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Episode 56—Sonja Livingston Serves Up 'Ghostbread'
133 Plays8 years ago
Sonja Livingston stopped by The Creative Nonfiction Podcast to talk about her award-winning memoir “Ghostbread.” She was also gracious enough to read from three short chapters. It’s about family and growing up in poverty. “[My family] hasn’t tried to kill me, but they haven’t thrown me a party either,” Sonja says. This episode is layered and a bit experimental. I hope it adds a little extra somethin’-somethin’ to the usual interview. If you dig it, let me know on Twitter @BrendanOMeara and I’ll invite others to try something similar. Sonja talks a lot about her routine and how getting outside helps her write. Also she adds that writing personal essay can feel like a miracle, but can also be very painful. Maybe it’s that in order to write great art, there must be a little bit of blood on the page. I’d love for you to leave a review of the podcast and to share with folks you think will enjoy it. That’s all I can ask for. Thanks for listening!
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Transcript
The Thrill of Writing Without Boundaries
00:00:00
Speaker
That's such a nice thing about writing, isn't it? It's exciting for me, because I don't know where the piece is going to go. And then beyond that, I don't know who it's going to connect with, if it will at all. Sometimes it doesn't. But when it does, it's sort of amazing.
Introducing the Podcast and Guest
00:00:11
Speaker
Hey, guys. It's the Creative Nonfiction Podcast. I'm your host, Brendan O'Mara. And with this episode, number 56, if you're keeping score at home, I invited Sonja Livingston on the show to not only be interviewed, but to actually share pieces of her award-winning memoir, Ghost Bread. She reads from three very short passages, and I ask her some questions after each one.
Podcast Format Overview
00:00:36
Speaker
Then at the end, it's more of what you've come to expect from this podcast, which is to say, what do the best people in the genre put into place so they can get the work done? What inspires them? What habits and routines do they employ to create great works of nonfiction?
00:00:53
Speaker
In this episode, we learn how Sonia elevated ghost bread to something more than a poverty memoir, how she approaches the mornings, and how the essay can feel both like a miracle and pure pain at the same time. So ping me on Twitter at Brendan O'Mara or email me with your thoughts.
Beyond a Poverty Memoir: Ghost Bread
00:01:12
Speaker
I'd love to do more of this kind of format if you dig it, but if you don't, I'll stick to just asking questions and getting out of the way.
00:01:20
Speaker
So, your time is precious, so let's get on with the show. Thank you for listening. When you eat soup every night, thoughts of bread get you through. Bowl after worn plastic bowl of unfocused ingredients floated before me in a strained broth. Corn, carrots, cabbage and whatever else could be found were softened in water and flavored with animal fat.
00:01:50
Speaker
We had soup on the reservation every day, sometimes twice. The overworked broth was even further weakened by the knowledge that my mother worked in a factory and had money for beefaroni, but said that eating beefaroni would be rude with Billy and her kids eating soup. I thought about sleeping on the floor while Billy's family slept on beds and couldn't understand. My bread craving grew. Cold mornings, I spooned cornmeal mush into my mouth, thankful for something warm that wasn't soup.
Symbolism in Ghost Bread
00:02:19
Speaker
Warm and solid, the mush was sweetened with a trace of syrup. Still, mush was mush and nowhere near as solid as bread. Bread was what I wanted. Take us to the dinner table and just put us there and what was that like for you day in, day out of this repetitive nature, but also this longing for something more. Right. First of all, I'll say that
00:02:49
Speaker
I had, there were seven kids in my family and for some reason I was the one who was most tuned into food. So just to begin with, I'll just say that I was probably
00:02:58
Speaker
just as a child, more aware of what I did or did not have compared to my brothers and sisters, who I think adapted a lot better. But I smiled when you asked about the dinner table, because I thought, when we lived in the reservation, was there a dinner table? And there must have been. I'm thinking about it now. There was a table, but it was probably a normal sized table, which meant that maybe six or seven people could comfortably get around it. And we had maybe 15, 16 people living in a very, very small space.
00:03:28
Speaker
Think of eating those bowls of soup. I think the kids were sent off with soup and we just held it in our lap. So first of all, there really wasn't that sense of coming together for meals in that sort of typical way. But we did eat together. And what was it like? It was, you know, as a little kid who wanted better tasting food and what was advertised on television, you know, whatever, every other kid seemed to be eating.
00:03:53
Speaker
it was painful. To make it worse, I was a picky eater. Usually, when people grow up without a lot of money or not a lot of food, they learn to adapt. Instead, I still struggle with carbohydrates. I'm going to always want bread or a cookie over the salad that's offered. Not only was it not the best tasting
00:04:15
Speaker
soup in the world, sorry reservation people, but I was just sort of picky to begin with and didn't really like all those ingredients and the textures all mingling together. So it was, I guess what I'm saying, it was a combination of my own personal particular pickiness and the fact and reality that there really was not much to eat.
