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Episode 11—Carrie Hagen on Finding the Essence of Story
171 Plays10 years ago
Carrie Hagen is the author of "We is Got Him," a gripping narrative of the first ransom kidnapping in the United States. This book, her first, reads like a seasoned pro, like a writer in total command. I hope you enjoy this conversation and if the audio is a bit off, I apologize. It's always a challenge with my primitive equipment to make it sound like your other favorite podcasts. Bear with me, brighter skies are ahead. That said, Carrie's insights into her book a fascinating and helpful to anyone embarking on this kind of writing. Enjoy!
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:05
Speaker
Is this Carrie Hagan, author of We Is Gautam? Hello, Brendan. Welcome to the hashtag CNF podcast. I'm your host, Brendan O'Mara.
Historical Context of 'We Is Gautam'
00:00:16
Speaker
This is episode number 11 with my friend and author, Carrie Hagan. She wrote the wonderful book, We Is Gautam, which is a historical recreation of the first ransom kidnapping in the United States.
00:00:31
Speaker
So think Devil in the White City and really any of Eric Larson's work. Carrie has written a great book. It's been out for a few years and it's out in paperback. So you should definitely go out and get yourself a copy.
Balancing Work and Creativity
00:00:49
Speaker
Beyond that, I'm not going to waste too much time because I've taken far too much time to get this episode up. I have since taken a full-time job landscaping that allows for some steadier income to help fund this habit of writing and podcasting and help contribute a little more to the household budget. You know how that is. So without further ado, let's get right into it with my interview with Carrie Hagan. Thank you.
00:01:20
Speaker
Hey, how's it going? Right on time. I know. I'm nothing if not punctual. Are you, I was just remembering our shared love for Mad Men. Oh yes, you know I'm not caught up. You're not? No. It's ever, I think I'm three or four episodes behind. Okay. Yeah, so I'm,
00:01:48
Speaker
Right about the time I started this job, I have to be in bed at nine. Yeah, no, I understand. How's it going?
00:02:03
Speaker
uh... it's growing but it's you know it's a good experience uh... uh... i guess i'm learning more and more spanish which is good and uh... can you while you do it you think about other things
00:02:18
Speaker
Yeah, that's kind of what's good. It's in so many ways purely physical. And I'm oftentimes just kind of by myself doing very mundane stuff, whether it's just weeding, picking up trash, or cutting grass.
Time Management in Creative Pursuits
00:02:34
Speaker
And I keep a notebook on me. So if things come to mind, I'll jot things down for maybe the few moments that I actually have some
00:02:45
Speaker
some time to do something creative, which isn't much these days, but still trying to kind of find a groove with it, if that makes any sense. Yeah, it totally does. And when you first told me you got a job doing that, I thought, it's always been one of those things where you think about career paths to take, where you're funding what you really want to do. And I've often thought about something in
00:03:14
Speaker
horticulture, gardening, landscape, you know, et cetera. But then, you know, you have the exhaustion quotient, too, that you can't... You know what I think it was, too? I think it was watching Office Space, where at the end of the movie, he's like working with his hands, so I'm truly happy. And I think I hold that up as a cult spirit.
00:03:35
Speaker
Yeah, in so many ways, too. It might not be in the college career path, but doing something in that vein, while that's essentially what we've invested in, invested years in money and in that education. But at the same time, if I were teaching,
Routine and Creative Discipline
00:03:57
Speaker
and reading a lot of might be some good stuff but some bad stuff at the grade and we've read all the stuff are you know students are yeah i don't know i'd if i'd have the energy to to do my own writing anyway at least yet doing something like this it can make you out into a role in a different way yeah it really great yeah yeah i definitely got pop up on that one uh... uh... but how can i tell qualities okay
00:04:24
Speaker
yeah yeah it's good to hear me backline i can't yeah i had uh... i felt that credit died at without my realizing it but i have a but then okay i'm kind of at the weird angle uncomfortable but i worry about that but i think that you hear me okay uh... you know you did sound like you're at a weird angle there so
00:04:46
Speaker
uh... man but thanks for doing that uh... i had to be a part of it sorry it took so long but i think that i i know how it goes
00:04:55
Speaker
Oh yeah, no, it was more on my part, I feel, because maybe Friday nights and the weekend just feels, I don't know, it feels crammed with a bunch of stuff. I know. Like, who wants to sit down and talk it out for an hour on the phone? Are you hopeful now for the triple crown, by the way, tomorrow? Yeah, yeah. Are you? Yeah, well, I'm not going there, but I'm, for the first...
00:05:20
Speaker
You know, I was at the 08, Belmont let down, I was at last year's Belmont let down. And this year I'm not going, so he'll probably win. So we'll see. But I'm covering it and writing about it for Bleacher Report. So I'll be kind of like live blogging the undercard and then doing some reaction stuff for it. But it should be a fun day of racing.
00:05:42
Speaker
Yeah, so it being a Friday night now, what is a typical Friday night like for you guys? Oh, man. I hear what you say about wanting to cram it into the weekend. You have so many expectations and so many plans.
00:06:06
Speaker
and then Friday night comes and you know you take those two hours you thought you were going to spend that night and you're kind of like, oh I'll just do two more hours on Saturday. And then Saturday comes and you are like, oh I was going to do some really good thinking today. And then you know you catch up on sleep and then it's Sunday and you think, oh my god the weekend's ruined.
00:06:30
Speaker
yet they start playing the next week it so uh... i'd try on friday i'd try to make right and i i kind of i was in such a good rhythm uh... when we were in our mf a program and i think you know whatever you know i kind of go in and out of that rhythm but i i do think that overall i try to make friday night like a non but i try not to plan anything you know just to have like a friend and family and just kind of hang out or
00:07:00
Speaker
in a good happy hour to have a good weekend night uh... and then saturday and sunday i try to to sit down and to get some some good thinking dot as i say which means you know i think about pop about conference you know i never had it in the network out here but i always benefit how much for what he said just about the writer's life and i remember his saying you know thinking and outlining and playing with but that part of writing and uh...
