The following interview was conducted by:  NORM GOLDMAN:  Editor of Bookpleasures. CLICK TO VIEW  Norm Goldman's Reviews

To read Norm's Review of The Good Works of Ayela Linde CLICK HERE

Today Norm Goldman, Editor of Bookpleasures.com is honored to have as our guest, Charlotte  Forbes author of The Good Works of Ayela Linde.

Good day Charlotte and thanks for participating in our interview.

Thank you, Norm.  It’s a pleasure.

Norm:

Charlotte, when did your passion for writing begin and what keeps you going?

Charlotte:

My father’s family was in the newspaper business in Westchester County, New York, so perhaps some inclination toward writing is “in the blood.”  As a girl I loved words and would memorize the entire vocabulary list for my grade very early in the school year, and in high school I sent out a little article on how to make terrariums or some such to some obscure magazine and it was accepted—I took up residence on Cloud 9.  But it wasn’t until after graduate school, and I was running a project for the National Endowment for the Humanities at the Queens Museum in New York, that I began to get serious about writing.  I was surrounded by artists at the museum (eventually marrying one), who opened up a whole new way of being for me. They’d say, oh I can’t wait until the weekend so I can do my work.  I thought they meant housework.   So I slowly turned from a business orientation to my own “work,” writing non fiction articles for magazines and newspapers and then, again very slowly, to writing short stories. What keeps me going?  There are so many rules in life, so many things that have to be done according to other people’s requirements that I revel in the freedom of making up my own imaginary world where I can let my characters do what they do.

Norm:

Was there anyone who really influenced you to become a writer?  As a follow up, were you inspired by Magic Realism (Garcia Marquez)? Were you influenced by Guy de Maupassant?

Charlotte:

I can’t say there was any one person, but before I began to write short stories I was completely wowed by some of the writers I had been reading, Marguerite Duras, Samuel Beckett (the novels) in particular, and I read them over and over because they were mesmerizing and just plain good company.  Yes, I do love Latin American writers, especially Garcia Marquez and Jorge Amado, and the notion of magical realism is enchanting to me, as though it gets at something quite true that’s happening beyond the surface.  As for Guy de Maupassant, I recall reading his “The Necklace” in school, but regrettably haven’t read more of him.

Norm:

You are an O’Henry Award winner. Please tell our readers what is the O’Henry Award? What was your reaction when you won the award and how did you feel winning this prestigious award?

Charlotte:

The O. Henry Award is an annual collection of the year's twenty best stories (according to the series editor) written in English and published in U.S. and Canadian magazines; it was named after the legendary short story writer O. Henry. When I got the telephone call that my story “Sign” had been chosen for the collection, I was floored.  My daughter, who was then 3 years old, picked that particular moment to begin pushing an armchair around the living room, so I was brought back to earth very quickly.  I still feel incredibly honored, and more than a little incredulous, that my story had been included in a volume with such wonderful writers.   

Norm:

What is your biggest reward as a writer?

Charlotte:

If I’ve given a reader a few moments of enjoyment or provoked some thought.  Thanks to the Internet, one can see which libraries have copies of one’s book, and where and when it has been checked out.  I consult this website probably a little more than is good for my sanity.  I see when Ayela has been taken out of a library in another part of the country-- in Fig Garden or Elk Grove Village or Indian Prairie, I love to imagine what those places might be like, and think about the reader and what life might be like for that person.  I’m especially pleased when Ayela is on loan from a bookmobile, where the reader may live in a remote area with little access to a library, and has for some reason felt interested in the book and may even read it.  Those are the things that thrill me.

Norm:

Many writers want to be published, but not everyone is cut out for a writer's life. What are some signs that perhaps someone is not cut out to be a writer and should try to do something else for a living?

Charlotte:

To be a published writer I think you have to have an appetite for solitude, a tolerance for rejection and a perseverance to go on despite overwhelming odds, though I suppose that might be said of accomplishing your goals in a great many areas.   I’ve heard it said that it’s ten years worth of writing to serious publication—that may not be true for everyone, but I think it helps to be patient and hardworking in developing your art.  I also believe that you have to like the process and be in the moment with that, without thought of sales figures or praise or awards or however you define success—otherwise it’s just too hard.

