A Conversation with Amy Wallen

Years ago, I met Amy Wallen through mutual writer-teacher friends. At the time she was producing a spoken word series based in San Diego called DimeStories, which she also founded. Amy had published a novel and was also hosting salons at her home featuring her delicious pies (hence the name, Savory Salons). Like me, she was creating community through storytelling and I felt I'd met a kindred spirit.

Next week Amy's debut memoir When We Were Ghouls: A Memoir of Ghost Stories is being released into the world through the American Lives series edited by Tobias Wolff. In the interview below, I had a chance to ask her about the differences between writing fiction and nonfiction, how she found the keys to structure, and what advice she would have given herself in retrospect. You'll also find her upcoming readings and signings in LA and across the USA! 

---

Amy E. Wallen is the author of the soon-to-be-released memoir When We Were Ghouls (University of Nebraska Press, March 2018). She is the associate director at the New York State Writers Institute and teaches creative writing at the University of California, San Diego Extension. Her first novel, Moon Pies and Movie Stars, was a Los Angeles Times bestseller. Amy is the creator of Savory Salons, an intimate gathering with a conversation springing from the author’s latest work. If you want to be invited, message her and she'll put you on the list!

When Amy learns her parents are grave robbers and her memory is out of focus, she tries to figure out what truly happened. When We Were Ghouls, A Memoir of Ghost Stories is about a search for family. It follows a family that has been dispersed around the world, a family who, like ghosts, come and go and slip through Amy’s fingers making it unclear if they were ever there.

"Lyrical and haunting."—Booklist

Buy the book

Karin Gutman: Tell me about your book!

Amy Wallen: When We Were Ghouls is, as the subtitle suggests, a memoir metaphorically in ghost stories. The book opens with a memory I have of my family digging up a pre-Inca grave in Peru. I soon discover my memories are not quite what I thought and yet at the same time frighteningly just as I remembered, so I start to dig even deeper into my family’s adventures. As a young kid my blue-collar family was transferred to Nigeria, Peru and then Bolivia. All of my family members, like ghosts, came and went during this time. I begin to question everything that happened, although the physical world suggests my memories are real, the stories seem unbelievable to me. The stories suggest that my family were looters, grave robbers and hideous people with no regard for humanity. The opening scene/chapter is exactly how the story came to me. I had no intention of writing a memoir, but I soon realized that’s exactly what I had to do. 
 
I know you have also published a novel. Can you describe the difference between writing fiction versus nonfiction?

I struggled with the transition from fiction to nonfiction. Not because I didn’t want to tell the truth, and not because I wanted to make things up (although I do find that to be more fun), but because I had a hard time with the narrators of experience and innocence. I had learned psychic distance in fiction but those characters felt more stagnant or controllable, maybe. To apply that to myself, to who I am now AND who I was then was a mind-bender for me. I had to learn compassion for my complicity, for my family, dig inside deep to admit to how I felt then versus how I feel now, or rather how I felt as I wrote the book. I say the last bit because I think even as I look at the pages now, a few years after they were written, I have a new way of looking at the story, but I had to realize that was the story I was writing then. Once it clicked, once I realized the juxtaposition versus the commonalities, once I realized that I was writing the story that I had to tell at that moment about that part of my past, even though it would be different at every stage of my life, I felt right at home in the genre of creative nonfiction. It’s a very “of the moment” genre and yet is about the past. Or at least, that’s how I came to decipher it.

What does your writing practice look like? Has it morphed over time?
 
My writing practice varies with my life, somewhat, but also stays the same. I believe in writing every day because otherwise I lose the momentum. But I have also learned that I can’t always make this happen because life gets in the way, and mostly I get in the way of myself.  I wanted to get another book started so it wouldn’t take me as long as it took me to write this last book. So, this time I’m writing every day but not putting on any pressure and I’m just committing to 250 words - no matter what. That’s about a page a day and so I figure at the end of a year I’ll have at least 365 pages. I usually write more than 250 words, but even if that’s all I have some days, then at least I’ve kept my finger in the pot and the momentum going. So far it’s working. I’m on page 73 and I started Dec 29, 2017 so I’m about 35 pages ahead of where I thought I’d be.

Writing memoir at times can be painful, as we go to our most vulnerable places inside. How did you take care of yourself during the process?

