LifeWriters Talk About LifeWriting

Susan Wittig Albert is best known to many as a successful and well-established mystery writer and to many others as the founder of SCN. As we'll hear more when she speaks on the Bloggers' panel and at the closing luncheon of the Stories from the Heart III conference, Susan is a writer with many strings to her bow and much insight to offer on the writer's voice in both memoir and fiction. The Journal interviewed Susan about her work and about the unusual fundraiser raffle she has set up to benefit SCN.

Story Circle Journal: The meaning of "lifewriting" has changed and expanded enormously since you wrote Writing from Life in the mid '90s. Tell us what you're seeing as you've watched the women's lifewriting movement mature in the last 10 years.

Susan Wittig Albert: The most important thing, probably, is the expanded possibility for publication. Several of the big publishing houses have added a half-dozen memoir titles a year to their list, and small presses are publishing quite a few life stories. On-demand and electronic publication has expanded the possibilities. And because self-publishing is easier to do—many local printers offer short runs of author-published books, plus help with editing and book design—we're seeing many more selfpublished memoirs. A natural result of expanded publication has been an expansion in the range and variety of women's memoirs. We've noticed this as we plan our reading circle books for the year. There are lots more to choose from!

SCJ: How has this expansion of lifewriting changed the way you write about your own life?

SWA: The big change for me has been in blogging. I began keeping an online journal [usually called a "web log" or "blog"] about five years ago, as an adjunct to my website. When blog technology arrived, I jumped in with both feet. As blog technology has matured, I've matured with it, so that my blog includes photos, reader comments, links to other blogs and to my website. These new techniques encourage me to tell my story in different ways, and with different emphases. When I began, I was thinking that the material would eventually find its way into a book. Now, I think that a book is too limited a venue for the kind of lifewriting I'm doing now. A book is just print, and no more!

SCJ: How is blogging a different experience for the writer from, say, letter writing or journaling in a notebook?

SWA: It's very different from notebook journaling, which is essentially private. It's closer to letter writing, which is written to an audience. And blog style, with its easy flow, its casual idiom, is like letter style. But with a blog, the audience is much wider and includes people you don't know. As I write, I'm always conscious of the possibility of a great many readers hooking into what I say. They talk back, too. I love the dialogue.

SCJ: You'll be leading a panel of bloggers at the 2006 SCN conference. Give us a taste of some of the issues that you hope to touch on in the panel discussion.

SWA: We'll be getting into the whys and the wherefores: why a blog might be helpful to you, as a lifewriter; why you might find it interesting to share your life with others; how other people have done this; how you can do it; what you need to know to get started.

SCJ: What about your fiction—how are you incorporating lifewriting into your stories? Are your characters based on people you know?

SWA: Two of my mystery series (the Edwardian mysteries I write with my husband, as Robin Paige, and my Beatrix Potter mysteries) involve real people, so the mysteries have a great many biographical elements. I work deeply with the facts of these people's real lives, and as I fictionalize them, try to stay as close as possible to their realities. In the China Bayles series, I often model my characters on people I've met in and around the small town where I live. Of course, I change the names and identities so they're not recognizable (I hope). But I believe that writers create out of their experience, and the people who appear in my books are usually based on close encounters of the personal kind.

SCJ: As a fundraiser for SCN for 2006, you've come up with the idea of a raffle in which the winner gets to be a character in one of your novels. Tell us about this "novel" idea.

SWA: Actually, it's not such a novel idea (pun intended), since several other authors have done it in the past few years—most recently, Amy Tan, who is auctioning off a "character role" in one of her novels. It's based on the assumption (a true one, I think) that readers imagine themselves in the stories they read: that is, they read themselves into the book, putting themselves into the role of the protagonist or one of the other characters. Wouldn't it be a treat for such a reader to actually find him or herself in the book? And since Story Circle Network is such a worthy cause—well, it seemed like a natural thing to do!

SCJ: What can you tell us about what part the winners' character will play in the story? Can they be the villain; are they central to the plot or more of a cameo?

SWA: The guest character probably won't want to be the villain! Whether the person is central to the plot or more of a cameo will depend on who the winner is, and how neatly her/ his personality characteristics, interests, and experience fit the time/place/setting/themes of the book. If there's a good fit, chances are that the guest character will play a substantial role. If the fit is tangential, it will be a cameo spot. But it will still be pleasing (I hope) to the guest character.

SCJ: Can the winner request that their pet, child or spouse be the character in the novel?

SWA: Sure! In fact, it would be an interesting gift, wouldn't it? (Hint: if you've already bought your limit in raffle tickets, make a cash gift to a friend or family member so s/he can purchase some chances.) A couple of people have already told me that they're buying tickets for their cats!

SCJ: Once a winner is picked, how will you figure out how to fit them into your story and what kind of research will you do? Do you have a clear plot already in mind or will you work the plot of the novel around the character?

SWA: I think I'll put together a questionnaire that the winner will fill out, with personal characteristics, work/life experience, interests and so on. Of course, the winner can put in exactly what s/he wants to put in—that is, the winner can fictionalize about her/his life to whatever extent seems appropriate. So perhaps this guest character is more like a selfdesigned character, rather than like the true-to-life characters I work with in the Robin Paige or Beatrix Potter mysteries.

I'm doing three books next year, so I'm sure that there will be the opportunity for a guest character to be involved in the actual plot. That is, the winner will be identified early enough in the process to be included in the book's planning.

SCJ: What have other writers told you about the possible pitfalls of the "raffle-winner as character" idea? What are some special challenges and rewards this poses to you as a fiction writer?

SWA: In some ways, I think of myself as an artist who works with "found" material. I love to read small-town Texas newspapers, find little bits of intriguing real life, and work those into the books. For the Robin Paige and Beatrix Potter books, I enjoy reading biographies, histories, and local newspapers, uncovering odd facts and working them into the stories. The same thing will hold true with the "raffle-winner as character" thing, I think. The challenge of doing it right is itself the reward. The pitfall? As always, working with material from real life: you'd better make sure that you have your facts straight. In this case, working with the material provided by the raffle winner as my "factual base," I think both of us (the winner and I) should be pleased by the result.

—Email interview conducted and edited by Jane Ross

Last updated: 12/05/05