00:07:29
Speaker
that's really been hugely important for me to to think like that because otherwise you know if and you know i've had some rough uh... i've had to work if you put up experiences getting a second project off the ground and i'm happy to talk about that and uh... cool i think that i'm not i don't know that it was a rough experience but cool you know i don't know yeah i don't know i i think top work that really you know i come back i come back like out your notebook i do you know i
00:07:59
Speaker
once but i think that summer after i graduated i can't consolidate it all of that sort of half build notebook but i had uh... my three-year-old three-year-old there because i really stretched it out and uh... i have this like twenty-five page kind of galcher notebook and it goes all the way back to like my first semester with build your art and you know i just kind of have this like things that they all said and about just the writer's life and
00:08:27
Speaker
uh... it's i don't know i probably really go through it like it would be what the year it felt like i but i remember things and i think from each person that that keep me going when i when i feel uh... but i'm not going anywhere now uh... so you know the only how poor the only hour i can kind of control of my day is uh... and it's gonna you know you know between five thirty six thirty in the morning like that hour where
00:08:57
Speaker
i'd get up you know i have that our before i go to work and you know i really i'm pretty correct but again i'm in the rhythm and there are lots of times i'm not in the rhythm but i'm pretty good at it getting that our and i feel like it like i can get that and then you know i i don't feel i don't feel i'm not so hard on myself whereas if i don't get that time and who knows what i can actually sit down
00:09:26
Speaker
but you know it is like the at night i'm exhausted but at least i feel like i've checked away at something a little bit and then you know i'm more productive during the weekend absolutely uh... but that's been kind of my go to you know if i can and fresh at that time in the morning it just comes from having a life at that you know as a teacher just always having to get up early you know just kinda like getting up a half hour earlier and being able to put the work a little bit late you know and uh...
00:09:56
Speaker
just to kind of have that grounding time uh...
Writing Journey and Mentorship
00:10:00
Speaker
so that's kind of what what i try to do you know i try to do it out in the morning and then we know whatever i can get together in an evening except for friday uh... and sometimes it's like after you know i heard i heard an interview with bruce springsteen on
00:10:15
Speaker
something. It must have been NPR. And he was talking about how, and I probably am totally misremembering this, but I remember his last point. And he was just saying how when he was younger, he used to have these practice sessions and he'd have to put in a certain amount of time. And then as he got older, sometimes he only has
00:10:34
Speaker
ten fifteen minutes and he really uses those ten fifteen minutes and he's you compose things in that amount of time or part of things and and and i think about that because if i act for so many years but i would put it in that if i don't get two to three hours a day it's pointless and that was just so self-defeating and that was really helpful to hear like okay maybe i have a half hour so i'm just going to sit my hand down and not get up uh...
00:11:03
Speaker
until you know i have that time so until that you know that time and so uh... and the thing is in that you know thirty minutes it's kinda like what's it called a parkinson's law like whatever whatever task you have will will sort of fit the time allotted for it so yeah if you have three hours you'll or if you have a half an hour you'll probably get almost the same amount of work done in three hours time you'll it'll just be hyper focused and you're able to hate to be more great
00:11:33
Speaker
And I think, you know, there's some mornings where I'm just so exhausted. I'm just sitting there. But like I said, you know, there's just something psychologically about waking up and having that time where
00:11:45
Speaker
you know i'd like making coffee you know kind of going out but i'm i'm down there at the people you know it's just kind of like uh... it's just a helpful draw to come back for that half-hour hour whatever later today and then on the weekend i don't feel so overwhelmed and i'm going to be filled or it said you know i got so much from him uh... during this week two short weeks of that that summer fashion uh... and i remember his saying you know
00:12:12
Speaker
if your writing time is two hours in the laundry room of your apartment complex every Tuesday and Thursday, then that's your writing time. And no matter how many other demands you have, that's it. And if you don't make that appointment with yourself every Tuesday and Thursday in the laundromat, then make it up on the weekend. I kind of just have a little formula in my head that when I'm feeling like
00:12:39
Speaker
You know, so many things that I don't want to be doing that I have to do as part of life, you know, or keeping me from it. I just kind of remember those little tidbits. I really do draw strength on them.
00:12:51
Speaker
It's real important to be defensive and ritualistic about that time, because it's so easy for it to get away from you. If you miss one day, it's easy to say, well, I'll make up that one day on the weekend. But then it'll say something comes up, or you're all of a sudden three hours behind, and it's Thursday, and you're like, oh, how the hell am I going to make this up?
00:13:19
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, it's funny because you mentioned myself, my Facebook suicide. And that's come to an end. You're back from the dead? Yeah, I went off of it. Both that? You're back from the dead?
00:13:34
Speaker
i'd back from the day i think that you know i was off about nine times and i uh... i came back on just because i have a brother of the navy in okanawa and i was just i wasn't getting any of his post and you know i just kind of just in general a culture uh... it so much has been moved to face book just in terms of communication i was just never getting any of those update and and i was kind of like you know what i can and the reason why i went off you know two things one
00:14:02
Speaker
I was addicted to Facebook Scrabble, not even kidding. Like I would have four or five games going all the time. Um, I just addicted and then, um,
00:14:14
Speaker
and that was of course cutting into you know writing a procrastinating and then um... the other was just says you know you just end up following these trails you know how it is and all of a sudden it's like you know forty minutes later and you're reading about crap you know and and talk i was just sort of like you know i'm so fed up with with myself i'm so undisciplined with that uh... yeah i'll get caught watching like watching like an alligator attack some guy
00:14:43
Speaker
oh yeah you know that it followed the trail and it's like a seven-minute-long video and you're just waiting and waiting because this guy's just poking at this alligator and you're like I'm waiting to be squeamish here and all of a sudden I just burned. I just burned seven minutes that I'll never get back. Yeah, totally. So I just got really, I shut down all social media, well not like I was on that much, I was on LinkedIn and Facebook. I shut them down and then
00:15:13
Speaker
Lori Lichman, I don't know if you ever met her, but she's another Goucher grad and she's here in Philadelphia and she's a science nature writer. She really encouraged me to get back on LinkedIn because she got a kind of an offer to write a book about Philadelphia from another Goucher grad.
00:15:34
Speaker
uh... his first things and i don't remember his last name he found her on linkedin and she said you know it you've been looking for different ideas you know it really can be like you know i like it but it was about nine months and then i thought you know what what i'm doing to to come up with another idea it's not working for me so why don't i just say hey what else is out there and reconnect with people uh...
