If We Don't Come Together, We'll Fall Apart

[NANCY JO CULLEN IN CONVERSATION WITH MICAELA POWERS]

NANCY JO CULLEN HAS WRITTEN SEVERAL POETRY COLLECTIONS AND AN AWARD-WINNING SHORT-STORY COLLECTION. HERE, MICAELA POWERS TALKS WITH CULLEN ABOUT THE BOOKS SHE’S TURNED TO FOR COMFORT, THE IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNITY, AND WHAT IT WAS LIKE TO TACKLE HER FIRST NOVEL.

HLR: What are you reading right now? Is there are particular author who you have turned to for comfort during this uneasy time?

NJC: Right this moment I’m reading Grown-Up Pose by Sonya Lalli and Amber Dawn’s new collection, My Art is Killing Me. And I’m listening to A Mind Spread Out on the Ground by Alicia Elliott. I really love hearing this book read to me by the author herself. In terms of comfort reads, I find all three of these books soothing in one way or another. I’m very much enjoying breezy novels at the moment. I find it hard to concentrate on TV so a novel that is entertaining and has a happy ending is really hitting the spot for me. Amber Dawn’s book is serious but funny, so also soothing, and Alicia Elliott’s book offers a deeply personal perspective on the issues and history that settlers need to come to terms with if we want a better country, and I’m grateful for the author’s willingness to share that with readers/listeners. I’m having a really hard time watching TV these days so, for the most part, it’s all books for me right now.

HLR: You are a multitalented writer who works in many genres. What draws you to write in new forms? Did anything about writing a novel surprise you?

NJC: Well, I guess I write in forms that I like to read. And, honestly, when I started writing fiction I believed I was done with poetry, and I really didn’t write any poetry for nearly ten years. I’d lost my connection with it. So I started writing short fiction and then a novel. To be honest, I think I started the novel because that’s what I thought I should do after I wrote a short story. Everything about writing a novel surprised me. Good Lord, it takes so long! I was so sick of myself and I hated the book and I had no idea what I was doing. At the end of the five-year project when I was working with my editor, Paul Vermeersch, I began to feel a bit better about it, although on my bad days I thought, what is wrong with Paul that he likes this book?! And then the beautiful cover came in and then we started to promote the book and I came around to believing in the project again. It was very uncomfortable to not know what I was doing for much of the novel. I know there are lots of people who work from outlines but I resisted it, perhaps in part because I didn’t know what I was doing until the first draft was completed. (And then there was still so much more to do!)

HLR: How do you stay motivated/interested in a story over such a long-term process? How long did it take you, from conception to completion, to write The Western Alienation Merit Badge?

NJC: The Western Alienation Merit Badge took about six years from beginning to publication date. I don’t know that I can articulately say how to stay motivated/interested. It’s more about sitting down and doing the work and sticking to it. It’s also accepting that you’re going to have to redo that work and probably redo it again. As vague as it sounds, I think finishing a project comes down to making the decision to finish a project. It’s not always going to feel good but that’s what you have to do. I’ve recently finished a poetry manuscript and I was surprised by all the bad feelings I had at the end of the manuscript. That’s only because I’d romanticized writing poetry after the slog of a novel. Finishing a book is always (for me) a battle against my own self (dis)belief.

HLR: What led you to the decision to structure the themes of the chapters around merit badges?

NJC: I began writing the novel with the final section of the book and Girl Guides were a big part of that. (An initial working title was Semaphore Alphabet but the semaphore quickly got nixed from the novel.) After I finished that first (ultimately last) section I wanted the book to have structure to hold it to the girls, and after a visit to the Girl Guides archives, I realized that the badges had great potential to structure sections around.

HLR: From a chronological standpoint, the novel ends at the beginning, and the last chapter even focuses on a Bernadette who seems hopeful about her future. Given that the novel has already shown how this future played out, why was it important for this scene to close the story?

NJC: Bernadette is a harsh person, but there are reasons for her harshness. I wanted the reader to see her as more than just an angry woman. She didn’t begin with that harshness but it protected her and propelled her forward in her life so she clung to it. I wanted to create a little empathy for her.

HLR: I found Jimmy’s search for connection to Doris and discovery of creative expression first through crochet and then quilting very moving and the girls’ lack of understanding of it was truly heartbreaking. How can we work to better understand each other, especially in times of struggle and grief?

NJC: This book was largely about how a family can fall apart. Originally I’d conceived a happier ending, I mean, I don’t think it’s an entirely sad book but I thought it was going to have a really conclusive happy ending. But it just didn’t feel right given the era that the novel is set in. I think the way we can work to better understand one another is to try to let go of fear and to certainly try to recognize that whatever is considered “normal” is constructed. All three family members are harmed in some way by what is considered normal for their gender, by what is “manly” or “womanly.”

HLR: The Murrays seem to be a family doomed to not understand each other. Does the invitation to come to the B&B signify hope for the sisters?

NJC: In my mind it does. Will the sisters work it out? Maybe they’ll find an uneasy peace but Frances and Phoenix will find the family they both long for.

HLR: During the fire, Jimmy thinks back on his time with Doris as an era, but it seems like the fire is the true end to the era for all of the characters. Was this era’s ending necessary for the characters to rise up out of their respective downward spirals?

NJC: Many families rise above difficulties and pull together and so I’m not sure that the era needed to end for each character to grow up and into themselves. But the Murrays suffered multiple losses that they didn’t have the ability to pull themselves out of. The fire was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Because they had no empathy for themselves and each other, because they worried more about external, outside approval than caring for one another, they lost one another. I don’t know that it was necessary but it began to feel inevitable as I moved through drafts of the novel.

HLR: Do you have one important piece of advice you’d like to offer to an emerging writer?

NJC: I think it’s really important for a writer to find and build community. I’m not referring to connections that might bring you opportunities, although arguably that is part of the work, I’m speaking of meaningful friendships with other writers. It’s life-enhancing to have writer friends who will read your work critically, friends who you can bounce ideas off of. These same friends can help you to celebrate your wins and help you process your rejections/losses and they’ll relish in your saltiness. And vice-versa, of course. My friendships with the writers I am close to help me to keep an even keel in an industry where so much is dependent on outside approval. I’m not sure I would have been able to stick with it without these enduring friendships.

Nancy Jo Cullen is the author of The Western Alienation Merit Badge and a recipient of the Writers’ Trust Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBT Emerging Writers. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph-Humber and her short story collection, Canary, was the winner of the 2012 Metcalf-Rooke Award. Her poetry has been shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Award, the Writers’ Guild of Alberta’s Stephan G. Stephansson Award and the City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize. She lived in Calgary for over two decades and still returns regularly to connect with family and friends. She now lives in Kingston, Canada.