Looking for a memoir writing interview? You've come to the right place...I recently had the pleasure of conducting a memoir writing interview with Karen Tintori (KT), a writer of memoirs and thrillers. The discussion we had is intriguing and seizes upon some of the most motivational factors of writing: finding your motivation, conquering your fears, and wholeheartedly embracing the genre in which you choose to write. Read through Karen's answers and my takes on what she has to say. Hopefully both opinions will give you a bit of guidance in the right writing direction. You also may want to check out www.karentintori.com. Karen's website provides you with news and information about her books and other endeavors. Click for Free Writer's Block Help E-Zine and Free E-Book Now, on to the interview. What is the first step you take in writing a memoir? KT: “If it involves a family, do what a genealogist does. Sit down with a tape recorder or notepad with the oldest living people in your family to get down the family stories. Everything in that context is folkloric, so depending on how authentic you want to be, you can even draw upon your own memories.” For Trapped, a memoir written about a mining disaster, relatives of the miners would tell Karen that various things happened to different people, but if she was not able to corroborate the facts, she would not include them. She made it a point to be able to find the information she was including in at least two different sources. She required that it gibed with at least two to three people’s recollections.When she says “folkloric,” she is implying that everyone’s memories and perceptions or even the things they block out from their memories are unique and can bring new visions to the way the story is being related. “Draw upon your own memories and sit down with other people who are part of that story and see how your memories flesh together and connect,” says Karen. How do you go about finding your writing topics? KT: For Trapped, I didn’t start out to write about the mine disaster. I started doing genealogy and looking into the grandfather whom I knew the least about. It started as a detective hunt for a man. I only knew he had come from Italy and worked as a miner in Illinois, and that he survived a mine disaster. I started my search by writing to the mayor of Cherry, Illinois, and the United Mine Workers to find out what they knew about John Tintori and the Cherry Mine Disaster. The detective hunt landed me numerous jigsaw pieces of the total mine disaster.” As Karen was watching the movie “Titanic” when it first came out, she realized she was sitting on a story as good as the movie. Unto the Daughters also employed genealogical research. Karen’s great-aunt (her grandmother’s sister) was murdered in an honor killing when she married a man her father and brothers didn’t approve of and had cautioned her against marrying. The research took time, but paid off in the end, as the memoir of her great-aunt’s life provides a strong representation of a woman and her struggle to rebel against what she knows and has grown up with, only to be killed for her determination and attempted strength. What are some other steps you must take to write a memoir, besides research? KT: “Bring alive the time during which these people lived. Memoirs happen over the course of a period of years. The setting is a character in itself. Bring alive the time and place so that readers can feel and taste the culture. Bring to life the city that it took place in and the way things were done at the time.” Did you read other memoirs first in order to get into the hang of writing your own? KT:“Narrative nonfiction and memoir writing go hand-in-hand. I read Isaac’s Storm by Erik Larson. It is the story of a hurricane that destroyed Galveston, Texas in the early 1900s. I used this to help in writingTrapped. I wanted to see how other writers brought characters to life who’d been long dead. To write about these characters as a novelist does was very frustrating. I wasn’t present when most of the conversations I write about took place. I had to rely on family stories and weed out the truth.” Karen struggled to figure out how she could recreate her characters and yet keep the nonfiction genre at the same time. She had enough newspaper articles and transcripts of the trials from the Cherry Mine Disaster to help her with this task for Trapped. Only two lines of the entire memoir were made up when all was written and done. She needed primary documents to find out the true conversations, and did the best she could with the transcripts, news articles, letters, and government reports. What is the hardest part of memoir writing? KT: “You need to give yourself permission to re-create those lost lives.” I’m sure that many of you find it hard to write. That is why you’re here, visiting writers-block-help.com. If you can only learn to give yourself permission to create and re-create what you want to write about, you will be on the right track to writing like Karen does -- with enthusiasm, creativity, and imagination to help you bring your scenes to life. Are there any books you can recommend for aspiring memoir writers? KT: “The Situation and the Story: The Art of Personal Narrative by Vivian Gornick, The Forest for the Trees by Betsy Lerner, and Your Life as Story by Tristine Rainer”. Do you have any desire to write a memoir solely about you and your life, or do you prefer to stick to writing about others through memoirs? KT: “My husband Larry and I have teased – half joked, half serious – about wanting to write a memoir about how I became Jewish and he became Italian.” Both Karen and her husband, Larry, have had their DNA tested. Larry has discovered that he has ancestral roots in Italy, and Karen decided to convert to Judaism before meeting Larry. Even though she thinks it would make an interesting story, she likes sticking to what she already knows and writes. What would you say is an interesting writing quirk you have? KT: “A technique I have used, even in journalism, is that the ending sentence always refers back to – or even echoes - the lead. I like to bring things full circle.” I strongly recommend taking this technique to heart. I also find that it is a helpful and rewarding technique as I read books by other authors, as well as when I write my own pieces. Bringing things full circle ensures that readers understood