Back in the saddle

I took a break. Have you?

I didn’t intend to take a 6-week newsletter break, but that’s what happens when you tempt the gods by writing about productivity… Apparently, I was a little more burned out by the events of Spring 2020 than I thought I was. But I’m back, and I hope you’ll enjoy what I’ve pulled together for you this week. And if you do, please feel free to share with others!

Craft: That’s just my point of view

I’ve been thinking about the multiple possibilities of point of view. In an email exchange with King’s MFA mentor and author David Hayes, he noted that he had for some time presumed that memoir required a first-person point of view—but then noticed that Nick Flynn shifted to third-person when writing about his difficult relationship with his father in his memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City; Margaret Forster uses third-person in Hidden Lives in describing her mother and grandmother’s lives before Forster’s own birth; and Annie Ernaux shifts perspective from the collective first person “we” when speaking of her generation to third-person when speaking of herself in The Years. (You can read more of David’s thoughts on Ernaux on his website.) In two memoirs I’ve read recently—Mothers of Sparta by Dawn Davies and Heating and Cooling by Beth Ann Fennelly—the authors choose the expected first-person for most of the work, but Fennelly powerfully deploy third-person point of view in one instance, and Davies kicks off her collection with two pieces written in the second-person. Essayist (and King’s MFA mentor) Jane Silcott also has a lovely and funny piece called “Cooking Class and Marriage Lessons” written in second person, the trickiest of all POVs to pull off, in my opinion.

What factors drive the choice of POV? In most cases, when writing about ourselves, the first-person “I” (and sometimes the collective we, us, our) comes naturally. So why opt for anything else? I think of third-person as a powerfully protective point of view: it can allow us to step outside of ourselves, to see a scene one step removed rather than having to revisit a traumatic or emotionally tough scene from inside the fear, a dissociative device that allows us to more safely revisit scary or upsetting or uncomfortable experiences. In Fennelly’s case, in her collection of 52 micro-memoirs, 51 are written in first-person. Just one—“The Grief Vacation,” about the aftermath of her sister’s sudden and unexpected death—is in third-person, a choice that adds to its punch.

But third-person isn’t just a tool to allow an author to gain distance: it can also be a way of universalizing an experience, of pulling the reader into the page. That’s what I was trying to do in my short piece “After” in Hazlitt, written while the Ghomeshi trial was ongoing. I’d been struck by how often I’d heard people—women included—using some variation on the phrase “I don’t understand why she did that after” in reference to the complainants and their actions after the incidents about which they’d eventually gone to the police. But at the same time, almost every woman I knew had a “what I did after” moment, where in the aftermath of an emotional or physical assault, she had reacted by downplaying or ignoring what had happened, or even placating the person who had assaulted her. By shifting some examples from my own experience into third person and weaving in experiences of friends and family (with their permission) in third person, all anonymized into a universal “she,” I was trying to create an understanding of how thoroughly rape culture socializes women to take the blame. I ended the piece with a scene pulled from the court case, the one that seemed to be most frequently cited in the “I don’t understand why she did that after” comments, pushing myself—and I hoped, readers—to shift first to the safety of third-person distance, to then perhaps interpolate their own example into the string of “she’s” and then finally to land on the one that was so publicly cited as being beyond understanding. Was it really so hard to understand what “she” did? Or was it only beyond understanding when we distanced ourselves from her point of view?

There are other uses of third person: David’s example of Forster deploying it to deal with what happened before she was born—before there was an “I” for her to deploy—is a good one. Another David mentioned was Salman Rushdie’s Joseph Anton. Joseph Anton was Rushdie’s pseudonym during the time he was in hiding following the fatwa issued against him by the Ayatollah Khomeini, and Rushdie wrote the book entirely in the third person—a choice that makes sense when the “he” he was writing about was an identity he’d had forced upon him. I also wonder about examples where someone’s life has changed so dramatically that there is a distinct before and after to their experiences—in that case, toggling between third and first person could make sense.