00:16:03
Speaker
So that's that story. So yeah, about three weeks ago, I shamefully reached back in and said, hi. Well, I think in some ways, it has its value in that I've never been able to totally pull the plug because as much as I hate certain aspects of it, and I just have,
00:16:29
Speaker
so much mind-numbing minutia that pops up my newsfeed like the gold nuggets are are that good like getting getting stuff from like uh reading whatever like our mutual friend brian mockin hop whatever he yeah oh yeah you know yeah those people reminded yeah yeah
00:16:51
Speaker
Yeah, because they have a lot to offer. And then just having what Austin Kleon, who wrote, steal like an artist and show your work, what he calls a seniors, which is just a bunch of people doing sort of similar types of artwork. And the internet is just a way to connect that web. And I don't know, if I came across
00:17:15
Speaker
some sort of a story that I find interesting or like something that could be expanded upon. But I'm like, I don't know if I'd be good for this. You know, it might be right up Carrie's angle, you know, right up her alley. And so maybe I'll send it her way. And if you're not on Facebook, granted, we have email and phone numbers, but maybe someone else. Yeah, no, I agree. They can, they can shove a story your way and it could lead to something or at the very least a paycheck.
00:17:43
Speaker
And there's just somebody for a piece I've been working on that I can't get a hold of. And I just thought, you know, this guy on Facebook, and he is. So you just kind of send a message and he'll check the other's box of his friend account. And that's another thing. Even when I was off, there were occasions to go back in and to get
00:18:03
Speaker
this piece of that piece of information, I think I needed to shoot Russ Beck a question, and yeah, I mean, I agree with you, you know, it all comes down to self-discipline, you know, it's like, it's not evil, you know, it's just the self-discipline, not letting the distractions kind of be commanding, so. I find if you go through it with a purpose,
00:18:32
Speaker
It works and you have your checklist like I'm going here to send this person a message done or if you just want to kind of play around, set the timer on your phone for 10 minutes and then when it's done, it's like oh, I got my fix and you can just move on and close that tab. There's also a good Chrome extension called Momentum.
00:18:55
Speaker
I don't know if you use Chrome on your... I do use Chrome and I don't know about it. Yeah, what it is, when you open a new tab in Chrome it has like your frequently visited windows and it's easy to get distracted and pick one of those tabs easily. What the momentum extension does, it pulls up the time of day
00:19:17
Speaker
with a beautiful image of nature somewhere and it will ask you a question like what is your goal today? And you type in your goal and below that is an inspirational quote that changes every single day. So every time you open a tab,
00:19:35
Speaker
You get this beautiful image of the day and right there, your task that you should be doing. I like that. It's a free extension, it's super easy to install and it's pretty cool. It looks great to know. Yeah, so I know that I would have that inkling to go to Twitter or Facebook but that makes it a big help and it keeps you focused and keeps the momentum going, hence the name.
00:20:05
Speaker
Nice now look into that. Thank you. Yeah, so How did you come to we as Gotham which I have to say like when I read it? I was so Like proud to know you when I finished reading that book because it was so well done It was I think I wrote in a review somewhere. I hope I did that
00:20:28
Speaker
that it was definitely, it felt like the book of someone who had done this, had been doing this for years. It didn't feel like your first book. It was that well done. It was right up Eric Larson alley, right in that vein. I really have to commend you on the job you did with it. Well, thank you, Brendan. Thank you. I really appreciate that. Well, yeah, I deserve it. How did you come to it?
00:20:55
Speaker
Well, you know, I've been writing for, I guess I've been writing probably for about like 10 years, these personal essays of just about paranoia and obsessions that I've had as a child. And I had this huge, huge, huge, huge manuscript of what I thought were very funny personal essays.
00:21:23
Speaker
So I get into Goucher and I learned in my first residency that they weren't funny. He really ripped them apart and it was painful because of course, you know, at that point I'd made, I never really joined a writer's group and the people that read it were people that knew me and maybe didn't know how to give me the feedback I needed.
00:21:51
Speaker
And when I say rip apart, I think it felt like that. I don't think it was intentionally, you know, people out to get, you know, I think it was just kind of like, yeah, this just isn't working. And I think a lot of people in our MFA program thinking, you know, that they have this project, they've been working on it a long time.
00:22:11
Speaker
that this is going to be the program that's going to fuel it into the, you know, the New York Times bestseller. You know, maybe the goals aren't that lofty, but I think, you know, you have that hope. And so, I had Phil, and Phil Girard, who, again, I owe him a lot, and, you know, he just gave me some really great advice, and, you know, basically,
00:22:36
Speaker
i don't remember the exact words but it boiled down to you know you're here to learn craft so really pay attention to craft here you know and think about putting this aside and starting something from scratch and um... so painful i literally almost packed up my car and left like i was just so you know i thought that this was my calling and uh... and i
00:23:03
Speaker
you know but i think that i i i also knew that i trusted these people and i think that's a lot of my opinion and you know i i didn't know anything i didn't know anything you know i thought high school english but i didn't i didn't know anything about you know writing the way that you know that the narrative non-fiction way that we all know it and that the other new journalism and i don't really know anything about all that so i just kind of
Research and Structuring Challenges
00:23:26
Speaker
but you know i'm gonna prove that i'm a pretty good to this guy that i can do that uh... and and he he i felt that interested and and i think that you know i i live in philadelphia we want to do a historical piece and he's like well there you go your first assignment finding something about philadelphia so i think that the german town section of northwest philadelphia is where my dad grew up and i i knew more about it than any other neighborhood
00:23:54
Speaker
So, you know, at Goucher, I like, you know, you do what you do. You can go online and, you know, you Wikipedia things and you see what trails you can investigate more seriously. And I came home and went to the Germantown Historical Society. It's called Historic Germantown Now. And, you know, it was only open like one Sunday a month. I mean, it was just, but I went with this list of topics and I connected with a retired,
00:24:22
Speaker
a history teacher named Gene Stackhouse and I kind of told him what I was doing and, you know, that I really was, and I went over to my topic list with him and he kind of said, when I mentioned, you know, this first kidnapping and he said, you know, nothing's been done on that in a while, like since the 60s, somebody wrote a book
00:24:45
Speaker
reviewing the case and uh... the investigation the twentieth century but he's like you know i that might be a good place for you to start everything else is kind of war-related unit stories about
00:24:59
Speaker
It's just shorter works. And again, I was just looking to do a piece for Phil, like just a standalone, you know, 10 page monthly requirement piece. So to make a long story short, Phil got excited about the synopsis I wrote. I went right to the New York Times. The father had written a memoir in 1876 and this New York city based writer
00:25:23
Speaker
had written a review of the memoir and then like, you know, updates in the case and then, you know, 20th century action in the 60s. So I read those and I went to the New York Times database and I just, I read every article I could find in the historic, you know, archive there and wrote up a synopsis for Phil and he's like, you know, this really could be your whole manuscript for this program.
