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Episode 159: Allie Rowbottom—The Page as Safe Place
126 Plays6 years ago
"Talent is not enough. You have to have luck. You have to have drive," says Allie Rowbottom (@allierowbottom)
Allie Rowbottom, author of Jell-O Girls: A Family History is on the show to talk shop. She grew with an artist mother who empowered her to pursue her own art.
Keep the conversation alive on Twitter @CNFPod or Instagram @cnfpod. Subscribe to the show and consider leaving a kind review on Apple Podcasts.
Thanks to Goucher College's MFA in Nonfiction and Bay Path University's MFA in Creative Nonfiction for the support.
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Transcript
Introductions and Sponsorships
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I feel like a lot of people must do that, but it's sort of this shameful secret.
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Hmm, that's nice. CNF, this Creative Non-Friction podcast is sponsored by Goucher College's Master of Fine Arts in Non-Fiction. The Goucher MFA is a two-year low-residency program. Online classes let you learn from anywhere on campus. Anywhere. Need a comma in there. Anywhere. While on-campus residency allow you to hone your craft with the accomplishmenters who have paltry prizes and best-selling books to their names. The program boasts a nationwide network of students, faculty, and alumni.
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which is published 140 books and counting. You'll get opportunities to meet literary agents and learn the ins and outs of the publishing journey. Visit Goucher.edu slash nonfiction to start your journey now.
MFA Programs Overview
00:00:46
Speaker
Take your writing to the next level. Go from hopeful to published and Goucher's MFA in creative nonfiction. Strike that creative. It's just nonfiction. Best of my knowledge. Also, discover your story.
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Speaker
Bay Path University is the first and only university to offer a no-residency, fully accredited MFA, focusing exclusively on creative non-fiction, attend full or part-time from anywhere in the world. In the Bay Path MFA, you'll find small online classes and a dynamic and supportive community. You'll master techniques of good writing from acclaimed authors and editors, learn from publishing and teaching,
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through professional internships and complete a master's thesis that will form the foundation for your memoir or collection of personal essays. Special elective courses include contemporary women's stories, travel and food writing, family histories, spiritual writing, and an optional week-long summer residency in Ireland.
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with guest writers including Andre the
Podcast and Guest Introduction
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Beast III, Anne Hood, Mia Gallagher and others. Start dates in late August and January. Find out more at BayPath.edu slash MFA. Oh yeah. Alright partner. You know what time it is. Feelin' like gettin' into it bro? Don't make me riff bro. Don't make me do it. Cause I'll do it. This is on you. I hope you feel good. I hope you're happy.
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Recording this on the 4th of July. 3 days after my birthday. 2 days after Jose Conseco's birthday. Bash Brothers.
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This is CNF, the creative non-fiction podcast where I speak to badass writers, filmmakers, radio producers, and podcasters about the craft of telling true stories. We chart their path to where they are today and dig into how the hell they got the work done. Sounds simple, but man can we unpack some baggage.
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Today's guest is the brilliant and enviably young Ally Robottom, author of Jello Girls of Family History. Title sounds cute, but this gets into some shit, man. Strap on a safety harness for this ride. Boom, we'll get to her. Hey, you gotta do the thing. You gotta go subscribe to CNF where you get your podcasts. You can get your show notes at BrendanOmera.com. Hey, hey.
00:03:26
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And you can also sign up for my monthly newsletter where I share reading recommendations and podcast news on the first of the month. Once a month, no spam. As far as I can tell, you can't
Insights on Writing and Editing
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beat it. Keep the conversation going on Twitter at CNF Pod and on Instagram at CNF Pod. Facebook too.
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Wherever you jam, we'll bring the band. Consider leaving a nice review on iTunes. I got a couple more as birthday presents and I could always use a few more. I'd love to hit 100 and worth 32 ratings and reviews away. Nothing's gonna change at 100. Probably not gonna feel any different.
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I know that for a fact. It's like if you get a book deal and you've been striving for that and then you finish the book and you're like, what is this? I don't feel any different. The fact is the process is a reward and that external validation means nothing but 100 reviews. That sounds awesome. I would love to see it. But it's a badass number. Yeah.
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So if you have a moment, I sure as hell would love that as a B day present level 39.
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on an abstract level is pivoting a little bit.
Ally Robottom's Writing Journey
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I always thought it was a good idea for any writer to be an editor at some point. I think when we're in the myopia of our own writing and we're trying to sway editors to buy our work and we don't hear from them for a long time and then we start getting all pissed, like, come on, like, how come they can't return a damn email or write something back that's a little more thoughtful, then we're just going to pass on this.
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Or worse, they write nothing back at all, and you're just like, duh. I started a pseudo full-time job as the assistant opinion page editor at the register guard, Eugene's primary newspaper. I say pseudo part-time, because I'm technically only supposed to be on the clock for 34 hours, but I definitely work more than 40. Such is life. That's just the way it is.
