What I’m Working On . . . My Stop on a Blog Tour

Fellow Virginia writer Mark Meier asked me to participate in a “blog tour.” The idea is for a bunch of writers to take turns answering questions about what we are working on. You can see his responses at his blog: (http://www.markmeierwriting.com). Below are mine:

1) What am I working on?

I recently finished a book-length memoir called Playing with Dynamite: A Daughter’s Story. It’s about my father, who died when I was seven. Of course, it’s about me, too. About how I coped with such a huge loss, in my childhood and adulthood, how I have discovered my father’s legacy in me, how I am passing it on to my own children. It’s about taking the myth that my father had turned into and turning that into a portrait of a man–flawed and contradictory, brilliant and funny—but most of all REAL.

My agent is in the process of reading the whole manuscript now. In the meantime, I’m working on some self-contained essays and a novel called Half, based on my short story by the same name. Here is the link to the story: http://www.ucmo.edu/pleiades/news/harrigan.html

2) How does my work differ from others of its genre?

My fiction has a wide range of styles, but what unifies my work, I think, is the way I like to take risks. For instance, “Half” is written in the first person plural (we) voice, which is pretty unusual. Some examples of this voice are We the Animals by Justin Torres, Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides, and And Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris. But there aren’t many others. I also have a story in five points of view (it’s published in Louisiana Literature in print only, so I don’t have a link). I’ve never read another story that tries to do that. I’m not sure I would try to do it ever again!

3) Why do I write what I do?

Writing in the “we” voice captures something about childhood that isn’t possible any other way. This device shows the intense closeness of siblings, an us-against-them mentality. I use it to represent the linked consciousness of twins. Though I’m not a twin, I’ve always been fascinated by twins and like to imagine their fused minds.

4) How does my writing process work?

I’m a very fast typist (I won the fastest typing award in high school!) so it’s very efficient for me to work on a computer. Recently, though, I’ve been experimenting with writing by hand, appreciating the benefits of slowing down the fingers, which, in turn, slows down the mind enough to think more deeply. When I spent a year in Paris I befriended a French novelist who writes his books entirely in longhand. He inspired me to try. A little. But it’s hard to change to old habits.

Next week, look for answers to these same questions from two fabulous writers who I studied with in my MFA: Tabitha Blankenbiller and Leigh Camacho Rourks.

Tabitha Blankenbiller is a Pacific Northwest native, originally born in Seattle and raised on the Mt. Rainier plateau. She graduated from the Pacific University MFA program in June 2012 (and was student commencement speaker, a credential that doesn’t quite fit anywhere else but in this web bio). She is a staff contributor at Bustle, Food Riot, PDXX Collective, and Spectrum Culture, and writes The Wordstalker column for Barrelhouse Magazine. Her personal essays have been widely published in journals including Hobart, Passages North, and Brevity. She has written a full-length memoir titled Paper Bag: Tales of Love, Beauty and Baggage, which is represented by Jennifer Chen Tran at Penumbra Literary. Find Tabitha’s blog athttp://tabithablanken.wordpress.com/tag/tabitha-blankenbiller/

Leigh Camacho Rourks lives in South Louisiana and, on her best days, can be found lazing in the sun, doing not much of anything at all. She teaches English at Southeastern Louisiana University, where she is also the assistant editor of Louisiana Literature. Her stories have been chosen as finalists for the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival Fiction Contest (2012) and The American Fiction Prize (2013), and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in a number of journals including Kenyon Review and Prairie Schooner. Find Leigh’s blog at http://lcrourks.com/