Newtonville Books Community Blog

Rebecca Chace’s latest novel is Leaving Rock Harbor

–Name a childhood hero.
Pippi Longstocking

–Name a work you wished you’d written.
That changes all the time, there is so much out there to admire. I wish I could write beautiful Haikus—Basho—if I could write like Basho and spend my time walking and writing haiku, I would like that.

–Name some of the original working titles of your work before it was published.
A long ago title had the name “Massasoit” in it, instead of “Rock Harbor” but that was not popular with anyone but me.

–Name a writer in history you would’ve like to have been a contemporary of and why.
Colette. I would have liked to have had an affair with her.

–Name a work of yours whose reception you’ve been surprised about and why.
I was surprised that people responded so well to my first book, Chautauqua Summer but happily surprised, of course.

–Correct a misperception about you as a writer in fifty words or less.
I am no longer a trapeze artist—though yes, I was at one time–and I am not a member of the Flying Karamazov Brothers (who are not trapeze artists either).

–Name a trait you deplore in other writers.
Let’s not go there

–Name your five desert island films.
Casablanca
Resevoir Dogs
Zero Pour Conduit
BreathlessActually, can I please just take a computer with me and have internet access?

–Name a book not your own that you wish everyone would read.
Andre Aciman’s Call Me By Your Name is still my favorite novel of recent years.

–Name a book you suspect most people claim to have read, but haven’t.
War and Peace

–If you could choose one of your works to rewrite, which would it be and why.
To me that would be like a writer’s circle of hell: You don’t get to write anything new, just try to fix what’s already been published.

–Share the greatest literary secret/gossip you know.
No way. And I am usually the LAST to know, truly the last . . .

–Name a book you read over and over for inspiration.
There’s no one book. I am inspired by the short stories and interviews/writing on craft that I use for teaching, and that is a huge range of authors.

–Name the writing habit you rely on to get you through a first draft.
I’ve never felt I had a choice about what I had to write. I guess you get through the first draft by knowing that it’s the only way you will have something to go back and work on, which is really a relief—and a pleasure. It may sound corny, but I really like the act of writing, even on the lousy days I feel better if I write than if I don’t.

–Name a regret, literary or otherwise.
Regrets are really a waste of time, aren’t they? Of course I have them, but: moveon.org as my girlfriends like to say about many things . . .

–Name your greatest struggle as a writer.
Time. Time. Time.

–Name a question you get about writing to which there really is no good answer.
“Is this really about you?”

–Name a question you wish you had been asked.
“Would it be all right with you to adapt all of your books into feature films if we pay you gazillions of dollars?”

Zoe Ferraris’s new novel is City of Veils

–Name a childhood hero.

Helen Keller.

–Name a work you wished you’d written.

These days it’s George RR Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series – the first three books.

–Name a writer in history you would’ve like to have been a contemporary of and why.

I’ve always been profoundly curious to know what a typical writing day was like for Shakespeare, but considering how difficult it was for women to get any literary recognition in almost any time period in history, I wouldn’t want to be contemporary of any of my favorite authors.

–Correct a misperception about you as a writer in fifty words or less.

Well, so far the biggest misperception people have is that I’m younger than I am. Normally, I leave that uncorrected.

–Name a trait you deplore in other writers.

Condescension about children’s fiction or fantasy.

–Name your five desert island films.

I’m thinking if I have room for a DVD player and a generator, I have room to bring
the Battlestar Galactica series and Seinfeld. ER might come in handy, too. I’d also bring the Godfather and Ladyhawke.

–Name a book not your own that you wish everyone would read.

The Leopard, by Giuseppe Lampedusa

–Name a book you suspect most people claim to have read, but haven’t.

Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time

–If you could choose one of your works to rewrite, which would it be and why.

Please, not another rewrite!

–Name a book you read over and over for inspiration.

Captain Blood

–Name the writing habit you rely on to get you through a first draft.

The first draft is usually when I write like crazy night and day, and my schedule gets so out of control that there’s no room for habit. It’s the editing of successive drafts where I wind up with rituals, the main one being that I have to have a cup of tea on the desk, even though I stopped drinking tea about three years ago.