00:05:32
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and people write in their letters or their guest viewpoints and then there's other columnists too and it's like a damn fire hose and frankly I'm like, I don't have time for you. Maybe I'll get back to you in a week. Maybe. Sorry. Gotta get tomorrow's page out. Gotta be here. Gotta be there. It's the nature of the beast. So the one thing I knew editors dealt with
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is really hitting home. I don't mean to lecture, but editors have 99 pressing things that need to be done yesterday. I don't know what else to say other than, I feel you, brah. Okay.
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Ally Robottom, where to begin? She's a boss. And her book, Jello Girls, is a family history, and she's part heir to the Jello fortune from the sale of the company decades ago. She writes about how Jello's marketers aim to put women in molds, and the book further explores the toxic patriarchy that existed and, of course, still exists to this day and probably, unfortunately, will exist into the indefinite future.
00:06:39
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And you thought this was about jiggly, colorful, sweet treats. Hmm. Allie's writing, for sure, is a sweet treat. And you should buckle the hell in, because here she is for episode 1, 59er.
00:07:03
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I think a fun place to start might just be to simply ask you how you got the writing bug as a young person coming up and developing. And I was just wondering, how did you take this on as probably a hobby or something for fun early on and then watched it turned into something that you could make a go of it with? Sure. That's a good question. I mean, I journaled, which
00:07:31
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I don't think of at all as the same as like story writing or anything like that, but I journaled really voraciously from a very young age. I actually still have all those journals and they take up an inordinate amount of space in my house. But yeah, I mean, that's how I started writing. I really didn't start writing stories, but just more like a chronicle of my life and continue that.
00:07:56
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with a daily practice into college. And I was like blogging and doing a lot of creative nonfiction writing. And it really wasn't until a roommate of mine in college actually was like, oh, well, like you should be a writer. Like you could have a column like Carrie Bradshaw. And I was like, oh, that would be perfect. That's totally what I want to do. I can't believe I hadn't identified it until now. And then I started taking
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fiction writing workshops and it grew from there. So I guess that's the long answer. And the short one is that I came to it, I guess kind of late, but I was doing it.
00:08:36
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the entire time that I was in the
Challenges in Writing and Maintaining Discipline
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process of coming to it. If that makes sense. Oh yeah. My journaling practice started when I was 16 and it was called the O'Mara Chronicles to this day, which is still what I call my journals. And I just, I've kept it up ever since. So going on, you know, 23 years or whatever it is. So when did you start journaling at what age? I think 12, 11, 12. Nice.
00:09:05
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in that area, yeah. Yeah, and you made it a daily practice even from that age? Yeah, yeah, I did. There's a lot of weird stuff in those journals. I mean, there's a lot of, like, crushes. Of course. But yeah, I mean, to me, that's still serious writing, so give my young self props. Right. And what form did the blogging take when you were in college?
00:09:32
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Um, it was similar. It was a lot of sort of processing whatever it was that was going on for me and sort of like new agey spirituality talk and, um, maybe weaving it in with stuff about like fashion or what I had been reading at the time, that kind of thing. It was like sort of pseudo lyrical essay, but I didn't really know that term or anything about it yet. I was just, um, braiding, I guess before.
00:10:03
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before I even knew what that was, yeah. How did you start to carve out your own voice there? Or maybe who were you imitating at the time as you were looking to forge your own identity on the page? That's a good one. Well, honestly, my voice feels very natural to me on the page, I think probably because I did journal for so long. I had this
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just innate sense of my inner self. And honestly, like on a personal level, I feel like that has always been what has saved me. It's just that inner, that very solid inner voice. But I, when I was in high school, I started reading a lot of memoir. Mary Carr was extremely influential to me and she has such a solid voice as I'm sure listeners know.
00:11:01
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which might have been just sort of the permission I needed to inhabit my own. And I also really loved Annie Dillard, specifically in American Childhood. That book I've read so many times, and I think it was sort of a similar guide in terms of voice in a way. She writes with such detail about small, ordinary moments.
The Struggle with Structure
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And I think that
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You know, so often for young writers, especially there's this push to say something like big and new and exciting. And for me, that was permission to talk about the things that I could speak authentically about, which were those smaller moments. And did you grow up as an only child?
00:11:48
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Oh, yeah. I figured. I know there's no reference to a sibling in Jello Girls, but I just wanted to make sure. And I wonder if maybe that's kind of where that core or that confidence in your inner self comes from because you probably spent a lot of time just kind of reflecting maybe in your own sort of –
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dream world in a lot of ways just by virtue of being an only child and when your parents of course split up so what was did that internality kind of force you force you down this kind of writerly road you think probably yeah that's a good insight yes that and also the fact that my mother was an artist and there was just a lot of encouragement for which I remain so internally grateful
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There was just a lot of encouragement for me to use my voice, at least from her, and also to take art seriously, which I think a lot of people don't have the privilege of getting that message. Yeah, I think that's a really good point you're underscoring, is that some people, they might
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Oh, what's the word I'm looking for? They might kind of, they have that imposter syndrome, so to speak, so they're afraid to take their work seriously or take themselves seriously as a writer or a painter, podcaster, or union.
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And so I wonder if maybe that early permission in allowing your mother especially, allowing you to take your work seriously, gave you more of that sort of initiative and permission to actually take yourself seriously and identify as a writer and thus pursue it. Yeah, I'm sure you're right. I still have imposter syndrome. But maybe it's been mitigated by that permission. That's a nice way to think about it. Yeah.
