On Bears, Camus and a Mutual Love for Emily Dickinson: Interview with Jenny Torres Sanchez

I'm so happy to welcome Jenny Torres Sanchez back to On The Verge. Jenny's novel Death, Dickinson and the Demented Life of Frenchie Garcia made me a fan, and later led to our friendship (I mean, who else can I talk to about my love for Emily Dickinson?) At a recent writing retreat Jenny and I learned we had other things in common, besides Emily D. We were both English teachers, for example. Also, we both have a weird fascination with bear attacks.

Jenny's latest novel, Because of the Sun is a glorious, heartbreaking magical-realism blend of a dysfunctional mother/daughter relationship with the hypnotic, dream-like tone of Camus' The Stranger.

Plus, it features a metaphorical (and possibly literal) bear.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jody: Okay, so you know that I am obsessed with Sid Fleischman's Two Sticks Theory -- that just as it takes two sticks to build a fire, it takes two ideas to spark a story. What were the two ideas that sparked Because of the Sun?

Jenny: There were actually four sticks: An old short story about a girl and her mother I started when I was about twenty years old, but never finished and that just kind of followed me around all these years. There was the unrelenting Florida sun as summer approached. There were headlines about several black bear/human encounters near where I live in Florida. And definitely, definitely there was The Stranger by Albert Camus, which I read in high school and have always loved.

Jody: I read The Stranger a million years ago. I honestly don't remember anything about it except that I felt like I'd fallen into a dream when I was reading.

Jenny: I had a similar impression. I’ve reread the book a few times over the years but I had just reread about a year before I started writing this novel. That book was so weird to me when I read it in high school, but I was completely fascinated by the main character. Meursault is so . . . weird! And interesting. I felt then like I didn’t quite get him, but I wanted to figure him out. So I thought about that book a lot over the years, and reread it several times, and it ended up inspiring this book in so many ways.

Jody: I can see the similarities. There's this feeling of dreamy detachment in the voice of your main character Dani.

Jenny: Yes, and Meursault's lost his mother too. And there's the blazing hot sun that makes you do/think crazy things, and the question of what it means to have or-- not have hope.

Jody: What was your process for writing this book? Was it different from other books you've written?

Jenny: I was kind of in a weird writing place. A book I had worked on for a while and struggled with, but finished, was on submission. It didn’t look like it was going anywhere and I knew I needed to get myself into a new project or I was going to drive myself crazy. So, the weather had been really hot. I was thinking a lot of The Stranger because the sun always kind of makes me think of that book. I was also thinking of that short story I told you about. I remember vividly sitting down at my kitchen table and playing around with the concept of that short story and getting some opening lines down.

Jody: And then the bears came into it?

Jenny: Ha! Yes. The headlines of bear encounters had been on the morning news lately and when I started writing, all these things started clicking into place. Each time I sat down to work, Dani’s story kept coming together. There wasn’t a whole lot of frustration with this novel. Maybe there was more than I’m remembering, but I think it was less than I’d felt with my previous books. This book felt like it’d been waiting to be written and now was the right time.

Jody: That's a nice feeling.

Jenny: I know. I read or heard Sara Zarr talk about one of her books once (I think it was How to Save a Life) where she said that book felt like a gift. That’s how I feel about this book. It came together strangely and kind of quickly.

Jody: Those days when it's more difficult though, or with other writing projects that are more of a struggle, do you have certain activities that help you to push through?

Jenny: I like to sit outside and think about the story and try to get into my characters’ minds. I like to read poetry and wonder how it might relate to one of my characters. I also like to take short drives while listening to music (usually songs that are related to what I’m working on because I make a playlist for each book I’m working on). Short drives because I usually need to get home and take some notes. All these things help me a lot. I feel like they’re a way to tap into my characters better and get to know them and how they feel.

Jody: Your books are very character-driven rather than plot-oriented.

