The Watchung Booksellers Podcast
Watchung Booksellers' community of writers and readers dive deep into what they do for the love of books.
Watchung Booksellers is located in the heart of Montclair, NJ, a literary beacon filled with writers, journalists, publishers, and avid readers. Each year we host hundreds of author events and every day the most interesting and dedicated readers walk through our doors. Their insights and enthusiasm have inspired us to share our conversations with book-lovers everywhere. We invite you to listen and be a part of our community!
The Watchung Booksellers Podcast
Episode 2: The Writer's Life
In this episode of the Watchung Booksellers Podcast, long-time friends Dionne Ford and Alice Elliott Dark join us for a soulful conversation about living a writer's life. Diving into writing practices, self-care, writers' residencies, teaching, and more, these two share a wealth of knowledge that will captivate writers and readers alike.
Guest bios:
Alice Elliott Dark is the author of the novels Fellowship Point and Think of England, and two collections of short stories, In The Gloaming and Naked to the Waist. She is a recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and an Associate Professor at Rutgers-Newark in the English department and the MFA program.
Dionne Ford is author of the memoir Go Back and Get It and co-editor of the anthology Slavery's Descendants: Shared Legacies of Race and Reconciliation. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from New York University and a BA from Fordham University where she teaches creative writing.
Books:
A full list of the books and authors mentioned in this episode is available on our website.
Podcasts:
The Slowdown
Residences/ Grants Mentioned:
VCCA
MacDowell
NAE
Register for Upcoming Events.
Books:
A full list of the books and authors mentioned in this episode is available here.
Register for Upcoming Events.
The Watchung Booksellers Podcast is produced by Kathryn Counsell and Marni Jessup and is recorded at Silver Stream Studio in Montclair, NJ.
The show is edited by Kathryn Counsell and Bree Testa. Special thanks to Timmy Kellenyi and Derek Mattheiss.
Original music is composed and performed by Violet Mujica.
Art & design and social media by Evelyn Moulton. Research and show notes by Caroline Shurtleff.
Thanks to all the staff at Watchung Booksellers and The Kids’ Room!
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Hello everybody and welcome back to the Watch on Booksellers podcast. Thanks for joining us today. I'm Catherine and I'm here with Marnie and we're really excited to share this talk with you.
Marni:Yes, we are. Today, we have two incredible writers, who happen to be great friends, joining us. Dionne Ford and Alice Elliot Dark will be discussing the writer's life, writing, teaching, discipline, practices and self-care, and more.
Kathryn:It's a rich conversation that will speak to writers and fans alike. So we want Babylon and we'll get to the introductions.
Marni:Alice Elliot Dark is the author of the novels Fellowship Point and Think of England and two collections of short stories In the Gloaming and Naked to the Waist. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker Harper's Best American Short Stories and more, and has been translated into many languages. Her story In the Gloaming was chosen by John Updike for inclusion in the Best American Short Stories of the Century and was made into films by HBO and Trinity Playhouse. Her nonfiction reviews and essays have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post and many anthologies. She's a recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and an associate professor at Rutgers, newark in the English department in the MFA program.
Kathryn:And Dionne Ford is the author of the memoir Go Back and Get it and the co-editor of the anthology Slavery's Descendants Shared Legacies of Race and Reconciliation. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Virginia Quarterly Review, lit Hub and more, and has won awards from the National Association of Black Journalists and the News Women's Club of New York. In 2018, she received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Creative Writing. 2018, she received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Creative Writing. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from New York University and a BA from Fordham University, where she teaches creative writing.
Marni:Enjoy the conversation and we'll be back afterwards to fill you in on what's coming up in store.
Alice:Dionne. Hi Alice, it's nice to see you. As always, it's always good to see you. Let's just say how long we've known each other. It's been how long is it? Let's see 23 years. Okay.
Dionne:Wow, that went by in a yeah it really did.
Alice:So I was doing an in-house in my house writing class and I opened the door and there was a very beautiful woman who said I live around the corner from you, and that was it.
Dionne:We've been friends ever since, ever since. And I have to tell my fangirl story of you. So I, you know, hadn't lived there for very long maybe a year or so, maybe two years and took my kids to Watchung Booksellers I think I actually only had one kid at the time so I took my daughter for the story time and when I was leaving, noticed that there was an announcement up there. I remember the days of paper and there would be like announcements written out and you could sign up for emails about the latest goings on, and there was one announcement about this.
Alice:Montclair editors and writers society that was going to get started.
Dionne:So I was like, oh my gosh, this town is so cool, they have their own editors and writers society. So I signed up for that email and right away got an email about Alice Elliot Dark starting a workshop. Oh Now, I didn't even know that. I probably did, but I can't remember it. You know, it's like 20 plus years ago. But this was. I recognized your name immediately and was like could it be the Alice Elliot Dark? Because I had read In the Gloaming, immediately fell in love and was like who is this person who wrote this perfect story and would think about that story often, couldn't believe that it was possible that I could actually go to the house of the woman who wrote this story and then be taught by her, and was even more shocked when I discovered that the person who wrote this perfect story lived close enough that I could walk to the end of my block and see her house Literally around the corner.
Dionne:It was nuts yeah it was great, it was great. So yeah, so 20,. I guess three years.
Alice:So what I really wanted to talk to you about today, you know I wanted us to talk with each other about is coming off of Murakami's. What is the name of his book? Book, what we talked about when we talk about running, or I think it's just is it?