00:13:47
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It never sort of crossed my mind when I was like, oh, I'm a writer. I mean, I didn't call myself a writer, and I do now. But when that sort of first crossed my mind, it didn't, I never took a pause and thought like, oh, well, maybe I can't do this, or maybe this isn't a legitimate career. I think I just knew that it was.
00:14:13
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I remember, well, so I kind of came up in newspapers, and even when churning out stories, I never really considered myself a writer, even though I did it routinely. And it wasn't until I had an essay published in an online literary journal, you know, when was this been maybe 2007 or so that that felt like writing. So at what point did you feel like you could comfortably identify yourself as a writer?
00:14:42
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I think probably once I began, once I got into a PhD program and somebody wanted to pay me to better myself writing wise and to teach writing to other people.
00:15:06
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And maybe even sort of further into that program when like I got more financial reward for it. I think like as trite as that sounds, it made me feel like, Oh, I have a legitimate
Influences and Motivation
00:15:20
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future in this. Like I, I can make a quote unquote living off of my work.
00:15:29
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So I'm going to call myself a writer. And how do you process the imposter syndrome that we just referenced, that you still feel, even with a wonderful and brilliant memoir like this and the reviews and essays you've written, and of course all the wonderful teaching you know that I'll do wherever you cross paths with your students. Why do you still feel like you wrestle with that? That's going to be a multi-pronged answer, I think. First of all,
00:15:59
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I haven't met anybody who doesn't and I think I'm not sure if it has to do with admiring other people's work and comparing oneself, which is
00:16:14
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truly the death of creativity. That's a big theme on this show, by the way, talking to people about the comparison Olympics and everything. But yes, please carry on. We'll expand on that. Yeah, I mean, fueled by social media, of course. So, you know, I haven't met especially, I mean, this is such a disgust and almost secretive topic amongst debut authors is just the
00:16:43
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the internal torture that many people feel, not just in terms of being an impostor, but also of this thing happening that we've wanted and worked for, and then it's sort of feeling like nothing's changed. But I'm sort of steering off from the question.
Critiquing and Student Engagement
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For me, personally, the imposter syndrome sort of comes from being an extreme perfectionist and from driving myself so hard that it's never good enough.
00:17:29
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It's hard to take those moments to pause and appreciate and see that it actually is good enough because there's a mechanism inside of me that just sort of defaults to it not being good enough and to me not being good enough.
00:17:46
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I mean, that's my life work, probably, is just taking a minute before I launch into self-flagellation. And like I said a moment ago, the comparison's a big theme on the show, comparison and jealousy. I love diving into that. It's something not a lot of people talk about. It's something that festers inside me, and it's a reason I started this podcast several years ago to kind of actually work through it.
00:18:12
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to celebrate other writers and creators and channel that bile into something that does a bit more good. And I still wrestle with it, but it's definitely better. And I wonder if you catch yourself in those comparison Olympics and those feelings of envy and jealousy, how do you go about processing that energy and trying to channel it into something
00:18:41
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productive for yourself or maybe your community and people in orbit around you? First of all, that's so evolved of you. Like kudos to you. Thanks, Allie. Again, two answers to this question. Firstly, I work. I work really, really hard.
00:19:10
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And by that I mean like I write. So when I start to feel lesser than or jealous, I just throw myself back into the work. And I think like part of that comes from the fact that like the jealousy for me comes from seeing other people having like that second book deal or like, you know, whatever.
00:19:38
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best seller stat, like whatever it is that I think that I need in order to be okay in the world, I guess. So, you know, when I see that, I guess I just turn back to whatever my project is and start like working even harder to try to catch up. I don't think that that's necessarily productive or healthy. I think that that oftentimes like drives myself and
00:20:08
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my spouse crazy. But it is how
'Jello Girls' and the MeToo Movement
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I cope and how I have coped in the past year or so. But then also I think like probably the healthier route and certainly the more I guess the healthier route is teaching and giving back sort of takes one out of that
00:20:34
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solipsistic jealousy spiral and yeah, sort of like the reason that you started the podcast. And often when I've had Glenn Stout on the show, he's a great editor and author, series editor for the Best American Sports Writing and so forth. And I think the very first time he was on the show, a couple of years ago,
00:20:57
Speaker
he talked he said like nothing about this game makes any sense and he's like basically all you can really control is your effort and that is all and it sounds like that's what that's what you do you know you put your effort in the controllables which is the degree to which you're willing to wake up early and and just grind on on a draft or whatever you're working on so that's it sounds like you channel it you put you get yourself on the treadmill so to speak you know if they're running if they're running faster well I got to train harder so to speak
00:21:27
Speaker
Absolutely. That is totally my MO. And I mean, it's an oft repeated adage for writers. It's just like talent's not enough. There's a lot of talented writers out there. You have to have talent, you have to have luck, and then you have to have drive.
