|
BiographyPUBLICATIONS Fiction and poetry published in Western Humanities Review, Calyx, American Literary Review, First, The Carolina Quarterly, Kalliope, The Massachusetts Review, The Black Warrior Review, The American Voice, Hawaii Pacific Review, Indiana Review, Fiction Network, The Ohio Review, Beloit Fiction Journal, Epoch, Blue Buildings, The Smith and in anthologies published by Crossing Press (Eating Our Hearts Out), and New Rivers Press (The Next Parish Over). Nonfiction travel features published in The New York Times and International Herald Tribune, Paris. HONORS 2002 Finalist, The Chesterfield Writer's Film Project, Paramount Pictures, Santa Monica, CA 1998, Writing residency, Fundacion Valparaiso, Mojacar, Spain 1997/1998 Boondocking selected in B&N's Discover Great New Writers program; named one of Best First Novels by Library Journal; one of eight books named to Kirkus Reviews' Annual List of the Also Deserving READINGS AND WORKSHOPS (representative) The Poetry Center of the West Side Y, New York City The Writers Community, New York City Le Cafe Figaro, New York City Temple University, Philadelphia, PA The Community College of Philadelphia The University of Hartford Dutchess Community College, Poughkeepsie, NY Marist College, Poughkeepsie, NY Barnes & Noble, various East Coast locations Bibelot, Baltimore, MD Borders, K Street, Washington, D.C. RJ Julia, Madison, CT EMPLOYMENT Vice President, Special Markets 2005-present; Director of Special Markets June 1998 -2005 for children's educational book publisher, The Rosen Publishing Group, 29 E. 21st Street, New York, NY 10010 Editor, manager of special sales, director of special sales and rights for The Millbrook Press, Inc., Brookfield, CT January 1992 through March 1998 Fiction reader and manuscript evaluator, Redbook Magazine, New York, NY 1990-1994 AFFILIATIONS Poets & Writers, Inc. Literacy Volunteers The Authors Guild |
Photo: Jerry Bauer
IN HER OWN WORDS How much of your work is based on your own experience? Sometimes writers don't want to showcase details about their own lives, but enjoy the freedom of leaving themselves behind to explore places they've never been. Boondocking was that kind of novel for me. So was Shelterbelt. But even when I use actual experience in my work, I distort it, bend it, sometimes almost completely so that it is subjugated to the character, not the other way around. Still, my readers want to believe that the story has at least some basis in fact. It's a way of demystifying the creative process, and in the worst-case scenario leads to a strange kind of censorship that tells us men can't write convincing women characters, etc. In my case the imagination is almost always more instructive (and reliable!) than memory. Why isn't there more information about the actual accident which fuels Sylvia and Clayton's change of lifestyle in Boondocking and about the mysterious death of Benjamin in Shelterbelt? Accidents themselves don't interest me. The aftereffects of tragedies, however, do. How ordinary people accommodate losses, how they change and stretch beyond what they thought themselves capable of is fascinating. And technically, in the case of Boondocking, because the accident is relayed through Sylvia's point of view, she has no first-hand information about the event, even if she could bring herself to revisit the scene. Why aren't your books longer? I suppose because I started my writing life in poetry, I've always valued economy. The resonance of white space. What's selected to be left unsaid is nearly as important as what's on the page. Also...the minutiae of daily life presented blow by blow can get stultifying. I'm constantly concerned about boring the reader. |