Dionne:it's something like we talked about, or is it just on running?
Alice:it's something like that but anyway, it was a book that was very influential on me because I recognized my own inclinations in it but I had never felt like I could follow through on a lot of the things I wanted to do around my writing.
Alice:And he had like a successful restaurant. He stayed up late with customers at all the time and then he wrote a book and then he realized I can't write these long novels If I go out at night. Not only that, I need all this stamina, so I have to start this running. And now of course, he's like one of need all this stamina, so I have to start this running. And now, of course, he's like one of those long distance marathon, like 120 mile kind of marathoners. So you know that really influenced me to take my own self-care habits if I can use that term a little more seriously and to actually identify what they were. And I really wanted to talk to you about it, because your book is so much about that. Go back and get it where you really talk about things you did, not just to support your writing but even before that, to support your own healing.
Dionne:Yeah, and it's so funny. I was thinking, yeah, I could say the same thing about Fellowship Point, because the main character as a writer is so intentional about how she spends her time, everything really efforting her capacity to you know write and be the kind of writer she wants. So yeah for me. Yeah, not necessarily for writing, but just for myself. I think, just like, just like Marikami, there's like a lot that I need to do to keep myself attuned.
Dionne:I guess like physically exactly physically and emotionally, in order to be able to get to the page and then be fully there, you know. So meditation has been a practice of mine for a long time. What kind of meditation?
Alice:do, you do.
Dionne:So for me, it's really now it's really simple. I've done a lot of different, I've tried all sorts of different things, but for today it is very simple I sit, I ask a question and I listen, and that's really it. I do do some other things. I like rituals. Rituals ground me, and so, actually, through the process of writing this book, I did come to learn about some rituals that were, you know, african, indigenous-based.
Alice:Oh, that's good.
Dionne:So I have incorporated a few of those that feel right for me, just about connecting with my ancestors, pouring some libation, that kind of thing, but yeah.
Alice:Is that something that starts when you get up? In the morning For me it is what's your first thing?
Dionne:that you do in the morning. For me it is I. You know I don't want to sound very religious because this really isn't about religion, but I do pray first thing in the morning. I think it's just, you know, about humility and sort of connecting. I think one of the things I struggle with is feeling connected and a part of so that sort of humble gesture for me does help me feel a bit more like one of many. So, yeah, I start with a prayer, get myself downstairs to the location where I meditate I have a spot for it and I have an altar for my ancestors, because they're a big part of my meditation and my spiritual practice. And then, yeah, and then I spend some time there meditating. I don't have like a set time.
Dionne:I used to, I used to have a very set time, but I'm a little bit looser these days.
Alice:And do you go right from that into writing?
Dionne:No, if only I could, that would be the ideal. That is the ideal, and there are times in my life when I can do that. This is not one of them. Yeah, so actually, though, oftentimes when I've had to do other things like teach or whatever, I also have two dogs that require me to take them out before I do anything else. But if I had to go out and be in my day, I will often just do something quick to return to that more contemplative place.
Alice:And how do you keep from checking your email or the paper or that in the morning? Because I struggle with that.
Dionne:Yeah, I guess I you know I don't do it before, I do any of those things like prayer and meditating. But it is very hard for me, once I've done that, if I am not going right into writing, to resist the urge. Very difficult yeah but yeah, so well, and so I'm eager to hear about you too, I know something similar.
Alice:I do struggle with the checking the New York Times and the Wordle and the connections, and what I've started doing is I always wake up a few times in the night. I do do it in the middle of the night, I do connections and Wordle like at 2 or 3 am and then it's done. So I don't feel like I have to look at the paper until later. It doesn't keep you up. You know I wake up anyway, so it just takes like 10 minutes and then I go back to sleep.
Dionne:I know, oh my gosh, I wish I could do that Once I'm up. It seems like that's it.
Alice:I mean, I have a long history with insomnia and working on insomnia, so this is right now, this is what I'm doing, because it really is helpful for me to get that out of the way. So I'm not tempted when I wake up, because I really find and I think a lot of writers feel the same way that writing first thing is just magical. Yes, I totally agree.
Alice:And not, you know, not putting your brain anywhere else before you're letting the sleep material not writing down your dreams, but just like that space, that very liminal space of sleep, come into your work. And I do that. But I do have a couple of things I do. First, I, right now, and it changes a lot. You know it's not, it's not a steady thing, but I read an oracle card, remember, I gave you those oracle cards.
Dionne:That's a part of my meditation practice at the moment.
Alice:By the way, I love those, I love I have a few different decks and I read one of them and I write a haiku. I've been really working on haiku and I love that. That's a very meditative practice. And then I do some form of meditation for a few minutes and then I start writing. And I try to write for as long as I can, but usually it's about 45 minutes. Before you know, I either have to go to the bathroom or I just need to stand up or something, and then sometimes that's a pivot to other things and it takes me a while to get back. But, like you, I before all that it's getting coffee and feeding cats and then I go back up and start that routine. Our dependents.
Dionne:Yeah, we have to tend to the dependents. Exactly, dependents have to come first. I'm so glad you mentioned the haiku, because another thing that I like to do it's not really part of my meditation practice, but it is after the meditating. If I can't go right into writing, I like to listen to the Slowdown. Are you familiar with the Slowdown?
Alice:No, it's this poetry podcast. Oh, oh yeah, you know, I've heard of it, but I really have not tried it. It's beautiful.