00:04:36
Speaker
Yeah, and as I sort of turned that passage and that opening sentence to that passage over in my head over and over again, it's just like, all right, let's unpack it a little more and be like, OK, well, what is bread really? What is bread getting at? It's airy. It's substance. And it's nourishing. And it's comfortable. And it's something that you lacked throughout your child and your upbringing that you so vividly
00:05:06
Speaker
write about throughout the whole memoir. So was that something you were very cognizant of as you were bringing up this very basic nutritional, this basic thing that you didn't
Finding Meaning Post-Writing
00:05:20
Speaker
have? Was that something that you were aware of as you were writing of a symbol of longing and something of substance? No, I mean I was absolutely aware that I was writing about, because I was writing about a deprived childhood,
00:05:36
Speaker
or deprivation, I wasn't surprised at what I wrote included feelings of longing. But I was surprised. It's really funny to me how often I did write about food because when I started writing, I didn't know what I was doing anyway. But I certainly didn't think that I was going to be focused on things like bread or
00:05:58
Speaker
Like I write about a marathon candy bar, which is a candy bar that isn't even made anymore, but that comes up for me. And so, no, I wasn't really aware of how bread was working symbolically. And even now, I mean, I get that bread for me symbolizes, like you said very well, you know, like comfort and security, maybe even normalcy, maybe even like the dinner table, you know, like the thing that wasn't there.
00:06:26
Speaker
It also, it's funny because I've talked to people who a lot of, for some reason, a lot of Catholic schools have used this book. And I think it's because I write about Roman Catholicism. And I don't do that in a very direct way. It's just sort of background. But even, you know, like spiritually, I think the idea of bread works. But I did not, to answer your question simply, I didn't really know that I was working on that until after the pieces were written.
Soup, Bread, and Symbolism
00:06:51
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And how did you choose to elevate the material so it didn't feel weighed down by this poverty you grew up with? Because a lot of times on the surface with any kind of memoir, it does have to find another plane. And how did you navigate that as you were writing the book?
00:07:15
Speaker
Well, I think first of all, I didn't plan very well. If I had to do it over again, I might do it even differently. But one of the things that happened for me as a writer is that as I was writing about sort of these weightier topics, I think I naturally made these small chapters or wrote these small, I don't even know that they're chapters, little snapshots. And I think the way that
00:07:39
Speaker
that happened is because the piece, if I tried to link together, let's say four or five of these, it might feel cumulatively a little too dense or a little too heavy. And the other thing is that I will say that no matter what your childhood is like, I believe that there are always moments of beauty and always moments of, you know, just fun, like normal childhood. Now, maybe that's not the case for everybody, but what helped me is that
00:08:09
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I could write about really wanting to eat something other than soup, but the truth is that it didn't kill me not to have anything other than soup. I was okay. In other words, my perspective was not that I had it so terribly.
00:08:25
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In fact, I think that I had, you know, there were some really good things to come from the way that we lived. And again, it's not like I'm recommending it. I wouldn't write a book of parenting recommending that, you know, kids move around or don't worry about what to eat. But the truth is that, you know, as a group, we were pretty resourceful and had some really good times too. And so I hope that somehow that comes through. So beyond just, you know, like the structure and allowing that white space to help out a little bit.
00:08:51
Speaker
just maintaining a perspective that isn't saying, you know, this was horrible, look at the way that I grew up and no child should grow up that way. The fact is that some children do and that's just as valid as any other way of growing up. What was it about that particular scene vignette that you write about that sticks with you so vividly? The particular little piece about when you have soup or when you, yeah,
Imagination and Escapism
00:09:20
Speaker
I think it's the honestly, I think it's the idea of having having soup. I mean, I think it just starts with soup. I think for many years, I didn't eat soup. And in only now, like, you know, we're about to go to Ireland. And my husband said, What are you most looking forward to eating? And I said, awesome soup in a pub. And that's, you know, like,
00:09:38
Speaker
10 years ago, I wouldn't have answered that. So I think just the, it was sort of literally being interested in the fact that we did have that soup. But then, you know, you've suggested the idea of longing and wanting something that isn't there and trying to find a way to get it, which I think that we do as human beings and especially as little kids, you know, we're really creative about how we might try to get that or what other things we might want.
00:10:10
Speaker
Lenny was Lana and Jolie's cousin. Sometimes she and her husband stayed at Billy's house. Her brother was tiny and wore a metal brace on his thin right leg. Both children had soft brown skin, short bowl cuts, and Asiatic eyes. They were delicate flowers and quietly preferred by the adults. One night, Lenny dreamt of a Gagosa, and soon after, there was a healing ceremony. Gagosa was Seneca for ghost, a spirit who visited people in their dreams
00:10:40
Speaker
and was chased away with smoke and rattles and chants. But best of all, his exit was celebrated with bread. In fact, the only bread around for miles was reserved for ghosts. From the moment Lenny made her Gagosa announcement, I began to eye her. I wanted to know what she knew. As her healing began, I pressed my ear to the door and listened from the bedroom. I heard the shake of mud turtle rattles, smelled the fire, watched as smoke swirled in from cracks to the door.
00:11:11
Speaker
Chance and ashes were blown over the girl who emerged from her healing more serious than ever, a rough strap of leather tied to her wrist. After Lenny's healing, the women baked ghost bread. It was fried into golden wheels and deep cast iron skillets, or sizzled into hand-sized splatters of dough, or formed into puffy bricks and baked in the oven, only to be slathered with butter and sprinkled with sugar when it was taken out. Light on the tongue and heavy in the stomach,
00:11:39
Speaker
ghost bread drove the taste of soup away and was far better than religion for convincing me of heaven. As I threw myself into the bread soft interior, I considered Lenny and her Gagosa. I was intrigued by everything about the ceremony and considered staging a ghost sighting for myself, but decided against it. Gagosas probably paid
The Essence of 'Ghost Bread'
00:12:00
Speaker
no mind to pale faces anyway.
