[Oringally published on September 22, 2009 at 12:00 pm.]
Q&A: Bywater Author Cynn Chadwick and Publicist Michele Karlsberg 9/20/2009
Michele: Can you compare perspectives on women’s writing, the discovery they made in their own work – any “inherent” qualities that set women’s writing apart.
Cynn: I think in most women’s writing you will spend nearly an equal amount of time in the characters’ internal worlds as you will in their immediate story. This quality is one of many inherent in the great women’s stories of the past and present, from Louisa May Alcott’s Jo March, Kate Chopin’s Edna Pontellier, Virginia Woolf’s Lily Briscoe, to our most contemporary writer’s of today, Toni Morrison’s Pecola Breedlove, Lee Smith’s Ivy Rowe, and Dorothy Allison’s Bone Boatwright all invite us into a life, off-page if you will, that matters to and sometimes determines the direction of narrative: actions are taken or not, words are spoken or not, feelings are shared or not, and these are equally known to the reader and the protagonist, but not necessarily to the other characters, impacting the story in ways that do not rely on external circumstance but rather solely on introspective circumstance. Women’s stories are clearly relationship-oriented: love, family, friendship…fiercely portrayed over and over, a never-wearied topic.
Michele: We forget how important reading is to writers: what made you want to write in the first place? Books that first bit you with the literature – books that have kept you going?
Cynn: My father read to me every night from the time I can remember until I could read on my own. His bedtime story choices were, however, not the average kid-lit-fare. He read me the Jungle Book, Rudyard’s version, not Walt’s, Drums Along the Mohawk, Wind in the Willows, Last of the Mohicans, and Lord of the Rings by Tolkien not New Line Cinema. My own early novel reading included children’s stories like Pippi Longstocking, The Borrowers, Treasure Island, My Side of the Mountain, Nancy Drew and early favorite authors comprised of two British queens (pre J.K. Rowling), Enid Blyton and Catherine Cookson. I loved Phyllis Whitney and Barbara Michaels who wrote ghost stories, which I still adore and wish to discover one I might write someday.
It was probably Alcott’s Little Women that made me first consider that I could possibly be a writer. Maybe it is every little girl’s dream after reading that book. Even before I touched my pen to page, I, like Jo March, had on my “writer’s hat.”
Nowadays, it is usually my favorite authors who keep me going, those whose work I admire and always close the cover wishing I could write like that…: Richard Russo, Alice Walker, and Lee Smith come immediately to mind–great storytellers and amazing writers.
Michele: There was a whole body of work published by lesbian presses in the wake of Stonewall. How was that an impact on contemporary lesbian writing and culture?
Cynn: I came out in the early nineties. I was in my early thirties. I had divorced after being married for ten years, and was suddenly a single mother of sons. I’d moved around a great deal with my ex-husband’s job, and so not until I finally landed in Asheville (Thank God), did I even know there were lesbians who actually lived normal-ish kinds of lives. I was clueless to our culture: music, icons, jargon, history, and our literature. Luckily, I’d attended a UU church (yes) and met a bunch of smart women who introduced me to Patience and Sarah, The Well of Loneliness, The Group, The Children’s Hour, Desert Heart (oh my!). These books helped me to reconcile both my life and my writing–we write what we know–and so life and writing merged in the same ways as my life and my sexuality finally reconciled with each other,; the literature, in other words, saved my life.
Michele: Feel free to discuss the craft elements that go into a novel, what editors look for – what goes wrong.
Cynn: Crafting changes with experience. I have thus far written six novels, and my growing mastery of the craft of novel writing increases with every first through last draft. I am currently working the galleys edit of a book I wrote 6 years ago. My publisher/editor, Kelly Smith, has offered pages and pages of astute notes for an extensive revision that, perhaps, I might not have been able to manage 4 years ago, or would not have been as open to its keen changes for fear of not knowing how to execute them, or worse still clinging to that writer’s ego that refuses to believe that my “darlings” shouldn’t be killed. Now, so many years later, I am eager to raise the hatchet once the orders have been given. My first book took me 7 years to write, each first draft of the latter novels have taken between 10 and 12 months. For me, this does not make them complete or finished, this makes them “workable.” Once the arc of the story is on page, the shaping of the book begins, never until. So while it may only take me 10 months to write out a story, I know it will take me another 6 months to a year to shape it into publishable. That’s my process, thus far.
I am a freelance concept editor specializing in full-length novel/memoir manuscripts of serious writers and authors, so this straddles the two sides of my writerly mind, composer and editor, making me more receptive to editing advice, especially once the edit reaches the publisher.
I also have something of an advantage in that I am a fiction-writing teacher, and I wholly believe the adage that “to teach is to learn twice.” I gain more understanding of my craft with every workshop, with every novice writer’s challenge and success, and with every story–good or bad–that passes before me. I can earnestly say that what I used to adamantly believe about writing twenty years ago, I no longer believe without adding the caveats: and, but, if, when, or.
As the author Janet Burroway says about plot and character in her craft text Writing Fiction, Only Trouble is Interesting and All characters must have desire, and with this I fully agree.
And the only absolute truth that can be held about writing is that one must do it.
Michele: What was your first published work?
Cynn: My very first published piece was a short story originally titled “The Hat,” (a shelf-yankin’ title, no?). It kept getting rejected until I re-titled it “The Hat in Mrs. Noble’s Closet.” It and a number of others were published in literary journals through the nineties, but the novels have been the focus since 2000. Recently I have started blogging personal essays.
