Living and Writing in a "Land of Memory Stealers": An Interview with Connie May Fowler
by Erin Trauth
Connie May Fowler, a Florida native, is a novelist, memoirist, and screenwriter. She is the author of several novels, including The Problem with Murmur Lee, a Redbook premier book club selection; Remembering Blue, a Chautauqua South Literary Award recipient; and Before Women had Wings, winner of the1996 Southern Book Critics Circle Award and the Francis Buck Award from the League of American Pen Women. She also published a memoir titled, When Katie Wakes. Three of Connie May Fowler’s novels have been nominated for the Dublin International Literary Award. Her essays have been published in publications such as The New York Times, The London Times, The International Herald Tribune, and Oxford American. Her work has been translated into fifteen languages and is published around the world. From 2003-2007, she served as the Irving Bachellor Professor of Creative Writing at Rollins College. She is the founder and CEO of Below Sea Level: Full Immersion Workshops for Serious Writers. Currently, Connie May Fowler lives in Northwest Florida with her husband and three dogs. She recently finished her seventh book, a novel titled How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly.
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ET: How do you feel living in Florida has influenced your writing?
CMF: I think if you live in Florida for any length of time, you’re struck with how easily we abandon memory. Our cultural, sociological, and historical memories seem to vanish with each new skyscraper. It has been our way to allow others to define us and rewrite our narratives. It’s as if we live in a land of memory stealers. So for me, writing is a madwoman’s attempt at trying to remember what is and was real in a place whose primary constant is change.
ET: What would you consider your most inspired “Florida” setting?
CMF: Probably Poor Spot Cemetery in my upcoming novel How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly. There really is a Poor Spot Cemetery and it is, sad to say, aptly named. I took poetic license and moved it to fictionalized North Florida county. In the book, the graveyard is populated with ghost women and their female ghost children. Clarissa believes she has, as she puts it, stumbled onto her own private Salem.
ET: For your novel, Before Women Had Wings, did you revisit Tampa to make sure you got the details of place just right, or did you base your description solely off of memory?
CMF: I wrote it from memory. But because I’m always second-guessing myself, I revisited the places I wrote about prior to turning in my final draft.
ET: How important do you think an author’s connection to place is? is? Must a writer be from the place his or her novel takes place?
CMF: Connection to place is an extremely important tenet for a writer. Imagine if a writer said, “I have absolutely no idea who my character is, nor do I feel any connection to her; I just wrote down a bunch of random words and hoped for the best.” It’s the same with place—it’s part of the cellular make-up of our narratives. I don’t think a writer must be from the place she is writing about, but she needs to understand it holistically.
ET: How does Florida compare to other places you’ve lived and worked?
CMF: Florida is a huge state, wildly diverse in its landscape and peoples, so it’s difficult for me to make broad comparisons. I do think, however, that some states do a better job recognizing and supporting its writers. On the plus side, The Florida Center for The Book is an extremely important resource. The Florida Humanities Council does an immense job of educating Floridians about Florida writers. Their summer Florida reading issue of FORUM is a wonderful contribution. And I hope the regional book fairs continue to grow and flourish. Part of the challenge, I suppose, is the dichotomy that exists between North and South Florida and that willful cliché that South Florida is Cuba and North Florida is Georgia. If we continue to view the state as two independent entities sharing an uneasy border with Disney World, how will we ever properly recognize and celebrate the diverse writers who call this place home? We may have disparate parts that form an imperfect union, but we are forever bound by history and legacy.
ET: What are your five favorite Florida-based attractions and/ or events (restaurants, museums, theme parks, beaches, bed and
breakfasts, manatee tours, dolphin cruises)? Have any of these five places or events influenced your writing in any way?
CMF: I love uncrowded spots . . . that’s why I stay home a lot. Although, I have to say, nothing tops the Sopchoppy Worm Grunting Festival. And, oh yes, the Alligator Farm’s swamp in the springtime—it’s an extraordinary place to watch nesting and hatching egrets, herons, anhingas and more. Let’s see . . . then there’s Wakulla Springs and St. Marks and the ‘glades. We have amazing rivers and a few barrier islands not yet paved over. Payne’s Prairie and the savannahs south of Orlando are devoutly beautiful. I think that’s more than five, but La Florida is rare and lovely and is the backbone of many of my stories.
ET: Where is your new novel, How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly, set? Why did you choose to set it there?
CMF: It is set in North Florida in, as I mentioned, a fictional county. Tallahassee and Mashes Sands make cameo appearances but I might write them out. I set the novel there because, quite simply, the story demanded I do so. I thought it was going to take place in Tampa but once I started writing, a mythological village named Hope, Florida emerged.
ET: How do you write (where, when, for weeks at a time, in short bursts, etc.)?
CMF: It depends on whether I’m teaching or not. When I’m teaching, I tend to be solely focused on my students. When I’m not teaching, I live the life of a hermit and write daily, for as many hours as I can bear it. There is truly something insane and terrifying about the process. But it’s exhilarating, as well. I work at home, in my studio, and spend much of the time staring into space, mumbling, replete in my tattered pajamas and tangled hair. Oh, yes, writers are so damned sexy.
