Today, Norm Goldman Publisher & Editor of Bookpleasures.com is honored to have as our guest, Heather Summerhayes Cariou author of SIXTYFIVE ROSES: A Sister’s Memoir. 

Good day Heather and thanks for participating in our interview.

Norm: 

Could you briefly tell our readers something about your personal and professional life?

Heather:   

I’m a writer, wife, grandmother, auntie, sister, daughter and friend.  I trained for a career on the stage, and was an actor for 20 years.  My husband is the actor Len Cariou, and I travel with him on location to film sets and regional theatres – we’re on the road about six months a year.  I pack like a refugee: brass candlesticks and a lace tablecloth, our own sheets and towels, a box of my favourite books, and a few mementos to make wherever we’re staying feel like home. We’ve been together for 27 years, married for 22, and he’s the love of my life.   Of course I have my laptop with me, and write wherever I go.

Sixtyfive Roses was written in corporate apartments and hotel room across North America and in England.  I’m a proud native Canadian, and since 1983 a devoted New Yorker.  I love to read, take long walks, write poetry, and cook.  I also love a good cup of Earl Grey, Hazelnut coffee, dark chocolate, crispy French Fries, and lemon vodka with olives – not all at once, however!   

My guilty pleasure is watching General Hospital.  My favourite TV show is Grey’s Anatomy.  I don’t know what’s with me and hospitals – you’d think I’d have had enough of them!  My favourite poet is Mary Oliver, and my favourite proverb is from Ralph Waldo Emerson:  “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”  I believe in kindness, gratitude, forgiveness, and never giving up.

Norm: 

What was the most difficult part of writing SIXTYFIVE ROSES: A Sister’s Memoir?

Heather:   

The emotional revisiting of the memories was excruciating.  There were many days when I would write a paragraph, then lay on the floor and cry for two hours, then get up and write again.  I went back into therapy several times.  Also, developing my skill with language, learning how to write at the level I aspired to, was very challenging and took a lot of guts and patience and willingness to stay in process until I got it right, instead of rushing it and going for a result. 

Norm: 

What did you learn from writing your book?

Heather: 

The life I was writing about shaped me, but writing that life brought me into my own as human being.  I discovered that we all have myths we tell about our lives, many of which probably start out as coping mechanisms and then develop into crutches to support our victimhood.  I learned that I have intrinsic value, that my story has value, but also that I couldn’t tell my story or Pam’s, without forgiveness.   

To tell a story like Sixtyfive Roses, you have to write through your agendas of anger or self-pity as part of the process, but you can’t tell the truth about yourself until you’ve passed through that fire and come out on the other side.  I call it standing outside the story.  And as Virginia Woolf said, if you don’t tell the truth about yourself, you can’t tell it about anyone else. 

If we could each stand outside our story, we would see our families, our wounds and ourselves with such a different perspective.  And I finally learned in so many words the legacy that Pam had left me:  that you can’t control life by being afraid of it; that our only true power is our power to choose; that when we can’t change our circumstances we’re challenged to change ourselves; that we’re responsible for our own joy; that we must understand the difference between giving up and surrender, and finally, that we must never give up, and learn to become partners in our own grace, and warriors on behalf of our own lives. I also learned a lot about writing that would have to be covered in another interview! 

Norm:

What do you want your book to do and is there a message that you want your readers to grasp? 

Heather: 

I am hoping my book will inspire and comfort in its message, and provoke and challenge in its honesty.  I hope it illuminates the experience of illness and loss for those who are outside of that world, and validates the experience for those who are up to their necks in it.  I hope it’s just a darn good read for people who love a good story well told.   

The message for readers is basically in how I answered the previous question, because after all, memoir is about reflection, what the author has gleaned from their experience.  So I want readers to get that life is short and precious, and that we’re responsible for how we manage it.  Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% what you do with what happens to you.  (That’s a quote from Anonymous, who we all know was a woman, by the way...)

Norm: 

In fiction as well as in non-fiction, writers very often take liberties with their material to tell a good story or make a point.

But how much is too much? In your book you write, “Pam said tell our story. Mother said tell the truth. The story I tell lies somewhere between the truth and memory.”

Heather:   

I didn’t take any liberties as such.  I told the truth of my experience as clearly as I could remember it, and as I came to reflect on it.  Dialogue, if not remembered word for word, is in the spirit of the conversation or exemplary of many such conversations that were had on a particular subject.  It is generally held that if the reader gets any feeling that the writer is being less than truthful, the whole house of cards falls.

 I researched events and interviewed my parents and siblings and others so that I could build the text of my memories on accurate facts.  If I say Pam was in the hospital for 75 days, it was 75 days, not 75 hours (unlike James Frey!)  Truth is subjective, and memory is sometimes unreliable, but within that context I took great pains to be as honest as I could, and in any work of memoir or non-fiction, I believe that should be the goal.   

Some readers have commented on the clarity of my memories as they are written in the book.  This clarity comes from a writing technique taught to me by my mentor, June Gould, who wrote the book “The Writer In All of Us:  Writing From Your Childhood Memories.”  I’ve been taking June’s classes for 25 years, and she has a way of leading a writer into memory through image that is just extraordinary.  When I’m in class with her the memories that come to me, and the way they come to me, is often startling.

Norm: 

If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your book?

Heather: 

No.   

Norm:

Do you hear from your readers much? What kinds of things do they say?