–Name a regret, literary or otherwise.

Not becoming an opera singer.

–Name your greatest struggle as a writer.

Developing character. On the one hand, I want to know my characters really well before I commit to spending a year or more inhabiting their lives, but I never want things to get too comfortable, because inevitably someone’s going to start cheating.

The other monumental struggle is, of course, making a living.

–Name a question you get about writing to which there really is no good answer.

“Who’s your favorite author?”

–Name a question you wish you would’ve been asked.

“How bad was your writing when you were eighteen? Can you give us an example?”

Belle Boggs is the author of Mattaponi Queen: Stories.

–Name a childhood hero.
Godzilla

–Name a work you wished you’d written.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks—that book is fantastic.

–Name a writer in history you would’ve like to have been a contemporary of and why.
Edna Lewis, chef and cookbook writer and fellow Virginian, who had a fascinating life. I wish I’d known her.

–Correct a misperception about you as a writer in fifty words or less.
I don’t own a berry farm.

–Name a trait you deplore in other writers.
Complaining about teaching creative writing

–Name your five desert island films.
Auntie Mame, There Will Be Blood, Nashville, Stop Making Sense (for music to build my shack to), White Christmas (for holidays on the island).

–Name a book not your own that you wish everyone would read.
A Hope in the Unseen by Ron Suskind

–Name a book you suspect most people claim to have read, but haven’t.
The Bible

–Share the greatest literary secret/gossip you know.
I wish I knew some! I love gossip but live a little outside of the literary world.

–Name a book you read over and over for inspiration.
All of Edward P. Jones and Flannery O’Connor

–Name the writing habit you rely on to get you through a first draft.
Turning on “Freedom” for the PC—it disables the Internet for a set period of time.

–Name a regret, literary or otherwise.
Giving up on my book after my former agent stopped returning my emails.

–Name your greatest struggle as a writer.
Balancing teaching (middle and high school) with writing.

–Name a question you get about writing to which there really is no good answer.
“Where do you get your inspiration?” I don’t think it’s a bad question, but my answers are usually sort of dumb or perplexing.

–Name a question you wish you had been asked.
May I have the recipe for Loretta’s Hot Pepper Jelly?

Why, yes! Here it is:

Ingredients:

5 large red peppers, seeded and coarsely chopped
1-2 hot peppers, seeded
4 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups apple cider vinegar
1 T Tabasco
1 onion
1 packet Certo pectin

1. Finely chop the peppers and onion in a food processor.

2. In a large nonreactive saucepan, combine pepper mix, sugar, vinegar, and Tabasco. Boil, then add pectin. Bring to a rolling boil (one you can’t stir down) and cook until thickened (this takes 10-20 minutes–just watch to see how you like it).

3. Ladle the jelly into sterilized jars, filling to 1/4 inch from top of jar. Add lids and rings, then process in a boiling water bath for ten minutes. Listen for the “pop” when you take them out to be sure they’re sealed.

Amy Sohn’s most recent novel is Prospect Park West.

–Name a childhood hero.
Anne Frank.

–Name a work you wished you’d written.
Independence Day by Richard Ford

–If you had to order your work by how successfully you completed what you set out to accomplish, what would that list look like?
Prospect Park West
Run Catch Kiss
My Old Man

–Name a writer in history you would’ve like to have been a contemporary of and why.
Charles Bukowski. Would have loved to have met the old dog.

–Name a work of yours whose reception you’ve been surprised about and why.
This one – people seem to take motherhood so seriously when it is so ripe for satire, especially in this sanctimonious age. I didn’t know people read fiction as non-fiction and I think it does a disservice to fiction.

–Correct a misperception about you as a writer in fifty words or less.
That I can only write about sex. Most of the sex I write about is bad in one way or another and lately anyway I am more interested in its consequences.

–Name a trait you deplore in other writers.
Plagiarizing too often from themselves, in other words, an inability to distinguish between what should be published and what could be published.

