Recently I answered a series of interview questions to submit to Authors Answer. Unfortunately, after writing the answers I discovered that Authors Answer has a policy of interviewing an author only once — and I had been interviewed when The F Words was published. Click here to read that interview.
So, instead of having my thoughts sit by their lonely selves somewhere on my computer, I thought I’d share them on my blog. Here, then, are the five interview questions and my answers.
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Are there particular films that have influenced your writing?
I think there are such films, but I also think I’m not aware of their influence until, maybe, somebody asks me. For example, I suspect that The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings influenced me as I was writing Women at Play: The Story of Women in Baseball.
Both women ballplayers and Black ballplayers were blocked from entering major league baseball, and so both groups traveled around the country via railroad and, later, cars and vans, challenging town teams and even minor league teams to baseball games, splitting the gate money. Many of the obstacles these two groups faced were identical — finding safe places to play; finding safe places to stay; being paid their fair share of the gate money; making the next scheduled game in time; and so on. Seeing these things happen in a film probably influenced the way I envisioned what I was writing about in Women at Play.
I said that I’m not aware of the influence of films on my writing until somebody asks about them — but when it comes to my most recent novel, Exit Velocity, I was definitely aware that a well-known movie classic was playing a role. That movie is The Day the Earth Stood Still, and while Exit Velocity doesn’t follow the same plot as the film, the fact is that the film plays a minor role in the book. Deeply, the parrot from another planet, sent to Earth to try to stop humanity’s course of self-destruction, is introduced to the movie in a scene in the second half of the novel. Deeply’s identification with the mission of the movie protagonist underlines the life-and-death question of who has political power.
Which group in our society holds political power, and how do they use it?
What’s your favorite comic strip or graphic novel?
Ha! I think that my answer to this question will probably go further back in time than anybody else’s. I grew up reading Classic Comics, which later became Classics Illustrated. These books looked and felt like magazines, on pulp paper.
I remember reading Moby Dick; The Last of the Mohicans; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; The Prince and the Pauper; The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; Tale of Two Cities; Robinson Crusoe; Treasure Island, and many others. The art and the story-told-in-panels fascinated me. I swear I read my favorite, Moby Dick, at least fifty times. My second fave was Treasure Island, followed by The Prince and the Pauper. I can still “see” some of the art in my memory.
What I loved about these comics/graphics was, most of all, the story itself. Yes, I loved the colors and the panels, but man, was the story-line ever powerful! No matter how many times I read a particular book, it was as if I were reading it for the first time.
It’s possible that Treasure Island influenced me to create a parrot character for Exit Velocity. I can still envision the cover of that Classics Illustrated: Long John Silver walking along the shore, a parrot on one shoulder, a crutch under the opposite arm. And I can hear the parrot (named Captain Flint) screeching “Pieces of Eight!” The parrot in my book isn’t interested in pieces of eight: it’s donuts he craves.
Although I do read comic strips and graphic novels, they don’t influence me as powerfully as the Classic Comics did. Some of that may be due to the fact that I was in my formative years (say ages eight to twelve) when I read the Classic Comics, but I believe that some of it is also due to the fact that those classic stories have withstood the test of time. They are powerful in every way.
Is there another profession you would like to try?
If I absolutely had to choose something else to do, I would love to be a basket-maker. But I can’t imagine any other profession at all if it meant I had to give up writing. So I think the answer is No. I’m doing what I love to do: write.
However, I think that maybe I “try” other professions by incorporating them into my novels. I haven’t yet incorporated basket-making, but I have integrated crochet into Exit Velocity. Next to basket-making, my second-most-loved craft is crochet.
Early in Exit Velocity, Rowan, the protagonist, pulls a box out from under her bed. The box is full of granny squares that she’s been crocheting for a year. I have to say, this action was a bit of a surprise to me: her pulling the box out from under her bed, and it being full of granny squares. When I was in my twenties and thirties, I was crazy about crocheting granny squares. I swear I crocheted thousands of them: shawls, hats, caps, vests, sweaters, throws, bedspreads, and more. Finally, I left granny squares behind and went on to other things, my most recent being crocheting sleeping mats out of one-use plastic bags, to be distributed to people who do not have housing.
In Exit Velocity Rowan’s crocheting of granny squares strengthens a life-long bond with her best friend, Keisha. It’s also a bond with her absent mother. And, ultimately, crochet plays a critical role in the novel. I guess you could say that I practice other professions/trades by inserting them into my fiction.
Do you collect anything? If so, what, why, and for how long?
Hmmm. I had to look up “collect” just to be certain I would be answering the question correctly. To collect is “to systematically seek and acquire items of a particular kind as a hobby.” Wow — this definition reminds me of the plots of certain mystery novels, in which somebody is murdered for an item in his/her collection.
So I’m happy to say: No, I do not collect anything!
I do, however, have small “collections,” or groups of things. I did not acquire these by systematically seeking them out. Rather, my husband and I bought them on our travels both because they were beautiful and because they remind us of the places we’ve been.
Because we’ve traveled a lot in the American Southwest, we do have a small collection of pueblo pottery. And we have other objects of Native American art. The simplest explanation for why we have these particular pieces is that they speak to us.
Answering this question makes me think about the books I’ve written. Specifically, I just now asked myself whether any character in my books collects anything. The answer is No.
But let’s not forget Rowan and her granny squares. When the novel begins, she has been crocheting a granny square a week for eleven years. That’s 572 granny squares. She does this because she promised Keisha that she would crochet her one granny square each week. So . . . I guess you could say that in Exit Velocity Keisha has a huge collection of granny squares!
What’s the difference (at least for you!) between being a writer and an author. How do you shift gears between the two?
For me, the difference between being a writer and an author is fairly clearcut. Writing is what I love to do. When I’m at my computer in the morning, I’m a writer. I write fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. I write for adults and for teens and for children. (Seldom in the same book!)
But when I’m an author, I’m dealing with the business end of being a writer. I give talks, I teach classes. I create flyers, I create videos. And countless other things that I’d rather not think about — because being an author requires a very large amount of time each day. The time spent being an author eats into the time I can spend being a writer. This is not to say that I resent the author time. It’s something that’s very necessary, and so I always have a good attitude about it.
The way I shift gears between the two is to have morning work and afternoon work. Because writing is what I love, I do it first thing after breakfast, not only because I’m a morning person, but also because I want to take advantage of any writing problems my subconscious was solving while I slept. I do the author work in the afternoon and sometimes the evening.
I wrote Exit Velocity in 2020, when COVID was at its worst. Then I rewrote it three times. I’m sure the writing helped keep me stable. In September of 2023, when I signed a publishing contract, I entered the author phase for this particular novel, and I imagine I’ll be in that phase for another six to twelve months.
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Barbara Gregorich 