ET: What advice do you have for beginning writers?
CMF: Read, read, read. Keep your butt in the chair and do the hard work. Read your work aloud: You must develop an ear and an eye for the language. Revise, revise, revise, revise. Read some more.
ET: How do you think a beginning writer can get Florida (as a setting) just right?
CMF: The same way an established writer does: Immerse Thyself.
This is interview originally appeared in Volume 3.
__________
ET: How do you feel living in Florida has influenced your writing?
CMF: I think if you live in Florida for any length of time, you’re struck with how easily we abandon memory. Our cultural, sociological, and historical memories seem to vanish with each new skyscraper. It has been our way to allow others to define us and rewrite our narratives. It’s as if we live in a land of memory stealers. So for me, writing is a madwoman’s attempt at trying to remember what is and was real in a place whose primary constant is change.
ET: What would you consider your most inspired “Florida” setting?
CMF: Probably Poor Spot Cemetery in my upcoming novel How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly. There really is a Poor Spot Cemetery and it is, sad to say, aptly named. I took poetic license and moved it to fictionalized North Florida county. In the book, the graveyard is populated with ghost women and their female ghost children. Clarissa believes she has, as she puts it, stumbled onto her own private Salem.
ET: For your novel, Before Women Had Wings, did you revisit Tampa to make sure you got the details of place just right, or did you base your description solely off of memory?
CMF: I wrote it from memory. But because I’m always second-guessing myself, I revisited the places I wrote about prior to turning in my final draft.
ET: How important do you think an author’s connection to place is? is? Must a writer be from the place his or her novel takes place?
CMF: Connection to place is an extremely important tenet for a writer. Imagine if a writer said, “I have absolutely no idea who my character is, nor do I feel any connection to her; I just wrote down a bunch of random words and hoped for the best.” It’s the same with place—it’s part of the cellular make-up of our narratives. I don’t think a writer must be from the place she is writing about, but she needs to understand it holistically.
ET: How does Florida compare to other places you’ve lived and worked?
CMF: Florida is a huge state, wildly diverse in its landscape and peoples, so it’s difficult for me to make broad comparisons. I do think, however, that some states do a better job recognizing and supporting its writers. On the plus side, The Florida Center for The Book is an extremely important resource. The Florida Humanities Council does an immense job of educating Floridians about Florida writers. Their summer Florida reading issue of FORUM is a wonderful contribution. And I hope the regional book fairs continue to grow and flourish. Part of the challenge, I suppose, is the dichotomy that exists between North and South Florida and that willful cliché that South Florida is Cuba and North Florida is Georgia. If we continue to view the state as two independent entities sharing an uneasy border with Disney World, how will we ever properly recognize and celebrate the diverse writers who call this place home? We may have disparate parts that form an imperfect union, but we are forever bound by history and legacy.
ET: What are your five favorite Florida-based attractions and/ or events (restaurants, museums, theme parks, beaches, bed and
breakfasts, manatee tours, dolphin cruises)? Have any of these five places or events influenced your writing in any way?
CMF: I love uncrowded spots . . . that’s why I stay home a lot. Although, I have to say, nothing tops the Sopchoppy Worm Grunting Festival. And, oh yes, the Alligator Farm’s swamp in the springtime—it’s an extraordinary place to watch nesting and hatching egrets, herons, anhingas and more. Let’s see . . . then there’s Wakulla Springs and St. Marks and the ‘glades. We have amazing rivers and a few barrier islands not yet paved over. Payne’s Prairie and the savannahs south of Orlando are devoutly beautiful. I think that’s more than five, but La Florida is rare and lovely and is the backbone of many of my stories.
ET: Where is your new novel, How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly, set? Why did you choose to set it there?
CMF: It is set in North Florida in, as I mentioned, a fictional county. Tallahassee and Mashes Sands make cameo appearances but I might write them out. I set the novel there because, quite simply, the story demanded I do so. I thought it was going to take place in Tampa but once I started writing, a mythological village named Hope, Florida emerged.
ET: How do you write (where, when, for weeks at a time, in short bursts, etc.)?
CMF: It depends on whether I’m teaching or not. When I’m teaching, I tend to be solely focused on my students. When I’m not teaching, I live the life of a hermit and write daily, for as many hours as I can bear it. There is truly something insane and terrifying about the process. But it’s exhilarating, as well. I work at home, in my studio, and spend much of the time staring into space, mumbling, replete in my tattered pajamas and tangled hair. Oh, yes, writers are so damned sexy.
ET: What advice do you have for beginning writers?
CMF: Read, read, read. Keep your butt in the chair and do the hard work. Read your work aloud: You must develop an ear and an eye for the language. Revise, revise, revise, revise. Read some more.
ET: How do you think a beginning writer can get Florida (as a setting) just right?
CMF: The same way an established writer does: Immerse Thyself.
This is interview originally appeared in Volume 3.