Jenny: This is true. I love to write the small quiet moments, when a character is very reflective, almost inside themselves wondering about something or discovering something. Those are my absolute favorite scenes to write. Which I guess explains why action scenes aren’t really my thing. They’re not terrible to write, but I don't enjoy them much.

Jody: Switching topics a bit--  you've got three kids, including a little one at home... how do you balance writing and being a mom? Any tricks of the trade you've learned along the way? Is this an unfair question? I mean, would I have asked this of a man? hmm...

Jenny: I don’t actually think this question is so much unfair as I think it’s a question that should also commonly be asked of men. Writing is difficult and it is done at all kinds of hours and for any writer who has a family, it can be a challenge. For some fathers who write, perhaps it’s as much of a balancing act as it is for some mothers who write. And for some, it’s not and they don’t even realize the vital role their spouse has in their ability to do what they do. I think men should be asked to reflect on this as much as women. As for me, yeah, I definitely have to balance work and family like any working parent. But my family understands writing is my work. My husband and kids respect that I’m a writer and writing is my job. So, they get it. That makes the balancing act easier.

Jody: And we have to balance other aspects of our lives too. I know you're concerned about social justice and care about the potentially scary turn in our country's politics. How do you balance writing with being a human in a dark world? Does it affect your writing? Does it show up in your work?

Jenny: I observe. I let myself feel the emotions that stem from it all, my emotions and those of others, the anger, the fear, the hopelessness and hopefulness. And then I use it all, even if what I’m writing might not deal directly with social justice issues (though some of it does). The darkness of our world definitely shows up. In some way or another. And it inspires me to seek answers and solutions and find beauty and light.

And I try to balance all of that out with other creative pursuits. I like to take photos, and listen to records, and paint (I do this very badly, but it’s still fun).  I collect things but nothing specific. Just little trinkets and cool little items that seem interesting to me.

Jody: Such as Emily Dickinson postcards...

Jenny: Yes! I was so happy that you sent that to me. I pinned it up next to the photo I have of her tombstone.

Jody: Favorite good book you've read recently?

Jenny: I’m reading Idaho by Emily Ruskovich now and it seems exactly the kind of book I’m going to love. I read Kathleen Glasgow’s Girl In Pieces this past summer and that is an amazingly raw and painful and beautiful book. Also, I love Edwidge Danticat’s Untwine and was really excited to read a YA novel by her because I’m a big fan of her work (Claire of the Sea Light is another one of her books that's a favorite of mine). The story of those sisters in Untwine broke my heart and I loved the way she weaved in the Haitian culture. I also recently read Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson and that is a powerful, hopeful punch in a very slim book.

Jody: On a lighter note, any guilty pleasures? What's the last TV show you've binged?

Jenny: I don’t binge on tv shows much. I mostly watch the news these days and get angry and a little depressed before making a plan to call my senators. Then I watch reruns of The Golden Girls and King of Queens. I’m the life of the party, Jody.

Jody: I see we have even more things in common!  Before I let you go, can you share something about your next project?

Jenny: It's called Crows Cry Emilia and due to publish in 2018 by Philomel. I am so, so excited about it. It’s a story about sixteen year old Emilia who thinks she’s over her tragic past until it comes back to haunt her. Having survived a brutal attack on her elementary school’s playground when she was eight years old, she is caught off guard once more when the police reveal they’ve convicted the wrong guy for the crime. The story follows Emilia as she comes undone and we see the lasting effects of the past on not only her, but those she loves most. My editor, Liza Kaplan, is amazing and I think this book will be better than I ever could have imagined because of her guidance. I can’t wait for it to be out in the world.

Jody: I am so looking forward to that, Jenny. Thanks for chatting with me today, and dear readers, if you'd like to find out more about Jenny Torres Sanchez and her work, please see below.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

JENNY TORRES SANCHEZ is a full-time writer and former English teacher. She was born in Brooklyn, New York, but has lived on the border of two worlds her whole life. She lives in Orlando, Florida, with her husband and children.