and contemplated what you wrote about earlier in the piece, and grasped how it figured into each part of what you were writing as you were writing it, since it came back at the end and wrapped itself up neatly. What made you realize you wanted to write memoirs or family histories? KT: “In Unto the Daughters, Frances was only sixteen when she was murdered. I didn’t care what she did; she didn’t deserve the fate that she got. There is a Jewish curse that says “may your name and your memory be erased”. Frances was obliterated from the family and her name scratched out of the family passport. All articles of clothing and everything else that had to do with her were destroyed. I wanted to make her a part of the family again. Restoring her name was an overwhelming, driving force in my writing of that family history.” “I wrote Trapped first, not as much as a memoir, but I wrote it because it had such historic significance. Mining laws changed as a result of that mine disaster. Not only did so many boys and men die in a mine that had been declared fire-proof, but twenty of them barricaded themselves in the depths of the mine for eight days and walked out alive. It is also a tale of survival. I wanted to share the story with a wider audience – people in Illinois knew about it, but not everyone else in the world.” How long does the whole process take to research, write, and publish a book, if you’re lucky? KT: “It takes three to six months once your idea is crystallizing to get a proposal done. Then, once you have a publisher, it takes about one month for the publisher to decide if they want to buy it. You then have approximately one year to write the book. The contract gives the publisher eighteen months once you have finished the book before they must publish it. Therefore, it takes approximately three years from start to finish to publish a book, and that is if you already have a publisher.” Keep in mind that the speed at which you write is also a factor, and finding a publisher also adds time into the process. What was one of the most surprising things you learned in creating your books? KT: “In Unto the Daughters, the water and drowning theme is strong. I had other people who’d almost drowned tell me their experiences. It was interesting that my near-drowning experience at the age of thirteen was the same or almost the same as how they had felt.” This goes back to the idea of finding ideas that gibe with what other people are saying. If you cannot corroborate your facts and find other people, articles, etc. that substantiate what you are saying in your writing, your research will not hold up as well. For all your hard work, make sure that your facts are straight in your memoir. It will lend so much more credibility and effectiveness to your writing. What is your favorite book of those you’ve written? KT: “Unto the Daughters is my favorite.” Do you have any suggestions to help people become better writers? KT: “Read widely and read many different genres. Most writers I know are avid readers or started out as avid readers, and still are avid readers. Read others’ memoirs and write every day. Even if it’s a letter, a journal entry, or an e-mail, the only way to hone your writing skills is by writing.” Do you hear from your readers much? KT: “I don’t get much discussion on my website’s message boards, but a lot of readers have e-mailed me through my website.” What kinds of things do they say and how do you use that feedback? KT: “I have received tons of e-mails from people and I forward the notes on to my agent and editor. Most responses are for my memoirs, which are the only two books I have written individually. People whose ancestors’ lives echoed the situations I write about, or people who lived in the area and were touched by the same issues, write to me. Men and women write to say how Unto the Daughters affected them and how much courage they feel it took to write it. There are also people who say that I made things up. They say that their grandmother never ate off of their grandfather’s plate, as I say my grandmother did, for example.” Traditions can influence your writing. You can never please everyone as you write. So, write what you know, how you know it, and know that there will always be people who simply cannot be pleased. You just have to know how to find and impress the ones who can and will be pleased by your style, your influence, and your writing. Do you prefer writing adult books or have you ever thought about writing a children’s book or young adult book? KT: “I have never had an interest in writing children’s books, but my neighbor and mom swear that I used to make up and tell children’s stories when I babysat as a kid.” Do you think it is wise to hire a proofreader or editor? KT: “I don’t think it is wise. In my opinion, it is a waste of money. If you have a trusted friend, let them read your work. My husband and one of my sons are my first editors. I ask them for constructive criticism.” Having someone close to you read your work may seem like the best way to get a great response. Chances are that they will want to make you happy and give you good feedback. However, you want to make sure that they are being honest and sincere with you. Tell them you want and need them to critique your work as well as they possibly can, so you can edit and revise accordingly. If they are really that close to you, they will want you to succeed almost as much as you want to succeed yourself. So, have them provide you with true, nitty-gritty feedback. You’ll thank them for it when your revision surpasses your original work’s quality. Has a review or critique from a publisher or a magazine profile ever changed your perspective on your work (toward the positive or the negative)? KT: “No. I always think of my work the same way. When I read something like that, I tell myself it is only one person’s opinion. If it’s something really outstanding, it makes you feel good, but some negatives you feel you haven’t deserved. You must remember that it is just one person’s take on your writing.” How did you actually become a writer? KT: “I studied journalism at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. I knew I wanted to be a writer since I was twelve years old. My parents wanted me to go into nursing or teaching, but I knew that writing was just what I wanted to do.”
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