write on the river

INTERVIEW WITH A WRITER: ROSE WEAGANT

By Holly Thorpe

About Rose:

Rose was born and raised in the NCW area. The product of two artists, she is a writer, teacher, roller skater, and budding farm-type person living on the Methow River. She finds pleasure in making up stories about people and taking a morethan-necessary amount of photos. Follow Rose’s blog at dinmutha.medium.com.

In 2021, Rose Weagant won first place for her fiction story “The Piggly Wiggly” in the Write on the River writing contest. It was her second time placing in the contest. She recalls getting the news the first time, in 2019, while at a hotel in Portland, Oregon.

“Susan [Lagsdin] called me when I was in a hotel room and I was so frickin’ excited,” she said. “It signified that my stuff was worth publishing again.”

Since then, so much has changed.

First, the pandemic. Weagant, like many, became more isolated, and writing became more difficult.

“It’s hard to focus on things and be like, ‘I’m going to write,’ and then there’s more pandemic and more people dying,” she said

Still, she kept her blog, writing about her hobby farm near the river in Okanogan County.

Then, George Floyd was murdered by police in Minneapolis in 2020.

“I was writing on my blog and I was feeling really good about starting this farm and writing about the farm, and then George Floyd was killed,” she said, “and I was like ‘Why am I, a white woman in the middle of the world, trying to demand attention at this moment?’ ”

Her writing changed after that and turned inward.

“I got really reflective, really private, and all of my writing has been private since then,” she said. “I got to a point where I didn’t think I was worthy of being read. And I’m still working on that. And it’s a process. Because everything is upside down.”

Her work changed as well. Weagant went from working at the Confluence Art Gallery in Twisp, Wash. to teaching grade 7-12 art at Okanogan High School. She has taught for three years at the school.

“I got to focus on teaching and my students and getting my shit together,” she said. “Teaching is the best way to get rid of ego in the entire world. You can think you’re a badass intelligent person, but when a 12-year-old looks at you like you’re an idiot, you really believe them.”

She also started a master’s of education program at Central Washington University and is expected to graduate this August. Schoolwork has consumed her writing these days.

“I am writing a lot of papers and I am working on my thesis and things like that, but honestly, I’ve written two books and a play 60% through in the past few years,” she said. “Then I get to that dreaded 60%, where I go ‘Oh, there’s a hole!’ and I stare at the plot hole until the whole thing withers and dies.”

She writes in starts and fits, filling notebooks with observations and ideas.

“I’m constantly writing little things, but it’s gotten to the point where I’m really Dickinson-ing right now. I have notebooks in every room,” she said. “If I die and somebody has to go through all of these notebooks, that’s going to be a wild ride.”

“Piggly Wiggly” came from a similar old notebook. When asked what advice she would give to new writers, she recalled picking the story for submission when she realized it was an idea worth pursuing.

“If it makes you giddy, it might make someone else giddy, she said. “If you’re getting off on something, someone else in the world is getting off on it too.”

She said she misses sharing her work, and she hasn’t resigned from submitting.

“I’d like to pick it up again, but it’s like getting together with an old love, and it’s super awkward,” she said. “This is not the rest, but the recoil. I’m going to get enough stuff done where I can have this even ground and I can just write again.”

To learn more about Write on the River, become a member, or register for events, visit writeontheriver.org. Membership is $35 per year, and offers free or discounted access to all WOTR events. Questions? Contact info@writeontheriver.org. c

It begins at the far end of a Piggly Wiggly parking lot on a gray Sunday afternoon. Most folks don’t park back there on account of the long trudge to and from the grocery store. But it is, as contractually stated in many a divorce, a nice, neutral space for transition. Parents lean on Fords and Chevys with their kids tucked neatly in the king cabs, thumbing devices and gnawing candy as they wait for their particular form of deliverance.

Happily married people do not see these ghosts at the end of the parking lot. It’s only those who know the dance that see it happening, when the far end of the Piggly Wiggly turns into a shipyard, transferring the most precious cargo from one parent to another.

Roy was there, too, a big heap of a fella. He sighed and checked his watch. The sky’s indifference made him a bit drowsy. And anxious. He yawned and looked at Nathaniel, sitting in the Harley’s sidecar, still in his helmet and goggles. They didn’t bug him too much.