Growth and Inspiration in Writing
00:21:51
Speaker
I don't know, I just feel like, well, I can have drive. What does hard work and rigor look like to you? How do you define it and how do you know that at the end of a day of being at the computer that you can look back on it and be like, that was a good hard work day that I can feel good about? I mean, it's hard to control for sort of
00:22:19
Speaker
the emotional ups and downs of the writing process, you know, cause it's like I can, um, right now I am lucky enough to be able to many days sit down and work for four, five, six hours at a time. That's a lot. Like six is like a lot for me. Yeah. Yeah. That's a lot for anyone. Yeah. Um, but you know,
00:22:45
Speaker
If I can clock in at four on average, that's like a good day for me. But just because I've put four hours down doesn't mean that I'm going to get up and say like, that was a good day. You know, sometimes I get up and I'm like, this is garbage, like, or there's so much more to do.
00:23:05
Speaker
And some days I'm like, this is genius. It's gonna change the world. So like, I guess a good day would be like a day that I get like four or five hours in and I'm like peaceful about it and not like on either a high or a low.
00:23:21
Speaker
So let's unpack those, let's say that four hours a bit. When does that typically start for you? Yeah, let's just start with that and we'll kind of get a little granular on it. But so how do you warm up the engine and warm up to that initial start for four hours? It's kind of a circuitous path.
00:23:42
Speaker
I have a co-working space that I work at, and my husband's a writer as well, and he works there as well. That space is called The Hatchery. It's in Larchmont Village in Los Angeles, and it's for writers only, which is awesome, because everybody sort of gets it. And, you know, you meet a lot of really interesting people. So for me, the day begins, I get up and I normally go,
00:24:10
Speaker
straight to the teapot. I get my tea and I go to my computer and I maybe work at home for an hour straight away. Just looking over what I did the day before and sort of reentering the world of the project. And then after that hour or so,
00:24:36
Speaker
we sort of get ready and then we go to the hatchery. John and I, my husband and I normally drive together and we go to the hatchery
Emotional Engagement in Writing
00:24:43
Speaker
and then it's some like ritual tea making, some hard boiled egg eating, and then it's like butts in the chair for the next four hours or so. And then the day is, that's pretty much it for the writing day.
00:25:03
Speaker
What's your stamina like for sheer writing? Are you in that? Can you put your butt in the chair for hours at a time or is it like half hour on, get up for a walk, go up for a walk? What is that? What does that look like for you? It's like butt in the chair. This was definitely not always the case for me. I don't know what happened. I think part of it comes with age.
00:25:32
Speaker
Um, for, in my experience, when I was, I'm 33, when I was, um, 23, it was like, my attention span was like nada, which is why, um, a lot of my work at the time was fragmented and written in pieces and like fragmented on the page as well with a lot of white space is just because I would write in short bursts.
00:26:00
Speaker
and move on from there. It was just really hard for me to sit still, but now that's really different. I mean, it depends, obviously not every day is like this, but recently I tried, I tried Adderall and I thought this is, actually I didn't like it, but it was also just like, this is actually not that different from how I normally feel.
00:26:28
Speaker
about what I'm working on, which is just like very focused. Once I enter the world, I'm kind of obsessed with whatever it is I'm working on within that world and also just obsessed with being in that world.
00:26:47
Speaker
I remember in college, taking some of my friends, was it Adderall or Dexedrine? It was one of those. And I remember just studying for a physics exam and I put my head down and I like lifted up and it was eight hours later. I was like, what the fuck just happened? Yeah. Yeah. It was similar to that for me, although like I wasn't working on editing. Like I feel like
00:27:15
Speaker
if you're doing something sort of, I mean, maybe numerical, but also
Preserving Legacies through Writing
00:27:21
Speaker
just sort of routine, that's what it's good for. But I was like trying to make sentences and it was like, I think it felt like I was spending 30 seconds, but I was actually spending like 45 minutes on sentences, which is not normal for me. So it was like, wow, this is having the wrong effect here.
00:27:42
Speaker
Yeah, it's like you're sewing or stitching and you're like stopping after every single stitch and just going stitch, stitch, like this is unsustainable.
00:27:54
Speaker
It's funny, you spoke about how the writing was kind of like in these kind of quick bursts, and your essay, Cut the Bones, and even in Jello Girls, you have these, almost like a slideshow of these little,
00:28:12
Speaker
you know, blocks or chunklets throughout the throughout the whole thing. And what about that strategy for writing? The strategy might be the wrong word, but what about that style of writing, say that essay, which is like really short in terms of those sections and also the book? What about that appeal to you just from a storytelling tactic or tool? Oh, that's such a good question. We'll cut the bones.
00:28:40
Speaker
Uh, was my, this is just sort of, um, cut the bones was my MFA thesis and it was 88 pages long. And, um, I ended up cutting it down to like, I don't know how, whatever 10 pages of fragments. Um, so it's just sort of a funny anecdote about writing itself. Um, and that happens to me a lot. Um, but I think that,
00:29:11
Speaker
especially when I started Cut the Bones at CalArts, I was really interested in techniques to render trauma and to perform traumatic experience and traumatic memory. And, you know, I think so much of memory itself is fragmented and does come to us in those bursts of image.
