Women’s Fiction
Date Published: September 13, 2019
Publisher: Jan-Carol Publishing, Inc.
After Anna Shields receives an invitation from her estranged Aunt Lydia, she flies to Tennessee to find a number of older women-Tasha, Sadie, and Chloe-also living on Lydia's farm. Losing power during a blizzard, the women share dark and startling secrets. Skating between past and present, they reveal frighteningly desperate things that they have done. Anna begins to realize, to her shock, that these things are connected to her own past and become key to her future.
Interview with Cynn Chadwick
As a writer, what would you choose as your
mascot/avatar/spirit animal?
I am probably plagiarizing
this one, as I’ve borrowed it from a favorite author,Flannery O’Connor, who
actually raised my “spirit” animal—the Peacock. While in graduate school, I
went to Milledgeville, GA, to do research on O’Connor. I stayed in a hotel
across the highway from her family home, Andalusia. I could only see the
chimneys behind the tree line; nonetheless, I spied through binoculars sitting
on the hood of my car in the parking lot of the hotel. O’Connor had long
passed, by then, but her words and writing were of great influence on the young
writer I was at the time. The sun was setting, streaks of pink and yellow
ribboning the autumn sky. Suddenly, in a golden field below the trees the most
glorious Peacock rose, fanning his feathers he strutted back and forth as if
giving a show just for me. I took this as a sign of encouragement from O’Connor,
herself, somewhere in the ethers orchestrating the entire display.
How many hours a day do you put into your writing?
The writing teacher Natalie
Goldberg said that “the time in between the writing is equally as important as
the writing itself”; based on this, I could truthfully declare at least 18 to
24 hours a day. That said, Goldberg’s sentiment has, sort of, guided my own
writing process. I take a long time to envision a scene or chapter, and this
usually involves taking lots of walks. Once I feel ready to be on the page, I
need long blocks of time—days, sometimes weeks—to get it all down. Then I go
back to that precious writing time in between and those long walks, then I do
it all over again. For every novel writing session, I always read and rework
the previous chapter or scene before beginning the next, so by the time I get
to the end, it’s already been through 2 drafts.
Do you read your book reviews?
Of course. I don’t believe
any writer who says they don’t.
Do you leave hidden messages in your books that only a few
people will find?
Not intentionally, I don’t
think. I know that I do borrow from life,
so sometimes friends will “see” themselves, which may or may not be accurate.
When my eldest son was a restless teenager, he referred to our home in a cove
in the Blue Ridge Mountains as living “in the crack of an ass of a
mountain”….and I know that’s in a few of my stories.
Can you tell us a little bit about the characters in Things That Women Do?
This is
a challenging question, as there are five point of view characters whose stories
skate back and forth through time, over thirty years. If I answer as a writer,
I’ll bore you with craft techniques managing this complex narrative; if I
answer as a reader, I’ll tell you so much about each one that you’ll have no
reason to read the book. However, if I tell you as the “imaginer” of this
story, I can swear to their mystical visitations along my walks, in the shower,
and while rocking on my porch. They took turns whispering in my ear, I was
awakened by their late-night nudges for my attention. I felt their urgency, a
certain determination by each to tell her own story: Lydia, Tasha, Chloe,
Sadie, and Anna, with their own distinct voice, mettle, history, and spirit
spurred me to the page. I seemed to have had no choice but to write the book,
feeling more a vessel for their stories than the creator of them.
Can you tell us a little bit about your next books or what you have
planned for the future?