00:12:08
Speaker
and that when you say that that ghost bread that drove the taste of soup away just you know what you know what that I don't know is kinda like take take us there again and how you know how and how formative that was because that that's I believe the only mention of ghost bread is in this chapter in his chapter thirty six and that gives you the title of the book so that's a very resonant image and experience that you had so uh... so how and how important was that how formative a memory was that
00:12:38
Speaker
Oh my goodness. Well, um, yeah, the, you know, the, the greedy kid in me or greedy me who really wanted that. It was pretty important. I mean, it was really good bread. It's hard to mess up bread, I guess, but especially when you're hungry for something, right? When you've, when you don't have a thing that you really want, then the taste of that is so strong. And so just having that and having it, um, the bread itself, which was delicious and, and beyond the bread itself, the experience of having the bread made because
00:13:08
Speaker
somebody saw or felt the experience of a ghost. That was really interesting to me because even as a kid I was very tuned into the world around me and I was very interested in the fact besides them the fact that this would result in some great tasting bread which we don't have very much.
00:13:26
Speaker
I was interested in the idea that somebody might see a ghost. And I was also interested in the Seneca Indians and their traditions. And I wouldn't have been able to articulate that as a kid. But I was really intrigued by the fact that this childhood scene or dreamt a ghost was suddenly chanted over and that there was smoke. And it was an experience that I didn't know and that I was intrigued by.
00:13:50
Speaker
The idea of ghost bread, I think the name ghost bread, the way that it's called ghost bread, also stayed with me because it's the idea of a physical thing like bread and then ghost, which is something that's not there. So it's sort of this murky, wavering, desirable object. So in that way, I think ghost bread worked well for me when I was trying to figure out a title. I'm not very good at titles.
00:14:19
Speaker
I think, so I'm answering a couple ways. One is that the concrete, the bread itself was really good and I highly recommend it. And then number two, it just speaks to sort of the way we wandered around as kids and we found ourselves in a lot of different environments, my family, and I liked watching. I felt like a little mini anthropologist watching the world around me and so that was always important to me.
00:14:44
Speaker
At what point did that title come to you and it click in your head that that was like, Oh, that that's going to be the title for the book. Yeah. Like I said, I'm not good with title. So I originally called it, I'm a little embarrassed at the title now, but when I, this was, uh, this grew out of my thesis. And so, uh, for my MFA program, the thesis was called white girl and other girls I've been, which now seems a little silly, but I was writing about all these different places that
Unexpected Connections Through Writing
00:15:11
Speaker
we've lived in one of the, one of the common,
00:15:14
Speaker
factors was that we were often one of the few white families around. So that's how I went to that title. Ghost Bread was the name of an essay that had been published before the book was finished. And my husband actually suggested that as a title. He thought that, you know, like what we're talking about with the idea of food and longing, that that would all work. So he really, Jim gets credit for that one.
00:15:39
Speaker
I thought it was a good idea and I think a couple different titles could have worked, but Ghost Bread worked specifically. I was a little worried about that title because at least in this region, you know, I think more generically in the United States we call, we say fry bread for Native American bread, but in this region at least Ghost Bread is
00:16:00
Speaker
really just limited to Iroquois Indians. And so I felt like a little worried that maybe I was co-opting a term. And I remember right before the book was published, I had a nightmare that a Native American woman from the reservation came and said, why did you use that title? But since then, I've had a great reception from people on the reservation. And in fact, I'm going to be going there in a couple of months to help a group of
00:16:28
Speaker
natives write their own stories. So the dream didn't come true. And I'm answering way more information than you asked. No, no, it's that I more is better. And I love hearing how you how you process it. And and and the and the dominoes that have fallen down as a result of of the process and the project, like it's open doors, I imagine, to things that you can never entirely predict when you're in the throes of writing it.
00:16:58
Speaker
Right, yeah, that's true. That's a good, I mean, that's such a nice thing about writing, isn't it? You don't know, it's exciting for me, because I don't know where the piece is gonna go, and then beyond that, I don't know who it's gonna connect with, if it will at all. Sometimes it doesn't, but when it does, it's sort of amazing.
Imagination as a Childhood Escape
00:17:17
Speaker
Shoot me, shoot me, shoot me. I screamed over and over, loud as I could, until someone made a finger into a gun, used a mouth for sound effect, and launched bullets into the air.
00:17:30
Speaker
The sound of bullets whizzed my way. I raised my wrist to meet them, deflected them with my tinfoil bands. Wonder Woman wore bands made of feminine, a magic metal mined only on Paradise Island. But the coconut-scented place and its ore-producing Amazons were a long way from Grand Avenue, so the best I could do was to steal strips of aluminum foil from the kitchen and fold them into wide silver bracelets. I slapped them on my wrist and walked out the door
00:17:58
Speaker
ready to face anyone, anywhere. Sometimes a shooter would get fancy and use a machine gun or two kids would come at me from different directions and shoot at the same time so that I had to separate my arms and keep both wrists in perpetual motion to meet the onslaught of air bullets. But always I managed. I'd keep the wristbands on all day. I grabbed a bit of clothesline and coiled it into a loop at my waist. Steph sprayed my lasso gold with leftover bike paint
00:18:28
Speaker
She was the only one who allowed me to use it on her, which is no big surprise. The lasso was magic, after all. It forced a person in its hold to tell the truth, so naturally, most people avoided it. But the wristbands had a more general appeal. It was the wristbands people noticed, and in an attempt at kindness or perhaps a desire to shut me up, they'd succumb to my request, straighten an index finger, point it into a gun, and shoot me. I wore denim cutoffs and a white tube top
00:18:57
Speaker
My hair shimmered from time in the sun and was newly feathered. I applied a coat of white paint over the brown of my clogs, added the golden wings of eagles, and finished them off with red and blue stars. They were my Wonder Woman clogs. And when I had them on, I swirled round till I was all satin in power, a superhero, strong and proud, capable, beautiful, and protected. Shoot me. Shoot me.