–Name your five desert island films.
The Apartment
Harold and Maude
Together
Gregory’s Girl
All About Eve

–Name a book not your own that you wish everyone would read.
Yoga for People Who Can’t Be Bothered to Do It by Geoff Dyer

–Name a book you suspect most people claim to have read, but haven’t.
The Corrections

–If you could choose one of your works to rewrite, which would it be and why.
Probably Run Catch Kiss. There is writing in there that has a lot of soul and courage and writing that is less evolved that I would like. I would try to keep in the courage and improve the sentences.

–Share the greatest literary secret/gossip you know.
I can’t but it involves Martin Amis.

–Name a book you read over and over for inspiration.
The Bonfire of the Vanities

–Name the writing habit you rely on to get you through a first draft.
Just keep going, don’t look back – and try to remember how much easier the editing will be once I get to that stage.

–Name a regret, literary or otherwise.
I sent an inappropriate letter to Philip Roth. A fan letter but not something I would ever want anyone else to see ever.

–Name your greatest struggle as a writer.
Discipline. As Nora Roberts says, “Ass in the chair.” Hard to do that when you have a young child – there are so many distractions in the form of other things to do. This is why people go to writers colonies.

–Name a question you get about writing to which there really is no good answer.
“How much is fiction?”

–Name a question you wish you had been asked.
“Why are women writers reviewed by different standards than men writers?”

Jonathan Tropper’s latest book is This Is Where I Leave You

–Name a childhood hero.
BJ from BJ and the Bear. Enough said.

–Name a work you wished you’d written.
What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, by Peter Hedges.

–If you had to order your work by how successfully you completed what you set out to accomplish, what would that list look like?”

I don’t really like to look back like that. You’re in a different place for each book, and they’re all perfect in the moment. But a year later, you’d write them all differently.

–Name a writer in history you would’ve like to have been a contemporary of and why.

Hemingway. Kind of obvious, I know, but it just seemed like you’d be more of a man hanging out with him.

–Name a work of yours whose reception you’ve been surprised about and why.
I worried that This Is Where I Leave You might not appeal to my readership because of the whole shiva angle. It turned out to be a bestseller. That was a very happy surprise.

–Correct a misperception about you as a writer in fifty words or less.
I don’t write comic novels.

–Name a trait you deplore in other writers.
I hate when writers take themselves too seriously and say things like they write for themselves and not to be read. No one’s buying it.

–Name your five desert island films.
Jerry Maguire, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Rocky, Witness, and You Can Count On Me.

–Name a book you suspect most people claim to have read, but haven’t.
Anything by Tolstoy.

–If you could choose one of your works to rewrite, which would it be and why.
Plan B. I was young and somewhat misguided. There’s a good story there, with real heart, but I wrote it way too earnestly. I hadn’t found my voice yet.

–Share the greatest literary secret/gossip you know.

–Name a book you read over and over for inspiration.
Bright Lights Big City, by Jay Mcinerney.

–Name the writing habit you rely on to get you through a first draft.
Procrastination.

–Name a regret, literary or otherwise.
I regret not having traveled more extensively when I was younger. I find it limits me as a writer, and even though I’ve traveled extensively now, it’s not the same as setting up shop halfway around the world when you’re young.

–Name your greatest struggle as a writer.
When I’m not sure of my direction, I should continue to write until I figure it out. Instead, I tend to shut down for a while and tie my brain into knots.

–Name a question you get about writing to which there really is no good answer.
“Where do you get your ideas?

Jon Clinch’s latest novel is Kings of the Earth

–Name a childhood hero.

Ray Bradbury. From my earliest days, I was a sucker for a fancy prose style.

–Name a work you wished you’d written.

Thornton Wilder’s THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY. I somehow missed this book until a couple of years ago, when I listened to Sam Waterston’s very fine reading of it. THE BRIDGE is a thing of great and mysterious beauty.

–If you had to order your work by how successfully you completed what you set out to accomplish, what would that list look like?

It would be very short, for one thing.

–Name a writer in history you would’ve like to have been a contemporary of and why.

Flannery O’Connor. Because I’d have written her a fan letter, and then maybe she’d have written me back. Her letters, we know now, were every bit as marvelous as her stories.

–Name a work of yours whose reception you’ve been surprised about and why.