00:29:38
Speaker
that sort of cut away and then cut to something else. And then specifically with trauma, it's so disjointing on an emotional level and on a memory level that it feels to me like really, in some cases, the only way to render it effectively is in fragments or with fragmented language.
00:30:09
Speaker
In some of my research I read that specifically I think it was dealing with how you coach along classes or workshops and how you want people, and something that really disappoints you is like say you were submitting your work and then the teacher or the professor wasn't prepared. And you're like preparation is really key going in to try to improve everybody's work.
00:30:37
Speaker
And I wonder what does your preparation look like when you're really breaking down a piece to try to elevate it, be it your own or somebody else's? What does that degree of preparation look like for you? I write really long, my students probably know this, really long critique letters, and I think
00:31:05
Speaker
I mean, that's the side, like, obviously, point by point, it's like, I read the work, and then I read it a second time, and I make notes in the margins. And then like, for me, that all comes together in the crit letter, which is honestly, for me, one of the most, like, just to be selfish about it, is one of the most effective teaching tools
00:31:30
Speaker
For other for you know, the writers that I coach but also for myself because it's like this is a space in which we now Process and really clarify for ourselves and for the other writer What we feel the piece is doing well and where we were very much you know along with it and in the world and where
00:31:57
Speaker
and why we were thrown out of the world. For me, and this is just part of who I am as a writer, but I make sense of things through writing. So being able to really wallow in the critique letter and give myself time for that is, I think, the best mode of preparation for me.
00:32:22
Speaker
And also you speak about praising strengths and using those as, this is my own wording, but like kind of like, you know, swimmies on someone's arm to keep them afloat in the pool of despair.
00:32:38
Speaker
And you said that there's value, almost more value in really praising the strengths in a sense to really lift up. If there's something you identify as good, lean into that and that'll just make the rest cream rise to the top. And so I wonder for you, what do you identify as something that you're particularly strong at that you try to maybe double down on? That's such a good question. Well, first of all, I want to say,
00:33:07
Speaker
we have to praise each other's strengths. And it makes practical sense because if you know what you're doing right, then you can do more of that. It's like dwelling on what's wrong, that's harder to fix, but dwelling on what's right, it's like, okay, well, in redrafting, like I'll just do more of what the people like. But yeah, so for me, I think my strength is emotional intelligence.
00:33:37
Speaker
and being able to say with clarity, or sort of, yeah, say with clarity the emotional elements of the work on the page without telling necessarily the reader, but also sort of pointing it out in a way that is indicative of the fact that I know.
00:34:07
Speaker
the emotions of my characters or whatever I'm writing about, the emotional core of that. That's something that I come to and know very quickly. I think that's my strength. I think, you know, craft-wise I'm fairly good at making sentences and lyricism, but I don't see that as, you know, particularly unique. And that's something that like I see in my students a lot is just,
00:34:38
Speaker
sort of leaning on poetry and the ability to make beautiful work, but not doing the sort of deeper emotional work to make the piece special, I guess. And it's just, it's a learned skill.
00:34:58
Speaker
And likewise, on the opposite end of that is like, of course you don't want to dwell too much on weaknesses, but at some point it probably does behoove anybody, whatever their craft is, to level up some of those weaknesses to your strengths. And what might you identify as something that you struggle with, that you don't want to ignore, and you want to pull that up to the level where you feel confident, as you are with, say, the emotional intelligence on the page?
00:35:26
Speaker
Oh my gosh, structure, plot, conflict, all of the nuts and bolts that other people seem to have learned. Honestly, I read a ton of craft books at this point. Like I mentioned, my husband's a writer, he does as well. And I think they're so essential.
00:35:51
Speaker
stuff that I recommend to my students and they're basically like, that's for babies. But I need it, man. I need to see a template for how to make a story arc. If left to my own devices, I will just basically write for pages and pages about feelings.
00:36:17
Speaker
Um, so yeah, I mean, definitely my, my weakness is structure. And for a book like Jello Girls, that came dead last for me. Um, the Jello Girls was for years much sort of dreamier and more meditative and slippery with time than it ended up being. And I, I've said this before elsewhere, but, um,
00:36:46
Speaker
As much as I liked that style, it wasn't giving me the scaffolding to address everything in the book that I wanted to address. And it was only once I took everything I had and just put a very conventional straightforward structure onto it and made it conform to that, that I was able to reach in other ways.
00:37:13
Speaker
I mean, that was such a lesson for me. And it's something that I harp on a lot with my students is just that there needs to be a grounding force, be it structurally or in terms of language, motif, something that pins the reader down and then allows them to go with you when you want to stretch out elsewhere.
00:37:38
Speaker
Have you started to, I mean, let's, let's talk about that too, in terms of Jello Girls, how long did it take you then to kind of reverse engineer it into its current structure? Was that just a structural and strategic nightmare for you to, to unweave it and then reweave it? Um, uh, no, actually, weirdly, um, it wasn't, but I think,
00:38:06
Speaker
So it happened very quickly. Like once I got the memo, like once I figured it out, and part of this I think was helpful. It was helpful to me to have a ghost book, like a template, like another book that I was looking at and it was like, this is the structure that my book needs to take. I see now how this writer did it. I can just follow suit. Maggie Nelson has a wonderful craft essay.
