Tag: interview

Conversation with Tony Taddei

Denton LovingLeave a comment

For many years before Tony Taddei was creating characters on the page, he was creating them on the stage as a trained actor.  Born and raised in New Haven, Connecticut, Tony now lives in New Jersey. I first met Tony in 2014 when we both attended the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. A few years later, we reconnected through the Bennington College Writing Seminars. Though all of my interactions with Tony had been related to writing, I hadn’t had the pleasure to read his work for myself until the recent publication of his collection of linked short stories, The Sons of the Santorelli. What a joy it was to discover the craftsmanship and poignancy in these twelve stories about an immigrant family, particularly the men in the family who struggle with their desires and ambitions. Yes, this is a narrative about an immigrant family, but as David Gates said about the book, this is not “the conventional immigrant family saga.” Tony was kind enough to answer some of my questions about putting these stories together, about how he avoided convention, and how he infused a political slant into such personal, character-driven writing.

DL: How long did it take you to write these stories, and do you recall when you knew how individual stories would work together? Can you talk about your reasons for writing multiple, linked stories rather than a novel?

TT: I took my time writing these stories, so that the process from drafting the initial stories to finalizing the collection probably took five or six years.  The collection wasn’t the only thing I was working on during the time, and, in any case, I didn’t want to rush the process of writing the collection.  First, because I wanted to get the premise of each story right as well as to spend time considering what stories might need to be added, and second, because I was having a lot of fun writing about these people and I kind of wanted to savor it. 

During the process of working on the stories I don’t think I really had a master plan for how they would all work together.  That said, once I decided to write one story for each of the Santorelli sons and grandsons as well as at least one story about the patriarch, the linkages between stories started to become evident, and I was able to find ways in rewriting the stories and adding new ones to get them to work together as a piece.  My goal was to have each story stand on its own but also for a reader to be able to sit back and think about them in their entirety after finishing the collection to realize that the parts of the book made up a whole.

As to why I wrote the saga of this family as linked stories rather than a novel, I did it because it gave me the ability to tell multiple, smaller stories that I would not have been able to tell in a novel (while still trying to make the novel a cohesive whole).  It was also a lot easier for me to write about the individuals in this very complex and human family in separate stories than it would have been in a novel.  By telling the story of the Santorellis a character at a time, I think I did more justice to each individual while still creating the personality and a legacy of a whole family.

DL: One of the recurring themes throughout these stories is the idea of the immigrant experience, often depicted here in connection with “immigrant shame” and the idea that America “breaks” the spirit of immigrants. This is the antithetical American story. How conscious were you of making this kind of political statement during the writing? Do you have advice for other writers about incorporating political ideas into fiction?

TT: As the work progressed, I was very conscious of it.  Having come from an immigrant family and seen them fail more than succeed at the things they most wanted I can be somewhat cynical about the idea of an American Dream to begin with. I knew that cynicism would likely play a role in the situations I put my characters in.

That said, I didn’t I initially set out to tell stories that torpedoed the idea of what can be achieved in America.  I set out to write human stories that were compelling to read as well as funny and tragic with as many twists and surprises as I could manage.  In order tell the truth about the characters in this family as I saw them, I had to show the forces that were working upon them. The largest of those forces being that for most immigrants and, especially for the poor, this country very often only lets them get so far before it pushes them back down again.  This comes in the form of economic imprisonment, and it comes in the form of racial imprisonment where one wave of immigrants who’d faced bigotry visits their own xenophobia and bigotry on the next wave of immigrants to reach America’s shores.   

My advice for writers who want to incorporate political ideas into fiction is to first find an honest story that is personal and then begin writing it without focusing on the political or cultural connotations. If the story is honest and tracks with the world we live in, they won’t be able to help themselves from writing about the political forces that are acting upon their characters. Those forces come into play in our lives most of the time without us even realizing they are there.  After that, when the writer looks back on what they’ve written, they can draw out the more political aspects of the story to any degree they choose. To put the above more succinctly, all politics are personal. I think any political writing should follow that guideline.

