoritative, inquisitive, funny, interesting, and genuine. You know when people ask: "What three authors from history would you like to have dinner with?" - David Mitchell will be a popular answer for a long time.

After the storm

We live in Hoboken, an urban enclave, just 7 minutes outside of Greenwich Village, in an 1865 brick rowhouse. It's a city of incredible brownstones, gorgeous old brick row houses, restaurants, shops, parks, and the devastation from Sandy is unimaginable. People are still trapped in their houses unable to get out. There's no food. Power is just now coming back after five cold dark days without it. No gas. Well, actually some gas, but the lines are 3 1/2 hours long. 

The streets were rivers. National Guard was here. There were boat rescues. People were walking around stunned. Or crying. Now the waters have receded but the streets are now piled high with ruined belongings: baby strollers, tables with the wood rotted from the salt water, photograph albums, clocks, clothes. The few blocks or homes that have power set up charging stations. In one of the toniest buildings, filled with lofts, people offered free coffee. Restaurants that could open gave out food. 

We were incredibly lucky. Irene last year destroyed our windows and most of our basement and we were up for 30 hours straight trying to keep the floodwaters in our basement down. But somehow, Sandy did nothing to us but take our power and savage our city. 

We sat in the cold and played Monopoly for hours by candle. We ate what food we had left and when the food ran out, we managed to find a hotel room and as soon as I saw the magic of light, I cried. 

Our power came back on last night. The first thing I did was clean the house, all three floors,  out of love and care and gratitude, and then we brought food over to donate, and tomorrow we will do the same. We invited three couples to stay with us and share our power.

The blog will be back next week. But for now, please consider donating to Hoboken or to New York.  Thank you so, so much.

Caroline