Interview with Kirstin Allio

The following is an interview with Kirstin Allio, author of the wonderful novel, Garner (Coffee House Press, 2005).  She has taught creative writing at Brown University and has degrees from both Brown and New York Universities.  She was born in Maine, and currently lives in Rhode Island with her husband and children.

Dan:

Thank you, Kirstin, for taking some time away from your writing and family to answer some questions.

Kirstin:

You are very welcome!

Dan:

Were you always interested in reading or writing?  Did you foresee working with words for a living when you were a child?

Kirstin:

I wanted to be a cellist and a modern dancer.

I had the privilege of taking reading and writing for granted. I mostly went to Rudolph Steiner schools, where the curriculum is based on the retellings of world mythologies. My favorite was fourth grade, Norse mythology, although its influences on Garner are not obvious.

Dan:

With what authors did you study under at Brown and New York Universities?

Kirstin:

Chris Spain at NYU is one of the finest teachers I’ve ever had – wise, artful, generous. Brown is a charged atmosphere, magnetic. Imagine a kaleidoscope of professors, visiting writers, and fellow students shifting and tumbling and repatterning against the backdrop of a green gem of a campus.

Dan:

What method did you employ as a teacher of creative writing yourself?  Did you find yourself drawing from different aspects of those you studied under?

Kirstin:

I used a lot of structured, under-the-gun, in-class writing exercises. It seems to help kids get out of their own heads – and sparks a healthy adrenaline rush. From Carole Maso at Brown I took the essential practice of critiquing within the sphere, or coordinates, of a piece– and having students in a workshop learn to do the same.

And if there are three R’s, they are reading, reading, reading.

Dan:

Garner, the novel, seems so meticulously developed – the language draws the reader right into 1925, the descriptions of the land pulls one into the fields of New England – how long did you work on it?

Kirstin:

Thank you very much. I worked on Garner for longer than I ever thought it would take. But I did lots of waiting, and stalking in the dark.

Dan:

During stages of revising, what was the biggest challenge you had to find a means of hurdling?

Kirstin:

There’s a rush to composing, and then a very unmusical echo in your ears.

Does the story have a conscience? Can you answer the question, So What?

Dan:

When you began writing this novel, what was it that led to you to a small town of Puritans in 1925 New England?

Kirstin:

A small town in New Hampshire led me to the novel.

I started by writing about a small town in contemporary New England. I found that setting it at a distance made it easier to see those harsh contours.

Part of New England’s Puritan legacy is self-righteous penance. Hard must be good; and there’s a severe sense of privacy. New England was contrived for religious freedom, and we still have Live Free Or Die as the call to arms. And yet it’s in the nature of New Englanders to imprison themselves.

Dan:

How much research did you do before, or while, writing Garner?  Are you the type of writer who wants every detail down perfect, or is the story the main thing, so long as you convey the time period?

Kirstin:

I was captivated by the language of the time period. New Englanders are great record keepers. The journals and sermons and minutes from Town Meetings are rich and vivid. I guess Garner is more of a novel about language than about history.

Dan:

Do you foresee delving into history again in future writings, or do you feel a more contemporary tale within you?

Kirstin:

I’d like to be a time traveler! I’d like to go back and forth, although I struggle fiercely with contemporary dialogue.

Dan:

The book is broken into five different sections, each narrated by different people.  How difficult was it for you to develop a distinctiveness to each of these sections?

Kirstin:

Actually, linking the sections together to make a coherent whole was the greater challenge. Initially I used the town of Garner to contain them – until the town emerged with a life of its own.

Dan:

The first section is narrated, or even written at times, by the Garner postman, Willard Heald.  What led you to believe that he’d be the type of postman to read the mail, and at times even determine if it should be delivered?

Kirstin:

I’m interested in what happens when one person tries to speak for all.

Dan:

A young woman in the novel, Frances, believes she wants to write and sends a letter to Winston Churchill, inquiring about the possibility of his mentoring her.  I’m not up on my Churchill – is this something he was prone to do?

Kirstin:

At least once. I had a spinster great aunt with literary aspirations who – the family story goes – corresponded with Winston Churchill in the teens or twenties. She kept his letter underneath a braided rug. When the family farmhouse was sold – in a rush, at a death, and with uncharacteristic distraction – the letter was forgotten. If pressed, my grandmother used to admit, grudgingly, that of course it wasn’t England’s, but New England’s Winston Churchill.

Dan:

Frances’ family, lessening the amount of farming they did, brought in boarders during the summer months – socialites from New York mainly.  Was this common back in the 1920’s? 

Kirstin:

Yes, although it seems strange they wouldn’t go to beach, doesn’t it?

However, the custom was fading out as travel became easier, and city folk (like the Bickleys in Garner) began to buy their own places.

Dan:

One more question about the actual writing of the novel – the folks of Garner kept to themselves, were quiet by nature.  Was it difficult for you to write of conflicts within their community and yet, maintain that stoic hardiness of the people of Garner?

Kirstin:

Where there’s inner conflict, there’s always a morality tale!

Still waters run deep, and repression is certainly nothing new in New Hampshire. Am I allowed to quote my own book? Time was the Garner man’s liquor – long, quiet solitude – the power to wait out any other man in the world.

Dan:

How did you come to be published by Coffee House Press?

Kirstin:

Luck! I had an agent who didn’t have the legs for the journey. So I sent it around to four or five small presses myself.

Dan:

What sort of efforts have been made towards publicity of the book?  Have you done many in-store readings?  Postcard campaign?  Anything internet related?

Kirstin:

My first reading is at the Brown Bookstore this Saturday, and I’ll be in Peterborough, NH – very near the scene of the crime – the next Saturday. I’ll be in NY in October, Vermont, and a few choice New England spots later this fall. Coffee House Press is a big fan of literary blogs – thank you again for your help!

Dan:

Are you working on something new right now?

Kirstin:

Yes.

Dan:

Lastly, if you were a character in “Fahrenheit 451,” what work(s) would you memorize for posterity?

Kirstin:

Independent People, by Halldor Laxness, reminds me of the haunting myths I absorbed in elementary school – and makes me want to chant.

But, in English, (I don’t speak Icelandic), I think Bruce Chatwin’s On the Black Hill is pretty much perfect.

Dan:

Thanks again Kirstin, I hope the novel finds the support and sales that it deserves.

Comments

[ring toy]

seek information about what the college and I need to submit my academic and social expectations and economic, thanks for sharing the information. I think new york has large global institutions and from there my interest from schools in one of these.

[Health News]

yeah truly a great site.I really enjoyed my visit.

[Inversiones en petroleo]

I think that this post is very good because has useful information.

[4rx]

One thing that I like about blogging. It is interviews. because we can have a pretty active role with it.

[wmv player]

That was a brilliant and rather interesting interview. I can tell she's a professional in this sphere. Thank you for this post!