Frybabe, Alas!!! Mystery solved, I knew Wally Lamb sounded familiar and so you have uncovered a treasure trove in finding the discussion, and scrolling through I found this Q & A where he actually responded:
Wally Lamb
December 5, 2003 - 04:00 pm
Hi, everyone. I've enjoyed your rolling discussion of CKITM and the questions you've posted for me are great--far more interesting that the usual "What's Oprah like?" and "Do you write with a pen or on a computer?" So let me dig in and see how many of these I can get to before the predicted nor'easter begins here in Connecticut and I have to hightail it from office to home.
1. Yes, as editor I chose the order of the essays--writing each selection on an index card and playing with various combinations on the floor of my office until I thought I had a pretty good variety and flow for the reader. The lead-off story presented me with a particular dilemma. Originally, I planned to make "Izzy" the first story, and the only one by Nancy Whiteley. But fairly late into the editing process, Nancy's second effort, "True Earth.." began to evolve through a number of drafts. It, too, was strong work and I couldn't resist sharing that one with readers, too. I chose it as the first essay because it depicted Nancy's childhood. Chronologically speaking, I thought it might offer readers a kind of cause-and-effect look at two excerpts from the writer's life. Originally, I wanted to flip-flop mine and Dale Griffith's essays, putting hers as the first and mine as the last. (Dale is my co-teacher in the workshop; she's a paid full-time educator at the school and I'm a volunteer.) But my publisher, Judith Regan, felt strongly that readers should hear first from me, so I complied. Later, I came to agree that that was the better order. So you see--editors, too, can benefit from editing!
2. The workshop is structured more loosely than a college course that's shaped by a syllabus and semester deadlines. York School is in session year-round. Sometimes I'll begin one of our two-hour sessions with a ten or fifteen minute lesson on some aspect of writing: point of view, "ingredients" of a dramatric scene, even mechanical stuff like when to put the apostrophe before the s and when to put it after. (When I was a kid in school and din't know where to put it, I'd place the apostrophe right over the s, hoping the teacher would give me the benefit of the doubt!) Often, I'll "prime the pump" by engaging the students in a ten- or fifteen-minute writing exercise, which they're free to turn into a full-blown piece if they've hit upon something that interests them. From these opening activities, the class usually segues to the work at hand: a.) drafts in progress that writers have submitted to me the session before and which might benefit from a whole-group reaction and which I'll read aloud or have photocopied for them. (Trust me--you wouldn't want to have to pay my Kinko's copying bills.) and b.) writing that's new that day--a piece in progress for which the writer hungrily seeks feedback. "Who wants to share new work?" I'll ask. Usually one or two women want the rest of us to have a listen and offer our responses.
3. In fiction, a dramatic scene usually has characters, dialogue, description, action, and reaction. Interior monologue (what the narrator may be thinking in the midst of all this) is often a part of the mix, also. Exposition occurs when the narrator takes a step back from the scene to offer explanation, background info, "back story," etc. Exposition is sort of like the glue that holds the scenes together and allows the story to progress. In Nancy Whiteley's "Orbitting Izzy," take a look at pages 54-55. The two paragraphs beginning with "Everyone who knew Aldo warned me.." are exposition. Beginning with the sentence, "When I arrived at Isadore Weintraub's accounting office ..." the writer moves from exposition into scene. In recreating their memories as scenes, the writers were encouraged to evoke the five senses so that readers could vicariously live the scene (feel, smell, see, tatse, and hear it) as opposed to just hearing about it second-hand. For many of the writers, that made them relive the memories, good or bad. Reliving the hard stuff was difficult for many but also therapeutic in that it got the pain, hurt, and guilt out of them and onto the page, where it became easier to handle.
4. I write my novels for myself, working hard (and often suffering along with the characters) until I figure out who these fictional concoctions are on a deeper level and what they're trying to tell me. It's only by finishing the novel that I come to know what it means--and that's only what it means TO ME. My feeling is: once I finish the story to the best of my ability and the publisher sends it out into the world, it's no longer mine any more. It belongs to which ever readers are good enough to read it. So I encourage readers to filter the story through their own experiences and needs and find whatever they want/need to find in the story. If reading group members disagree with one another, so much the better. There should be no one right answer or one correct interpretation. The reader isn't cracking walnuts, after all, but applying stories to his or her life, the better to widen understanding. As for the anthology CKITM, I only ask that readers listen to the writers' voices with an open mind and a generous heart. If they do, I think the reward is that they'll come out of the experience with a deeper understanding of some very complex issues.
5. No, I've never run into Paula (not her real name) ever again. And please don't misunderstand: I only borrowed a visual image; the character of Dolores Price in She's Come Undone is very much cut from fictional cloth. The funny thing is, though, over the years, from time to time, people I know have claimed they've "found" themselves in my fiction. They're off the mark when they make these claims, but if they feel flattered, I usually let then have their illusions.
6. I think reading this book and listening to the women's voices is already doing something very important with regard to helping incarcerated people. So many people in our society want to put "bad" people behind bars and not think about them beyond that. Every person who reads this book--and others by/about prisoners, such as PEN's anthology "Doing Time" (editor Belle Gale Chevigny) and Mark Salzman's True Notebooks--allows those who are silenced to speak. Beyond that, anyone with the impulse can investigate volunteer services in the prisons of their areas. There's plenty of need, lots of unexpected and unpredictable rewards, and, from the prisoners, gratitude and a renewal of hope.
7. Guess Bonnie Foreshaw says it best when she writes: "What I hope is that people reading this book will bear in mind that we are human beings first, prisoners second." Bonnie's a renmarkable woman, by the way. Can't wait until you read her story.
8. The difference between autobiography and memoir: hmmm, good question. The writers' group I'm in met earlier today and I posed that one to several of the professional writers. To me, its like a film's long shot as opposed to a close-up. Or the difference between a sleek racing bike and a Buick. Autobiography usually takes on an entire life; memoir offers vivid slice(s) of life. One of the members of the group said she thought of autobiography as facts, people, places and memoir as an exploration of emotional terrain. The more objective external as opposed to the more subjective internal. I guess it's probably all of those. I think of the essays in CKITM as more memoir than autobiography.
9. See answer to question #3.
10. For sure, the effect on me--and on my fictional work--has been significant. Having for the last 4 and a half years seen the tip of the iceberg of incarcerated life, I can't now unsee it. For instance, why are we imprisoning the sons and daughters of slaves in such disporportionate numbers? Why are we using prisons as dumping grounds for the mentally ill? Why have we more or less gone backwards from the past, abandoning so much of the rehabilitative piece of prison in favor of the more cost-efficient and society-defeating punishment
This has piqued my curiosity, and I think I just may find this book and read it since I don't seem to have been a participant in the discussion. Oh, how lovely it is reading all the posts and recognizing the names of the past members. What a lively discussion it appears to have been. Gosh I sure do miss those days. Makes me want to time capsule back and have one more great discussion of a book that would intrigue us and spark so much emotion as it seems this book did back then.
Okay must run, but I sure am glad I stopped in and found this little treasure to look back on.