00:25:51
Speaker
uh... and he asked me some really good questions and i think that's a master i think i left that semester i really i i i was redoing some of these essays that i still have my heart set on and i think that i left that semester with just about ten pages of this story and you know he really helped me study seen and setting seeing that uh... any victory like you know he's just very directed and uh... it's kind of like take it or leave it but
00:26:20
Speaker
this works it doesn't work and here's why and i i really really could tell that you know he is exactly his kind of you know leadership in exactly what i needed uh... and it just you know i'd really wanted to before playing the capture i've been at that date i kind of wanted to get with the phd read it uh... i didn't get any all right you know really wanted to go to before and i think a large part of it with my writing was just full of like
00:26:49
Speaker
and felt that that's just academic path of police jargon that just wasn't yet what it wasn't what worked it wasn't the same setting it wasn't that active you know engagement uh... i just really worked on that that semester come about realizing it uh... and it's constantly look like a personal thing to just prove i could do it and and that semester ended well and i had more work for who really kind of got me to think more about the larger storytelling because it was a very hard to figure out
00:27:19
Speaker
how to tell the story just in terms of whose perspective to take. For a while I was trying to tell the whole thing from the father's perspective, but what was hard about that was he had written a memoir in 1876.
00:27:32
Speaker
and uh... then i feel like michael still at what's going to be tested to because it was for the elephant in the room was you know the kid was never found to find out what happened to the kid uh... tight most of that first year that second semester of large is really trying to figure out there are so many legal so many people came forward the twelfth entry thing that they were the little ross boy uh... grown-up that i realized i didn't have the money
00:28:00
Speaker
or the skills to go out there and to travel around and to follow up a lot of these leads. And then I just, I felt so overwhelmed by that too that it took, like I said, you know, and I really worked hard that semester with her. And, you know, I just, by that second summer, I just kind of thought, I'm not going to figure out who, you know, where he was. And then I had
00:28:27
Speaker
it's funny because it was my mf-8 thesis so that my the thought of my mf-8 mentors really did frame kind of the directions i went in and then i had you know uh... the great dick todd who you know suggested you know just taking time to really read and study and to learn a lot about the time period and to think about how the story of what happened to the kid with a story of america at that time and that was really key advice because although you know you kind of think that is obvious
00:28:57
Speaker
When you're starting something and you're so overwhelmed with all of the research, those obvious things aren't so obvious. So he advised me to do that. And then I pretty much just took a year, and I took an extension of that point in that semester. And I just really read a lot. And I just studied books. I got to the interlibrary loan just about Reconstruction America.
00:29:24
Speaker
just continued learning about the, um, some of the supporting characters in the case and the sub topics like policing in the 1870s and, um, you know, problems facing industrial cities like Philadelphia then, and just really studying it.
00:29:41
Speaker
uh... and i think i a into the night thing and i have the freedom to do that didn't have to worry about page requirements every month i just kind of committed a bunch of stuff at the end and it was not good it really wasn't it with very uh... i think it was hard it was hard to figure out how to do uh... but i should say at this point i had read eric larkin's devil in the white city
00:30:07
Speaker
three or four times. And I had read it and read it and read it and read it. And that to me was like, just as good as any teacher that I've ever had. Cause his endnotes, and it's interesting because I saw on Facebook, he posted that he, he's just published an essay on his website about how he organizes his research. And I'm really looking forward to reading that because I still,
00:30:36
Speaker
I worked really hard on those endnotes, but I had stuff everywhere. I mean, Thumbtack walls for years, you know, just, it just felt like it was all over. But I read his endnotes were so helpful because he really takes the time in them to explain how he came to the inferences. Wow.
00:30:55
Speaker
that he came to make and that was really hard for me because you know i kept saying to fill especially when it was drilled in your head for so long you know don't you know you were so petrified that we're going to make things up and we know that that's the cardinal sin and i so didn't want to do that but it it it kept me from making judgments and um... you know that's when dick said you know at some point you have to say i've spent two years with this material now
00:31:24
Speaker
I'm pretty close to knowing a lot about it and I can use my intuitive abilities to say, you know, maybe one plus one equals two here. And, and, and Devil and the White City, which is the first of Larson's books I read, he explains how he came to the inferences that he came to in those end notes. So kind of going back and forth between the end notes and the scenes that he, you know, describes more, it was really helpful and it, it was, um,
00:31:53
Speaker
it took a few years to become comfortable doing that uh... and then i had to do it hard who was really hard on me again in a good way really hard on my clothes just in terms of uh... i just had so much crammed in that did that kind of nowhere says that i didn't really apart to that but i'd had the earliest scenes that i'd written you know i'd unit work work better but
00:32:22
Speaker
uh... every residency i had but felt like people were really hard on on what i had written and part of that was sensitivity i don't know but another part of it was i did have those basic lessons to learn on uh... just getting rid of that path of voice and thinking about in this draft thing you know i'm not somebody who can but i think that some people are i think that you know everybody said that i do think that some people have more of a natural gift of
00:32:51
Speaker
writing first draft that are really fluid and not that that's also their last draft because it's not but
00:32:58
Speaker
but i've always like i have to work really hard to make things flow and um... you're not alone here i think more people yeah i think more people struggle to get something down because they feel still did that that first draft has to be something that silly at moderately coherent yeah and there is a hard when you go to a particular area in a workshop where
00:33:26
Speaker
You're having to produce and you have to be so vulnerable to let people see. Yeah, that's not that great. Yeah, when you have other people who can you know, I mean, it's just a. Yeah, there's a competitiveness to where you like you want to.