00:19:23
Speaker
Shoot me, I'd scream, till someone finally took pity, pointed a finger my way, and sprayed me with bullets.
00:19:35
Speaker
I guess how powerful was imagination for you or your imagination and maybe your ability to go to other places and picture other things and escape, even if it was in your own head, which is something that you depicts wonderfully in that chapter. And I was just wondering, what was the power of that for you? Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, it was huge. And I think probably every child
Insights into Family Dynamics
00:20:06
Speaker
imagines and daydreams some, right? Like when we're stuck in third grade learning about, I don't know what it is that we wouldn't want to learn about the Hudson Bay Company. I don't know. At that time, everything feels forced. But I definitely daydreamed or fantasized or imagined a lot more. I think I was aware of that. Like I'd look around and see that people seemed a little more tuned in.
00:20:28
Speaker
And I think that was a way of escaping. I like to read as well, but we didn't always have books and we moved a lot, especially when I was a very young child. So I think the thing that I had control of was thinking or imagining and fantasizing that I could be Wonder Woman or ISIS or maybe be Nancy Drew, any of these sort of strong empowered women or girls.
00:20:56
Speaker
So it was huge. I still think I do. I think I over rely on it. Like at faculty meetings, I'm sometimes, I'm not Wonder Woman anymore, but I'm not always in the room, you know? And so I think it was a way to get through and to, you know, in some ways just be like every child, but particularly to get through hard times.
00:21:19
Speaker
We sometimes didn't even have a TV, which sounds, it's such a right, you know, how they say, Oh, first of all, problem it is. Cause that's not a major deprivation. In fact, I think perhaps it was good not to always have a television because I did have to rely on my imagination and we did play outside and we did all those things that allowed me to become a little more internally resourceful.
00:21:39
Speaker
And what do you think the specific appeal to Wonder Woman was? You know, you put the tinfoil around your arms and you cut off denim shorts. I mean, you were Linda Carter, so I was like... Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what was the appeal and why did she resonate with you?
00:21:59
Speaker
I mean, I think as a kid, I would have said she was really pretty and a superhero, and that's certainly true. And also in that era, Wonder Woman was a show. I have to look at the years Wonder Woman was a show, but I'm pretty sure that it was a weekly television show. So that was in my reality.
00:22:19
Speaker
But now, when I just looked at that passage again, I hadn't looked at it in a while. I think it was about having some power and the ability, I use the word protect in there, which that stood out for me when I was just looking. I wouldn't have thought of that, but I think the ability to protect myself
00:22:40
Speaker
or defend anyone coming at me. I didn't have anybody shooting me in real life, but I think there were some things that were scary that maybe even as a kid, I didn't think were scary, but that were probably threatening even just moving a lot is sometimes for kids. So I think the ability to defend myself and also I talk about the lasso. I think I was really interested in people and I was really interested in knowing people's stories. And so I think even just having the ability to lasso somebody up and make them
00:23:10
Speaker
was very intriguing to me as a kid. Like any of those shows where there was a truth serum involved, I'm all over that. I love the idea that you might not be able to lie, you know? Yeah. Yeah. What did you learn about your family or through the process of writing the book?
Motivation Behind Ghost Bread
00:23:32
Speaker
Were there any revelatory moments you had or just, you know, what did you learn throughout the writing of Ghost Bread?
00:23:40
Speaker
Well, I mean, in relation to my family, I guess a lot of the writing, I didn't, like I said, I didn't really have a plan. So I didn't map out. There's something to be said for plans. Maybe a plan is good. But the way I tend to write is that I don't really have a plan. I just sort of follow the leads of memory or curiosity or whatever image intrigues me and sort of go with it.
00:24:05
Speaker
And so oftentimes I'd be writing something like I wrote a little section about my mother working at a gypsum factory near Batavia, New York. And I wrote that she was the only woman working there. And suddenly I thought, is that true? Was my mother the only person working, the only woman working in this factory in Batavia, New York? It's probably true, but I'd call somebody up and ask and
00:24:31
Speaker
So a lot of times I would be reminded or shocked into being reminded about something like, oh yeah, that was real. I've forgotten that that happened. With my family, it would be more like the realization that went through this particular thing, that she had that job or how often we moved and what that must have been like for her. So I guess maybe some greater awareness or sensitivity to how
00:25:00
Speaker
how the way that we lived impacted other people in my family. Because in writing a memoir, especially this one, I'm telling about other people, but I'm really focused on my perspective a whole lot. And so writing allowed me to widen it a little bit and to consider things like how is this for my mother or how would this have been for my younger sister, that sort of thing.