DL: Many of these stories are told through the male point of view which makes sense given the title of the collection. But that’s not to say that you don’t give voice to women within the Santorelli family. How did you settle on the balance between male and female characters and points-of-view? Were there any challenges in allowing the women to have their say in this male-dominated cast?

TT:  Not at all, because I think if you look closely at each of the stories, you’ll see that the women in the backgrounds of these men’s lives are the real truth-tellers.  The stories would not have found the ballast they needed for their conflict and reasoning if it weren’t for the women characters. A reader will likely see this most clearly in a story like “Commedia Dell’Arte” which has the matriarch of the family as the protagonist trying to make sense of and tell the truth about male dominance in her life.  But it’s just below the surface of most of the other stories as well. From “Songs for Swingin’ Lovers” where a prostitute early on dominates a group of highly dysfunctional and misogynist men, to “Valiant” where the sisters and especially the mother in the family turn out to be stronger and more insightful then either the father or the son.

So, no, I did not find many challenges in allowing the women to have their say in my largely male-dominated cast.  In fact, I’d say that the challenge was being able to hold off in letting the women have their say long enough so that the men could act out in the wrong-headed and solipsistic ways that I think make the stories interesting and recognizable to readers.  Especially female readers.

DL: In an effort to demystify the process, I always ask writers about the process of submitting their manuscripts for publication. Can you describe the time between writing and publishing these stories? How did you connect with Bordighera Press?

TT:  The time between writing and publishing was, to some extent, concurrent.  I started to send the manuscript to publishers when I had most of the stories finished but was still revising the last two or three.  At that point it was rejection, rejection, rejection until I found Bordighera Press.

Bordighera is a small independent press that is partially privately funded with a mission to publish writing about the culture of Italy and Italian Americans—essays, fiction, poetry, what have you.  They publish a semiannual review of shorter work as well as a twice yearly run of new full-length work and are always looking for good writing that fits the themes of Italian life.   About 2 years ago, I submitted the title story of my collection to Bordighera for consideration in their semiannual review, and it was accepted.  Once I realized that they also published full length work, I sent the full and, by then, nearly completed manuscript, and I was thrilled when they said they wanted to publish it. 

I’ve been telling people who ask how you find a publisher for your work that you have to persevere until you find a publisher that is the right fit.  Most of the time that’s easier said than done.  In my case I believe it was a bit easier because the work was a more-or-less exact match with the kind of work Bordighera is looking for.

DL: What are you working on now?

TT: I’m finishing up another collection of short stories that revolve around the melancholy, indignities, and occasional pleasures that men face as they age.  Each of these stories also weaves in animals and their ability to live instinctually and unquestioningly as a humorous and (I think) affecting counterpoint to the men in the stories who are creating their own problems and then struggling to accept the circumstances they find themselves in.  These two themes may not at first glance seem to go together, but I think the stories work better because of their juxtaposition. I’m hoping to have these stories published as a collection sometime soon and readers can judge for themselves. For now, if any of your readers want to take a look a couple of these stories, they a can go to Animal Literary Magazine and The Florida Review online.  I’m also beginning a novel but it’s too early to say much about it, so I’ll have to get back to you on that.

DL: Are there any opportunities coming up for readers to hear you read from The Sons of the Santorelli either via Zoom or in person?

TT: Yes, I recently read an excerpt from a story in the collection – “We Now Conclude Our Broadcast Day” – online for the Prospect Street Reading series and readers can view that on Facebook Events at  https://www.facebook.com/events/413658933932101/?ref=newsfeed (no Facebook account required to view).

Folks can also go to the Selected Audio section of my website and listen to me read the first two stories from the collection.