00:33:45
Speaker
Well, it's that vulnerability. You want people to believe that everything you put out and share is your very best work, but ultimately, when you're sharing the stuff, I think...
00:33:59
Speaker
it's hard to come to understanding that it's a work in progress and this isn't going to be that final product but you're still getting judged on something that's incomplete and so there's yeah you can feel kind of wounded that you're getting chopped down like a tree
00:34:16
Speaker
When it's yeah when it's not built up yet, it's you're still fleshing it out and working through and in your case doing all this kind of research and then as I imagine cuz I've done a little bit of it too that when you're pulling all this stuff in from newspaper reports everything everything feels a little can feel a little bit stilted as you're trying to stitch everything together and
00:34:39
Speaker
And I know that was my experience. And so as you're working through that, I imagine that trying to find that lyricism in the scene and the narrative pacing through all this stuff was a big challenge, especially in the early drafts. Yeah. And Susanna was helpful. And by the time I was with her for the third summer, I had age wrapped.
00:35:08
Speaker
she took it and read it and took about twenty-five pages or so and really went through it copy editing wise and commenting on places where it was wooded or you know and just kind of like bracketing it off like wooded and then you know maybe a different kind of bracket and saying huh you know just and then you know she said you know you really
00:35:34
Speaker
you really have to pay attention now. Like, stop researching. Just look at what you have and work on this. And that's why I did that semester with her. By then, I could tell when I talked to people about the story, it seemed like something that people might be interested in reading about. And I did start thinking, you know, maybe this could be
00:35:59
Speaker
something that was published and that was a real motivator. Um,
Passion and Financial Realities in Writing
00:36:03
Speaker
that was a real motivator. And I was working a lot, you know, my husband was in grad school too at that time. I spent, I mean, I really, I spent most nights just really spending a long time working on it. And just, I was at a point in my career where I just, the teaching, I was just so tired of just some of the personality conflicts and just, you know, just the day in, day out drudge of just dealing with,
00:36:27
Speaker
people and greeting and i'm teaching eleven to upgrade which i just elected desperate to find something else to do that was a real motivating force and again i'm just thinking hey if i get this done and i'll get a college position and everything will be better you know and that that was a huge motivator that that kind of very the hope and uh... and then you know when i finished with kitty and i had uh...
00:36:57
Speaker
i think that acquiring agent and i queried about twenty one before somebody that and then once i had him uh... you know i have a couple of other you know he there are some issues with how to package it because it is not a happy ending might stand that uh... and
00:37:24
Speaker
We know a couple of editors said, you know, we really like this a lot. Can she make it historical fiction? And I totally understand why they said that. But, you know, it was like, no, I can't. And by then I learned about descendants of Charlie and I felt a responsibility to them too.
00:37:48
Speaker
And one thing that was helpful was to deciding earlier on, like after that year where I was trying to figure out who did it, just to realize, you know, when Dick said, how is this the story of America? Just to realize, okay, I'm just going to focus on the main part of the investigation. I'm going to focus on, you know, 18 months in 1874 to 1875. And, and that's the main thing I'm going to focus on. And that's it. And it's going to be a story of how the invest, why the investigation failed, not
00:38:18
Speaker
what happened to charlie and that was really important uh... and i took a really long time just to get down to that simple structure structural kind of guiding idea but that was really key uh... it was very frank i think especially to being newer at you know uh... interviewing people who you know i interviewed a lot of people but i'm interviewing people about dead people you know interviewing professors and interviewing historians and uh...
00:38:49
Speaker
You know, I was very much more comfortable doing that than interviewing people now about their lives, you know, as I've done with some of the shorter pieces. And there was a comfort for me in kind of hiding out in history there. So, you know, but back to, it took another, and with the agent, so I had the manuscript and then had it crafted proposal.
00:39:16
Speaker
uh... and i think that the proposal that i came up with uh... with better than some of the sample chapters because i was still revising it you know yeah um... i think even with cesana i only really work through the first like hundred pages that master's place still have a lot to do and uh... i was just still revising and had and um... but the proposal went out and it was like twenty three or twenty four
00:39:45
Speaker
uh... publishers passed on it uh... before overlook which is a smaller and pendant house uh... uh... uh... uh... you know i talked to you know i know i bet you know it's like which are rejected between you know the agent and editor forty sometimes and i know people have got rejected a lot more and i know i'm definitely not but you know when you first start out thinking about the best thing
00:40:14
Speaker
the freshest thing out there. And then, you know, the rejection notices come and some of them are harsh. You know, you just start thinking, okay, you know, I guess I'm going to be teaching for a while. And that's what happened. And even after that, you know, still another, uh, God, I don't know, two years before the book came out. Um, and that was, I think I had to add another hundred pages.
00:40:43
Speaker
to what that the pieces of the uh... so it's kind of like it was it was a longer you know what it took i guess about five years from uh... start to finish and there's somewhere you know i don't yeah i don't know but it was you know just constantly kind of going through and refining and working on it and and getting harsh feedback from people and but but but constructive but i and i think another thing was i think i was just so motivated by trying to do something different and to prove that i could do it
00:41:13
Speaker
But that was a real driving force. I also think that, you know, even when I realized, you know, you kind of fall in love with the search and the hunt. And, you know, even when I realized that it wasn't going to be the life-changing production, you know, that it's something that I could do and I got value in meaning out doing it.
00:41:38
Speaker
And it's what I wanted to do. And then it makes things a little bit better because you found that passion. And it made kind of the teaching and the, you know, all of those concerns kind of became a little bit of a backseat because I wasn't as worried about them anymore because I found this other thing that I really wanted to do, you know.
00:42:00
Speaker
Right and when you start, when you find that it's something that you're passionate about, that's when you can get into good flow states and also you just don't care about the results so much. I think everyone harbors that hope of that big life changing book that allows you to just kind of do it full time.
00:42:24
Speaker
or just to say that you've made it. But then again, if you ask people who have published that big book and they continue to do so, you ask them, they probably say, I don't feel like I've made it yet. It's just like Tom Brady, I think, when he was asked a few years ago, which was the best Super Bowl or his favorite or most memorable, and he says the next one.
00:42:51
Speaker
And so it's always that hunt. And I know speaking personally with the fact that I've had a book published that it doesn't really...