00:25:20
Speaker
I always love asking people who write memoirs, you know, why they feel like they wanted to put it into, you know, why do they feel like you needed to get it down and have something that is readable to
00:25:37
Speaker
to a public at large. And I wonder what, and I often say, what itch did this scratch? So why did you feel like Ghost Bread had to come out in the way it did? How did that help you? And why did you feel like you wanted to do it? Yeah. I think a big part of it for me was when I teach writing, a lot of times I'll start with an exercise, a writing prompt, where I ask people to make a list of things that
00:26:06
Speaker
You can't tell by that someone can't tell by looking at them. Right. And the reason I do that is because I think a lot of what drives us to write is that there is a lot going on inside of us that people can't tell and that people make assumptions about us. And that or at least that was a big motivator for me. And I think it's funny because not poor.
00:26:26
Speaker
is embarrassing. I mean, when I was a kid, there's no way that if I would write a book about growing up poor, I would have not believed you at all.
Literary Influences on Writing
00:26:35
Speaker
So it wasn't like I was super proud and wanted to put the flag out there about it. But as I got older, I realized that people made some assumptions about me based on how I look or how I speak or where I live that weren't true. And I wanted the truth of my experience out there, not so much for me, but for the reality of that experience.
00:26:55
Speaker
So in my case, not just growing up poor in the Northeastern United States, but what is it like to be a white kid growing up in inner city neighborhood of Rochester or the Tanoanda Indian Reservation? So I guess this is a long way of saying that I wanted to shed a light on an experience that I thought maybe was often misunderstood. I also worked in schools, in high schools and middle schools as a counselor.
00:27:23
Speaker
for several years. And I would hear how people, even wonderful teachers who wanted to help kids, how they would be often very judgmental about those kids' parents or those kids' backgrounds. And we all do it, you know, but I think that also made me think, wow, I'd really like to, I know something about this. And I would like to say, this is how it can happen. This is how a mother of seven kids from different guys and move from place to place look like she doesn't really care.
00:27:51
Speaker
It's truly like it's a cliche, but it's truly doing the best you can. So I wanted to shed a light, I think. Yeah. And what maybe books or memoirs had you read that helped inform the way you went about writing Ghost Bread? What kind of models did you reference maybe as you were writing it?
00:28:15
Speaker
I think stylistically, maybe the only thing that I, oh man, now I'm forgetting, I am forgetting her name. Deborah Tall wrote a book about, it's called Family of Strangers, and it's written about her trying to find her Jewish family's roots and put it together, and she travels to Europe. But what interested me about it was not so much the content, but the style. She used these very, very short,
00:28:45
Speaker
chapters or sections. Again, I don't think they're really chapters or essays. They're more like little sections or snap dots. And that was the first time I'd seen that in nonfiction. I don't know when that book came out, but very early, I knew that I tended to write in short, cemented essays or segmented stories to begin with. So anything that showed me that there was a structure that was really wonderful and validating. But in terms of content, there is a book
00:29:13
Speaker
called Mount Allegro and it is an old book. I think it was published like in 1945 or something by Jerry Mangione and he's a
00:29:23
Speaker
He's a, he taught literature and he's a writer and maybe even a social scientist, I think maybe a sociologist, but he writes about my hometown Rochester, New York. He writes about the Sicilian community and he writes about his family in this neighborhood, this immigrant neighborhood in a beautiful way. So he's writing almost like an anthropologist and that he's letting us know what's going on in this community, in this time, in this city.
00:29:48
Speaker
But he also is beautifully sort of showing us these families and how they interact. And I believe he was doing that because that was a time in our country when being an immigrant from Italy was not a good thing. People weren't so welcoming. And so he was showing what it was like and the beauty of these
Family Reactions to Memoir
00:30:06
Speaker
families. And I think that was a really important model for me that I didn't, I'm still realizing how important that book is for me, not only because of the local connection. In fact, the local connection is just sort of
00:30:17
Speaker
It's chance, but really just because of the way that he handles nonfiction, the way that it is both vibrant and readable, but he's communicating something other than just the story of his own life. He's opening a whole neighborhood and way of living. How did your family receive the book when they read it? I don't know if everybody in my family has even read the book.
00:30:43
Speaker
People have said things like, I like the cover. Before I was going to publish it, I did ask them about whether they wanted to have their names changed and all of that. So people were granted permission in their own way. But there hasn't been a book release party or anything like that. I think people have mixed feelings about how they're portrayed in somebody else's writing. And nobody's made a big stink about it.
00:31:10
Speaker
They haven't been overly enthusiastic either. I always want a better answer for that question because I know people worry about writing about family. And like I say, they haven't tried to kill me, but they're not throwing me a big party either.
Path to Becoming a Writer
00:31:22
Speaker
I think it's really hard. At first I was sort of, I sort of thought, what's wrong with these people? They've encouraged me to write and here it is, you know? But I think about, I try to imagine what it would be if I suddenly, if somebody wrote about me, and even if what they'd said was true,
00:31:38
Speaker
and even generous, it's really, I think it would be very difficult to be sort of reduced in that way to a character because even though it's nonfiction, really we're giving shape to a human being and we're using all these tools of creative writing. And so it really, really we're making them into a character. And I think that's a tough thing. And as I continue to write, I find myself writing less and less about family
00:32:03
Speaker
You said they, you know, they, you reached the point where you were encouraged to write. What was, what were those early experiences like and what were some maybe early validating experiences that pushed you towards writing as a vocation?