What about that tricky second-person “you”? Davies utilizes it beautifully in two opening essays about her teenaged self in Mothers of Sparta, and while her experiences were different from my own at her age, her “you” did draw me in and back to those late 1970s early 1980s teenaged years, hooking me into the collection and her subsequent first-person pieces. (I don’t want to undercut the impact of Davies’ concluding essays, but I will say that starting with two essays in the second person made even more sense as I saw the full arc of her collection. It’s tempting to push away from those final essays, to deny any common ground with its difficult subject matter, but the “you” hooks in the opening essays, along with the considerable empathy and connection Davies builds throughout the book, are essential, I think, to keeping the reader with her at the book’s end.)

“You” has an instructional, directional tone to it, which may be why it is especially tricky to use—there’s a hint of bossiness or scolding in it. One of the cautions against using “you”—one I heard many times as a magazine writer and editor—was that in trying to create connection with a reader by using  “you” and assuming a common experience with the reader, a writer could end up creating disconnection if the reader’s immediate response was “no I don’t”—pushing back against the “you are this way” judgmental tone. It’s a valid concern, especially when for so long publications assumed a singular cultural point of view—white hetero middle class—and any “you’s” or collective first-person “we’s” excluded many people. But a “you” deployed with empathy—as in Davies’ case—or with humour—as in Jane Silcott’s piece—has at least a solid shot at creating connection, I’d argue.

And then there are those who colour entirely outside the lines. On my to-order list is Niche: A Memoir in Pastiche by Momus, aka Nick Currie, which Publishers Weekly gave a starred review and called a “dazzlingly off-beat memoir” and “that rare show-biz memoir that’s both entertaining and a literary triumph.” The book is written in the “persona and styles of dozens of writers, artists, directors and scientists,” including James Joyce, Hemingway, Freud, Edgar Allan Poe and Alexander Graham Bell. Admitting my utter lack of musical coolness (I was probably listening to Huey Lewis at the time), I will admit I’d never heard of Momus, but I may give his book a shot based on that review.

Exercises

1. Shifting lenses: Tackling a tough section of memoir writing? Shift from “I” to “she” or “he” or “they.” Telling the story as if you are telling someone else’s tale may give you the distance you need to get the scene onto the page.

2. Get judgmental: Think about an episode from your life where you wish you had behaved differently or made a different choice. Write the scene in second person. Does the shift in POV magnify, alter or illuminate your regret or judgmental stance on this past incident?

What I’m Reading: Women Crime Writers

In fiction, POV becomes even more complicated: it’s not simply an I, you or her decision—it’s a decision about which character’s eyes to view the action through. In the last few weeks, I’ve had fun dipping into the terrific two-volume collection Women Crime Writers. Selected by Sarah Weinman, the volumes contain eight suspense novels written in the 1940s and 1950s. So far I’ve read Laura by Vera Caspary and In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes. Both surprised me as seeming thoroughly modern in their structure and storytelling approach. Laura—which became a celebrated film directed by Otto Preminger—is told in alternating sections and character perspectives (the friend, the detective, the victim), with a police interview transcript thrown into the mix as well. In a Lonely Place is told from the point of view of a serial killer (though that label wouldn’t be coined for another thirty years or so). Both are well written and will particularly appeal to anyone with a taste for 1940s Americana and noir.

Other good stuff

Read I’ve been dipping into The Shell Game, edited and with an introduction by Kim Adrian, the essayist who coined the term “hermit crab essay.” Hermit crab essays are pieces that borrow other forms: recipes, instruction lists, scientific papers, medical charts. The Shell Game is a collection of such pieces, and for any writer interested in playing with form, it is rich with inspiration. (This, like Mothers of Sparta and Heating and Cooling, all made it onto my reading list as a result of recommendations from mentors, guests and students at the June residency for the King’s MFA in Creative Nonfiction. So many books added to the bedside stack!)