Website: jennytorressanchez.com
Twitter: @jetchez
Facebook 
Instagram
Indiebound
Amazon

Interview with Jenny Torres Sanchez

One of my favorite books this year is a little book with a long title: Death, Dickinson, and the Demented Life of Frenchie Garcia. Last post I talked about why I pick up books-- and the result of the not very scientific survey is that they are books written by authors I know, either virtually or in real life. But that doesn't explain why certain books resonate with me.

I picked up Frenchie Garcia to read on a trip to Orlando for a Florida librarian conference. The book had been on my radar for a while. It was released around the same time as my book, and I was keeping up with the competition. I knew it had received a starred review from Kirkus, for example. And that it had made it onto their Best Of list at the end of the year. Jenny had been a member of the same group blog YA Outside the Lines. And a few weeks before, I'd bumped into her agent, the lovely Kerry Sparks, at another conference, and saw Jenny's book at the conference bookstore.

When I found out that Jenny lived in Orlando and would be coming to one of my events, it seemed like one of those serendipity things. Why the hell hadn't I read her book?

I read the entire thing on the plane down and was blown away. Jenny was sitting in the audience of my shared book signing with Jessica Martinez, (they are friends. The YA writing world, if you haven't guessed it by now, is small and tight) but all I wanted to do was switch places and sit in the audience myself and pepper Jenny with questions about her brilliant book.

So, I didn't get to do that, but after the event, I cornered her and requested an interview.

Which begins now...

Jenny: Are we having coffee?

Jody: Why not? I love coffee.

Jenny: Good. Let’s have coffee as we talk and sit on plushy chairs….oh, or let’s be on a Ferris wheel. With coffee (the carnival just came to town and I see the Ferris wheel every day as I drive to the bookstore where I write.)

Jody: All right. We're on a Ferris wheel and drinking our coffee. I hope we are turning very slowly...

(Jenny Torres Sanchez possibly sitting on a virtual Ferris wheel) 

Okay, Jenny, you know I loved loved loved Frenchie so much and am recommending it to everyone I know. I must ask the question that every writer is asked--but I don't care!! I want to know!!-- where do you get your ideas?

Jenny: I don’t know. Great answer, huh? Okay, let me talk through this, because I’m serious about not knowing. Usually it starts with a character. They sort of show up and I know they’re going through something rough, but I don’t immediately know. So they hang out in my brain for a while as I figure out what has happened to them. I don’t remember coming up with the ideas for books at all, actually, at least not with The Downside of Being Charlie or Death, Dickinson, and the Demented Life of Frenchie Garcia.

I just peeled back layers of my characters and wondered, “Okay, why is he/she this way? What has he been through? What is she dealing with or covering up?” And then the stories just started forming. With the piece I’m working on now, believe it or not, it started out with a line from a story I wrote years ago while in high school? Maybe college? An image actually, that has stayed in my brain and has become a kind of a little string I pulled and keeps getting longer and longer and more tangled and I’m like, “Wait, there’s a whole story here!”

Jody: You talk about these characters or ideas sort of simmering in your head for a while-- what do you do at that point? Do you plan? Or do you just start writing and see where the story goes?

Jenny: I make up as I go. I’m terrible any other way. Planning never works for me because I can’t stick to the outline. My characters end up making all these other decisions and the story takes different turns. I know outlining works for a lot of writers, but when I plan, my writing tends to sound forced and just doesn’t really ring true. So, I let the story go where it wants to go and worry about editing later.

Jody: I haven't read your first book --The Downside of Being Charlie (it's on my TBR!). Was it the first book you wrote or do you have a few novels stuffed in a drawer?

Jenny: I started a couple of middle grade books when I was in college but I never finished them. Before writing novels, I mostly wrote short stories and I got a lot of rejections from those. But The Downside of Being Charlie was the first book I really set my mind to finish, and when I did, I started querying agents (I got a lot of rejections during this process too). Lucky for me, my now agent

Jody: Kerry Sparks--

Jenny: Yes, Kerry. She saw something in it and took a chance on me.

