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A literary dynasty is a lofty thing to contemplate. I recently read Charlotte Brontë: A Writer’s Life by Rebecca Fraser, and while I found it a bit stolid and too reliant on Elizabeth Gaskell’s original biography, I was intrigued by the Brontë sisters: fragile of health, strong of spirit, living their lives more fully on the page than they ever did in what most people think of as the real world. In a repressed household—in a repressed, mannered society—the sisters found freedom on the page.
The sisters’ lives and the family dynamics made me start to think about other literary dynasties: the Cheevers, the Kings, the Barthelmes, the intricately intertwined Bloomsbury Group—which tempted me to create a family tree just to understand all the connections.
My own family tree of writers is simpler and far from being a literary dynasty. There’s me, there’s my aunt Josephine, and there’s my cousin Debra Mihalic Staples. Maybe a love of writing does run in the family, but I tend to think we each discovered and developed it on our own.
Debrais a two-time winner in the South Carolina Arts Commission Fiction Project. Her story “What Has Become of Us”was a Judge’s Choice in the Still: The Journal 2014 Literary Contest.Her nonfiction has appeared in numerous anthologies, magazines, and newspapers, including Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel: Contemporary Appalachian Writing, Catfish Stew: Tender Morsels of Fine Southern Literature, South Carolina Wildlife, High Country News, and The Denver Post. She was born in West Virginia and currently resides in north Georgia. Find more information at debramihalicstaples.com
Q: Because everyone always wants to know this: Describe your writing environment and your work habits.
A: When my husband and I bought this house, I snagged this little sitting room, filled it with my books, souvenirs, and consignment store finds, and made it my workspace. Our dog lies beside my chair while I’m working, which I love, except when she snores.
When sit at my desk I aim for a daily page quota, but even when I’m not putting words down I’m still “writing” in my head.
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Note to dog: Do not snore.
Q: What are must-haves and must-not-haves in your writing space?
A: I must have a spiral-bound notebook and a pen that doesn’t skip or blot. I also prefer to have my laptop. The soundscape is important, too; I am easily distracted by noise, and soft instrumental music helps to counter that.
Q: What compels you to write?
A: I am compelled by a need—a craving, really—to see a story take shape on the page. I’m always intrigued by how what’s in my mind changes and develops in the process of writing it down.
Q: Describe your evolution as a writer. What was a turning point for you?
A: As soon as I learned how to read, I began making up stories. At some point I began intermittently keeping a journal and writing free verse. During and after college I wrote short stories and creative nonfiction, but I didn’t begin publishing my work until I hit my thirties. Then I began producing articles, essays, short stories and novels in earnest.
Q: Writing is an exchange. What do you want your readers to bring to your work, and what do you want to bring to them?
A: With nonfiction, I want readers to become as interested in the topic as I was when I wrote the piece. To achieve this, I need to show them why they should care. With fiction, I want the readers to care about the characters I’ve created and stay with them through their transformations. That means I must reveal the characters’ traits, motivation, and growth in a compelling way.
Q: What feeds your writing?
A: I’m inspired by reading, travel, music, art, nature and research. Oh, how I love research. I’ll get interested in something—some historical event, for example—and I’ll chase down everything I can learn about it. Sometimes this results in a story or essay.
Q: What is the most valuable advice you ever received as a writer, and what advice would you offer emerging writers?
A: Most useful advice: Don’t let yourself get sidetracked by research. I’ve heard authors Ron Rash, Josephine Humphreys, and June Hall McCash all speak about the potential to get too absorbed in research, particularly when writing historical fiction. It’s something I try to guard against.
For emerging writers, my advice is to read voraciously, but to also have experiences that take you out of your everyday routine.
Q: What are you currently reading, and what do you think of it?
A: I’m reading Some Luck by Jane Smiley. I enjoy how the point of view switches often between the different characters. I also like the story structure; there’s a chapter for each year between 1920 and 1953.
I just finished The Air We Breathe by Andrea Barrett. It’s about people in tuberculosis sanatoriums in the Adirondacks during the early 1900s, and I was struck by the many parallels to our current dilemmas in dealing with serious contagious illnesses.
Q: What makes something a good read for you?
A: I like clues as to what formed a character’s personality and what propels them forward. Flat characters tend to put me off a book quickly. I also want a vivid sense of place, skillfully crafted and integrated, not “road poetry”-type descriptions that stand separately from the plot.
Q: Do you have creative doubts or fears? What are they, and how do you overcome them?
A: Sometimes I worry that the quality of my craft won’t stand up to the potential of the plot. That can stall my progress. When it does, I take a walk, do some yoga, or make a cup of tea. Then I make myself sit back down and write, even if I end up writing stuff that I’m pretty sure I’ll later delete. As long as I keep writing, it’s not wasted time. Worrying about it—that’s wasted time.
Q: We don't have the luxury of waiting for inspiration. What do you do when you're not feeling the mojo?
A: Often, reading back over the last several pages I wrote will revive the spark. If I’m just distracted, then writing by hand—even just stream-of-consciousness rambling—helps me to clear away the mind clutter. Sometimes whatever is distracting me has to be named and then symbolically set aside. It’s a way of telling my mind I’ll deal with it later, after I’m finished with my pages.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m nearing completion of the first draft of a novel inspired by some family lore on my maternal grandmother’s side. It’s set in the Shenandoah Valley during the last decades of the 19th century.
Q: What's the secret to writing unforgettable characters?
A: I believe that a character becomes unforgettable when the reader recognizes, consciously or not, something they have in common with that character. The chance of this happening is reinforced when the characters are multidimensional. The reader needs enough backstory to provide clues to the character’s motivation. The character should be fleshed out with both strengths and flaws, and the reader should get glimpses into their interior lives and interpersonal relationships.
Q: What didn’t I ask that I should have—and what’s the answer?
A: What made you decide to write historical fiction? I started researching the facts surrounding a family story from just after the Civil War, then scenes and characters began popping into my head, and soon I was writing the first draft of my novel-in-progress. I made a research trip to the Shenandoah Valley this past spring, and it felt like I was making a pilgrimage to honor the ancestors.