00:38:36
Speaker
about doing just that. And I think once I realized that other writers do that, I was like, oh my God, like that would have made this so much easier from the get go. Do you know the title of that essay? I don't. It's in a tin house craft book. I send it out to my students a lot, but I forget the title. I'm so sorry. Yeah, I'll dig it up and maybe try to find a way to link to it in the show notes.
00:39:06
Speaker
Cool, I can email you the title. But yeah, so once I sort of identified that, it was probably two or three, two months maybe of taking all the material I had and just sort of adhering it to this more sort of
00:39:29
Speaker
strict, I guess, narrative structure. So the structure really is just like we open at the end and then we go alternating chapters forward through time. But we go back in time and then alternating chapters forward through time until we reach where we began. And it's just much clearer than it was before. And I think there's more narrative tension, for sure.
00:39:57
Speaker
Yeah, and it's great like my an editor I work with he he says like you know the reader needs these little handholds or toe holds on the wall so to speak you know you need to be able to hang on to something and if you don't give them something to glom onto whether that's just saying what year it is or something are you and how old are you here or how old is that person there it's like the reader just needs something to something sticky and then it just precedes such
00:40:24
Speaker
It's such a better experience for the reader, and that's what you're really going for in the end. Absolutely. And I think it's, you know, I think this is basically the same way set things that is a different way. But, you know, I like to think of it as you're asking the reader to enter into this world with you. Anything that takes them out of the world, even if it's only if it's like a weird sentence or an awkward word choice or
00:40:53
Speaker
something that makes them furrow their brow and think like, oh, that's not clear, what year is it? Anything that takes them out is no good and needs to be resolved because you want them to be in the world so fully that they can't stop turning pages and they read the entire book in one sitting. I mean, that's ideal. So anything that's distracting or makes them confused, even if it sacrifices some of the beauty of the sentence, like it's gotta happen.
00:41:23
Speaker
Yeah, that's a really good point because then ultimately what you want, it's almost like if you're in a concert and then you're getting like, you're really into the music and then, you know, the drummer is offbeat or the guitarist like buzzes the fretboard. It's like, oh, you're just taken out of it right away. And instead, it's just like, all right, simplify these things. And that way we can just immerse ourselves in the experience. Totally.
00:41:47
Speaker
And sometimes that means that like the guitar player does not get to have their solo and like show off because it would ultimately be discordant. So, you know, I encounter that, I think a lot. I mean, everybody does with their own work and with student work, but sometimes like, you know, it's cliche, but like we do have to kill our darlings and like cut things that we're really enamored with linguistically in the service of the story.
00:42:16
Speaker
And when you were, let's just say, when you were writing Jello Girls and getting right into the thick and middle of it, you know, I like to call this part kind of the ugly middle of drafts where you're too far away from the shore to turn away and turn home. And your only option is to just keep swimming ahead. And so how do you grind and get through that middle part when, like you said, you're past the honeymoon stage and you just got to keep going?
00:42:46
Speaker
Well, this isn't like the most attractive answer, but honestly, I'm very like goal oriented and achievement oriented. So I want the accomplishment of having finished the book. And I want the accomplishment of having the book
00:43:14
Speaker
be good and having people read it and enjoy it. And that, like it didn't drive me so much in the middle of Jello Girls because I was writing it in the middle of a PhD program and I had a million students and a lot of other stuff to grapple with. But once my mom died, which happened sort of in the
00:43:44
Speaker
ugly middle of Jello Girls, there was a serious fire under my butt. I think to just avoid the just intolerable feeling of having lost her, but also to, you know, finish the book because she had wanted to write this book and to finish the book. And then, you know, when subsequent projects, my subsequent project, it's like,
00:44:14
Speaker
horrible jealousy that we talked about and just the desire to have a second book and have it be good and not be a one book wonder and be taken seriously and all those like annoying ugly voices that are inside many of us. That's what's driving me.
00:44:38
Speaker
yeah and how it went when your mother passed away late did it make the writing of this book harder or did it did it for you in a sense I think it freed me a lot of it had already a lot of the sort of early material of the book had already been written but I think it
00:45:07
Speaker
I think it freed me. I don't exactly know how, though. It's an interesting question. Yeah, I wonder. Yeah, just because in a sense, it's like her passing, and then you have to then continue to live with the material, in a sense, could have been stifling and just almost irredeemably painful to pursue the project. Or in your case, it seemed like it actually motivated you to push through in some way.
00:45:35
Speaker
Yeah, it's tough. It must have been a really, really, you know, just emotional grind for you to finish it, to push through. I think I'm sure that it's sort of hard to remember probably because I was in that like crazy stage of grieving. But I think I felt like I was visiting her.
00:46:03
Speaker
when I would sit down. And I think that that book still is that for me. I don't look at it very much, but I don't even read from it much, but it feels like she lives there. So for me, early on, it was like, well, at least I still have this part of her.