00:43:06
Speaker
It feels okay, but it doesn't feel great. I'm still in search of the next one, and I want that one to be charged with energy. I want it to be better. I want to keep improving. You don't hark on it. I'm sure that's kind of how you feel now, is getting your second project off the tarmac. Yeah, you know, Richard Russo, a fiction writer, I just love his work.
00:43:36
Speaker
who read a memoir about his mother called elsewhere, him and his mother, and in it he talks about how he, you know, he's like a Pulitzer Prize winner for Empire Falls, and even then he didn't have, if I'm remembering the kind of trajectory he described, even then he still had to figure out ways to make, you know, his financial commitments work. You know, like it took a really long time and a lot of very successful books for him to get to the place where
00:44:06
Speaker
he could do what he wanted to do and i i do think that part of settling into it and i think this is why a lot of people become disenchanted and i i'm very aware of the fact that you know i had it was a lot of hard work even with those rejections it was still luck that in the end place founded and the stars align so to speak and i'm very aware of that um... but i do think that it's kind of like
00:44:36
Speaker
it takes a little while to realize this, you know, this is something that, you know, you can achieve, but it's not the answer to these other questions. Um, especially I think when you're going into a field, like when I first went to my MFA, I wanted to shift into a career for journalism and you know, it's not the best time to do that. Um, and then you just start, you know, having to kind of reshuffle your priorities, but,
00:45:02
Speaker
At any rate, I don't know, that's a very long answer to your question, how did you get the idea? Yeah. But isn't it amazing that the way you talk about it, it feels like you're still inside the story. It hasn't left you, and the book came out four years ago. Yeah, you know, it's crazy. Well, one thing that happened was, that's kept me in touch with it, was about
00:45:28
Speaker
A year and a half, definitely a year and a half ago, a little over a year and a half ago, somebody from that historical society contacted me and said, hey, there were 20 ransom letters at the kidnap percent, and he said, an archivist, and he said, somebody's come forth with those letters.
00:45:48
Speaker
and they're looking for a buyer and and you know i can't there's so many rumors involved in this case so many people out to make money off of it but i just sort of that out okay you know i just didn't really take it seriously in a couple of months later uh... i got another call from the same organization they said that this isn't this is they've taken them to
00:46:08
Speaker
you know an auction out in philadelphia and and they've been authenticated you want to see them and then all of a sudden i was like but there's a story that you know it's just a crazy story of the family north west philadelphia and they were you know i kind of crazy treasure in the attic they were going through boxes that they had inherited and had a reason to go through them and found these letters and
00:46:34
Speaker
There are some questions of provenance, like how exactly did they get there that can't be answered, but so, you know, that turned into just another part of the story, like these letters resurfaced and they were authenticated and, you know, I got to hold them and see this, you know, and that kind of led to a couple of other pieces that I wrote that
00:46:57
Speaker
it turned into where the story is going now and it was back in touch with the family and there was an exhibit with it. So that story evolving kind of brought me back into it. But other than that, it is hard because at some point you do kind of wonder when is it going to be time to
00:47:22
Speaker
talk about something else, you know? And you're still attached to that and you want to be, you're grateful for it, but at the same time, it's just kind of like, but that kind of brought me back into the whole sort of circle of storytelling with that specific story. And that also led to writing a couple of pieces for Smithsonian Online, which I really appreciated the opportunity to do.
00:47:51
Speaker
Yeah, that's in robbery. Wouldn't have happened had this story not happened, yeah. That seems like if that's right up your alley, that kind of non-fiction. I would say someone who doesn't come from a reporter's background, that seems like a really, just a way to do non-fiction without the confrontation that sometimes goes on when you're
00:48:19
Speaker
when you're following people and then you might have to be harsh on people. My sense of humor kind of comes to that. I've been able to... No, I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, no, no. You go. No, it's one of those things where I'm grateful for it.
00:48:40
Speaker
you know it's nothing having the book it like i said it's a great point i am and i realize that the hard work aspect but i definitely i feel passionate about that but the acknowledgement that you know there is a lot of luck there too i'm sure it's made something easier it hasn't made getting a second book out there easier it hasn't made
00:49:02
Speaker
It's easier to say, hey, I want to write this for you, let me. I still have to work really hard on every pitch. Most of what I send to them, I don't even get a response. And it's just kind of like once in a while.
00:49:24
Speaker
I'll get a, hey, that's interesting, go ahead and do it. You know, it's just, and I think that that's, and I also think, okay, well, why shouldn't it be that way? You know, you do kind of feel at some point like, when is this rat race going to be over? But then you think, okay, well, I just have to get better at pitching. I have to get better at going out there and finding, you know, and I think that that's part two where I get frustrated sometimes.
00:49:48
Speaker
I'll spend a lot of time looking and pitching and sometimes things work out, sometimes not. And then you're just kind of, it's just, it's very hard, you know, and you have to have faith in what you're doing and your ability to do it.
Challenges in Nonfiction Storytelling
00:50:02
Speaker
And you have to have that patience. And as Savannah Lessard said many times, it has to be about the process, not the product, because the product
00:50:14
Speaker
People may not pay any attention to, but it's the process of doing the pitching and finding those angles that you have to find satisfaction in and unpaid satisfaction. That's the part of it that I do struggle with, you know, on and off where those kind of highs and lows I was talking about earlier. But you know, I keep doing it. I keep going back to it because I do like doing it ultimately. And as long as that's there,
00:50:44
Speaker
You know that there are so many stories to be told. And I don't believe when people say everything's been written about. You know, that's a bunch of BS. There's so many stories to tell. It's just, you know, finding them and finding the right place for them and the right person who's going to read the pitch.
00:50:59
Speaker
and the right person is going to have the right place in which is so much uh... so many cards have to be in place for any of these things to come out i was very fortunate that these letters were found because that wasn't in there and i think that they're more likely to read what i found them out but it's not at all everything i i suggest how surprised were you that there wasn't anything
00:51:25
Speaker
And this will be a promise will be the last question about we as God and we can move on to. But I wonder how how surprised you were to come to the story and nobody had really done it in the way that you were able to.
00:51:44
Speaker
to research it and write it and so in a lot of ways you were this first person to come to the story from this angle. I wonder what that was like as you were doing this. I imagine it was kind of an exciting charged feeling to be on the forefront of the way you were telling the story.