Other readings are in the works, and I’ll post the particulars to my social media feeds when they’re set.  (@tony_taddei / Twitter; Tony Taddei / Facebook; tonytaddei / Instagram)

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Huge thanks to Tony for speaking to me about his new book. Don’t forget to order The Sons of the Santorelli now from Bordighera Press. Make sure you never miss a post by subscribing here:

Conversation with Walter M. Robinson

Denton Loving2 Comments

Walter M. Robinson is a writer and physician. Originally from Nashville, Tennessee, Walter now lives in Massachusetts. His collection of essays, What Cannot Be Undone—True Stories of a Life in Medicine, won the River Teeth Book Prize for 2020 and was published by University of New Mexico Press. Walter has been a fellow at MacDowell and Yaddo and was a PEN-New England “New Discovery in Non-Fiction.”

What Cannot Be Undone relates stories from a lifetime of professional experience, primarily working with cystic fibrosis patients. That experience expertly shows the complexity of cystic fibrosis, of the body in general, and of the inner workings of the mind and soul of a medical professional. Among the many aspects of Walter’s work, I admire how he is able to break down complicated medical information so that I, as a lay person, am able to understand it. Walter also served as a medical/hospital ethicist, and the ethical questions—about why and how a person is treated—are some of my favorite parts of these essays.

Walter and I first met as students in the Bennington Writing Seminars, and now we work together as editors at EastOver Press and Cutleaf. Walter agreed to answer some questions about What Cannot Be Undone as well as about the writing and publishing process. Come back tomorrow for a writing exercise inspired by Walter’s work in non-fiction.

DL: The full title of your book is What Cannot Be Undone: True Stories of a Life in Medicine, and yet, you explain in the book’s foreword that you’ve relied on an imperfect memory to write these essays. Can you talk about the challenge of relying on memory in nonfiction, some of the workarounds, and what added measures you took to protect the privacy of patients?

WR: Everything in the book is just as I remember it, but I acknowledge in the foreword that others might remember these events differently than I do. Everyone’s memory is imperfect because we only notice fragments of any event while it is happening, and as time passes, the act of remembering brings some things into sharper focus while others fade away. This is the fallible nature of human memory.

I chose the term “true stories” because these essays are not case reports or journalistic accounts, but nor are they fiction. I wrote them in a style that tries to give life to my experience as a doctor rather than simply recounting a clinical case. Medical case reports never use the first person, but I use it in some of these essays to accentuate that the story is about my perspective. In other essays I use the third person to remove myself somewhat as a character, while in still others I use third person to emphasize how I see myself in the past as a very different person. None of these approaches are typical in medical reports, so it seemed like the term “true stories” was the best fit.

I changed the identifying details of patients and families because I didn’t want my version of events to crowd out the families’ or patients’ versions. I was just one doctor among many, and I was often present at a very difficult part of their lives. I hope the story they live with now is not about me but about their loved one.

One way a nonfiction writer can address natural flaws of memory is to acknowledge in the essay that his version of events is not necessarily the only accurate account, as I did in “Nurse Clappy Gets His.” Another way is to take care not to re-configure the story to make himself look smarter, wiser, or kinder than he was in the moment. I hope I succeeded in that. As I wrote in the foreword, I am “no hero, no wizard, no saint.”  

DL: At the time we met, your goal was to find a way to write about your experiences as a doctor, particularly one who worked with cystic fibrosis patients. So it seems like What Cannot Be Undone is the successful answer to that pursuit. Is this book exactly as you imagined it?

WR: I didn’t call myself a writer when I started at Bennington, though I had written scores of academic papers. I had finished about 60% of what I called a “social history” of cystic fibrosis. It was overly academic and unbearably dull. I knew it, and anyone who tried to read it knew it. Thank goodness my teacher at Bennington, Susan Cheever, told me at our very first meeting, “Walter, this is terrible, just start over.” I will forever be grateful to her for that advice because it saved me from trying to rescue something that wasn’t worth the effort.

And while I started over, I followed the Bennington method: Read one hundred books to write one. Pay close attention to the work of others. Read the work of the past in order to make the work of the present. Gather up the tools of art to see if they fit your own work. What a gift those reading lists have been to me!

