 | I was born in Texas in 1973. I'm a Virgo—such a Virgo, as one of my graduate school friends put it. I’ve always wanted to be a writer, as you can see from this terribly earnest college-application essay I recently unearthed. My first plan was to be a reporter. To that end, I spent most of my years at Vanderbilt University in the basement of the student center, working for the student newspaper, the Vanderbilt Hustler. (Yes, there were lots of jokes about the name.) I also interned for the Nashville daily, the Tennessean, and the Memphis daily, the Commercial Appeal. During that last internship, before my senior year in college, I was sitting in a zoning-board meeting in a little town in Mississippi when I suddenly understood with depressing certainty that I couldn’t do this for the rest of my life.
So I went to graduate school, at the University of Michigan, and then moved to Boston, where I put my master’s degree to work by taking a job as a secretary for the Harvard Graduate School of Education. I had an office with a door, and an amazingly generous boss, and I wrote most of my first novel there, in between ordering lunches and doing other people’s typing. Since then I’ve also been a secretary at Duke, as well as a cataloguer in a used bookstore, a magazine editor, and a freelance copyeditor. I've been a visiting writer at Vanderbilt University and Sewanee, the University of the South, and I’ve taught at the Sewanee Young Writers' Conference and worked for the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, both of which I highly recommend for aspiring writers, teenage (SYWC) and adult (SWC). I’ll be teaching this summer in the new low-residency MFA program at Murray State in Kentucky.
After spending most of my life moving every one to four years (my father is a retired Air Force colonel), I've lived outside of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, for the past seven. My husband, Matt O’Keefe, is a writer and musician. His novel, You Think You Hear, is based on his experiences as a roadie for our friends in the band Papas Fritas. He and his brother Nathaniel have their own band, the Day Action Band, and their music is on the soundtrack for their brother Jeremy's independent film, wrestling. We have a daughter, Eliza, who was born in October of 2004, a week after I delivered my second novel to my editor.
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Fiction:
The Lie That Tells a Truth, by John Dufresne — A terrific how-to-write book, with insights both philosophical and practical and numerous useful exercises. At the moment I'm reading Dufresne's new collection of short stories, Johnny Too Bad, which is also terrific.
Banishing Verona, by Margot Livesey - The gripping story of an unexpected love between a plain-faced pregnant woman (Verona) and a beautiful man with Asperger's (Zeke), along with the escapades of Verona's ne'er-do-well brother, the battle between Zeke's parents, and a long-ago mystery about Verona's grandparents.
Check out some of Kevin Wilson's sad, hilarious, wonderfully odd stories: "The Choir Director's Affair" in the 2005 New Stories from the South; Worst-Case Scenario" in the 30 July 2004 issue of One Story; "Blowing Up on the Spot" in Ploughshares; "Everything I Touch Runs Wild" in storySouth; and "The Pigeon Cove Festival of Lights" in Land-Grant College Review.
Movies:
Howl's Moving Castle - Like a fabulous dream.
TV:
Deadwood - Psychological acuity. Dialogue so good you have to rewind and hear it again. Plus sex, violence, and an abundance of profanity.
Jewelry:
I have to plug another project by a Papas Fritas member: Shivika Asthana, onetime drummer, has turned her attention to necklaces and earrings, and she makes great stuff. |
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Books:
Please Don't Come Back from the Moon, by Dean Bakopoulos - A coming-of-age novel with a touch of magical realism.
The Bright Forever, by Lee Martin - A haunting book about the effect of a child’s abduction on a small town. People who liked my first book, in particular, will love this one.
D.B., by Elwood Reid - A brilliant novel by one of my best friends, taking off from the real-life exploits of D.B. Cooper, who hijacked a plane, demanded money and parachutes, and jumped, never to be heard from again. It’s like a detective novel crossed with Charles Portis.
Movies:
With a seven month old, I haven’t been to the theater in ages. But, because I’m working on a screenplay for Body of a Girl, I just rented Klute and Sea of Love. Both are great—smart, character-driven, and scary all at once.
TV:
Arrested Development - I'm thrilled it didn't get cancelled.
Veronica Mars - Like Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the greatest TV series of all time), a well-written show with a smart, intrepid young heroine.
Music:
Check out tonygoddess.com, especially the stuff by The Rudds. (Tony was in the excellent indie band Papas Fritas.)
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 | Books I always come back to:
Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Eva Moves the Furniture, by Margot Livesey
Jesus' Son, by Denis Johnson
Airships, by Barry Hannah
High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby
The Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro
Wonder Boys, by Michael Chabon
Sister, by A. Manette Ansay
Lucky Jim, by Kingsley Amis
True Grit, by Charles Portis
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami
I advise students to learn through imitation, and when I'm working on a book, I look for my own role models. Here are some of the ones I've found:
Body of a Girl
Tapping the Source, by Kem Nunn
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, by P.D. James
The Myth of You and Me
Cat's Eye, by Margaret Atwood
Truth and Beauty, by Ann Patchett
Middlemarch, by George Eliot
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