Getting Personal in Your Writing: An Interview with Karen Salyer McElmurray
Rent from DeepDyve- Getting Personal in Your Writing:An Interview with Karen Salyer McElmurray
In both of your novels (Strange Birds in the Tree of Heaven and The Motel of the Stars) you alternate the story's narration between characters. In The Motel of the Stars, it's between Jason Sanderson and Lory Llewellyn. Did you know from the start that the reader needed to see both characters' points of views or did you learn that as you wrote?
In the case of the first novel, I knew it from the beginning, partly because that book evolved from two short stories, one from the point of view of Andrew Wallen, the son in the family, and another short story from the point of view of the mother Ruth. So I always knew as I shaped the novel that I'd put voices together, and the father's voice emerged as I wrote the draft. In the case of Motel, I didn't know. I originally had a whole bunch of material from the point of view of Lory. It was going to be her book only. Gradually, Jason's story entered.
You've said that you feel your writing has improved and matured drastically from your first book Strange Birds in the Tree of Heaven to your most recent book The Motel of the Stars. How so?
I began as a poet, even as a kid, and later when I went to uva, I entered the program as a poet and then went in the direction of fiction. So I always write in this sort of lyric, lush way, and I think sometimes I can get carried away with that and really in love with the sound of my own language. I'm not saying I've stopped being a lyric writer, but I think I'm learning to tighten the language and use the language more effectively. I'm learning something about plot as the result of having written the memoir. In memoir, you're given the plot, i.e., your life, and so, I've learned something about plot. And then, I think my writing has improved—and this is on the more spiritual level—but I've written so much about loss, over and over and over, sort of like repeating this thing in a painting, an image until you understand it, and I feel in a new book I'm working on right now, I'm moving—well, I can't say it's not about loss. It is about loss, but it's really a lot more hopeful, and I think that power of hope has improved the work. [End Page 24]
Do you still write poetry regularly or at all?
I don't, and I feel kind of sad about that. It's partly because I've taught in these mfa programs, and I'll teach around poets, and I feel intimidated. You know, they'll get up and say in a reading, "Oh, let me read my new ghazal for you," and I'll think, "Oh, what's that?" I don't know forms. I don't know the language of poetry. Sometimes I think I should just forget that and just write something because I love it. And maybe occasionally, I've written a poem or two.
You're from Eastern Kentucky, and you've lived at least part of the time in Georgia, and you've lived in lots of other places.
Too many sometimes.
Do you think of yourself as an Appalachian writer, as a Southern writer, as any specific kind of writer?
When I was at Davis & Elkins a couple of days ago for a reading, they put me on a panel about mountaintop removal, and I thought, "Oh my God. What do you want me on there for?" And I started out talking about how I feel I'm an outlander because I've lived away so much. And yet, it is my spiritual homeplace. If I give you my homeplace, it's going to be—well it doesn't exist anymore—but Hagerhill, Kentucky...