Norm:

How did The Good Works of Ayela Linde come about? How did you get the inspiration for this book?

Charlotte:

I had been writing short stories for a while, but wanted to be engaged in something longer, though I wasn’t up to attempting a novel.  The first Ayela story I wrote was the Marvelous Yellow Cage, which is the penultimate story in the collection.  My writer’s group at the time liked the characters.  So did me.  So I just kept writing stories about them.  Ayela seemed to be the one I was most interested in, and the stories seemed to be about what she did and her effect on different people.  The title, The Good Works of Ayela Linde, arrived one day and it seemed right.  It is not without irony, of course, as her “good works” were not all premeditated, some backfired, some she wasn’t even aware she had done, and some are not even “good.”  I was quite stubborn about keeping the title, even when it was suggested to me that it didn’t really fit.  

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?

Charlotte:

I pitched agents.  I never tried the “name” agents.  I wanted someone who was experienced, but relatively young and had drive, not overly commercial and who would take an e-query.  The e-query criterion was very important to me, and “yay or nay” responses to my query were generally within a few days.  I had about 5 or 6 rejections, all very nice and polite and of the “interesting work but I can’t sell it” variety, before signing on with my agent who is lovely, gracious, professional and extremely hard working.  She initially told me I needed to write more stories and bring up the total length of the book to 50,000 words.  Ugh.  After my little fit of refusing to do that, I dug in again, created more stories and submitted them to her around Christmas time of 2005.  She and I worked hard to edit what I had over several months, and the book was sold that summer to Arcade, a wonderful literary publisher in New York.

Norm:

What challenges or obstacles did you encounter while writing your book? How did you overcome these challenges?

Charlotte:

The usual challenges of time and self doubt.  Time was the easiest to resolve.  My daughter was in kindergarten when I started and I loved spending time with her, and then there was my pay-the-bills writing work which was really full time, and the cooking and cleaning and bill paying and the rest of it.  So I just stayed up later.  After my daughter and husband went to bed, our small apartment was all mine—quiet, and large with the sense of possibility.  People said how can you write at night, I’d be so exhausted.  But to me that time was inspirational.  A teacher of mine said he wrote his first four novels in long hand on a legal pad on the train home from work, and I’m sure many writers have similar stories.  So lack of time can usually be worked out if the will to write is there.   Self doubt was harder to resolve.  I never resolved it, but wrote the book anyway. 

Norm:

Ayela is quite a character and a real handful. How did you approach writing this character? Did you plan her out or did she evolve as you wrote the book?

Charlotte:

There are a lot of beautiful headstrong women in my mother’s family, so I had a blueprint for Ayela. I wanted to show her softer sides too, and some of the complexity that is in all of us.  Essentially, circumstances of a story would appear to me, and I put Ayela in them and let her do what seemed to come naturally to her.   In the first story, “Parasols,” Ayela was 17 and sneaking out with a girl friend to the dance hall—but she got her real kicks from a strange moment of artistry of her own making.  To me, that seemed only natural for her.  In “The Gift of Softened Eyes” her second son and his wife come back to the town of Santa Rosalia to live near Ayela.  Even though she missed her boys terribly after they left home, Ayela knew that to let her son Freddie make that sacrifice would be too much to ask for any of them, and told Freddie’s wife to take him back to their home in Boston, endearing herself to the wife in the process.  Even though Ayela was brash and arrogant and demanding, as she says in that story she didn’t have the habit of taking things she didn’t really need.

Norm:

Does The Good Works of Ayela Linde have a broader objective than simply entertaining or storytelling? If so, can you talk more about that objective and what you hope readers will take away from reading the book?

Charlotte:

I was schooled by Roman Catholic nuns who were forever hounding us with the notion that even your slightest action affects others—people that you know and people that you’ll never know, and the book may have evolved from that.  I think it’s a good operating principle for life.

Norm:

Is there anything else you wish to add that we have not covered?

Charlotte:

Not really.  Just to thank you for giving me this opportunity to share my thoughts with others.

Thanks once again and good luck with The Good Works of Ayela Linde.