00:32:21
Speaker
I don't think I ever even thought that you could be a writer. That was not on my radar. That would have been like being an astronaut. In my world, people were just happy if they could get a job at Eastman Kodak working in the factory, because that meant that they would get an annual bonus in health care. And maybe if they worked hard, they'd get out of the city and get a house in the suburbs. So I really didn't grow up with people who wanted to be writers. Or maybe they liked art. My mom was pretty artistic, but it
00:32:50
Speaker
I never saw that as an option really for something that you might do with your life's work. And that didn't change until I think I'd already, you know, I'd gone through and had completed a graduate degree in counseling and then finally I allowed myself to write because I'd always liked to write, but I never wanted to let that get in the way of actually getting out of poverty or getting into the solid middle class, having the house, having all of that.
00:33:19
Speaker
And then when I finally started, I was so fortunate because Judith Kitchen, who's a wonderful essayist, was teaching locally at SUNY Brockport, which was not very far from where I lived. And so I took some workshops with her. The first class I took in creative nonfiction was a class called the creative essay offered at SUNY Brockport way before anybody was talking about creative nonfiction or any of this. In fact, I almost didn't even take it because I thought the creative essay, that sounds like
00:33:46
Speaker
That sounds like I could put a pen in my eye, and that would be more fun. What is creative essay? But it was wonderful. It opened this whole new way of writing and reading writing. And then I started, I think, the first time I went and took a study abroad workshop in Prague, and that was wonderful. It opened all of these wonderful opportunities and doors. But then I worked with Dinti Moore soon after that.
00:34:14
Speaker
And he was also really encouraging. But you know, by then I was either 30 or almost 30. And so it was really not like in high school or college. It was later after I was an adult and a responsible, taxpaying
Writing Routines and Persistence
00:34:28
Speaker
adult. And I decided like, okay, I'm going to do this thing that I've always wanted to do. And then I was so lucky to meet these people who were wonderfully influential and validating.
00:34:39
Speaker
And in order to write a book of ghost spreads nature and that collection of essays that you've written as well, among other things of course, there has to be a certain measure of grit and tenacity that a lot of people talk about sometimes, but it's hard to define. It's kind of abstract.
00:35:00
Speaker
And how do you define the tenacity of being a writer and what it takes to finish work, to finish essays, to finish books? How do you define it so maybe someone else can have a more concrete definition of, oh, that's what hard work looks like?
00:35:18
Speaker
You know, I like what you say. I like how you describe it tenacity grit. It sounds like somebody who could kick somebody's ass, you know, like I like that. That's like the Wonder Woman, you know, like I am going to do this essay. And I think that's there. Absolutely. That's there. I think for me, it's a lot about faith. And I don't mean like religious faith. It's for me, writing brings up all of this stuff. So so I'll be really interested in something and and think, well, I'm going to write about that and then I'll start doing it. And then
00:35:47
Speaker
You know, almost as soon as I start, I'm like, what is this? This is this is stupid. No one's going to care about this. You know, every every possible thing I could say to myself, and it's not just being mean to myself. I truly think this is stupid. Nobody's going to care. But I have to remember that I care. And even if it goes nowhere, I'm going to stick with it. And I just recently read a quote. It wasn't like some big inspiring quote with something like writers. Writers are people with boring lives or something like that. And I thought,
00:36:13
Speaker
Well, that's not a great sounding quote, but it's true. I think you have to be willing to say no to things in order to give yourself the time. So it is it is having grit and it is believing in yourself against, you know, sometimes people who don't believe in you.
00:36:29
Speaker
And it's having that faith or that trusting that there is something here that is worthwhile, not only for me, but potentially for somebody else. But it's also the willingness to be boring sometimes. And I guess it helps that I'm getting older, but I embrace that. I don't have to go out every time I'm invited. I can sometimes be that nerd who wants to stay home and write about the history of confession in the Catholic Church.
00:36:55
Speaker
So how do you push through those ugly middles in drafts? But after the honeymoon period of the idea, the spark that gets you to the page, and then that part in the middle where you said, like, no one's going to care. No one likes this. No one wants to read this. And ultimately, how do you get through that and process that? Right. Because it's also, I think, especially writing essays. I think this happens in poetry and fiction as well. But with essays,
00:37:23
Speaker
The real world is huge. So it's also managing how overwhelming it is and trying to decide which strands will best work. So yeah, so how do I manage it? Probably not very well. I probably fry up some ghost bread and eat it with a lot of butter. So basically I wine and do whatever I need to, voice my insecurity, annoy people. But at the end of the day, it's coming back to it and sticking with it. And so how do I do that?
00:37:52
Speaker
I suppose that I know that it's important enough and I look at past experiences and remind myself that you just have to get through that phase and sort of talking myself, you know, coaching myself, like you have to do it, you have to do it, but also allowing for the fact that it is painful. For me, it's pretty painful to not know where something's going. The exact thing that can make an essay work
00:38:17
Speaker
and seem like a miracle is the thing that makes it seem so painful as well. So just reminding myself of that and pushing through it, you know, I don't think there's an, maybe somebody has an easy answer, but I think it's like life, you know, you just show up and do it. And if you don't, it doesn't get done.
Daily Writing Practices
00:38:34
Speaker
And what systems or routines do you have in place to make sure that you are getting this type of work done?
