If the Winterset award isn’t the most flattering award a Newfoundlander can win, it’s at least the kind of career-affirming victory every writer has ever dreamed of. It’s not just that the mandate states “the over-riding consideration will be excellence in writing,” it’s that all genres are considered. In other words, whoever wins the Winterset award wrote THE best book to come out of Newfoundland & Labrador that year. That’s a pretty big deal, hence my two-part article on this year’s winner: Kathleen Winter’s boYs. In my last article, I praised her electric collection of short stories and promised an interview. Enjoy.
Congratulations, Kathleen. Tell us what runs through someone’s head as they are presented with the Winterset award?
When Noah Richler spoke my name, I felt a warm rush of incredible surprise and honour. I thought maybe I heard wrong and was afraid to get up. I was especially honoured to win the award since my brother Michael also won it, and I love him. Also, it is the first time short stories have won the award, and I am only the second woman to have won it in eight years, Joan Clark having won it twice. I felt proud to represent women writers, and to represent the short story form. I felt it was a great privilege to win this award, since I respect and admire the work of the other writers who were also contenders for it.
Do you have a favorite story or character in the collection? Personally, I cannot get the image of the toothless, bun-loving Mrs. Snellen out of my head.
My favourite story changes all the time. One of my favourites, though, is Binocular, because I think it is one of the most fast paced and suspenseful stories in the book, and a lot is at stake in it. My favourite character, well, I think that would have to be poor old Graham in The History of Zero, desperate to find love and sanity among the iguanas, and doomed to failure.
How does one go from an aspiring author to a Winterset winner? Do you have any advice for emerging writers?
You have to take rejection slips not as a final answer, but as a propelling force to spur you on to make your work better the next time. At one point, buried in rejection slips, I saw a writer on Book Television say persistence is everything. And I agree with that. Learn what your strengths are, and admit you need to work on weaknesses, and work on them. When you get something back with a rejection, read it over and you will see why they rejected it, because some time has gone by since you wrote it. Rewrite it and send it out again. Always have something sent out, and keep sending your work out even when you don’t feel like it one little bit. Even when you feel like giving up. Even when you feel like slitting your throat in defeat, you can still get up and go to the post office and send your story to another editor. You will feel better, and one day somebody will publish you.
What do you think are your strength(s) and weakness(es) as a writer?
My strengths? Observation, and seeing into things, people, actions, social realities. Not just the surface. Insight. But the surface is important as well. Seeing.
My weaknesses? Momentum, story arc. I’m working on this though. If anybody has any ideas on it you can send them to me on facebook!
Who/ what is your biggest influence as a writer?
My biggest influences include Katherine Mansfield, Heinrich Boll and Neil Gaiman. I’m into tragicomedy, the profound human condition, and portals to the world within worlds.
For you, what makes for a good book?
For me, a good book happens when the writer unearths secrets I did not know I was trying to keep from myself.
What is your favorite and least favorite part of the writing process?
My very favourite part is when an idea comes to me. That never happens by thinking. It happens by asking and waiting. Or sometimes it just flies in freely of its own passion. Like Rilke said, in his letters to a young poet, you have to learn to live with the questions (like how the hell am I ever going to get the second part of this story finished when I have no idea what to write next kind of question). I have a photograph of Einstein over my desk, in which he is saying, “I don’t know.” The idea comes though. At least so far. That is the best part of writing, for me. That’s the thrill.
My least favourite part is connecting segments. This is always achieved by a sort of waiting as well. But the organization, the placing in order, the nuts and bolts of the structure. I enjoy this for the effect it has on a story, but it’s hard labour.
What is your biggest fear as a writer?
That I’ll forget to wait for the ideas and try “making them up” with the linear, logical mind.
Which comment or critique of your writing have you least agreed with?
When people say my work contains a weak narrative arc or little in the way of plot. Many of my stories have strong structure. But such criticism is good for me, because it has made me work harder on structure and the architecture of story. I am working like a dog now on stories that have strong narrative arcs, and I have critics to thank. Just because I don’t agree with the comments doesn’t mean I can’t use them to get better at what I do.
What is taking up too much of your time lately?
Scrabulous.
Chad Pelley
(comments, criticism and suggestions welcomed at http://chadpelley.wordpress.com/articles/)
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