I expected controversy over FINN—in particular over my invention of a bi-racial Huck—and it never happened. Readers delighted me by being ready for the idea. Blame it on Barack Obama. Blame it on our being ready for Barack Obama. Which I think is a very good thing.

–Correct a misperception about you as a writer in fifty words or less.

I am not Norman Mailer’s love child. Honest.

–Name a trait you deplore in other writers.

Arrogance. Some folks act like they’re Mailer’s love child or something.

–Name your five desert island films.

The In-Laws (the 1979 original, with Peter Falk and Alan Arkin)
Raiders of the Lost Ark
The Remains of the Day
The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra
Intolerable Cruelty

–Name a book not your own that you wish everyone would read.

Alistair MacLeod’s ISLAND. Heartbreaking and lovely, it contains any number of the most deeply humane stories I know. It’s also a great example of how fully a sense of place can inform a writer’s work.

–Name a book you suspect most people claim to have read, but haven’t.

It’s a tie between The Bible and The Qu’ran.

–If you could choose one of your works to rewrite, which would it be and why?

You know, I wouldn’t do it. It’s not that they’re perfect by any means, but they’re definitely artifacts of the moment.

–Share the greatest literary secret/gossip you know.

Nobody tells me anything. Seriously.

–Name a book you read over and over for inspiration.

There really isn’t anything that I turn to for inspiration. There are things I turn to for a kick in the pants, though. Like THE BRIDGE and ISLAND. Read those, and raise your sights.

–Name the writing habit you rely on to get you through a first draft.

Sitting down and keeping at it. The process isn’t easy, and it isn’t fast—mainly because my first drafts are very, very close to my final drafts. I’m not one of those “just get something down on paper and we’ll fix it later” writers.

–Name a regret, literary or otherwise.

I wish I’d gotten an earlier start, although the younger me wouldn’t have had half as much to write about.

–Name your greatest struggle as a writer.

Locating my material. I wrote five failed and very different novels before my material finally found me.

–Name a question you get about writing to which there really is no good answer.

It’s not a question, exactly. It’s more of a conversational gambit, and it goes like this: “I’d like to write too, but I can’t find the time.” I usually tell these folks that if I could find the time, what I’d really like to do is neurosurgery.

–Name a question you wish you had been asked.

“Where do you find the time to write?”

Allegra Goodman’s new novel is The Cookbook Collector.

–Name a childhood hero.

My mother, Madeleine Joyce Goodman

–Name a work you wished you’d written.

My next book!

–If you had to order your work by how successfully you completed what you set out to accomplish, what would that list look like?

The order would start with the most recent book and finish with my first book.

–Name a writer in history you would’ve like to have been a contemporary of and why.

No time travel for me. I’m fond of running water, antibiotics and anesthesia, among other creature comforts.

–Name a work of yours whose reception you’ve been surprised about and why.

I’m tickled that Intuition did so well in Taiwan and Israel and that The Other Side of the Island did so well in France.

–Correct a misperception about you as a writer in fifty words or less.

One misconception: that I’m a quiet writer, which I think is code for literary, cerebral and character-driven. Actually, I’m not so quiet. I’m plot driven as well as character driven and I write about the big wide crazy world.

–Name a trait you deplore in other writers.

Self pity.

–Name your five desert island films.

Annie Hall, Wild Strawberries, Chariots of Fire, Atanarjuat, Bye Bye Braverman

–Name a book not your own that you wish everyone would read.

War and Peace

–Name a book you suspect most people claim to have read, but haven’t.

The Bible

–If you could choose one of your works to rewrite, which would it be and why.

I don’t believe in going back and rewriting after publication.

–Share the greatest literary secret/gossip you know.

The greatest secret about writing fiction is that there are no rules. You just do what you have to do to.

–Name a book you read over and over for inspiration.

I’ve got three and they all start with M. Mansfield Park, Moby Dick, and Middlemarch

–Name the writing habit you rely on to get you through a first draft.

Every day I start work by rewriting the pages I wrote the day before.

–Name a regret, literary or otherwise.

No regrets! Certainly no literary regrets. Every day is a new day is a new page.

–Name your greatest struggle as a writer.

It’s hard to be patient.

–Name a question you get about writing to which there really is no good answer.