Jody: Is she hands-on when it comes to revision?

Jenny: Yeah, definitely. My stories can get lost, sort of wander around in circles, or sometimes they keep trying to get through a brick wall by running into it repeatedly. And I think of Kerry as this guide who points out little paths I missed and need to explore. And someone who reminds me to walk around the brick wall or climb over it. She’s fantastic.

Jody:  Speaking of revision, do you have a process for that?

Jenny: (Insert laugh track) Ahahahahaha…ha…ha…ha…sigh. Yeah, so I’m all over the map with that. I mean, I definitely revise, but it’s not a very disciplined approach I guess. Sometimes I go back to what I wrote the day before and spend forever getting that paragraph, just that one paragraph, right.

Jody: OMG I do that too. It's a sickness.

Jenny: I know. Right? Other times, I’ll do a whole chapter. Or I’ll revise starting from the end of the manuscript and work my way to the beginning. It’s a bit chaotic, my process, but it works for me. Mostly. I think. I hope.

Jody: Switching gears a bit, what kind of work schedule do you have every day?

Jenny: Wake up. Do the school drop off thing w/ my two oldest kids and then drop off the smallest w/ my mom so I can write for a couple of hours. That’s it. Those couple of hours is all I have to actually sit and work, so I make sure I use every second of it. I’m pretty protective of that writing time, but I think you have to be.

Jody: I'm impressed. I had the hardest time writing when my kids were younger. There were so many things going on and writing kept falling further and further down the list. How do you balance your writing time with your other obligations?

Jenny: I guess what works for me is keeping it all separate. When it’s writing time, it’s writing time. That’s all I’m focused on. I don’t worry about other things I have to do, I don’t use that time for anything else, I just sit and write. Likewise, when it’s family time, I make sure not to even attempt to write.

Jody: Writing time, family time, and then there's a whole other big chunk of promotional time, which these days, means being on social media. What's your take on that?

Jenny: Hmm, I should probably talk more about my books on social media. But what I actually do is tweet a bit about them when they come out and give a few away. And then I tweet a lot about other things like music and art and things I love like other authors and essays that I find interesting. I guess I tend to use social media as more of a “hey look, isn’t this cool!” kind of thing than a promotional tool.

Jody: People are tired with the whole "BUY MY BOOK" kind of thing anyway.

Jenny: And that's good because I’m not great at constantly promoting myself on social media, so I do what makes me comfortable and I’m okay with that.

Jody: You mentioned before that you're working on something inspired by story you wrote in high school. Can you share a bit more about that?

Jenny: It's a weird story. There’s no other way to explain it. It’s weird, but it’s been a lot of fun working on it so far. It’s still in that fun stage where I don’t want to kill it yet. It’s in the early stages, so I’m still hush hush about it. But basically it came from that short story I wrote (and actually never finished).  But sometimes stories do that, don’t they?

They stay with you for years and then suddenly surface again. In a weird way, I think they’re kind of writing themselves a little in the back of your mind, just waiting for the right time to come out. Anyway, I’ll share the image that inspired it too. It’s of a woman’s bloody pinky dangling from her hand, the tip of her finger gleaming with shell pink nail polish.

Jody: I'm getting chills.

Jenny: That’s about all I’ll say, but it’s interesting what happened to her. And how it affects the main character. ;)

Jody: Well, I now I've got a future book of yours to add to my TBR. Jenny, thank you so much for chatting with me.

And dear readers, if you'd like to more about Jenny and her books, check out the links below.

Jenny Torres Sanchez
Website: Jennytorressanchez.com
Twitter: @jetchez  
on Amazon

In Which I Confess My Love for Emily Dickinson. Plus: a Shout Out to a Great New Book

I'm ashamed to admit that once upon a time I didn't think much of Emily Dickinson.