Dionne:It's free. You sign up for it, much like the old Muse newsletter, and they just send it to you. And this right now. The curator is Major Jackson. In the past it's been Ada Limon and Tracy K Smith was once. I think she was the first one, I think she started but anyway, I just love it it's. It's never more than 10 minutes. There's an introduction by the curator and then a poem of the day, and that's nice, it's really nice it just also keeps me connected to language.
Dionne:I think and and feels very satisfying, like if I very satisfied, right, like okay, I've been sort of dipped into this world I want to live in, but can't always Exactly.
Alice:I used to read a poem. What did I get? I got some. It wasn't. It wasn't the slowdown, but it was some other poem of the day thing. I do change this little routine quite frequently and it's just purely by mood. It's not really by any other thing, except now I feel like I need to be writing haiku. Now I feel like I need to be reading for a half an hour first, you know, something relevant to what I'm doing, not necessarily research that comes later, but something relevant doing, not necessarily research that comes later, but something relevant.
Alice:And I'm trying to develop a really steady qigong practice but that's a work in progress and sometimes I try and do just one or two movements early and save the rest till later. I don't know when it gets nice, I'm going to want to go for an early walk, of course, yeah like it is today.
Dionne:It's so beautiful. Movement is important. It really is. I find it really well back to you know, running right, yes, exactly yeah. There's something very grounding about it and Kind of seems to brush away the cobwebs from my mind.
Alice:Well, writing is so physical. Yeah, even more, I think, if you write by hand. But even if you write, it's a physical thing, so doing other physical activities to support it and you do have to feel sharp and alert and some physical activity definitely helps with that yeah, I think that's so true.
Dionne:I think I was thinking about how mary carr and her book on memoir writes about carnality and how important it is. She's talking about writing, you know the carnal, and it just did make me think about also being in my physicality in a way that totally agree.
Alice:It's hard to evoke that on the page if you're not in touch with your own. I agree, and it's so easy to be disembodied. I think I was for a long time for many reasons that's how my book opens.
Alice:You can understand that disembodiment, yeah, you can understand that. So coming down into the body is so, it's just so helpful for you know, both personal development and writing. I remember Flannery O'Connor saying that you had to convince a reader something was real by having three senses evoked. And they're bodily. You know, they're bodily sensations. They're not intellectual, right, absolutely. That was another thing I read that really struck me once upon a time because I realized I was not doing that. Everything was up in my head. That was a long time ago, but you know, it was something I had to learn and I was thinking. I remember reading another book by I don't know how to pronounce her name Brenda Ueland. Do you know?
Dionne:Sure, if you want to write, if you want to write, if you want to write. One of my first Me too. That was the first book.
Alice:I read Like transformative.
Dionne:yeah, books that I was like oh my gosh, I can do these things that she's saying to do Exactly.
Alice:And that was another one that was like no drinking at night, no going out. You're not going to get up and write if you go out drinking Absolutely. And I was like wow, wow and it's so really like the antithesis. I think of the myth that I grew up believing exactly writers that exactly you had to push yourself hard to go out and you know they're having all these crazy experiences and you know, the genius just comes.
Dionne:You know, like they don't have to get rest or, you know, have a exactly a writing schedule or anything you know to have that hard living, exactly yeah you know, oh my gosh, I can't believe you know that book I love that book.
Alice:You know the copy I have is so old and so you know every piece of paper is split off the spine, but it's a really good book. It's a fantastic, fantastic book. I think it was written in the 30s.
Dionne:It's very old Because, yeah, by the time I got it she was already like pretty, I think in her 80s maybe, and I got it as a. I was like I think not even 20. I was in my first or second year of college when I got that book. So super exciting.
Alice:How did you take care of yourself during? Well, I really want to know the whole thing like this. I know a lot about your book along the way because we were friends and you know I kind of knew what you were writing about up to a point and then I didn't really know what's the how the final book turned out, although we talked about it along the way. But you know, a lot of that material is very it's very difficult material on all kinds of levels historical, personal, yeah, just societal everything. So my feeling as I'm reading it is this must have been hard to sit down and write, to go back through some of these things, to try and find words for feelings that were only in your emotional world, you know, and to connect your own personal experiences to really the most painful historical experiences of our country. So how did you take care of yourself during this writing?
Dionne:yeah. So you know I did all of the things that we've just been talking about. That are just a part of trying to be a person who is fully here, you know, like meditating and also any physical things that you know were feeling good to me at the time. At the time that I was writing this book, or or actually maybe while I was researching it, I did take capoeira, um, which was wonderful on so many levels because it was, you know, associated also just culturally to African people in Brazil who had been enslaved. So it was very empowering to like practice that it's also it's a group thing, um, so that was really wonderful. Percussion is involved. I was a drummer when I was a young person yeah, not a good one, but it was like a you know something that I wanted to do.
Dionne:So all these things were really great. And I guess I should also say, as far as the writing part and writing about difficult things, I am a lifelong journaler. I started journaling when I was like seven. My parents gave me a little diary and I just I find it so helpful to help me make sense of myself, and so I had those journals to be able to go back and say, well, what was? How did I process this in the moment, you know, so that I did not necessarily have to call things up, thank goodness Right. I could rely in many cases on the journaling that the, you know, contemporaneous writing that I was doing.
Alice:Oh, that's great.