“Where do you get your ideas?”

–Name a question you wish you had been asked.

“What advice would you give to young writers?” Read, read, read. Listen to people talking. Watch the world. Don’t write about yourself. You’ll be there in every word anyway. Look outside yourself for subjects.

Mary-Beth Hughes is the author of the novel Wavemaker II and the short story collection Double Happiness

–Name a childhood hero.

Madame Curie.

–Name a work you wished you’d written.

The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald

–If you had to order your work by how successfully you completed what you set out to accomplish, what would that list look like?

Oh, impossible question.

–Name a writer in history you would’ve like to have been a contemporary of and why.

Henry James, especially when he was young, before he became the “Master.” It would have been fascinating to meet that rare, strange sensibility early on. And George Eliot, I appreciate her courage and her doggedness.

–Name a work of yours whose reception you’ve been surprised about and why.

At first any reception is surprising. Lately I’ve been surprised that early readers of Double Happiness all choose different stories to like best. I thought there would be a consensus around one or two stories, and I thought I knew which ones they were. So far, so wrong!

–Correct a misperception about you as a writer in fifty words or less.

That I’m really something else.

–Name a trait you deplore in other writers.

There are many traits I adore in other writers, but self-adulation I find sort of depleting when I meet it.

–Name your five desert island films.

8 1/2, Now Voyager, My Life As a Dog, Truly Madly Deeply, and the A & E version of Pride and Prejudice with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth, which seems to double as anti-anxiety medication.

–Name a book not your own that you wish everyone would read.

The Ambassadors, also The Idiot.

–Name a book you suspect most people claim to have read, but haven’t.

Middlemarch

–If you could choose one of your works to rewrite, which would it be and why.

I work so slowly that to add yet another return trip seems ill-advised. Best, for me, to move on.

–Share the greatest literary secret/gossip you know.

And I do have a really good one.

–Name a book you read over and over for inspiration.

The Blue Flower, really all of Fitzgerald. I love The Bookshop and The Gate of Angels and Offshore, too.

–Name the writing habit you rely on to get you through a first draft.

The practice of stumbling on.

–Name a regret, literary or otherwise.

Regrets are very sad.

–Name your greatest struggle as a writer.

Oddly, I think the whole idea — or identity — of being an author, as opposed to the practice of reading and writing, which feels natural. Recently I had the chance to hear Mary Gaitskill give a sublime lecture on Reading Fiction. I felt such admiration not only for her ideas, but also for the whole presentation, her way of conducting the business of being an author. Afterwards, someone outside said, “Brilliance just pours off her.” And it does! I’d love to muster that kind of confidence when it comes to being a writer out in the world — an author!

–Name a question you get about writing to which there really is no good answer.

How autobiographical is it?? Truly no good answer when it comes to talking about fiction. I’ve heard Sheila Kohler say autobiography can be a helpful jumping off point for a story, making the best of a thorny query.

–Name a question you wish you had been asked.

“Where are we going for dinner?”

Stephen McCauley’s latest novel is Insignificant Others

–Name a childhood hero.

Johnny Tremain. Admittedly a fictional hero, but one who felt real to me and rose admirably above a lot of hardship.

–Name a work you wished you’d written.

From the point of view of sales, The Bible. Artistically, I wish I were capable of writing even one sentence as good as every sentence in Madame Bovary or The Great Gatsby.

–If you had to order your work by how successfully you completed what you set out to accomplish, what would that list look like?

I have mixed feelings about all of my books, but in every case, I’ve sit down with the hope of writing in a voice that doesn’t sound flat, lifeless, or generic. Even when I feel a book is far from what I intended in terms of plot and theme, I at least feel confident that the voice is very much my own.

–Name a writer in history you would’ve like to have been a contemporary of and why.

While I love reading biographies, I rarely read biographies of writers whose work I love. I prefer to let their fiction speak for itself. In that sense, I have no particular interest in meeting in person any of the writers I admire—I feel I’ve met the best parts of them on the page already.

–Name a work of yours whose reception you’ve been surprised about and why.