Michele: When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
Cynn: I think I’ve always been a story-lover and teller. I can remember as far back as 3-4 years old playing make-believe, having an imaginary-friend, and upon entering a new school in 2nd grade, I, an only child, pretended to classmates and teachers, alike, that I hade many siblings. Once for Show and Tell, I brought my parents’ and my own baby-pictures and showed my brothers and sisters while I told their names and ages. I outed by a neighbor-boy who set the record straight; Forever known as the girl who lied for Show and Tell , until I transferred to another school in third grade.
Those stories feel no different than how I now feel when writing them on the page. I became a writer when I actually began writing, and became published after I started sending them out. From mind to page to mail to press…it’s a process.
Michele: How did it come about that you became a published novelist?
Cynn: I think I always fantasized about it. At first I wrote short stories because I didn’t think I could handle a book-length story. Then I realized my short stories were all bumping into each other, and I was writing a novel whether I could handle it or not. I did an MFA in fiction where I studied the developed my first book under the novelist Sarah Schulman, author of Rat Bohemia. A year after I graduated, Sarah wrote me and offered that I submit Cat Rising to her colleague, Judith Stelboum, Acquisitions Editor at the now defunct Haworth Press Inc.. I did and it was picked it up, as were the next in the series, Girls With Hammers, and Babies, Bikes, and Broads...all now with Bywater, who has also acquired my latest Angels and Manners.
Michele: What’s your process in creating your work – are there phases or stages you can identify in retrospect?
Cynn: The process has changed over the years. The bottom line is—one must write. How, when, where, and why have constantly changed with the ”tides” of my life. With and without children in the house. With and without a partner, now married. My job which affords me great lengths of time….etc. I have written six novels in 10 years. I average ten months on the first draft.
The last three books seemed to mimic each other’s creative process, which has made the writing time incrementally more efficient, as my own crafting sensibilities strengthen. Before I land on page, I spend about 6 months day/night dreaming about the story. I talk about it with my mate and friends, I then write a rough synopsis 20pp or so, and by the time I land on the page, I pretty much have the entire narrative arc, beginning to end.
While I’m working on it, before I begin a new chapter, I read and tweak the chapter before it, then I take a 2 mile walk up the cove where I live, and by the time I get back, I’m ready to write it. Sometimes this takes a day, sometimes more.
Michele: How does your subject matter emerge?
Cynn: I love stories. I love to hear them, and tell them, and write them. I’m also interested in people and most people I know have stories. So, while I might be a talker, I’m also a pretty good listener, especially to a great story. Sometimes a fragment of a story will pass by and my imagination will grab it; the next thing I know, I’ve got a novel.
Michele: On a simple percentage basis, how much of your work, would you
estimate, is politically driven?
Cynn: Very little. Unless you count being a legally, married lesbian political–but then we’re just getting into theory, aren’t we?
Michele: As a queer writer, where on the spectrum do you feel that you fit
within the literary tradition of writing about family?
Cynn: First, I have a hard time feeling like I fit into the literary tradition of being considered a queer writer. The focus of my work has always been family. I like to think of my stories as having characters who happen to be lesbians, rather than stories about lesbians. This has always been my thrust, even now as I pepper not-so-lesbian stories with gay people, it isn’t because I’m trying to be politically inclusive, it’s because most of us have gay people in our lives, even if we don’t know it.
Michele: What is your own definition of family?
Cynn: My definition of family is the people with whom I live and love and surround myself.
Michele: How does your family deal with you as a writer?
Cynn: My mate, Elenna, (we were married in Ptown in June 2009), is a writer’s dream-mate. She loves that I love being a writer, and so she wants me to write, encourages me to write, AND leaves me alone to do it, except to bring me lunch (nuf said?). When I emerge from a day of it, she is, seemingly, eager to listen as I read the latest aloud to her. Best of all, because she is so smart and a movie-buff, and keenly insightful, and has no qualms telling me when it’s “not good” rather than what most say ”It’s good” whether it is or not.
My sons, I believe, are proud, but admit to not reading my books. They brag and pass titles along to friends, and will happily listen when I tell them a story, but don’t read their mother. Neither does my father. He once confessed that he couldn’t separate me from my characters. My mother does read my work, and does seem to like it. Or so she says. In fact, though, both parents have been my greatest supporters. They have backed me from the get-go, emotionally and financially.
Michele: From your personal perspective, how do you view our community going forward in the current political climate?
Cynn: Well, if progress on the abolition of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, DOMA, and the allowance for SSM are not redefined for us with a liberal president and congress in majority, I will be retiring to Canada. And, I’m not so convinced we’re going to see this change soon. While I’d like for my legal MA marriage to be recognized in my home state of NC, I am more concerned by Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, which I feel is an unconscionable policy with gazillions of inequitable, unconstitutional, biased, unjust, dangerous, and absurd consequences.
If any of my work is political it is probably the novel I’m working on now entitled Don’t Ask, Never Tell, about a young woman whose life becomes derailed because of this policy.
I think the most pro-active thing that we can/should do as individual gays and lesbians is to be out, to get married in legal states, celebrate as families, adopt children, and continue to expect fairness and respect from our government. This will lead to change.
As for our literature, as in life so too are we changing in our stories. We are no longer a hidden community. We are no longer The Other as we once were even a decade ago. Our youth are out. Youth in general are more accepting of us, more tolerant, their struggles are different (and the same), as ours of an earlier coming out generation were different. I think as we are becoming more a part of mainstream society, so too are our books being absorbed into mainstream fiction. My local bookstore, the well-renowned Malaprop’s, a legendary early independent lesbian owned and operated bookstore which continues to hold big name author readings just dismantled its gay/lesbian section and placed us amongst its mainstream titles; my books now reside in Regional Writers.
Michele: What’s the best part (or most fun) about being a writer?
Cynn: Making up stories.
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