The interview with Gayle Brandeis has been posted at Wauktown Radio.
Gayle Brandies’ new novel Self Storage begins with the words, “I celebrate myself,” the opening line from Walt Whitman’s poem Song of Myself.
“I just can’t do it,” the narrator and main character Flan (short for Flannery) says. But Flan is not a victim. She’s not whining. Or defeated. She is on a search to find herself and what will make her say “yes” in her life. If you are part of a book group, this is the book to use to expand horizons. The book presents delicious characters, including an emotionally solid Flan who is searching but not angst ridden about it. Great discussions could result from any of the topics the books deals with and also delve into a field trip to a self storage locker auction, a rereading of Whitman poems, and a look at the lives of immigrant women. Yes, it’s all part of Self Storage, but you’ll need to read the book yourself to see how it plays out.
Gayle began writing Self Storage as part of the National Writing Month, also known as NaNoWriMo which begins each begins Nov. 1. The goal of NaNoWriMo is to for participants to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel in 30 days. The emphasis is on quantity (that can ultimately be edited into quality) in a “fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing.”
After the interview on Wauktown Radio, I asked Gayle if she plans on participating in NaNoWriMo this year.
“I’m not sure yet–probably not, because I will be teaching for both UCR and the UCLA Writers Program this fall,” she responded to me by email. Gayle said the semester doesn’t start until late September, and “it would be wonderful to get a good bulk of the first draft done before classes begin.”
During our interview on Wauktown Radio, Gayle told us that publication of an earlier book was a challenge. An editor was interested, then said her book Fruitflesh didn’t have much of Gayle in it. When Gayle rewrote it, she was told it had too much of her self in it. So…I asked her, how did she resolve the situation so the book got published?
Gayle told me the story of how she was able to take a different look at the book that resulted in a positive response.
“I went to an estate sale down the street from my house, and picked up a gorgeous print called the Virgin de la Sandia–the Virgin of the Watermelon for $3. It looks like a Virgin of Guadalupe image except the woman is nude and surrounded by watermelon. As I walked home carrying this print, I had an epiphany–I needed to bring more fruit into the book. I had named the book Fruitflesh in the earlier draft but the title really only related to one section of the book, a chapter about my life-changing strawberry.
I realized that to honor that strawberry, and to make the title make sense, I should use fruit as the central metaphor for the entire book. It seemed like the perfect metaphor to me for women and creativity.”
Gayle explained that during that time her agent was having health issues and decided to step down.
“So I took it upon myself to write to the editors who had been most enthusiastic about the earlier drafts of the book. Luckily, Renee Sedliar at HarperSanFrancisco remembered the book and asked to see the new draft,and she fell in love with it and championed it. She was such a fabulous editor to work with–very hands on. The book became much juicier and more vibrant with her help.”
Gayle’s first acceptance letter was from Mothering Magazine, a publication Gayle said she always turned to as a young mother.
“It was total beginner’s luck,” she explained. “I pitched them an article idea,the first time I had ever pitched anything, and they said to go for it. I could barely believe it.”
It took a while for Gayle to write the article about Childhood and Ritual in Bali, (hummm, that would be an interesting article to read!) send it to the editor and have it published. So she got busy with other writing and began publishing her work in literary magazines and anthologies.
“I remember getting my first “yes” response for an anthology submission,” Gayle said. “The editor had written “Acceptance!” right on the envelope, which was very exciting and generous, I thought.”
After writing for literary and commercial markets, Gayle said the difference is very slight. “I’m not sure there is a big leap between the literary world and more commercial world, it’s all words, of course,” she said.
“Perhaps more attention is given to every single word in the literary world, but I do believe that writing is good writing.”
Now I just need to find out about her life changing strawberry….
very interesting, but I don’t agree with you
Idetrorce