Answering questions off the cuff is my favorite way of presenting—surprising (embarrassing?) myself with on-my-feet answers as I stumble into learning things I didn’t know about myself. Thus, when author Anjali Mitter Duva asked me to participate in the Arlington Author Salon, I was thrilled—until I cringed, imagining filling fifteen minutes without seeing or interacting with anyone.
After drastically shortening my despised ‘prepared words,’ I turned to my favorite pool and begged my Facebook friends for interview questions: Please give me gutsy, odd, interesting questions about me, my books, writing, or ANYTHING at all about my life?
In no particular order, here they are:
Natalie Kreitzman: Your books (including The Fashion Orphans) support interfaith marriage. Is this your belief as well?
As a child and teen, I was obsessed (from non-stop reading of every Holocaust and slavery book in the Brooklyn Public Library) with combatting racism and prejudice. My worries translated into a belief that the more we shared our faiths and cultures, the less we’d have of fear, mistrust, and hatred of the ‘other.’ Looking at my body of work, it’s clear that my obsession lives on.
Claire Callan Fogel: Are there times when you can’t think of anything new to write?
Though new stories and characters constantly capture me, there are times when they fight for primacy, and I can’t lock into which to write. Sometimes I zig and zag between a few until I finally settle down.
NJ Wheelock: Are any of your characters based on, developed from, or inspired by real people in your life?
Yes, yes, and yes. Though wisdom would demand that I lie and swear that my books are devoid of mining my life, that would be the biggest lie of all. My mother looms large (don’t maternal figures do that?) Her obsessions with appearance and her longing for her missing father occupy me. My father, who died at thirty-five, always rents an over-large piece of my soul, and that’s only the very tip of my character-driven fictional world.
Jan Daugherty McNutt: Do you have a daily writing routine? Do you outline first? What book is your favorite you’ve written? Self-publish?
When I am ‘good,’ I visit my manuscript every day—but that’s more difficult in the beginning stages. I always outline (and more—see here for ‘the more’). I can no more name my favorite book than my least-favorite book! And I independently published a novella, 19 Myths About Cheating, and a book of essays, Women Under Scrutiny, using my secret company, Brooklyn Girl Books.
Kate Mills: When you’re revising a manuscript, are there any questions you repeatedly ask yourself to guide your changes? If so, what are they?
I have a constant run of questions from is this interesting to will anyone care to are my eyes glazing over. This link *also used above* gives away all my secrets.
Liz Michalski: What’s your very favorite fashion find ever?
I shudder in memory of a blue cotton nightgown covered with tiny blue flowers that I chose to wear as a dress for most of my first year at City College of New York. And on the subway, in Central Park, the Metropolitan Museum of Art—yes, I marched all over Manhattan, the Bronx, and Manhattan in that nightgown. Thank god no pictures exist.
Meta Wagner: I’d like to know what you’re drinking in this pic!
You are witnessing my first and last beer. The taste and smell then and now repels me. Goodness knows what childhood trauma beer recreates.
Susan Liguori Pizzolato: How do you maintain your zest? I know—corny word. I mean, you were a social worker and saw a lot. I admire your spark—and painted rocks—and of course, your writing.
Aw, you are sweet! (BTW, I wasn’t a social worker; I worked in human services and criminal justice. My spark (thank you!) comes from my ever-present anxiety. Creating, working, and doing is my only way to manage it (healthfully!) So, yuck and yay?
Amy Halpern Degen: Love the picture. Is that a perm or do you have curly hair?
The curls are (or were; they get limper each year!) real—the straight hair is phony.
Jayne Wright: What are your favorite foods?
Carbs, carbs, and more carbs–which health dictates limiting to birthdays, holidays, and every time I say screw it. Top carbs are: bagels, stuffing, kugel, cracker—anything with flour? Not salty, not sweet; I guess I love foods that resemble paste.
Merle Carrus: Were you a class clown in your youth or quiet and reclusive??
Never a class clown. OMG, school bored me to death. I hid novels behind my chemistry textbook. But I grew up with a ‘quiet’ aunt whose stories made me roll on the floor. All my best friends lived many trains away (camp friends), so I was a bit of a recluse in school but came alive at camp and with them.
Nikki McCoy: Did you ever learn how to properly roll a joint or did you rely on friends? What holiday dish do you despise and why?
I never rolled a joint or bought pot. The Miss Manners of the Seventies said ladies relied on gentlemen for drugs. And please, never serve me creamed onions or baked ham!
Karen Wilk: What book do you wish you had written/ What book would you love to rewrite?
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. If I ever hit that note of emotion, I will feel successful!
Kate Victory Hannisian: What’s one of the funniest or strangest things that have happened in your life that you have not (yet) worked into your fiction writing?
Succinctly: When I landed in Berkeley, CA (I left friends with whom I was driving cross-country in a VW Bug when my best friend confessed to sleeping with my boyfriend (both in the car.) I then took a bus from Salt Lake City to Portland to visit my much-missed past boyfriend, who lived there. We went camping and woke up atop a mountain of red ants. And I learned he had a girlfriend.
I took my first plane ride to San Francisco (where my erstwhile VW friends headed), planning to meet my best friend, Debbie, in a few days (her: flying in from NYC).
When I landed, there was a transit strike. I called the name of a guy with whom I could ‘crash’ — the name provided by the much-missed past boyfriend. Crash-man gave me his address and told me he’d leave the door open. (In 1970, ‘crashing’ was the Air BNB of our time.)
I hitched (for the first time—oh, this was a time of firsts!) to Berkeley, and entered the apartment of four of the slobbiest people in history. Alone and not knowing WTF to do, I cleaned their apartment.
When one of them came home, he offered me oats to eat. “Do you want them cooked,” he asked, telling me via subtext that cool people would never cook them.
“Oh, no! I eat them as is,” I lied.
After choking them down, a friend of the slobs appeared and asked me if I liked motorcycles.
“Of course,” I lied, having virtually never seen one, much less ridden.
We sped through the Berkeley hills, and by the end of the trip, we were a temporary couple. We went back to the house of filth, grabbed my bag, and I moved into his apartment.
Four days later (Five? Ten?) Debbie arrived. How we connected is beyond my memory. I said goodbye to Norman Truscott III and rented a room on Channing Way with Debbie. Thus began my Berkley adventure.
Tracy Wright: What color did you end up painting your front door?
Black, and we love it.