Power of Story--Questions from Vince

These questions are from Vince at the journal, To Grow Is To Be Anxious.

FIRST: The rules because every game has got to have them, you know. Leave me a comment saying "interview me." The first five to leave a comment requesting to be participants will be interviewed. I will respond by asking you five questions via e-mail.  You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions and a link to my site.   You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. (Write your own questions or borrow some)  

1. Jos. Campbell seems to be a guiding light in your present thinking. Do you find him reflected in your personal life?  

Like so many, I discovered Joseph Campbell on PBS by watching his interviews will Bill Moyers.  Campbell at that time was a retired professor from Sarah Lawrence.  Listening to Campbell, I felt my thoughts about storytelling congealing into a philosophy.  Why do I write?  For many years, I couldn't answer that question and feel my answer was truthful.  My writing life is my personal life.  My writing life is my life.  Moreover, Campbell helped show me how to look at the world every day, whether I'm teaching, writing, grocery shopping, taking a walk, whatever.  His explanation about life, that life is a series of transformations and passing through inner thresholds of experience, made more sense to me than any I had ever heard.  I now own the DVD, The Power of Myth, thanks to our youngest son, who gave it to me one year for mother's day.  Many libraries have the Joseph Campbell conversations with Bill Moyers on videotape or DVD, and I highly recommend them.  

2.In which environment are you most comfortable-- teaching or writing?  

Writing.  

3.Has the journalling experience helped to congeal your thoughts vis-a-vis writing? Does teaching continue to contribute to this?  

Yes, the journaling helps a great deal.  The way I piece together life is associative, rather than linear.  This journal helps me to "see" what I'm thinking, what I've been studying, what I've been experiencing, and it offers me a way to piece it all together.  I don't have to worry about any of the things we normally concern ourselves about in academic writing--focus, organization, development, control.  I can forget all that and let the answers slowly bubble and rise to the surface.  I'm in no hurry.  Teaching can do the same thing, especially creative writing classes.  I really feed off the energy produced by those, although classroom dynamics can also get in the way.  You do have to be much more organized in your approach to the classroom--the students deserve that.  And then there is always the chance of a clash of personalities.  Finally, there's the problem of having to give grades at the end of the semester, a task I don't find enjoyable.  

4. Who is the Author who first excited you?; who caused you to take those first steps?  

As a very young adolescent, I discovered the short stories of Guy de Maupassant.  They were so frightening to me, so close to the bare bone of truth, I thought at the time, that I hid his collection under my bed for fear I would be "found out" reading them.  The story I remember best is "Mother of Monsters."  It was about a poor woman who bound her abdomen with corsets during her pregnancies so as to create "monsters," which she then sold to side shows.  It was how she made her living.  As you can see, I never forgot the story--who could?  The gruesome nature of the story reinforces the metaphorical implication.  The story forces us to ask ourselves to what extent we endanger ourselves and our children for the sake of money.  How do we "contort" our children psychologically so that they (and we) will "succeed" or "fit in,"  and thus become financially successful. I'm sure I didn't understand all the implications of the story when I was young; but the story has grown in my mind all these years, and it has served as a warning.   

However, it was probably J. D. Salinger that made me want to write stories.  I was fascinated by the precocious children in his stories.  

5. When you read fiction that you`ve finished, do you smile at those parts of your experience that have been unconsciously reflected in your writing?  

Definitely.  I am constantly amazed at what surfaces in my writing.  My stories give me so much insight into how different facets of life connect--reading, experience, hopes, education, mythology, psychology, dreams.  

Thanks so much, Vince, for these wonderful questions.

P.S.  Just one week left to post to Theresa's Book of Questions.  Click HERE to post questions.  All questions will go with me down the Ohio River!