00:38:43
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, just the word routine is what it is. And that goes back to the word boring. It sounds so boring, right? It would be nice to have like a magical hat or a special pen or something, but it's really just allowing time. And for me, that means in the morning before the day starts strapping me down in other ways or, you know, people start requesting things or whatever. I try to come to writing every morning. I have coffee. I don't eat. Usually once I start eating, it's like,
00:39:10
Speaker
I'm already distracted by everything. So if I could get a couple hours in the morning, even a little hungry, it sounds funny. But where I'm really just sort of focused on writing, it's great. Ideally, I'd take a walk even before then. But the reality is that I'm happy if I can get a couple hours before going to the real world. And so that's what I do every morning whenever I can. It's like Hemingway's vignette and a movable feast. The hunger is good discipline. Yes.
00:39:40
Speaker
which kinda has a double meaning. He said like writing on an empty stomach kinda like helped with his focus. He was also just fairly poor at the time. But also it speaks to that drive and ambition is what makes for good discipline too. Like if you wanna make a mark, you do have to make the time. And how do you, like when do you,
00:40:08
Speaker
Wake up and ensure that that you that you do this Are you like a super early riser before the sun or you know, how when do you know? No, I'm not an early riser. I'm definitely I'm definitely more of an early riser than I used to be but it's so when I say morning I'll say whenever I wake up right so but the way I'm very lucky because I I
00:40:31
Speaker
I'm able to teach my classes in the afternoon. I have a lot of flexibility in my schedule. I don't have children. I guess the word is privileged, but whatever it is, I'm very lucky.
Hobbies Beyond Writing
00:40:46
Speaker
I can really schedule my weeks and days
00:40:52
Speaker
the way that I want them to be. And so the thing that would get in the way would be somebody inviting me to do something, which is just life. You have to do that. But pretty much, even if I were to wake up at 9.30 or something, I could still take the two hours that I needed to get writing done. What's your favorite, say, non-writing, non-artistic activity to do, hobby to unplug from this so it's not constantly in your motherboard?
00:41:22
Speaker
I mean, hiking and walking is big for me. I like to get out into nature and remember that the question you asked a minute ago was really good. Like, how do you get through the hard part and just sort of stick with it? And what helps me a lot is to get perspective on the fact that
00:41:41
Speaker
okay, this is just an essay, you're going to be okay. Whether it's the worst or best essay you ever write, it's ultimately not that big of a deal. And so getting out into the larger world is really important to me. And I'm so hiking, just going to sit somewhere to get out of my environment into a new environment. Travel is really big for me for the same reason as getting out to nature. My perspective is suddenly enlarged.
00:42:05
Speaker
And also it's, you know, there's a sort of hunger there. There's like, you're a bareness, you're coming, you're vulnerable in a way, which helps, I think, all of the time with writing. I like, in terms of like other, I think you're just asking about like what I just answered like with hiking, but I like to appreciate like other art forms such as music.
00:42:26
Speaker
But I love driving. You can't just get in a car and drive or people think you're crazy. But I used to think if this whole writing thing didn't work out, I'd like to be a cross-country driver just because I like being in a car and not having to be anywhere while I'm in that car, right? If I drive from where I am now down to Richmond, where I teach, it's about eight and a half hours. And for that eight and a half hours, I can listen to music and just sort of be everywhere and nowhere at the same time, which sounds silly.
00:42:55
Speaker
So driving, listening to music is just great. Yeah, and you're alluding to it right now. But so what are some other artistic media that you like to consume, like documentaries, music, anything else that helps ultimately inform the writing you do? Yeah, I think...
00:43:16
Speaker
I guess I have to admit, like in the past month, what have I been consuming? Netflix, right? Because I just came off of the semester and it was a really busy time. So I don't do the things that I would normally like to do, which would be like to read, but not nonfiction, maybe poetry. Poetry is big for me.
Influential Books and Authors
00:43:35
Speaker
I think poetry is really important for all writers, but specifically for me, like I say, it lets me see things differently. Music.
00:43:45
Speaker
I think other books, I always have a list of things I'm supposed to read, so that can end up feeling like a pressure for some reason. But when I find a writer or a work that just hits me, you know how that happens, suddenly I'm excited and inspired again, that's great. But podcasts are great. I just feel like I never
00:44:07
Speaker
I'm answering the question, but I like everything. I just don't leave enough time for it. So the simple answer is I read poetry. I like music a lot. My husband is a painter, so I'm inspired by looking at other people's visual art, and especially his.
00:44:25
Speaker
Poetry is as interesting you bring that because just this morning Well yesterday I decided I'm like, you know what? Poetry by and large historically. I just haven't been able to Get or understand and it's because I don't know. I just have my own preconceived notions of it So I I implemented this thing like starting today every morning. I'm gonna read one poem
00:44:50
Speaker
Oh, that's a cool idea. And so at the end of the year, if I can do the string, you know, I read over 300 poems and, you know, just just for the sake, because it is so I have the art of drowning or something by Billy Collins. So, you know, I was like, all right, this is easily digestible poetry. So I'm going to do one one poem a day and to see
00:45:09
Speaker
see what comes of it. So yeah, that's something I've been, it's funny you bring up poetry as another, as an inspiring medium for you. So I was like, oh, that's kind of cool. Yeah, I mean, because it is writing, but it's so different, right? And it is, sometimes it's so hard if you're trying to look at the world in an intellectual way or make sense of things, poetry will really challenge that. But for me, it works. What I want to say for you is that's awesome that you're doing that. But if you end up not doing it, let's say like the second year, you're probably doing some other thing that's
00:45:39
Speaker
that's meeting that need for you, you know? And I also want to say that you could get the Writers' Almanac to, if you get on their list, you'll get a poem a day in your inbox, but I don't know, then you can't control what you read, I guess.