When I was in high school, I may have glanced at a poem or two. They seemed like sappy things about nature or unrequited love. Bluh is what I thought. And that mousy author photo, the one they always stick in English textbooks-- bluh to that too.

Poor Emily. What a sad little mousy waif.

Fun fact about that photo: Emily hated it. It was taken when she was seventeen and she'd been sick for a few months when she posed for it. She didn't think it represented what she looked like at all. Which is cruddy because that picture was THE only verified photo of her in existence until a second one was rediscovered in 2012:

Look at how healthy and wise ED looks here!

When I was in college I won a creative writing award and was thrilled to accept the prize money--100 bucks, which could buy a lot of Bacardi and cokes back then, but less than thrilled to accept the other prize the English Dept. gave me. A book. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. 

Shameful confession: I complained to my writing professor about this present. Yes. My face is red as I write this. Jeez. I said. Or something along these lines. I get that the stodgy old white male department head wanted to give me something authored by a woman, but did it have to be barfy Emily Dickinson? I mean, come on. Get with the 20th century. Hello. Ever hear of Sylvia Plath?

I thought my cool writing prof would agree. Instead he shocked me by chewing me out. He was one who'd chosen the book, he said. And nothing against Sylvia Plath, but maybe it was time for me to take another look at Emily Dickinson. She was not barfy. In fact he viewed her as one of the two poets, along with Walt Whitman, who'd ushered in the modern poetry era, and if I didn't know that, then maybe he'd failed me as a teacher. 

Yikes.

I read The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. I fell in love. 

Did you know that ED wrote nearly two thousand poems, scrawling them out on bits of paper or including them in letters to friends and family? She never married and in the final twenty years of her life, she dressed only in white and secluded herself in her bedroom, rarely coming downstairs; although she is rumored to have shared gingerbread with neighborhood children by lowering it in a basket from her window...

Sure, her poems on the surface might be about nature or unrequited love, but there's a lot more to those seemingly dashed off lines. Take another look and you'll find stuff that's philosophical and achingly curious and even funny. 

When I taught high school English, I loved talking ED with my students. One thing I held back until the very end of the Emily Dickinson unit is that most of her poems are written in hymn meter, which means that the lines alternate between eight and six syllables. Yeah yeah, whatever, Ms. Casella, my students would say, until I told them that the poems could be sung to the tune of any song written in that meter. 

Example: "Amazing Grace" or the "I Like to Teach the World to Sing" Coca Cola song. 

For extra credit I let the students sing and they always had a grand old time.

Here. Try it for yourselves. 

Because I could not stop for Death--

He kindly stopped for me--

The Carriage held but just Ourselves--

And Immortality...

Or how about this? 

I heard a fly buzz--when I died

The Stillness in the Room

Was like the Stillness in the Air

Between the Heaves of Storm--

Okay. That is enough playtime, class.

Maybe you are wondering why I am thinking about Emily Dickinson today. 

Because I just finished reading the most brilliant and beautiful book, Death, Dickinson, and the Demented Life of Frenchie Garcia by Jenny Torres Sanchez. 

Main Character Frenchie Garcia has recently graduated from high school and she's lost and depressed. She didn't get into the art college of her choice. Her best friend has a new girlfriend and isn't paying Frenchie much attention. She has a morbid hobby: watching funeral processions drive by her house on the way to a nearby cemetery. Sometimes she follows them inside the cemetery and sits by the grave of Emily Dickinson. (This is Orlando, so it's not the real Emily Dickinson's grave, but Frenchie kinda likes the idea that someone named Emily Dickinson is buried there.) 

Frenchie's real problem, though, isn't revealed immediately. It turns out that a few months earlier Andy Cooper, a guy Frenchie secretly crushed on for years, had singled her out to have a "night of adventure," and the next morning he killed himself. 

Now Frenchie's trying to come to grips with what really happened that night, and she's doing it by recreating the adventure with someone else.

There are Emily Dickinson poems sprinkled throughout, but whether you love Emily Dickinson or not, you will surely love this book.