I’m not very good at self-care, then again, I’m too good at it. I tend to be a workaholic, but I also go to a lot of spas and get a lot of massages. As far as taking care of me as a writer, I really focus on only showing my work to the people I trust and only when I feel it’s got enough heft that the input won’t turn it to dust. I am way too sensitive and take everything that people tell me about my work to heart. So instead of trying to teach myself to be tougher, I try to find ways to receive input that isn’t going to make me quit writing, but instead will make me a better writer. Sometimes though I wish I had one of those mothers that would just tell me everything I do is perfect. 
 
To me, writing a memoir is about uncovering the deeper underlying truth of our experience… how did you do that?
 
I agree with you completely. I think I did this by doing what I mentioned above—showing drafts to only people I trust. When I say I trust them I trust that they will tell me where to dig deeper, where they want to know more, where I am being superficial. I think I also asked a lot of questions about myself and why my memories would be so distorted. I assumed that the answers were inside of me. I kept to the truth by realizing there is never just one truth—that everyone’s point of view and reality is valid. But the story I was telling was my reality and my truth wrapped up inside all those others.

What kind of feedback did you seek out along the way? Are you a part of a writing group? Did you work with an editor?
 
I have a very close reader and we share work. We have read each other’s books probably over 10 times. We have seen them at every stage. I did pay another good friend who is a professional book reviewer to also look at a later draft. He gave me the keys to structure. Then, after I got my book deal through the University press, the peer reviewer gave me comments that pushed the theme to a whole new level and I felt took the story to a much deeper and honest place. So yes, I sought feedback along the way, but very carefully. I belonged to a writing group when I wrote my novel and they were incredibly helpful, and I also learned the key to having trustful readers along the way. It’s not good to have the blind leading the blind, but to have a fabulous guide and teacher and a group of intelligent readers and writers—that’s invaluable, whatever form it comes in.

I am curious about what “keys to structure” you received?

It was David Ulin and he gave me the idea to start with the grave digging as the opening scene and then use the metaphor of digging up the remains of my family’s history throughout the rest of the memoir. It seemed so obvious when he said it, but it also seemed somewhat awkward at first since it changed the order of how I had it structured. Originally I had started with the grave digging, but hadn’t considered the slipping of memory and the continuation of the conversation with my parents in the current day. At first I tried to break the grave story up and spread it out, but I soon realized it was more about the metaphor, about slanting the details, than about scattering the physical scene. Again, another lesson learned about what memoir is about. But this “slanting of details” is something I really learned to the bone when I worked with Sue Silverman in grad school and from her book FEARLESS CONFESSIONS. She discusses the slanting of details, of taking the moment in time, finding the metaphors in the details and using them to create momentum and continuity to go into deeper and deeper places. So I guess I really was given the keys from many teachers and friends

How did you get a publishing deal for the book?
 
That’s always a question that I think every writer can answer differently, but still the same. I was seeking agents in New York since that’s what got me my novel book deal years ago. But this book was so different I also thought it may need a different kind of publisher. My NYC experience with my novel had been more about selling the book and getting it out into the world rather than about the words on the page. I wanted this book, maybe because it was so personal, to be treated with kid gloves. So I also researched independent presses. A good friend and mentor referred me to the University of Nebraska American Lives series edited by Tobias Wolff, and they made me an offer. They sounded like exactly what I was looking for and the perfect home for Ghouls. I have found the experience to be everything and more of what I dreamed of.

What has the publishing process been like?

A university press is so much different than a New York City publishing house. First of all, they only publish a handful of books a year and publish a more narrowly focused story, like the American Lives series which is basically memoirs of a variety of Americans. They also publish novels that focus on the Flyover States.  Because of the smaller focus they can spend more time on every word and detail. Before any contract is signed, the editor sends the book out to be peer-reviewed. This is when I was given the keys to the bigger question I needed to bring to the overall story. I never got this kind of depth of discussion before. This required another round of revisions, and the possibility that my manuscript would be rejected. I guess I must have done the job right. The cover was designed by an award-winning book cover artist, the editor read the manuscript with a fine-tooth comb, and again even after the copyeditor had cleaned it up. All this attention was both nerve-wracking and fabulous to have such intricate attention paid to my work. I feel I learned more in this process than in any class.