00:45:52
Speaker
Well, yeah, then it would challenge me to read other things that I wouldn't think of, too. So that's a good idea. That's probably a good idea for anyone who might want that little tidbit of something as an inspiring use of language, perhaps, or a turn of phrase that sometimes you can only get from a really skilled poet. So what other books or books do you tend to reread? Well, I think, for me, it's funny because writing and reading
00:46:21
Speaker
It's about content and styles, right? And I find that I tend to return most to the books that focus more on style. Earlier, I talked about that book by Jerry Manjone, which I love for content and style. But a lot of the writers or books that I go back to are really lyrical writers who are playing with language or almost poets maybe in some way. So like Edna O'Brien is one of my favorite writers. She's an Irish writer.
00:46:50
Speaker
I almost don't even care what she writes about. I just like to get sucked into her prose. It just feels good to ride the waves of I know O'Brien's writing. In fact, so many of her novels feel like she's telling the same story over and over. So if you were somebody who read for content, you might actually think, what? How could you reread that stuff? Because it's all the same story, but it doesn't matter to me. I'm just sort of bathing in the language. It's wonderful. And I mentioned Judith Kitchen as an essayist. Her work is similarly lyrical and
00:47:20
Speaker
gorgeous and there's a writer called Harriet Scott Chessman, who is a fiction writer.
Recurring Themes in Writing
00:47:26
Speaker
But again, I like to reread her work. I mean, there's so many writers, it's hard to, you know, but the people I go back to are language, you know, very, very, very focused on language. I love James Joyce again, like these Irish writers, they know how to use language. And our southern writers often, we think about Flannery O'Connor or William Faulkner do the same things.
00:47:48
Speaker
Those are the writers I return to. Again, I think it's just to sort of experience language on that level, you know, sort of the image and sound and rhythm level. That, for whatever reason, really feeds my desire to write.
00:48:04
Speaker
Looking back over your own work, from memory or even rereading your own work, have you noticed any common themes or commonalities that, no matter how much you may try to avoid it, always seem to crop up? Yeah. Well, like I said earlier, when I don't even think I'm writing about food suddenly, boom, I'm writing and there's a blueberry cobbler in the middle of the essay. What was that?
00:48:35
Speaker
So definitely food. So I wrote this memoir in two collections of essays. And even though the subjects, like from the outside, the memoir seems to be about poverty or family. And then the essay collections are clearly about women and gender. But often, Roman Catholicism has been in the background just lingering.
00:49:03
Speaker
That's something that often shows up. In fact, I was being interviewed once and somebody said something like, why in an update, you know, you know, you interviewers are good. You wouldn't just say why. But her question was basically like, why are you so fascinated with Catholicism? And my answer was, I'm not fascinated with Catholicism. But the truth is, it does always spring up. So
00:49:24
Speaker
that that's something that now I'm writing essays a little more directly about because I'm interested in why that keeps coming up for me.
Curiosity and Evolution as a Writer
00:49:32
Speaker
But so I guess food and, you know, whether or not there's a God, those are probably those are probably the things that come up a lot in ritual. I mean, I think the Catholicism is just like the ghost bread section. It's about, you know, smoke and incense and ritual. And that's interesting to me.
00:49:49
Speaker
With your work going forward, what is constantly bringing you back to the page and what excites you as you look to continue to evolve as a craftsman of the language? I think curiosity is big. I think the world is so interesting. People are so interesting. We're just surrounded by all of these stories and perspectives and
00:50:16
Speaker
You know, I just can't get enough of that. So what keeps me going is definitely like being interested in the world around me and sort of delighted and surprised by it. So whatever grabs my attention, that's going to keep me going. I want to challenge myself to grow. So the material I'm writing now or the nonfiction I'm writing now is really much more journalistic. So I started with memoir and then went to essay and
00:50:43
Speaker
And I still write essays, but I'm finding that they're more and more sort of focused on the world outside. And I think that's probably just a natural progression, but also I think I don't want to just get stuck. It seems like it's an interesting, I admire greatly people who write great literary journalism. And so I guess I'm interested in growing in that way.
Concluding the Episode
00:51:11
Speaker
That is a wrap on episode 56. Thanks very much to Sonya Livingston for being a good sport about reading from ghost bread. Hope that was a cool experience for you. It's kind of fun putting together. Let me know what you think if you like it. You can ping me on Twitter at Brendan O'Mara or you can email me.
00:51:31
Speaker
Music from today's episode came from the Free Music Archive, specifically from Penis Julie Maxwells. Pretty good, right? I dug it. The Creative Nonfiction Podcast is produced and hosted by me, Brendan O'Mara. Please leave a review over on iTunes.
00:51:53
Speaker
It takes 60 seconds and makes a lasting impact. And maybe if I can get my wife to subscribe, maybe I can incentivize her with something like this. It would be nice to have like a magical hat. Oh, and also you didn't think I got soft on you.
Closing Remarks and Humor
00:52:11
Speaker
Let's get you out of here on The Rooted.
00:52:35
Speaker
you