Dionne:That was really. It was a huge like gift to be able to do that. And then, as far as the things that I was like discovering, research wise, that were very painful or just like confronting, I tried to, as I like discovered something like, say, you know, there's a lynching that happens in my story, my family's history. So, as I found information, I tried to write about it right away, the same way that I do journal about what's going on my life. I tried to sit down and just process and write, however I was experiencing this information, so that I could be in the moment about it, right, and then I didn't have to keep trying to return to this really painful and traumatic experience, you know.
Dionne:So the journals really helped me in both my own being able to process the information and then being able to, to the best of my ability, to convey. You know how I experienced this information.
Alice:That sounds like such a sane, reliable, good method that I think a lot of other people could take up as a practice, like how long approximately, say the example you just used where you find out about that lynching, how long would you sit down and write for? Is that like long or is it brief?
Dionne:that's brief. I mean with that, you know who wants to stay with. No terrible, you know.
Dionne:So that's brief and well, I'm saying brief, but I guess that's also relative right so I mean, there have been things that I just needed to spend 15 minutes getting it down, you know right, and there are other things where an hour passes and it's like, oh, okay, so I would say like the more the sexual violence was brief, yeah, and then probably more like coming to terms with the historical violence and painful things that happened in my family. Those were probably not so brief, not a 15 minute thing, but not hours and hours either, you know, and it was really trying to take them as I discovered them and unveiled them.
Alice:Yeah, that's so interesting. I mean, yeah, I love that I'm going to start doing that. I mean I journal, I was just about to ask you Also.
Alice:I mean I've had. I have like a million diaries that are like get to about January 15th from when I was little, and then the rest of the year There'll be like a page here, a page there. But I did do it more regularly for years. I don't do it as much now, but I do do it at the side of whatever I'm working on. You know, before, like this morning, I was starting a new section, so then I'll really journal about that, like what am I doing in this section? What do I want to happen? How do I want it to feel? Like what's the tone? And I write all that out and, like you say, it's not that exhaustive, right, but sometimes it brings in other things. It makes me aware of what is my climate that I'm going into this with.
Dionne:So then I just have to write down the things that really bothered me yesterday and get them, get them on the page yeah, now I'm remembering, actually in your workshop, that you asked us to keep what you I think you called it a writing writing, calling a writing journal or work journal. Yeah, and I found that so helpful, even though I'd been journaling, you know, it was a really good exercise for me to sort of switch the focus so that it was really about exploring how I was feeling about, just like you said, about the work that I was doing. Yeah, yeah, that was. Yeah, I'm going to have to return to that. Yeah, it's so helpful.
Alice:It was really helpful, yeah, and it is kind of a practice that settles you a little bit at the beginning of writing. I remember I read Louise DeSalvo's book about writing as a way of healing, and then her other book, also slow writing both just such great books. And one of the things that she had there that really was useful to me was having clear intentions for the writing session and saying you know, today I'm going to work on this and then, if that gets finished, okay, now I'm going to move on to this and just like literally write those things down, instead of I'm going to write from 9 to 12 today, which is, you know, the road to hell.
Dionne:And was how I wrote for a very long time.
Alice:I know, and it really stops a lot of people because they feel stupid, because they're like I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know what I'm going to be writing about, I don't know what I'm going to say. So I think just being intentional makes a huge difference.
Dionne:There is something to be said for having so many dependent people on you that they sort of force your intentionality, it does help a lot. Because you might not have three hours. So it's like, okay, I can't sit down for three hours but I can work on this scene. Just get this scene done. You know, or try to understand what needs to be happening, you know, at the end of this chapter or whatever.
Alice:Exactly. It's something you know, that's something speaking speaking of the writing journal. It's something I tell my students like write down a list of things that you can do in 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, so that you know if that's the amount of time you have, you pick. Okay, I can describe a house in 20 minutes. I'll do that and just get that piece and whether it ever goes in the final thing or not, it's just working toward whatever the project is, which I think is really useful.
Dionne:Yeah, no, absolutely. And now I'm thinking about your character, agnes, because when I read your book I remember just being so jealous of her writing practice and how much time and space she has and how intentional she was. Can you talk a little bit about her practices? Are they yours?
Alice:Are they aspirational? Definitely aspirational, like everything in that book. Fantasies, you know fantasy of being rich, fantasy of having beautiful land, fantasy of living next door to your best friend fantasy, of having enough money to be able to write full time, all of it. You know, and to me writing into fantasy spaces is really enlivening. You know I'm happy to go to the desk when I'm doing that.
Dionne:I was about to say it's very gratifying to read, so I can imagine how fun that was her, um, her five hour a day, come, you know, completely locked down.
Alice:I guess I was thinking about Stephen King who said he writes 364 days a year, takes Christmas off, but otherwise it's all day for 364 days a year. I think that's the kind of thing that you know. If you're a little bit away into writing you hear that and you go, oh, I want that. But if you're at the beginning you're like what? That sounds great. I mean, you have to do that much. That sounds insane.
Alice:But I guess I heard it by the time I felt like that would be amazing. You know you can't do that and be like running a house and be a mother and have a job and all of those things. It's not possible. So it seems idyllic and I wanted to give her an idyllic writing practice also and then show her being really frustrated inside of it, because it's always the case, you know. But you know, have the parameters, like also Edith Wharton. You know that morning in bed dropping the pages on the floor and having her maid come in and pick them up and put them in order at the end of it Just thought, yeah, that sounds really good.