By the time I finished I had some idea of what I was doing, and I’ve just kept at it. So I’d say this book is the descendent of that early draft, but they have very little in common. Or at least I hope so.

DL: The essays in What Cannot Be Undone describe traumatic events, particularly for the patients whose lives you write about. But what has always been clear to me in reading your work is that you as a medical professional have carried much of that traumatic history with you. Do you have advice for writers writing about their own trauma?

WR: I think of my work as a doctor as meaningful, moving, difficult, exhausting, and completely absorbing. Yes, it was sometimes heartbreaking, but sometimes it was joyful. I loved being a doctor most of the time, even though I worked mostly with patients with life-limiting illnesses. I admit that I am a person who concentrates more than most on the tragic aspects of human life, and many of the stories in this book end with the death of a patient because being at the bedside of these patients may be the most meaningful work I have ever done.

In the most personal essays in the book, “The Necessary Monster” and “White Coat, Black Habit,” I write about my work in a way that most doctors keep private. I try to bear witness to my uncertainty about my value as a doctor and a human.

I think anyone trying to write about difficult experiences should be as honest as they can but also hold things in reserve. Not every part of a life should be open to public view.

DL: In my recent conversation with Lauren Davis, she said that it took her about five years and 48 rejections before she found a publisher for her first full-length collection of poems. How long did it take you to write and shape these essays? What was the submission and publication process like for What Cannot Be Undone?

WR: I worked on these essays much longer than I work on essays now because I was learning how to write while I was writing this book. I revised all of them over and over and started over with a blank page many times. I’ve gotten much faster over the years, especially in knowing what is not working and starting over.

Once I had enough essays for a book, I submitted the manuscript to an agent and was floored when she said “yes.” I thought it would be smooth sailing from then on, but eighteen months later most of the publishers had not replied. I thanked the agent for her time, and I gave up.

But then two friends from Bennington—one of them you––told me about contests for manuscripts run by journals, and so I submitted it to as many contests as I could find.  A year later, I had gotten form rejections from every single contest. I thanked my two friends, and I gave up, again.

I told myself, “This is no tragedy. You learned so much by writing these essays. This is your second career, and you started in your late fifties. What did you expect? Time to move on to something else.”

As is so often the case, I was wrong again. I thought I had gotten rejections from every contest, but one day I got a call from an unknown number. I didn’t pick up; surely it was those people who are so worried about my warranty expiring, right? But no, the voicemail was from the very kind editor at River Teeth, telling me I had won their Literary Nonfiction Prize. I smiled so hard the rest of that day my face hurt.

After winning the Prize, the publication process was a breeze. The folks at University of New Mexico Press have been delightful and kind to a first-time author. I didn’t count the number of rejections, but I wrote the first very rough draft of one of the essays, “Nurse Clappy Gets His,” in July 2012, and the book came out in February 2022. So it took about ten years.

DL: What are you working on now?

WR: I have been working on two projects. One is another essay collection about medicine and medical ethics tentatively titled “Deciding the Fate of Others.” The other is a more speculative book about the lives my ancestors did not lead so that I might be here to write a book. 

DL: Are there any opportunities coming up for readers to meet you or study with you via zoom or in person? (workshops, readings, interviews, AWP?)

WR: I’ll be at AWP with EastOver Press and Cutleaf, so please stop by our booth and say hello if you’d like to talk about the book. And I am happy to try to arrange readings or other interviews or talks about the book, over Zoom or in person. Contact me at words (at) wmrobinson (dot) com.

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My next post will feature a writing exercise inspired by one of Walter M. Robinson’s essays in What Cannot Be Undone—True Stories of a Life in Medicine.

Conversation with Rosemary Royston

Denton Loving6 Comments

According to Rosemary Royston’s own description, she is a poet, writer, re-imaginer of things. I couldn’t agree more, especially with that last part. Her most recent publication—a full-length collection of poetry, Second Sight, available through Kelsay Press and Amazon—is all about reimagining things. Reading the poems in Second Sight causes me as a reader to want to reimagine things too.