Bonus Read: I love looking inside my friend Steacy’s brain, and their e-newsletter Lists, a daily list, is full of delights and things that make me think and look at the world differently. Find out more at pinkmoose.substack.com.

Watch Pandemic downside: all of the cancelled book festivals. Unexpected upside: all of the online book readings, interviews and launches that are suddenly accessible from just about anywhere. Seriously: Google your favourite festival and I’ll bet you’ll find a terrific online line-up.

Listen Family promo alert: my sister Tina Pittaway, audio storyteller extraordinaire, produced Countless Journeys, a podcast for Pier 21, Canada’s national immigration museum. Hosted by author Mark Sakamoto, the series is packed with emotional and compelling stories. Give it a listen!

Book industry stuff

• Book doctor: University of Alberta is offering a PhD English Concentration in Editing and Publishing, a 4-year degree that includes two years of working at U of A Press.

• Reading list: Thanks to Jane Friedman for this recco (seriously, you should subscribe to her newsletters at janefriedman.com): Standard Ebooks is a volunteer-run ebook publisher focusing on public domain books. Lots and lots of good free stuff here!

• Readers listen: Turns out readers are almost three times more likely to listen to podcasts than nonreaders, says Booknet Canada.

• Drive-in book launch: And other book marketing strategies for coping with COVID’s impact on in-person events.

• Building a network of book publishing freelancers from diverse communities: The Association of Canadian Publishers is asking for book publishing freelancers from diverse communities to join their network, with the goal of increasing opportunities with the Canadian industry. Details here and for those seeking to connect with freelancers, the database is here.

Courses, communities & stuff

• How do people find writing partners? A friend and colleague posed that question after I suggested teaming up with a writing partner as a good way to keep on track with a writing project. Her challenge: finding someone whose skill level is on par with hers and whose feedback she trusts. I’ll admit, I was a bit flummoxed. For me, successful writing partnerships have emerged almost accidentally and organically—and not all have ended up working out. So, question for the hive: what are your suggestions for finding a writing-partner match?

• Writers’ Union membership now easier:  The Writers’ Union of Canada has revised its eligibility guidelines: applicants can now qualify for membership under a points system that includes credit for graduate degrees, membership in provincial writers’ organizations, self-publishing and other criteria.

• Record cell phone interviews like a pro: Not a course, but a really really detailed article, from the audio pros at Transom.org—everything you need to know.

• Contest connection: If you haven’t discovered Literistic.com, take a look. This subscription service curates a monthly list of writing contests and publishing submission opportunities.

• Writing beyond what you know: Check out this self-guided course from Creative Nonfiction magazine, on using metaphor, speculation and imaginative play to push your nonfiction past the boundaries of what you know for a fact. Take a look at their other offerings as well.

Tweets & stuff

Doing a deep dive

#WOMENSART @womensart1

'The jump' quilt by Spanish quilter and textile artist Cristina Arcenegui Bono #womensart

That’s a big bunny!

@Billy_Brocas @Billy_Brocas

I would like all 587 of you to see this lad

So beautiful

gregory scofield ᐅᒫᒌᐤ @gregoryscofield

Gorgeous Lower McKenzie River c. 1890-1900 Cree-Métis/Athabaskan pocket watch holder or little pouch. Notice the variety of old beads that include the metal faceted beads commonly used in Athabaskan work. Also, the two-tone blue flower. Black velvet and silk ribbon.

Obligatory photo of Buddy

Buddy says “I have the pandemic summer blues…”

The stuff at the bottom

I’m a writer, editor and teacher. This is my personal e-newsletter on the craft of writing nonfiction, sprinkled with occasional feminism and social justice. You can find out more about me on my website at kimpittaway.com. You can also find me on Facebook and Twitter. I’m the executive director of the MFA in Creative Nonfiction limited residency program at the University of King’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. If you’re interested in writing a nonfiction book, you should check our program out!

And finally

Share your online course and community recommendations, links to cool things writers and others are doing to get through all of this and whatever else strikes you in the comments section of the web version of this post.