Dionne:Yeah, some of my favorite moments in your book were when you know the food is delivered. She's just like oh, could I please when? Is the person bringing me my sandwich.
Alice:Okay speaking of which, we've both been to PCCA a few times. We've both been to McDowell and we both love going to residencies. So what do you love about going to a residency? And that's part a. Part B is do you save up something, in particular that to write as a residency because of the conditions in a residency? Oh, gosh.
Dionne:So, yeah, what I love about it is your fantasy realized, basically is the residency. Don't have to worry about food, I just get to be completely absorbed in my work in a way that I can't be, you know, in my regular day-to-day life. I just feel like and we've talked about this before I just feel like I am able to get done in one week at a residency what would take me months to achieve at home. So there's just nothing like that, you know, just compressed sense of having to work and being given that time. So I just love that. I also love being connected to other artists who aren't necessarily in the same discipline.
Alice:Yeah, that's so wonderful, that is so wonderful that is so wonderful and it's just.
Dionne:I don't know it just like gets my steps inspiring it's really inspiring, really, I guess it's, maybe it's the carnality again, right, like there's something about being stimulated in you know visually and you know music with, through music and architecture dance, you know, at mcdowell, there were four architects yes yes, same.
Dionne:Yeah, I don't I don't really have the right words for it, but it's like nothing I've ever experienced so I guess it's kind of like agnes living next door to her best friend, but now it's like you've got these temporary 16 best friends you know, who. If you're struggling, you can just like think about what they're working on, or maybe even see you know their work and have a reprieve, and then you go back refresh. So that's amazing, yeah I feel the same.
Alice:I mean, I I appreciate it so much. I really feel like it's. These places are national treasures and they need as much support as they can possibly get, because you can't replicate this in your own day-to-day life, especially if you have other people living with you or coming in and out of your life, because one of the things I love the very, very most at a residency is no one's allowed to come in your room and no one's allowed to knock on your door.
Dionne:I tried to replicate that with my kids. They're just like what?
Alice:yeah it's just like the most liberating feeling that no one is coming. No one is coming, you know, and you're just no one's going to come in that space. Like whatever mental vibes you put into your space while you're there, no one's coming in and walking around in them and stirring them up and mixing them up, which I really feel very strongly. You know, I feel like I'm constantly combating sort of disturbed vibe spaces. I mean, that might sound a little woo-woo but it's really powerful to me and I also love like at McDowell. One of the things is that library and just having it open 24 7 or being able to access it with no one watching you. You know, no one like are you being careful? No, just being treated like an adult. I feel like these are very adult spaces where you can actually regress tremendously and play and have fun and it's a weird combination of being trusted to be an adult and being taken care of like a child and I think it puts you in a super creative space.
Dionne:I absolutely agree, and I had one of the. I had a transformative conversation with another fellow in the library. It was because of that conversation in the library that I applied for an NEA grant and got it. Oh really, I wasn't even going to apply for that grant I didn't think it had anything to do with me and I just happened to be at the library where another fellow was and picked up a conversation that had been going on around the table the night before. I don't know what made him say this to me, but he said you know, dionne, you should apply for an NEA. The night before we were talking about how, as writers, we're all poor, and one writer in particular was asking like, what grants are people applying for and getting some feedback, and I was listening, but I didn't think that I was qualified for any of these. I don't know why he said that to me, but he was like yeah, you should apply.
Alice:Because people are so psychic when they're in a residency.
Dionne:That's why.
Dionne:It was incredible, People get really really spooky psychic, honestly, and I was like, oh, I was like, well, I don't really think I'm qualified for it and blah blah, and I explained why and he said, no, you're absolutely qualified for it. He told me why I was qualified for it. He said, you know, and apply, start early because you know, he explained the ins. I mean, he was working on his stuff and he just stopped and took this like 15 minutes out of his work time to encourage me, for which I will always be grateful, because I had no intention of doing that. Yeah, that's amazing, and I did, and I got it and it did. You know, it opened a lot, it does.
Alice:It does all those things. I feel very fortunate that I didn't start going until Asher was like 16 or something, because I just could not get away. Sure, so I started going late. But boy, once I went I was like, oh, this is the life for me.
Dionne:Honestly, I know what.
Alice:I'm supposed to be doing. It's, this is the life for me I know what I'm supposed to be doing. It's so wonderful. There's just nothing like it. But let me ask you now. Okay, a couple more things I want to talk about are teaching and reading. Yes, let's start with reading. So obviously, most people who become writers were pretty powerfully committed addicted readers. So what are your reading habits now?
Dionne:I'm always trying to make myself just start one book before taking on others, but I seem to be this kind of person who just has to have several books that I'm reading at one time, so I'm trying to just like just stop resisting.
Marni:Yeah, just go with it, just accept.
Dionne:That's what I'm doing, so right now I'm reading Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire. I'm you might remember that the book that I came to your workshop with was a novel.
Alice:Yes, that took place in Brazil so.
Dionne:I'm also reading while I'm listening to my brilliant friend, elena Ferrante. I think I'm like the last person to read this.
Alice:Maybe I've taught the quartet three times now. I know it pretty well and I just never. But I haven't read it in Italian. I don't want to sound like I have, but I know it pretty well and I just never. But I haven't read it in Italian. I don't want to sound like I have, but I know it pretty well in English.