How encouraging to hear that your publishing experience was so positive. Again, you mention that the peer review gave you the keys to the “bigger question” that took the theme to a whole new level. Can you share more details about that?

The first round of peer review was positive, but only recommended publication with the contingency that I needed to find a bigger overall question that threaded through the entire memoir. See above where I am considering the slanting of details. I understood what the reviewer meant and he suggested that my early question in the grave digging scene—“Are we hideous people?” which my mother keeps calling us—seems the best question. That statement hit the nail on the proverbial head for me. I immediately saw how the question, which is asked in the opening, could be asked about every scene and memory and about myself and my family throughout the whole book. It also helped me see how to edit out some scenes because they were not essential to this question. The big question helped make the memoir feel whole, feel complete. Before that, it was a conglomeration of memories. The editing was so easy with that one key question.

You say you learned more in the process than any class. Can you elaborate?

I LOVE classes and take more than the average person. I think I went back to grad school after having published my novel because I just love being in the class setting so much. The camaraderie, the friendships created, and the bonds from sharing bad drafts (being vulnerable) are essential to surviving the writing process. But as someone who works on book-length work, I have found that it’s hard to get big-picture input when a class or group is only looking at 10-30 pages at a time. I craved to have someone read the entirety to give me those keys I mentioned before: David Ulin seeing the opening scene as a metaphor for the whole story; Sue Silverman teaching me to look for the metaphors throughout, the one metaphor that repeats itself; and the peer reviewer, Lee Martin, to see the Big Question that was hidden in the grave scene and that really was the thread that pulled all the repeating metaphors together. Maybe I’m dense and should have seen all of this myself, but I think that it becomes difficult to see our own stories from a longer perspective when we are so close to them. I think classes are fantastic for providing deadlines, to give input on the prose style, the intrigue of the story and the development of individual scenes. They teach us how to write, and I am an honest believer in that as writers we never stop learning how to write.  I think Big-Picture readers are essential for the later drafts. My own frustration with the later drafts and big-picture input is why I started the 200-page workshop I do with David Ulin in my living room. I think the peer review process at the university press was ideally the best kind of reader—one who wants you to get published, wants to make your book the best it can be—not the kind that is just looking for what isn’t working, but instead looking for what will make it work.

Did you have to deal with any legalities, in terms of exposing other people? Did you have any personal concerns about telling this story?
 
I have not had to deal with any legalities, but I did worry about it when I was writing it. I considered using a pseudonym so that if any of the issues of what my parents did came to the attention of someone who wanted to try to cause a problem, I could avoid it. I did a TON of research on whether or not I was exposing anyone, namely my parents, to some kind of legal hassle or even jail time. I called attorneys, museums, archeologists, and of course googled every variation of negative thought I had. Everything I kept finding out was that my parents would have had to sell the artifacts they dug up in order to be arrested or even fined. But I still worry that there will be some kind of problem that will arise. My parents are in their late 80s and that would be a real drag if they were hauled off to prison. I asked my mom if she would have a problem if Homeland Security showed up at her door, and she said, “Good gosh no, I wish they’d come and haul all that stuff out of here.“

Now in hindsight… looking back at yourself at the beginning of the process, what advice would you have given Amy?
 
I’d tell myself to not resist whatever story wants to show up on the page, and to remember that just because I am writing a book all about myself that I’m not a narcissist, but a storyteller. And, that even though I’m writing a book all about myself, people will want to know my story if I tell it truthfully. And to be me on the page, even if 'me' is sometimes a little shit.

~ Meet Amy Wallen ~

Upcoming Readings + Signings:

February 24th, 7pm @ The Foundry (San Diego)

March 3, 5pm @ The Book Catapult w/ Jim Ruland (San Diego)

March 8th @ AWP Tampa Bookfair (Florida)

March 15, 7pm @ The Innovative w/ Samantha Dunn (Orange County)

April 26, 7pm @ Book Culture w/ Philip Lopate (NYC)

See full details

To learn more about Amy Wallen, visit: www.amywallen.com

See all interviews

A Conversation with Karen Kinney

One of my favorite things to do is talk to writers and artists about their creative process. What are their daily rituals? How do they go about developing their seedling ideas? While there is no single way, I believe these conversations can offer us insight, give us comfort and encouragement as we discover and learn to trust our own creative process - and come to own what we have to say as creative beings in this world.