Alternatives to Sex is about a gay real estate agent addicted to online hookups. I was truly astonished by the number of women who wrote to tell me how much they liked the book and identified with the feelings, if not the actual situations.

–Correct a misperception about you as a writer in fifty words or less.

I was recently asked at a reading if I am a pessimist or a cynic. In fact, I’m a fairly sentimental person.

–Name a trait you deplore in other writers.

Pretentiousness.

–Name your five desert island films.

The Birds, Annie Hall, Jules and Jim, All About Eve, and The Lonely Lady with Pia Zadora.

–Name a book not your own that you wish everyone would read.

Maria Riva’s biography of her mother, Marlene Dietrich.

–Name a book you suspect most people claim to have read, but haven’t.

Every few years there’s an another excessively long, highly intellectual novel that appears on the bestseller list. I have trouble believing even a fraction of these is read cover to cover.

–If you could choose one of your works to rewrite, which would it be and why.

Since I never (ever!) reread my own books, I couldn’t tell you.

–Share the greatest literary secret/gossip you know.

I’m too isolated and out-of-the-loop to know anything and too discreet to repeat it if I did.

–Name a book you read over and over for inspiration.

There’s a novel called Lives of the Saints by Nancy Lemann. It’s funny and touching. There are passages that always make me laugh and others that move me. It’s lovely novel that too few people know about.

–Name the writing habit you rely on to get you through a first draft.

Napping.

–Name a regret, literary or otherwise.

I listened to a lot of Edith Piaf as a kid, and I am very serious about following a strict policy of “non je ne regrette rien.” I think regret is a big fat waste of time. Learn from your mistakes and move on.

–Name your greatest struggle as a writer.

I lack self confidence and I’m indecisive.

–Name a question you get about writing to which there really is no good answer.

“Where do you get your ideas?”

–Name a question you wish you had been asked.

My age. So I could lie about it.

Bret Anthony Johnston is the author of Corpus Christi: Stories and Naming the World: And Other Exercises for the Creative Writer

–Name a childhood hero.

Franco Harris, Pittsburgh Steelers running back, number 32. He of the “immaculate reception.”

–Name a work you wished you’d written.

Let’s just say I’d be awfully pleased if my name were either Cormac McCarthy or Stephenie Meyer.

–If you had to order your work by how successfully you completed what you set out to accomplish, what would that list look like?

I’ve never completed what I set out to do, never. My intentions are more of a map, and I’m deeply grateful when I get lost along the way. The more I lose my way, the sooner my intentions get subsumed by the story, the more successful the story is.

–Name a writer in history you would’ve like to have been a contemporary of and why.

Shakespeare? Chekhov? Tolstoy? Eudora Welty? I’d like to ask any of them how it’s done, and then, once they’ve tutored me for a good bit, I’d like to get some books signed.

–Name a work of yours whose reception you’ve been surprised about and why.

I’m always surprised by any reception. I’m surprised to have any readers at all. It’s humbling, endlessly so.

–Correct a misperception about you as a writer in fifty words or less.

I didn’t write American Psycho or Less Than Zero.

–Name a trait you deplore in other writers.

Competitiveness.

–Name your five desert island films.

Junebug, Love, Actually (totally masculine, whatever), Anchorman, First Blood, and Hands on a Hard Body, which is a documentary and not a skin flick.

–Name a book not your own that you wish everyone would read.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

–Name a book you suspect most people claim to have read, but haven’t.

Corpus Christi: Stories

–If you could choose one of your works to rewrite, which would it be and why.

American Psycho.

–Share the greatest literary secret/gossip you know.

I would be disappeared in about 4.2 seconds.

–Name a book you read over and over for inspiration.

The Great Gatsby.

–Name the writing habit you rely on to get you through a first draft.

Sweat.

–Name a regret, literary or otherwise.

That I didn’t write Less than Zero.

–Name your greatest struggle as a writer.

If you ask my publisher, the answer would be my productivity. If you ask me, the answer is meeting deadlines.

–Name a question you get about writing to which there really is no good answer.

In this order:

1. “What’s the theme of your book?”
2. “What are you working on now?”
3. “Why aren’t you taller?”

–Name a question you wish you had been asked.

“Will you take a check?”