00:52:05
Speaker
it was a a i felt uh... i think i i really got my hopes up that it would be something marketable uh... like devil in the way you know there are people yeah he had to have to leave under the ball like that uh... and you know like i said i i thought that but you know uh... people in the industry didn't seem to think it was the kind of
00:52:33
Speaker
recovered story that that a lot of people would want to read about uh... but i i thought that way you know that there were people there was a there have been a couple of researchers i've been in touch with and it
00:52:48
Speaker
it's kind of been something that i've come against with my second project where you work on something you don't know what other people are working on and you can pour years into something and then find out the deal for the contract that they might be and and that happened couple of people uh... they didn't have my angle but they had they had really been working on finding out what happened to charlie it happened theory and uh... were very uh...
00:53:12
Speaker
It was very disappointing for them when my book came out. And we didn't know about each other until the book coming out and then they were in touch. And I was able to put some of the researchers in touch with each other, which was cool because they can help each other with parts of their stories. But people had been on it in different ways. And, you know, one thing that was really helpful was
00:53:39
Speaker
I knew that there's a great, uh, Charlie's, Charlie's great grand nephew, um, is a state representative around the area in Chester County, South of Philadelphia. And he told me, like he kind of confirmed that nobody had contacted him with, with what I was looking for and et cetera. So that, that was helpful too, because I didn't, I wasn't worried that, you know,
00:54:07
Speaker
somebody else might pop out. Can I stop you right there for one second? My landline phone here is going to die. Can I call you back on my cell phone and we'll just resume this conversation? Yeah, no problem. Cool. I'm going to call you right now. Okay. All right. Sorry about that.
00:54:33
Speaker
I totally had, you know, I had two bars on this phone going into the conversation and I sure as hell thought it was loud. That's all I was at the beginning of our conversation, yeah. In fact, I can finally unplug mine and move around, yeah. Yeah, sorry about that. No, no, that's fine. I just didn't want it to totally cut out in the middle of your story and wonder what was going on. But anyway, please resume. Oh, no, no, no, no, that's fine. I was just saying that, you know,
00:55:03
Speaker
a big challenge in writing narrative nonfiction can be, you know, not knowing if other people are going to come out with something on the same topic before you do. And that's something I didn't really worry about with the first one, but it's definitely, it's definitely come to haunt me a little bit in getting another project off the ground.
00:55:29
Speaker
Yeah, and I think what's important to remember is that, take Abraham Lincoln. How many dozens and dozens of biographies are written on him? And there are different angles, but it's always the sensibility of the writer, too. So even though some people might be doing what you're planning on doing,
00:55:50
Speaker
They're not you, and they're not Kerry Hagen bringing Kerry Hagen's sensibility and repartorial sensibility as well to the story. So in some ways, what can kill you is if someone beats you to the finish line.
00:56:08
Speaker
in terms of getting that story out there first, but at the same time, it'll never be yours. So as long as you get somebody to back it, and then even then, you could back it yourself and try, experiment with that angle. I mean, really, what's to lose? And speaking of that, what is it, what are you working on right now? And as you said earlier in the conversation, kind of struggling to get it off the ground.
00:56:36
Speaker
Well, I spent a couple of years One when I was kind of waiting for we have gotten to be finished and then most of the next year working on a project about Houdini and Overlook was interested and I you know, I just I have this worry in the back of my mind that it wasn't more than a magazine article and I I just
00:57:06
Speaker
When I heard that somebody had sold a project similar to my vision to crown for a lot of money, I heard that and Overlook was still interested, but I had this concern about the magazine, too, and I just kind of thought, you know, it just doesn't feel right. I spent so many months on this.
00:57:32
Speaker
but I just, it doesn't feel right for right now. And I tried to turn it into a magazine pitch and it just didn't, it didn't show. And I, for some reason I felt the freedom to just let it go after all of this time. But then I, I revisited it about, I had, I have a new agent now and I told her about it and I had a couple of new thoughts on it. But the contract that had gone to Crown had taken a while from kind of the giving of the contract to the,
00:58:00
Speaker
coming out and that's coming out this fall and so you know that project kind of had a couple of lives but I never I think I was really interested in the theme of spiritualism and that I still think that all that research I don't think it's gone to waste I just think I still haven't found the right nugget but by this time I've spent so much time on it in two separate segments that I just I had to let it go and then I had another project on
00:58:29
Speaker
Benedict Arnold and his treachery, and that is just sort of the stories where it is kind of, you know, how the trajectory of his turning from hero to traitor, and I couldn't quite find the right kind of narrative in this larger, interesting story to use as a lens through which it should view the larger story with, but I had a proposal that looked good,
00:58:58
Speaker
I was really close to a deal and it fell through, not with Overlook, but with a bigger house and it fell through at the last minute and that was something else. It took a couple of those years and the agent that I had really liked it and I felt like it was the right pursuit. It happened in Philadelphia, some of his actions and
00:59:25
Speaker
But anyway, to make a long story short, it's a very heartbreaking moment where I was in talks, and then all of a sudden it went from, well, we're running with numbers, we'll let you know tomorrow, to not hearing anything and the whole thing going south. But again, are you there? Yes. OK. In hindsight, when I look back on it now, and it was very raw for me last summer,
00:59:55
Speaker
And I actually talked to the folks at Goucher there now about it a little bit, just to talk about the realities of, you know, we have some very successful people in our program, and rightfully so. And, you know, I was able to kind of talk next to them and say, you know, this is another whole situation that could go after you have a well-reviewed project. But, you know, I do really believe in the end, again, after a year hindsight, that it wasn't the right project for me.
01:00:25
Speaker
I don't know why I was so fixated for so long. I think because I was in these really interesting places of history that fascinated me. But the narrative line just wasn't there. And I don't know how that deal gone through. I don't know how I would have done it. I'm sure I would have found a way. But that was hard because it was like two. And then the Houdini again, I feel like I've had these three projects where I've worked very hard on them and they've gone nowhere.
Reflecting on Writing Journeys and Future Plans
01:00:56
Speaker
and then there was a Smithsonian piece that I'd written online, and that's another one that came out this past January. It's about a code breaker, the first female crypt analyst in the American military, and I really thought that I could find something with her. And, you know, again, it was just that line between having something for a magazine article and having something for a book. You know, it can be hard to negotiate.