Dionne:Yeah, no, I never. I mean I didn't have anything against it, just never got around to it. And now I'm finally getting around to it because of actually a recommendation. I teach at Fordham and at Drew and I had an author come and talk to my students, tess Gunty. She won the National Book Award last year for Rabbit Hutch and when she was talking about books you know that are her favorite she mentioned my Brilliant Friend and I thought I haven't read that book yet. So I got it and, yeah, I get why it's everybody's favorite. Yeah, it's so good.
Dionne:And the TV show is really good too, I remembered that, but I want to finish reading it before.
Alice:It's different, but it's very good too.
Dionne:And then the last one is I am also reading Maisie Card's book.
Marni:These Ghosts Are Family.
Dionne:So I think that's it. Is there anything else? I'm always reading like nine million things, but I think that's it. What about you? What are you reading?
Alice:right now. You know know I read so much for blurbs. I've just been doing a lot of blurbs so and that's actually a good reading practice because there's a deadline oh, because I have the same thing that you do.
Alice:I pick something up, like I have burnham wood started, I have the stone diary started, I have all kinds of books started, but then I put them down because I can. I have to pick up whatever I'm reading for work. You know, I just did two theses One was 400 pages, one was 500 pages. Oh my gosh, I know I'm so proud of these people.
Dionne:That's amazing that they were able to produce that. I know.
Alice:I know, and neither of them. As of last summer they had these ideas, but they didn't have these books. So that just shows you. Both of them teach, Both of them are taking classes.
Alice:You're a kid, both of them, you know, and they produce these massive novels. So I'm very proud of them and it was really fun to read them. I wasn't contracted to have to read that many pages but you know, I just felt so proud of them that I really wanted to read it. So that you know, that's very time consuming. But some of the ones I read for blurbs which are coming that I think are good.
Alice:Jessica Shattuck's book, the Last House it's kind of in the 50s, cia, you know, just understand the age. I think the subtitle is the Age of Oil. So it's just like get our, you know, getting into our relationship with the Middle East and trying to create some sort of diplomatic dominance over there. And then I read Stacey Ruvis's book Oriana, which is about to come back out. She lives in town. Yeah yeah, it's really good. Oh yeah, I loved oriana falaci when I was young. She was like a big heroine, so it was fun to read that novel, awesome. And I read nancy burke's book death cleaning short stories. Do you know her that name?
Dionne:wasn't she in our class or was she not in our class?
Alice:no, nancy burke was not, it would have been nancy toomey. Oh no, I had her in a different class somewhere else. And then for my novel I'm reading Andrew Halloran's books, which he was a gay writer in the 80s, which is kind of what I'm writing about and they're just really really well written and beautiful books. That's kind of what's going on right now, but my actual reading habits are very poor compared to what they used to be, which is sad, you know. I'm just hoping someday I can get back to where it's a major feature of life.
Dionne:I hear you. Yeah, I think about how many books I used to be able to read and I'm like what has happened, I know, but you know there's a time and a season right for everything. Well, but you also mentioned teaching, yeah. So talk a bit about how teaching, I guess, plays into your writing, if at all, or if you adjust your practices when you're teaching and what you get from teaching as well.
Alice:For your work? It's a really good question. It's been a while now. I think I started teaching in the late 80s and I've been at Rutgers since 2001. It's changed a lot over time and my whole teaching practice has changed radically over time.
Alice:But I would say early on it was very destructive to my writing because I was studying so much about writing in order to be able to teach it and I got very self-conscious and I would critique their work. I would read all these books and then I would go back and look at mine and I was really looking at early drafts but judging them as if they were final drafts and you know, I just became very cramped about the whole thing. Now it's the opposite. It's very generative, it's very inspirational, just because I have such great conversations with the students and also my teaching practice now is very loose. I'm not trying to give them a lot of direction.
Alice:You know I mention what I know about things, but it's kind of on a mention basis rather than a lecture basis, and we talk a lot about what we're talking about now, like how do you develop your own self so that you're a wiser person? Because a wiser person has more to write about or to say about the things that they experience, to understand not necessarily that we're writing about ourselves, but even to understand the human condition. So it's really helpful now, but saying that at the same time, all the time I say I wish I didn't have to work, I wish I were independently wealthy and could just write. So, you know, I feel like it's been great and I've learned so much about writing by feeling that I had to explain it, Otherwise I would have just had it.
Alice:You know, like all the things we're talking about, that a journalist forced me to put something into words, Otherwise it would have just been stuff rattling around in my head. So that's been so good, because now I actually feel like I do know a lot about writing and if someone has a question I can answer. It doesn't mean I can immediately apply it to my own writing, or that I don't still have lots of struggles. Apply it to my own writing or that I don't still have lots of struggles. But yeah, I would say on the whole, it's been equally important to practice this writing in my life.
Dionne:That doesn't surprise me, because you're an excellent teacher. Oh my God, so much good work done working in your workshop.
Dionne:Thank you, I really got to see I actually have a novel here know so it's so exciting and I'm so glad that you said that about being self-conscious, because I'm, you know, I'm a pretty new, new teacher and I am very self-conscious and I can get quite nervous about saying the right thing.