00:46:30
Speaker
And then when the book came out, it was like, oh, now, now she belongs to the world and they get to have their own reactions to her. And I have to allow that and also like never go on Amazon or Goodreads because it's extremely personal. Um, and I think it probably always is, but, uh, yeah, I think like publishing the book was like letting go.
00:46:59
Speaker
in a way that I was ready for, but yeah, that's a rambling answer, but yeah.
00:47:05
Speaker
Oh no, that was really well put. When I spoke with Meredith May, who wrote this brilliant memoir, The Honey Bus, about a girl saved by bees, growing up her, and it's basically about her grandfather. He passed away a few years ago, and when she was talking about him, the way he is in this book, and her book being translated into different languages and whatever, she's like, I can't believe my grandpa, he gets to
00:47:34
Speaker
He gets to live forever in this book and he's being experienced all over the world. And it's like, it is like this little embodiment of her grandfather that he will, in essence, never die because he's in this thing. And the way you put it with your mother, like she's in this book and so she is there forever. Yeah, she would love that. I'm sure most people would.
00:47:59
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, there's a lot of pleasure that I take in sharing her that way because she was complicated, but she was awesome. So, you know, it's nice to see other people like loving and experiencing her as well.
00:48:15
Speaker
In early on, I would say in the first third of the book, there's a lot of material there that would be hard to write as an objective reporter in reporting and writing a lot of very graphic material and painful material. And this happened to be occurring to your grandmother who, of course, you never met because she passed away when your mother was 14.
00:48:43
Speaker
And of course, writing about stuff, you know, uncles and your mom and your dad, like how hard was it for you to write about that in an honest and truthful way when you're so close to those people? Um, it wasn't easy. Well, the stuff with my parents, I, and actually all of the material,
00:49:13
Speaker
in Jello Girls was so much a part of my understanding of my mother's life and who she was and my sense of self, I guess, in a way. And I think that's because she was working on her memoir for most of my life and was very forthcoming about the material in it, probably too much.
00:49:43
Speaker
Um, but so it, to me, it was just like, oh yes, like this is the story. This is what happened. And like, it's my job to write it and to take from my experience, um, and my, you know, my ability to empathize with my mom and, and grandmother and to use that to, um, write the material compellingly. The stuff with my parents, um,
00:50:12
Speaker
I think as soon as I started writing seriously, like as soon as I took that first undergraduate fiction writing workshop, I was writing about it. So I had a lot of practice and it was definitely the story of their marriage and its disillusion and its effect on me was like the story that I wanted to write until I had gotten it all the way out.
00:50:43
Speaker
So I had a lot of practice with that one. And of course, the book's central theme, if you will, is about real toxic patriarchy and trying to put specifically women in a mold. And it's just so beautifully illustrated through the jello, just what jello stands for, stood for. And could you have imagined that
00:51:11
Speaker
You know, so much of a lot of this patriarchal stuff is finally having its feet to the fire in so many ways with Louis C. Kayser, Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, and everything. When you were writing this, those...
00:51:29
Speaker
things were starting to come to light. Could you have imagined that you were writing something that was really illustrative of that coming out of the shadows, as you were writing this book? I mean, sure, just because, I mean, I couldn't predict the cultural moment we were about to enter. But as a woman,
00:51:58
Speaker
It's like, I think a lot of us felt like, yeah, it's not a surprise. Like this is so part of. Right. This is like my lived experience and like that I was, I was writing about it. Um, and that it just happened to, to have a moment, um, which, for which I'm really thankful. Um, I couldn't have predicted it. No, but it wasn't a surprise, I guess. Um, it was.
00:52:28
Speaker
I think for many people are released and also a moment of attempted healing, healing, complicated emotions over at places where it failed. I see Jello Girls as like a perfectly timed book and not
00:52:57
Speaker
by my own intention, but I don't see it brought up in conversation with the Me Too movement a lot. And that has kind of honestly been a disappointment, like just because I think it's so, it's all right there. And it seems like an opportunity lost, but.
00:53:16
Speaker
I mean, I know I couldn't have predicted it. Yeah. It just that, let's see, like as you were, as you were, you know, writing and you're, you're, you're developing over as a writer in the last few years, what would you say, you know, that you're better at today than you were five years ago? Um, everything. Definitely everything. Um, structure.
00:53:44
Speaker
much better at that conflict and sort of an idea of what I want to read and what the kind of work that I then want to write and be in conversation with.
00:54:03
Speaker
And yeah, you mentioned Dillard's American Childhood earlier as a book you reread. What are some other books that you constantly find yourself going back to to remind yourself how it's done? Sort of like a mentor in book form, if you will. Oh my gosh, so many. I feel like just one among many and like a cohort of women writers my age, but Veronica by Mary Gates skill is my copy is like just
00:54:32
Speaker
destroyed because I've read it so many times and just it's the kind of book that I can open it and Go to any page and just like take a minute with it and and get something out of it Duras the lover another book Where the cover has come completely off because I read it so many times I've written about this recently, but my
00:55:01
Speaker
mother's copy of Adrienne Rich's Dream of a Common Language is like basically my most prized possession. Her notes are in the margins. So it's like, I mean that, it's just precious to me. And I can again open any page and hear both Rich's voice, but also my mother's. So it feels like
00:55:30
Speaker
my two angels speaking to me. And then I love Maggie Nelson. Blueettes is one of my favorites. I'm sort of looking at my bookshelf right now. Joan Didion. I could go on.