01:01:25
Speaker
After a few months of spending a lot of research time and contacting family members, et cetera, I just realized that it wasn't going to go where it needed to go. So I feel like I've had a lot of false starts. But it's like anything else. You just sort of, you follow it as long as you can follow it. And then at some point, you just have to let go. And you just have to hope that you're not falling into a bad habit.
01:01:52
Speaker
Yeah, Neil Gaiman has a good quote about advice that he gives to writers, and they ask him, how do you go about your work? He's like, well, you do a little every day, and then it adds up. He's like, OK, well, what do you do if you've been doing that? He's like, well, you have to finish things.
01:02:16
Speaker
and then keep going. So I think you're on that fence there between, are they false starts or is it just
01:02:27
Speaker
possibly jumping ship too soon. But it sounds like you have the right idea. You're looking for the story in there. You can't just tell a report. It has to have that narrative engine. And if you're not finding it and you can't see it, then I think really what you're doing is saving yourself a lot of unnecessary hard work and heartache if the story just isn't there.
01:02:53
Speaker
Yeah, and I feel like I haven't, you know, and that's the other thing, I mean, if I were in an MFA program and had to be producing on kind of demand, would these projects have a different angle after a certain amount of time? I don't know. But I haven't, like with we as government, I always, I knew what the story was and I knew that there was a beginning and an end after a certain point.
01:03:17
Speaker
I felt confident in that and I just haven't been able to nail that down. But I still do it because I remain hopeful that it's there. But it is definitely, it can mess with your mind for sure and make it easy to procrastinate if you don't force yourself to kind of put words down.
01:03:41
Speaker
as much as you can you know every week at least you know just returning to the page and just kind of believing again i think that i would say kind of believing in the process and have you are you say you've considered these as magazine stories verses but have you just thought about just straight up doing a magazine piece and see where that takes you because that that might answer your question right there
01:04:09
Speaker
You know, on the proposals that I've written, I tried with one of them and it didn't, there were no bites for where I sent it. And I felt like I sent it to the only places that I really knew of. And then I kind of, I had this little niche going for a while with a couple of the online sites for a couple of places and then that,
01:04:38
Speaker
That was positive, and I think that those aren't magazine pieces per se, but in the sense of, and they're not long form, but they're kind of somewhere in that middle ground that different kinds of blog entries can take, and I was making a little bit of money from doing those. But the issue with doing those is they take a lot of time, and they can take you away from the greater focus.
01:05:04
Speaker
of looking for something else. So I think, you know, I think I just do kind of have that personality where I feel like, you know, if I'm doing something, it's just not, it doesn't seem to be working as opposed to changing the form. I'll just say, well, I'm done with this for right now. I'll go back to it. You know what I mean? Yeah. Um, but it definitely could have worked harder to, and maybe I will, maybe I think, maybe, you know, I think that the,
01:05:29
Speaker
The frustration with some of them, with a couple of them anyway, is kind of abated and I'll be ready in whatever period of time to go back and see if there's anything there.
01:05:41
Speaker
Yeah, there's there's a honeymoon period when you jump on to a good like a story where you think there's something there and Yeah, you kind of get this head of steam and then you hit a roadblock and then you think well There's probably just nothing there in the first place, but yeah
01:06:01
Speaker
Yeah, I've got a half dozen backburner type projects like that. Even some spec written stuff that I'm hoping to sell just like that that just need a little more polishing. You just get this full head of steam. I'm all or nothing like that too. I have this attention span that's sometimes hard to harness.
01:06:26
Speaker
at the same time, and I think with you with these false starts, I think your ability to... once something hooks you and then you stay with it, you'll know that you have something there. Maybe this is like this weird defense mechanism, the subconscious defense mechanism that's telling you, listen, I'm sparing you some pain here. There's nothing here aboard.
01:06:52
Speaker
It is kind of elementary school playground-ish sort of like, well, you're not working for me, so you're not going to be on my team. And, you know, the topic, like you said, I mean, at some point, and I learned that, you know, after the first one came out and I applied for a couple of college jobs because at the time I thought,
01:07:11
Speaker
That's what I really wanted. And I have since realized that I don't know that it is. But having one project out there isn't enough, one longer project. And I've had a couple of retrusted advisors say to me, you really just need to get a second one out there if this is what you want. And I've had that kind of clock ticking in my head. And at the same time, I think, well, am I just going to do it for that reason?
01:07:40
Speaker
There was a local Philadelphia publisher that really liked the Benedict Arnold piece, and they were willing to do it. And I just kind of thought, you know, there's something wrong with this piece if
01:07:53
Speaker
You know I just I don't think it's gonna happen and again you're right I can have to be such a gut reaction in the end am I gonna spend another year and a half Really working on this or am I gonna say? It's not happening. I'm done. You know for now for now Yeah, I think
01:08:13
Speaker
Following your instincts there is good tact and you can always table it and come back to it if you find something new or you meet somebody new on Facebook who happens to know somebody.
01:08:29
Speaker
who can point you in the right direction and give you renewed interest in a story like that. But I want to be respectful of your time here. We've already been on the phone for an hour. There's so much stuff that I want to get to with you, so we're going to have to have a part two.
01:08:48
Speaker
in the not-too-distant future. Because there's a lot to dig into that I'd like to get to and get your insights on. But this was just a wonderful conversation. Well, thank you, Brendan. I really appreciate it. I do. Thank you for thinking of me. And what always is encouraging is that to sort of hash things out a little bit.
01:09:09
Speaker
I think so. I think it's important to talk shop. This podcast would be nice if I can do it a little more consistently, but I do it when I can. It's a fun excuse for me to call people like yourself and just talk craft, talk shop, and bounce ideas off each other.
01:09:36
Speaker
Help some other people who might be facing similar hurdles like seeing working authors who aren't the Aren't headliners that are you know headliners at the concert festivals yet? And I say yes because I really feel like you know You're on that trajectory right now with the with the debut book like we has got him and I can always say that I knew you when I
01:10:03
Speaker
Well, thank you, Brendan. It's been fun and encouraging, definitely. Very nice. Well, let me know when you have it, and I'll be thanking you tomorrow during the Belmont. Fantastic. Well, thanks again, Carrie, and we'll be talking in the future, I'm sure. Okay, great. All right, talk to you later.