Dionne:You know, and I'm not even teaching a craft class. I'm teaching, you know, a workshop, but I get you know, want and I'm not even teaching a craft class, I'm teaching, you know, a workshop, but I get you know, want to make sure that I'm imparting the right wisdom and I do feel like it's generative though with my students, because I do get to consider, like, how does this apply to my own work? Do you know if I'm, if I'm saying something asking myself? Do you do that? You know if I'm, if I'm saying something asking myself? Do you do that? You know, are you doing that enough? Do you remember to use this tool? You know, so it's really good and like, kind of coming back to the thing that we talked about, like the residency thing, you know there is something about being in a room full of people who are all working towards this art, you know, of trying to create something and taking it seriously and thinking about language and how you create different experiences based on the word you use.
Dionne:You know, it's powerful to be able to do that you know.
Alice:It is. I do find that it's one of the places where I actually get to talk about writing as writing and not as like a business or a career or anything like that.
Dionne:just straight up writing, which is really great and they introduce me to new people sometimes of you know my first publication and now wanting to get into the second to find the balance. You know how do I stay connected to my own long form work? It's so hard.
Alice:I find it very hard to write during the semesters, like just this week it's been break, so five days, and there was a lot I had to do. We're doing admissions right now, so I'm talking to people about coming meeting. I met with one of my thesis students last night. You know there's been a lot, but still just the psychological feeling like I'm not going in this week I can be at home. I got so much done.
Dionne:Yeah, I bet. And you said the psychological that, yeah, like you know your students well, for me I don't know it's hard to Not think about them. You know Like you want to answer their questions and you know make sure that you have time to speak to them when they need. You know when they need extra support. Oh well see me about that Boundaries, boundaries. Boundaries, boundaries, time boundaries yeah, absolutely, that can definitely be a.
Alice:It's like a really good boundary is come see me at my office hours.
Dionne:I have gotten good with that this semester, rather than answering with an email, because you know then if they really need to come, they will.
Alice:Yeah, Otherwise the question might just fly away.
Dionne:Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I'm trying to get better with that with the email, because those can get kind of long and involved.
Alice:That is something I don't do. I just don't do it. Yeah, I used to. I guess I did you. You know it's something over time that you just to decide there's not that much payoff for them. Sometimes they need to just sit with their question, or sometimes they need to ask a classmate. Is it really something that I have to be involved?
Dionne:in.
Alice:But you know, when you're just starting out, you don't really feel that you have that freedom. Yeah.
Dionne:Yeah, because of the back to the self-conscious you know. Yeah, exactly Just being like on point all the time you know?
Alice:Yeah, so you were telling me you teach by Liz Lerman's method you want to talk about?
Dionne:that, absolutely yes.
Dionne:So, like I said, I teach workshops so the students bring in a lot of their writing. And the director of creative writing at Fordham, sarah, who weito, who we both know, who we both know and love and love Just offered, you know, in the resource guide for us adjuncts actually for everybody, I think all the staff offered one resource material Liz Lerman's book on how to critique anything. Liz Lerman was, or maybe still is, a choreographer and she talks about it in her introduction, just noticing over her years of a certain, I guess, tone that critiquing would take where it seemed like people felt like they needed to have something to say about how to change the work, right, about how to change the work. And so she just developed this process that would really turn the attention back onto the creator, so that the critiquing process is generated from them and it becomes really more of a focus on what the writer or dancer wanted to achieve with their piece, and then the rest of the critiquing becomes about, like, really that goal, are they getting close to that goal and do you have questions about what you heard? Like something specific, and so it's really generated from the creative.
Dionne:Yeah, and I really like that. I do too.
Dionne:I love it I also think it really forces us. It's like an extra editing tool, really. You know, when we're having to generate the discussion about our own work, it does really make us think about, well, what am I trying to do with this chapter? Do you know? I was going to ask if you bring it back into your work. I really do. You know, I often do the exercises that I give my students. Yeah, I try to do that too, just to be Because they're really helpful.
Dionne:Yeah, and when a student brings in a piece and I really encourage them to do that second step, which is so the first step of Liz Lerman's critiquing process is, you know, after the creative reads or reads their piece, then people give statements of meaning about the piece, which is really exactly just that. You talk about what was meaningful, about what you heard. If someone used repetition and that struck you, you know, if they had a nice sentence in there, if there was great dialogue, whatever, even if it's the subject matter, whatever, it's just to feed back to them what strikes you and what's meaningful to you, what's moving. And then the second part is the writer or creative will ask a question, like if there's any question that they're having about their work. They get to ask you, the people who listen to it. I really like that one because I feel like and I never like it, if my student says no, I don't really have any questions. It's like, hmm, really Exactly, but it just, I think, really helps the student to be very grounded in their work, connected to it, intentional.
Dionne:This isn't just a vanity project. You know what are you trying to do, you know, and I think it sort of forces them to get closer to answering that question by posing a question to their audience. Sometimes. It's often. It can often be like you know, was this section clear? You know, right, so, because we all have that, have that right, where we are saying something but we're not sure if we're getting our point across, sometimes the answer is, yeah, actually overstated. You know, like you don't need to say for the second or third time, right.
Dionne:So yeah, I love it. And then the third and the fourth process. The third and the fourth it's four steps, so it's so simple. First, statements of meaning. Second, the creator asks questions about the piece that they presented. The third is that the responders, or the people who are listening, get to ask questions now about what they heard. And then the fourth is permissioned opinions and the writer does not have to do the fourth step if they don't want.