00:55:47
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, there are so many. It's great that you're listening just a cohort of just brilliant, just such brilliant writers. And you can just go to them all time. You don't need to get, even if you could have Didion on the phone, it's just like, well, you know what? The work is gonna speak to me louder than maybe she could. And it's just so great that you can turn to that in a moment of despair, which, as we all know, happens on an almost daily basis.
00:56:18
Speaker
Actually, also, sometimes this is like, oh, I have no secrets. If I'm feeling really just sapped of confidence, I will repeat to myself in my head, I am Rachel Kushner. I am Rachel Kushner. As I make sentences or approach a reading that I'm nervous about or something like that, because she just always seems, just personally,
00:56:46
Speaker
so chill and confident and I love her novels and I just love her identity as a writer so much. So I'm just like, oh, if I can just like inhabit that degree of chill genius, just, you know, shine it on for a while, like I'll make it through this reading, okay.
00:57:06
Speaker
I kind of do that too if I'm reporting on a story or preparing for a podcast and I'm interviewing someone who's a hero or just a titan and I get a little freaked out. It's just like I kind of look to other people just like you and I kind of like, how would they handle this? They can handle it. I can handle it then too and just kind of have a, you know, what would fill in the blank do and then that kind of
00:57:33
Speaker
That kind of helps me. So it's great to kind of hear you echo the same sentiment. Yeah. I feel like a lot of people must do that, but it's sort of this shameful secret. Right. Exactly. We want to pull the curtain back on that here. It's the way that people don't feel as lonely and don't feel like a freak any more than they already are. Seriously. And I mean, that to me is what literature is there for too.
00:58:05
Speaker
I don't know. I feel like the page is the place where I feel like I can put every shameful thought, secret, like the darkest parts of myself go into my writing and onto the page, which is crazy because, you know, ideally it goes out into the world and then everybody reads it. And that's definitely not something that I would do, you know, one on one face to face with someone, but it's like,
00:58:34
Speaker
The page is my safe space. And I mean, I think literature is a safe space for so many of us. It's where we go to feel like less of a freak, as you say. And what would you say you feel the most alive and engaged in the process? I think I feel the most alive and engaged somewhere around
00:59:03
Speaker
the second draft of a full manuscript or essay or whatever, where it's like all of the writing has been done for the most part. And now I know what the book is. And I'm excited about the fact that like all of these themes are coming to the forefront
00:59:31
Speaker
And they aren't necessarily the themes that I like carefully like just scattered throughout their other more like interesting and deep and complicated thematics that I'm now realizing I have inside of me and I'm not like a total dummy. And that this book, you know, or this, this piece of writing is going to like speak on a couple of different levels. That's the exciting part.
01:00:00
Speaker
And it's a bummer when that doesn't happen, but sometimes it doesn't happen. But when it does, it's like, okay, that's the good part, because then you get to go back and massage and shape what you see the book as becoming. That's the fun part. I don't love making pages that is drudgery to me. It's exciting sometimes, but a lot of the time it's so much work and you see all the work stretching ahead of you, but once it's like,
01:00:30
Speaker
done and there's an object that can then be shaped, that's the best part. I think that's a wonderful place to end what I hope is the first of many of these conversations down the road, Allie. Where can people find you online and get more familiar with your work if they're not already familiar with it? Sure. My website is just myname.com and that's it.
01:00:59
Speaker
You can find me on social media. I hate Twitter. I really hate Twitter. So just be forewarned. Not a playground you hang out in. It makes me feel horrible. I hate it so much. So just know that world. I hate Twitter, but you can find me there. And yeah, I don't know. Jello Girls is available.
01:01:24
Speaker
Ask your independent bookstore for it. It comes out in paperback on the 9th of July. So that makes it nice and light and affordable. That's fantastic. Well, the book's been out about a year. It's an amazing book. I can't recommend it enough. So it's great to get to talk to you about your writing and, of course, about the book. And Allie, thanks so much for doing this. Let's promise to do this again when something else comes out of yours. Can't wait. Thank you so much. I had a great time.
01:01:56
Speaker
that was great right I think so, but when saying anything else we can say anything different if anything was great prices would say and
01:02:08
Speaker
It's all great. It's all great. Allie is right up there if you ask me with like Leslie James and Maggie Nelson, etc. You're going to want to buy stock and robot. Just buy now. She's already on the rocket ship, but you might be able to grab on. Thanks to Goucher's MFA in nonfiction in Bay Paths University.
01:02:29
Speaker
MFA program and creative non-fiction for the support. I don't know why I'm butchering the the ad support today. I'm just I don't know because I got to go see some fireworks or something. Keep the conversation going on Twitter by tagging the show at cnfpod and me at Brendan O'Mara.
01:02:47
Speaker
the
01:03:06
Speaker
But sign up now. You'll get August and beyond. And if you don't subscribe, I take it really personally. Okay, now what? I think that's it. I think so. So remember, if you can do interview, see ya!