Rosemary agreed to answer some questions about Second Sight as well as about the writing and publishing process. Come back tomorrow for a writing prompt from Rosemary, inspired by her new collection.

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DL: The poems in Second Sight are often about intuition and premonition. A number of poems such as “Mountain Hoodoo” explore rich traditions of superstition. How did you first become interested in these traditions, and why/how did it occur to you that they were ripe for poetry?

RR: Having lived in many places in northeast Georgia, I found Appalachia, where I’ve spent the last 30 years, to be full of wonderful traditions and superstitions that intrigued me greatly. Always one open to the sixth sense and the power of suggestion or intention, I wanted to know more. Where did these “spells” come from? Why did some contain scripture from the Bible (something I stumbled upon), and why were others different? These questions led me in two directions: one, asking my friends and acquaintances in Southern Appalachia for their stories, and two, doing research that ranged from academic to collections based totally on experience or wisdom passed down. There were two sources that were very rich with history and on both ends of the spectrum: Anthony Cavander’s Folk Medicine in Appalachia, and Edain McCoy’s Mountain Magick: Folk Wisdom from the Heart of Appalachia. Cavender’s text is based on significant research, and identifies the “magic” or superstitions that have a level of legitimacy (such as medical magic that uses herbs of the region), along with identifying folk” treatments” that can be confounding and not based on scientific evidence. One of the examples Cavender shared that stayed with me is the act of “passing” a colicky baby around table legs nine times to end the colic. On the other hand, Edain McCoy (an actual relative of the famous McCoy’s) recorded a substantial amount of wisdom that had been passed down from her family. So before I began crafting the poems, I did a good bit of research as I wanted to honor the traditions and be as accurate as possible. Nothing in the poems with “Mountain Hoodoo” are totally made-up by me: they are references to the texts listed in the end of the book, or based on oral traditions shared with me by those who have lived in Appalachia for the majority of their lives.

As for their ripeness for poetry, I know that the traditions of any culture begin to slip away as society changes. I do not want the heritage of Southern Appalachia to evaporate. To capture them in poems allowed me to not only practice my well-loved craft of poetry, but also pass on some of the practices that I found most intriguing.

Second Sight, available through Kelsay Press and Amazon


DL: The third section of Second Sight begins with your son’s at-first undiagnosed illness, but the section includes poems about other traumatic experiences from your life. Can you talk about the benefits of writing about trauma? What’s your process like for transforming that kind of therapeutic writing into a well-crafted poem?

RR: Early in my writing career, I had the luxury of working with Heather McHugh. I had written a poem about my (favorite) dog passing away. She read the poem and put it down and said in the kindest way, “this is too close.” What she meant was that not enough time had not passed. I needed time to grieve. To reflect. She was 100% correct. So my thoughts on trauma are to definitely journal the pain and spiraling that trauma throws us in. But then let it sit. Because if a writer does not, the writing can be too painful to process, or come out in a way that is too sentimental. Even today, when I read “Type 1” or “Sudden Awareness of Embodying the Dialectical” I may tear up. It took years for me to be able to write poetically and with somewhat of a psychic distance about our son’s near-death experience, and my own experiences in this miraculous but aging body. I’m glad I did, but processing and grieving take time, and the writer must honor that. I’d also posit that turning therapeutic writing into poetry is not unlike writing creative nonfiction. The writer must decide what details are necessary, and they must be comfortable editing details or events in order to support the essence of the poem—this includes language, chronology, and the actual event in order to convey the emotions that the writer wishes the poem to convey to its audience.


DL: One of the questions I’m asked the most, especially by poets early in their career, is how to not sound overly prosaic. What kind of craft elements do you employ to identify and modify those prosaic turns of phrase?