Dionne:But people can say I have an opinion about and they say whatever it is about the paragraph where so-and-so meets her ex-lover, do you want to hear it? And then they can say yes or no. I love that because, as we know from being in workshops, people are at different phases in their piece, where some people might be at a place where they are so on such solid ground that, yeah, you can tell me anything, tell me everything. Other people might be solid on this section, but not that section. So tell me anything about this, but don't say anything about that, yeah.
Dionne:So I just I love the specificity and I just love how it's so. Not about the listener, it's really all about the person who's writing and helping them get closer to what they're trying to achieve.
Alice:I really like that too. I first heard it at VCCA, actually with Helen Rubenstein. Do you know, helen Rubenstein? I don't think I ever met Helen. She's great. She told me about it and we did an evening of just critiquing that way. She was running through it with everybody and I also immediately thought, yes, this is just tweaking things in a way that is going to take out a lot of ego out of this room. Exactly, it just makes it just about what's on the page, not about and what, what people are bringing to it. You know it's what they're getting from it and it's just a different emphasis. That is, it really does work. And the permission aspect of it asking permission, I love that too and I do do that, and it's really hard because people want to say why don't you do this?
Dionne:why don't you do that description?
Alice:yeah, it's like ask, ask first, ask first. And it's I have. I always have well, I shouldn't say always, but often I have students who are trans or students who are living in worlds now where permission is such a huge part of their life practice, their sexual practice. So they take to this like instantly because that's the way they communicate with each other. May I, may I, may I is it all right if I? And that's really helpful too, because they have an advanced perspective on it in just a different realm, which I think brings a lot into the room too to really understand, like how we should not make incursions on each other really at all. But you know, it takes a lot of thinking to truly understand what that means. So to just practice it in the room that way is really good. It's also good, like if you give your manuscript to somebody to read and to sort of give directions along those lines.
Dionne:Well, you were the first person who showed me that that was possible, that when you give your manuscript to somebody to look at, you can also give them a list of the things that you're looking for. And it was like wow, and I've passed that list that you gave to me on to so many people and people find it very, very helpful. Oh, that's great.
Alice:So, just as we're wrapping up, let me ask you what you're working on now.
Dionne:Oh, I am working on that Brazil novel that I came to.
Alice:So that's something you've been working on for 20 years.
Dionne:I mean I'm returning to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm so excited.
Alice:You know, I think it can take that long. It's one of the really interesting things about life and writing is, you know, things bubble up. There are always clues. I feel like we get clues and then it can take us a long time to solve the mystery it can take 20 years, so that doesn't surprise me, yeah. I'm also working on something from the past. I'm writing a sequel to in the gloaming which was which I wrote in 1993, so it's 30 years later oh my gosh.
Dionne:Yeah, that is so exciting. I can't wait to see that, yeah it's, it's.
Alice:It's really interesting and fun.
Dionne:Oh so we will both be going back together. This is exciting yeah.
Alice:Yeah, it's funny how in pushing ahead, sometimes there is stuff they'll still there. Oh, I did have. I'm going to ask you one more question.
Dionne:Okay, is there anything you feel like you're saving for the future that you don't feel like you're quite ready to write yet you don't have to say what it is, yeah, that is such a great question and and yes, there is and I keep a running manuscript for this because I find that I get information that I want to get down on paper while it's fresh in my mind every now and again. I'm not at the right place to be able to look back on it with enough distance at the moment. So I am saving this one thing, yeah, for I don't know what future date. Hopefully not too far in the future, but probably not even my next. I would say yeah, interesting. Yeah, two more, how about you? Yeah.
Alice:I do. It's personal stuff. Same thing I've tried from different angles and I just feel like I need an expansive space of time and solitude to do it, to really do it. And I don't know whether that's true or not, but that's my intuition, but it's nice to know it's out there. It's out there, sort of percolating, developing, becoming something.
Dionne:Absolutely Well, maybe those will both come out at the same time.
Alice:That would be really fun. Well, thank you, alice, it was great to talk to you, as always.
Dionne:It's always good to talk to you.
Marni:Thank you, Alice and Dionne, for sharing this talk with us. We loved hearing about your writing process and how you take care of yourselves. We're also so grateful to have you as regular customers and supporters of so many writers.
Kathryn:We've got a great lineup of events coming in May and we hope to see you at some or all of them. On May 8th, writer Nancy Burke will be sharing her new book of short stories, death Cleaning and Other Units of Measure. And on May 14th, we'll be co-hosting an event at Lukewell with Dr Sharon Malone, whose new book Grown Woman Talk is endorsed and loved by none other than Michelle Obama. It's going to be a fantastic evening with a talk, signing and reception.
Marni:Also on May 14th, the Montclair Literary Festival is hosting author Harlan Coben for his latest release Think Twice, and Thursday, may 16th, we host Judith Lindbergh to celebrate her new book Akmoral. You can find info about all of these and all of our upcoming events in our show notes and at watchungbooksellerscom.
Kathryn:Recording and editing at Silver stream Studio in Montclair, new Jersey. Special thanks to Timmy Kalini, Bree Testa, Derek Mathiass and Jake Miller. Original music is composed and performed by Violet Mujica and thanks to all the staff at Watchung Booksellers and the Kids Room for their hard work and love of books.
Marni:And thank you for listening. If you enjoyed it, please like and subscribe and follow us on social media at Watchung Booksellers and if you have any questions, you can reach out to us at WBpodcast@ WatchungBooksellers. com.
Kathryn:We'll see you next time. Until then, for the love of books, keep reading. Thank you.
