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Book Reviews
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Author Interview Earlier this summer we asked our readers to send in their questions for Stephanie Gertler, author of Jimmy's Girl, The Puzzle Bark Tree, and the newly released Drifting. Here are her answers to these fabulously insightful questions....
Girlposse.com Reader: Stephanie do you do a lot of traveling? Stephanie Gertler: I used to (been all over the US and Europe) but since I've had children it's a thing of the past. HOWEVER, I travel locally a great deal -- down south, around the New England Coast, Canada....and I love to travel by car. I love being on the road because then I get to see everything and feel everything about the various places -- love to stop in the little towns along the way...Flying is great but you do fly over the heart of things that way.... Girlposse.com Reader: If you write from home (I can't assume you do, but I'm thinking that's likeliest), how do you manage to separate home and work? Stephanie Gertler: I do work from home and it's not easy. I have the ability to shift gears, fortunately. I get to my desk at 7:30 and work until 3 or 4 and then come up for air. It takes a lot of discipline. Sometimes, come evening, I feel a bit caged having worked at home all day...but then I get out with my girlfriends who are doing the same and we manage to relax a bit. Although working from home allows me to hold down the fort with my kids (who, although they're teens, still like to have me around and I like to be with them not to mention keep track of their wanderings!), it's often tough because people assume that because you work from home you don't really "work." All told, working from home as a Mom is the best of both worlds most of the time. Girlposse.com Reader: I would like to be entered in the contest. This book looks great, I am getting it whether I win or not. Question: What type of work did you do before writing your first novel? Stephanie Gertler: Well, thank you! I've always been a writer. Before I wrote Jimmy's Girl, I wrote for magazines and newspapers (features) and I've written a lifestyles column since 1996 for two Connecticut papers. I took an eight-year hiatus when my oldest was born (and the other two were born 18 months and 2.5 years later so it was busy around here :) But I did a lot of pro bono writing during that hiatus and wrote for "myself." Girlposse.com Reader: How do you become inspired to begin writing a book? Are you motivated by a dream, boredom, or a publisher pushing you to produce? It isn't easy to just sit down & write without having an inner spark. I was just wondering what causes your spark to become a flame? Stephanie Gertler: Certainly not boredom! My agent inspired me to write Jimmy's Girl. She wasn't my agent at the time, really. I had approached her as a potential agent for my columns, thinking they might do well in a book. She told me that she loved the columns but because I was an unknown, she would never be able to get them published. She said "write a novel instead." And I did (although my initial reaction was "you must be kidding"). For The Puzzle Bark Tree, Drifting and the book I'm working on now, I was under contract so, yes, I HAD to produce. But the books are labors of love for me. They all tap into my past, present and future. They are not only a way to unravel what feels tangled but an opportunity to purge my soul, realize my dreams and address my fears. But don't think that spark always because an overnight inferno! -- sometimes it's more like a slow burn.... Girlposse.com Reader: My question: When did you write your first book? Were you always writing as you grew up? Stephanie Gertler: I started writing my first book in 1999 (it took 15 months). It was accepted in January 200 and published in 2001. Yes, I always wrote from the time I was small -- poetry..short stories...first-person essays. Writing was always my favorite way to communicate and, because I can't paint and always wished I could, it was a way to paint with words, so to speak. I love description. I love to watch people and observe them and look around me and listen to people and then take it all and weave a tale and put what I see and what I feel into words that not only tell the story but draw the details. Girlposse.com Reader: Hi! Here's my question: I have read interviews from those in the public eye in which they have said they refuse to read any reviews written about their work. Do you agree? Do you ever read those written for you and, if so, how do you keep it all in context? If not, why? Stephanie Gertler: Ugh...Reviews can be so painful when they're bad and so exhilarating when they're good. I DO read them (wish I didn't!) -- and have learned to develop a thicker skin but still not thick enough for the bad ones. I try to tell myself that reading is subjective so try to let the bad ones get to me but, alas, they do. Writing is so personal. Any artistic endeavor is so personal....and as artists, we are by nature NOT thick-skinned....although editorial criticism during the process is something a writer wants and needs (we need that objective voice to track us sometimes), having our work shredded, well, it hurts. But so it goes.... Girlposse.com Reader: Did you write stories in school? My daughter loves to write wonderful, creative stories, but of course as a Mom, I just love them but how do I encourage her to continue to make her dreams a reality. Stephanie Gertler: I did write stories in school. We had a literary magazine and I published in there and also worked on the school newspaper. How do you encourage your daughter? Just by loving her work! And TALK to her about her work -- about her ideas. About what she would like to say and what she said in whatever piece she wrote....and encourage her to read and read and read -- no one can be a writer unless they're a reader. As for her dreams becoming a reality, I was over forty when I published my first novel....but all the little stuff came before that. An older writer once told me that the best stories are big stories about little people....perhaps in the summer your daughter can work at the local paper....just remind her that nothing comes overnight. Best of luck to her! Girlposse.com Reader: My question is: How do you go about getting a book looked at? I have a short story that could become a bigger novel, and have no idea how to get someone to read it or which publishing companies will look at it. Stephanie Gertler: Publishing companies will not look at a short story or even a novel, without a literary agent sending it along. Write your novel! Turn your short story into a novel and then send it along to a literary agent. (Literary agents want to see finished work). Have confidence and just write from your heart. Girlposse.com Reader: I loved the interview. It was so interesting. I can't wait to read Jimmy's Girl now. Which is more rewarding to you, your journalism career or writing books? Stephanie Gertler: Writing books is more rewarding although when I was writing features I loved that as well. I do a great deal of research for my novels, however, so it's still satisfying in the journalistic sense that I am still always learning and meeting people who educate me. I am always learning new things which is what I loved about journalism. Girlposse.com Reader: Hello Stephanie! Do you keep a log book/dream diary next to your bed and write down your thoughts when you wake up? and if so, have any of your dreams become part of your writings? Stephanie Gertler: I have a heaping pile of paper scraps and a pen in my night table drawer and, yes, I often awaken and write something down or scribble an idea as I'm waiting for sleep to come. I also write on cocktail napkins in restaurants even though I carry a pad in my purse (I always forget that it's there!). Often I'll witness something or hear some music that triggers a scenario in my head and I have to get it down on paper....I used to tell myself that I'd remember it without making notes but those "senior moments" just don't allow that :) And many of these scribbles have become chapters or scenes in chapters. With The Puzzle Bark Tree, I awakened one morning having had a dream where the plot that I'd been working on came together for me....I wrote the synopsis on two brown paper grocery bags (I was at a hotel in the Adirondacks and that was the only BIG paper I had on hand). The synopsis translated to 42 typewritten pages and I had my book! Thanks everyone - these were wonderful questions! Happy Reading! Send this interview to a friend Post your own Book Reviews here |
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