I am at
the beginning stages of about my next project. It’s called, “The Incorrigible
Rogue” and it is based on my great-grandmother who lived in a mill town in the
north of England during the early part of the 20th Century. Abandoned
by her husband (my great-grandfather) with a new baby, she was thrust into a
hard life, and apparently was somewhat feisty, she gained a rough reputation
handed down through family stories. I grew up believing her contemptable, and
all that was known of my great-grandfather after he fled her, was that he had eventually
committed suicide. Turns out, not true. Through an ancestry investigation, we
learned he’d hopped across the county line and “married” another woman; they
had a whole new family, together. We also learned that the “suicide” was somewhat
suspicious. I’ve recently met this “half-family” of mine, to find them lovely
people. This has inspired a fictional story centering around two women, “Martha
Anne” and “Rachel” who are, unknowingly and unhappily, each married to the same
devious man. It is when they meet that their lives change dramatically. I will
be spending a couple of weeks in my family’s home place in bleak north England
during the bleakest month of of February tracing my great-grandmother’s bleak
life in a bleak cotton mill town. I can’t wait!
Do you allow yourself a certain number of hours to write or do you
write as long as the words come?
I have
recently retired from 25 years teaching fiction at the university, and so my past
writing process has always been determined by my school breaks. “The Incorrigible Rogue” will be my first novel
whilst retired. It’ll be interesting to see how this gain in time affects my
process, maybe even the stories themselves.
Do you have a certain number of words or pages you write per day?
No. I write in scenes and chapters. Sometimes it takes a
whole day to find the right one word, and that’s sometimes more important than
writing a bunch of lousy ones.
What inspires you to write?
As a
young writer I’d read, somewhere, that all writers are just trying to work out
some personal wrestle—especially fiction writers! I think that is especially so
of first novels, but in my later work, I think I am inspired by the stories of
others. When I was on my Cat Rising
Series book-tour, I’d begun playing around with the idea of writing about
single mothers. I was one and knew many. While on that tour, nearly every
conversation I had revolved around single mothers. Sometimes it was the single
mother herself, but other times the person was the child, sister, mother,
grandparent, brother or friend of one. So many people told me heroic, funny,
sad, angering, hopeful, and loving single-mother stories. That’s when I know I
need to write about something, when it pours into my life. That’s how Angels and Manners came….
Would you rather
Read fiction or
non-fiction?
Fiction
Read series or
stand-alone?
Mostly stand alone. I say that
even though my first 3 books are part of a series.
Read Science fiction
or horror?
Not really.
Read Stephen King or Dean Koontz
I do love Stephen King. I think
he’s a wonderful storyteller.
Read the book or
watch the movie?
Book always, first.
Read an ebook or
paperback?
Depends. Ebook is easier on my
eyes, but I like holding the book.
Be trapped alone for
one month in a library with no computer or a room with a computer and Wi-Fi
only?
Library no computer. Put it on
an island and I’m on the next plane.
Do a cross-country
book store tour or blog tour online?
I’ve only actually done
cross-country book stores tours, and I am not wild about it. It’s a lot of out
of pocket expenses for little return. Sometimes nobody shows up, and there you
sit, book in hand. I find combining readings with nearby festivals, conferences
and/or book club readings are the best use of time and resources. For all those
reasons, I am looking forward to participating in this, my first blog tour!
About the Author
Cynn Chadwick is an author of seven novels: Cat Rising; Girls With Hammers; Babies, Bikes, and Broads; Cutting Loose; Angels and Manners; As The Table Turns; and That's Karma, Baby... Her books have been nominated for the Lambda, Golden Crown, and Stonewall Literary Awards. Over the course of her career, she has done readings and speaking engagements including: Saints and Sinners Literary Festival in New Orleans, The Authors' Arena at Book Expo America in Chicago, Human Rights Campaign Headquarters, DC, AWP in Atlanta, Amelia Island Book Festival, FL, Malaprop's Bookstore/Cafe, Asheville and UNCA are just a few of her past speaking and reading engagements. She holds a BA from Norwich University and both an MA and MFA from Goddard College in Vermont. Over the last, nearly, thirty years, she taught creative writing to fifth-graders and senior citizens, teachers and homeless teens, college students and convicted felons and have been equally touched by each of their stories. She lives with her wife Elenna and their Springer Spaniel, The Amazing Andy, in the Blue Ridge Mountains is where she taught in the English Department and Creative Writing program at the University of North Carolina at Asheville.
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1 comments:
thanks for hosting
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