Heather:   

I have hundreds of wonderful emails from my readers.  They stop me in my tracks; often they make me cry.  The number one reader comment is that they couldn’t put the book down.  Many appreciate the honesty of emotion.  A good number of them are people who have been dealing with an ill spouse or parent or child, and are grateful to have someone articulate the experience of powerlessness, anger, grief and isolation that rarely gets discussed.  Many also tell me that the writing is beautiful, which I deeply appreciate, because I worked so hard on the writing. 

Norm: 

How has your education informed your writing? As a follow up, I understand you are a former actress. Has this influenced your writing in any way?

Heather:  

I’m an expressive person by nature, so in my education I either responded to or chose teachers and subjects that supported my instincts and talents.  My grade 7 and 8 teacher, Mrs. Hagey, was extremely important to me.  She saw me writing poetry when I should have been doing math, and instead of punishing me, she encouraged me to stand up and share my poetry during English class.  She also had us keep a book of “Memory Gems,” which instilled in me a love of proverbs and quotes, many of which I really took to heart and made deep impressions on my point of view in life.   

When I began writing Sixtyfive Roses, I borrowed quite a bit from my theatrical training.  I understood text, the effect on the body of rhythm, rhyme and repetition.  I understood story structure – beginning, middle and end; crisis and transition, the ebb and flow of action.  I knew that a character’s intention is revealed through behaviour, and that every character has a momentary intention that speaks to their overall intention.  Intention meaning what the character wants, has to have, and will do anything to get.  I also knew that smell, taste, sight, touch and sound had to come alive for the reader, just as the actor makes that come alive for the audience.  I educated myself as a writer by reading every award-winning memoir I could, by taking classes, and reading books like Brenda Ueland’s If You Want to Write, Annie Lamott’s Bird by Bird, and many, many others – my shelves are overflowing with books on writing.  I’m reading novels again now, and reading books on novel writing, and I’m back in class, because I’m writing a novel and I have to learn some different techniques.

Norm: 

You write with a very vivid and descriptive style. Do you use any particular techniques to help with your writing or to help flesh out descriptive imagery? Are there any writers you admire or look to for inspiration?

Heather:   

One of the techniques that my mentor, June Gould, has taught me is to use poetry to open up the right side of my brain before writing.  I’ll often sit down and read some good poetry before beginning to write; sometimes I’ll take a line of poetry as prompt and free-write for a few minutes to get warmed up.  We do this a lot in her workshops, actually.  I love Mary Oliver, Billy Collins, Grace Paley, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Marie Howe, Stanley Kunitz.  Edward Hirsch’s latest book, Special Orders is wonderful, and I’ve just discovered Valzhyna Mort, who is mind-blowing.  The list goes on.  Fiction writers I love include William Styron, Wallace Stegner, Toni Morrison, Alice Munroe, Carol Shields, Arundati Roy, Camilla Gibb.  Again, that’s just a sampling. 

Norm:

When writing your book, did you ever suffer from writer’s block? If so, what did you do about it? 

Heather: 

I don’t believe in writer’s block.    

Norm:

What, in your opinion, are the most important elements of good writing? 

Heather:

Clarity.  Imagery.   Good use of metaphor.  Emotional honesty.   

Norm:

Do you have a favourite story to tell about being interviewed about your book? What question are you never asked in interviews but wish you were? 

Heather: 

Well, I’m rarely asked about the actual writing, so I very much appreciate that you did!  I worked so hard to make this book literary rather than just a run of the mill confessional.  My favourite interview was with a Canadian journalist named Paula Todd.  She did a half hour for television, and then another half hour for CBC radio, so it was very thoughtful and in depth.   

Norm:

Can you tell us how you found representation for your book? Did you pitch it to an agent, or query publishers who would most likely publish this type of book? Any rejections?  

Heather: 

I spent about 3 months perfecting my query letter. I then sent it out with three chapters to two Canadian literary agents, two Canadian small presses, and two American agents.  Within 3 months I received requests for the full manuscript from both of the American agents, one Canadian agent, and one small press.  Subsequently, I was offered representation by the Canadian agent and one of the American agents.  After meeting with each of the two agents, I went with Anne McDermid of McDermid and Associates.  She’s been fantastic.   

We did get a good number of rejections, but the letters were great – almost like reviews.  Most praised the writing right down to the last paragraph, where they declined because they couldn’t see how to market it – it didn’t have a so-called platform.  This is a very real problem in the publishing world now; it’s all about marketing in a celebrity driven culture, trying to guarantee the bottom line for the big corporations that own most publishing houses.  My publisher, McArthur and Company, is a great independent house.  Kim McArthur makes personal decisions about which books she’s going to carry.  She has to be concerned about her company’s bottom line, of course, but because she’s in charge and not answering to someone higher up on a corporate ladder, she can also choose to foster a new writer, as she did with me.  She accepted the book within a week of submission, and I’ve had a truly wonderful experience with her, and the three fantastic women who make up her full-time staff.  She also brought the book into the U.S. market through the National Book Network, and it’s become a Target Stores Recommended Read for 2008.

Norm: 

What is next for Heather Heather Summerhayes Cariou and is there anything else you wish to add that we have not covered?

Heather:   

I’m working on a novel, and living every day with a consciousness of gratitude.   Speaking of which, I am deeply grateful to the International Women’s Writing Guild, to whom I owe my writing life.  Their mandate is to empower women through connection with the written word.  I encourage any woman who writes – or wants to - to visit their website at www.iwwg.com, and I extend an invitation to attend their summer “Remember the Magic” conference at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.  Your life and your writing will never be the same.

Thank you once again and good luck with all of your future endeavors.