Roy is a fella who tried, but (admittedly) not all of the time. He could have done better for Ellen. He wished he could really show her, but that’s done now. Still, he has Nathaniel. He can show him.

On weekends, they play catch and take walks on the pier. Nathaniel likes to sit on the tailgate and watch Roy tinker with his motorcycle. Mostly, they do this in silence. Sometimes, they listen to the radio. Whatever the case, they have a good time.

Roy hated this part and had hated it for the last five years. There was nothing good about letting Nathaniel go back to Ellen; well, Ellen and George.

Ellen and Roy used to spend the weekends drinking up the sun and loving Nathaniel. But at some point, even Nathaniel wasn’t enough to keep them together.

When Ellen got fed up with Roy and his greasy jeans and Harley, she walked out, taking Nathaniel. It was rough, but they made it work. Then Ellen met a nice pair of khakis named George, and they got married. It still nibbled at him. And worse, Ellen still made his heart flutter.

On this particular Sunday, George came to collect Nathaniel, per Ellen’s instructions. And, according to Roy’s watch, George was a whopping 7 minutes late. Bullshit.

A Lincoln Continental turned into the parking lot. Roy tucked his flutter away when he saw the balding silhouette, and not the smooth lines of his former wife, in the driverseat.

The Continental purred to a stop next to the Harley. Roy took a calming breath and wiped his sweaty hands on his greasy jeans.

From inside the Continental, George saw Roy out there--leaned up on a big, beefy Harley like he didn’t have a care in the world. Roy could snap George in half. Easily. George gulped.

Roy couldn’t help but judge his replacement, George the accountant. He looked well enough to do--timeshare well enough. George looked like a man who played golf and a lot of it. But could he provide for Nathaniel with the love and kindness that he was so accustomed to? Roy doubted it.

This is tough, thought George. But it’s what Ellen wants, and he opened the car door.

“Roy.”

“George.” “How you been?”

“Fair to middling.”

“All right.”

Roy watched George shake his legs out and smooth the wrinkles in his khakis. Khakis. The mere word chafed him. Of course khakis. After decades of dirty jeans, she gave up and found herself a khakis man.

No matter now. Roy grimaced.

The men stood in front of each other, a respectable distance apart. Roy crossed his arms and looked down at George. From his long, blonde hair to his tattooed forearms and his big boots, he made guys like George shake in their loafers. And yet Roy was, and would always be by George’s standard, cool.

George craned his neck around Roy’s girth to take a peek at Nathaniel, still wearing his helmet and goggles. “How’d our little guy do?”

Roy held his breath. How dare you, he thought. How’d he do? I’ll tell you how he did. Just great, as always. You little turd. Hell, Nathaniel’s been everywhere with me and that won’t ever stop. You get me? Just because your Ellen’s husb—

“Hi, Nat!”

What a little shit.

“It’s Nathaniel. Nuh-THAN-yel. Ellen and me never called him that.” Roy flustered and looked at Nathaniel who perked up at George’s voice--a harder blow to Roy than anything George could ever physically muster.

Roy looked down at Nathaniel, excited, his tail wagging.

Of all the best dogs in the world, why do I have to share mine with this dink?

Roy scooped Nathaniel into his arms and held his face close. Nathaniel licked Roy’s nose.

I can’t leave our baby with this guy. It’s just not right.

“Look, I know this is strange,” George reasoned. “But it’s what Ellen wanted.”

Roy didn’t look. He stared into Nathaniel’s eyes, tears spluttering down his cheeks. His boy, his good boy is all he has now. He buried his wet face into Nathaniel’s coat and sobbed.

Eventually, Roy wrung himself out, and handed Nathaniel over to George who loaded him into the Continental.

“Good service, huh?” said Roy, voice quivering. He mopped his nose with a dirty bandana.

“Yup.”

It was a good service. Ellen would be proud.

The sadness kept them facing each other. Roy wanted to be indignant. He loved her for longer, deeper (though maybe not better). He looked at George. He was wrung out, too. They shared the emptiness, a void big enough to swallow them whole. If not for Nathaniel, the two would hold hands and jump together into their sorrow.

But the accountant and the mechanic, knit together inextricably by four legs and a wet nose, made a promise to Ellen.