RR: Oh, this is a great question and extremely relevant. In the first drafts of many of these poems, I would go back and read them and see that I’d just made more or less a list of my research findings. Making the language poetic was a big factor in taking research and shaping or conjuring it into poetic form. To do this, I had multiple drafts, with specific attention to diction, sound, line breaks, and form. I think that those of us who have grown up in the South have an innate ear for sound, and we often incorporate it without even thinking about it, but I made a concerted effort to take advantage of sound. I turned some of the research I’d gathered into narrative poems. Also, I used the ghazal form, which is a Persian form that allows for repetition. Since spells often involve repetition, I found this to be an applicable form. I intentionally steered away from ballads because not only was I not good at doing them, I felt they were a form already done well by my Appalachian literary aunts and uncles. Finally, I went for the scientific—Latinate titles for some of the poems with the intent that the reader be both aware of sound and craft, but also intellectually engaged—having to read further or deduce exactly what is being described.


DL: My first book took two years to find the right publisher, and that time while you’re searching can be really disheartening. What was the submission and publication process like for Second Sight?

RR: Just as hard as the first process! However, I’m grateful for both opportunities, which took about six years of reorganizing, resending, and hoping. I was proud of myself for being more assertive this go around, though. Initially, Kelsay Books accepted a chapbook submission. But I felt that the submission was too thin for the work I’d done; it did not feature everything I wanted. I asked if they would consider my full-length, and they did! It was very rewarding.


DL: What are you working on now?

RR: Of all the questions, this one (which should be easy) was the most challenging to answer! I will always write poetry. It’s in my bones. However, I’ve found that I’m branching out and experimenting with all types of art, from mixed media, needle felting, and playing barbies! LOL. Yes—barbies. But not only in the sense of play, but also of conveying a message, which is often based on issues such as gender, feminism, and sexism. Often, I’ll “enact” the essence of a poem in one of these forms (for readers who want to see this, follow midge_and_midge on Instagram). I’ve also done some collaborative work with the painter and artist Larry Caveney through ekphrastic poems based on his paintings. For the most part, I feel like I’m in that necessary lull between poetic projects, and I’m enjoying it (as opposed to berating myself!).

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My next post will feature a writing prompt supplied by Rosemary Royston, as well as more information for opportunities to study with Rosemary this spring.

My CutBank Interview with Keith Lesmeister

Denton LovingLeave a comment

Thanks to Barry Maxwell and CutBank Literary Magazine for allowing me to interview my friend Keith Lesmeister about his new collection of stories, We Could’ve Been Happy Here (published by Midwest Gothic Press). Lesmeister lives and works in rural northeast Iowa, and all 12 of these stories explore the contemporary Midwest in some way. Here’s an excerpt from the interview.

DL: I wanted to ask you about the stories all being set in Iowa, which is your home state. The idea of the Mid-West is apparent in a lot of your work, especially in regards to how you create a sense of place to inform and impact your characters. Do you find it easy or difficult to write about this region that you call home?

KL: Very difficult because I’m from here, which means I take a lot for granted. I’ve had to readjust how I interpret my surroundings, thinking of myself like a tourist when I drive around, trying to take it all in. And despite the stereotypes, several parts of Iowa are quite beautiful. That’s been a big surprise for me as I’ve written this collection—how much I truly love the landscape around here.

It’s funny for this to come as a surprise to Lesmeister because when you’re reading his work, it’s pretty obvious how much to loves the place he’s writing about.

There’s also more in the interview about his love of basketball, and there’s some talk about how difficult it can be to herd cattle. Please read the entire piece at CutBank Online: http://www.cutbankonline.org/cutbank-blog/2017/9/cutbank-interviews-keith-lesmeister.

Lesmeister’s fiction and nonfiction have been widely published, and We Could’ve Been Happy Here has received praise from writers such as Benjamin Percy and David Gates. Bret Anthony Johnston said, “These are brutal stories—brutally good, brutally urgent, brutally hopeful.”

Most importantly, be sure to buy the book.  You won’t be sorry.

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