My dear friend, Karen Kinney, is a fine artist who just released her book THE RELUCTANT ARTIST which is all about navigating and sustaining a creative path. In our discussion below, we dialogue about art and commerce, how to think about creative blocks, the importance (or not) of talent, and accepting the natural ebb and flow of the creative process. I hope you glean some new ways to think about how and what you are creating. I certainly did!

---

Karen Kinney is a professional artist whose work has been in numerous exhibitions, both nationally and internationally. Her art was purchased for the Lionsgate film “The Lincoln Lawyer” and resides in private collections across the country, including those of actor Bob Odenkirk and NPR’s Guy Raz. Her work often begins with a paint stroke, a shred of paper, or some ink scratches on pages taken from old books. The use of vibrant colors is important to her, as it contributes to the feeling of something new emerging from what has been discarded. 

In addition to small-scale collages, she also creates large installations and is currently building a temporary installation for the Los Angeles International Airport. She has a Masters degree from the University of Chicago and lives in Los Angeles with her husband. 

In her debut book The Reluctant Artist, Karen compiles helpful insights to release greater creative freedom. She offers guidance and wisdom to navigate a winding creative path and stay motivated over the long haul. Both for those firmly established in a career and those just starting out, she reminds us of the value of creative expression and provides important keys to aid in its development.

To learn more, visit karenkinney.com

Karin: Let’s talk about art and commerce. You write a whole chapter devoted to it. How do you perceive the relationship between the two?

Karen Kinney: I make money through art, whether that’s through private commissions, selling existing work or public art projects. I also make money through odd jobs. My husband works at a 9-to-5 job. I am of the belief that fine art is best supported to reach its fullest creative potential when the pressure for it to consistently make money is removed, and it is allowed to be more organic and free. There are many other jobs that are more conducive to a regular, consistent paycheck. If I were the sole breadwinner, income would primarily come through other work, before putting pressure on my art to fill the role of a weekly paycheck.

Do you distinguish creativity as ‘pure’ and unrelated to commerce?

Creativity intersects with commerce all the time, and what this looks like varies greatly depending on what creative field you work in. I focus on the relationship between commerce and fine art in my book, which can look different than say, commerce and writing, or commerce and dance, etc. Because creativity is organic, meaning it does not usually take a linear path, generating money through it is more often than not a winding path. Developing a product with one’s art is one way to earn money more consistently. Some creative pursuits lend themselves much more easily to product than others, like offering a class for example. That is very much a product that can be sold and marketed fairly easily. But a product is different than creating for creating’s sake. And I find that in our capitalistic culture, money too easily becomes the lens through which we see all of life, including creativity and art, and I think this can often be to the detriment of creative expression.

I’m a believer in full freedom in terms of artists pursuing the path they want with money, but I think we need to have a conscious relationship with money and look honestly at its effects on art making and examine what happens to your art practice when it becomes solely a commodity. Because I think things do happen to it when it does. And those aren’t necessarily bad things for all people, but they can be. I find commerce can be a box at times that can limit what expression happens because certain kinds of expression just lend themselves better to being a product than others.

And I think we also need to be liberated from the belief that the value of the work we offer the world is only defined by monetary compensation - just because we live in such a capitalist society. I think it's the only lens we ever look at, in terms of valuing what we do in life. If everyone lived according to this belief, much important work in the world would never be done. So I mostly want to advocate that people look at how commerce impacts what they make and feel free to shift accordingly if they feel themselves burning out.

What if, say, you needed to return to social work to support yourself? Do you think that kind of work would suck you dry?

That’s a good question. If that were my situation, I wonder if I would then look at art not so much from a career point of view, which is how I’m looking at it now, but might see it more as a therapeutic thing that I need to do, just like I need to exercise. I wonder if my focus on it would shift so that it would really be purely something life-giving, to balance the reality of a 9-to-5 job. I mean, this is just theoretical, but maybe that's how I'd look at it.

So regardless of where money comes from, I still wouldn’t want to put unnecessary pressure on my art to make a living from it because of what I know it does to my own particular creative soul.

Would you say that it's important to find another consistent means of income to support yourself so that your art can be free to be what it needs to be?

Yes, I do think creativity operates best when it’s least restrictive. So even if some portion of your creativity is what you rely on for bread and butter -- whether that is a certain product that you made with it or something that sells well -- I think it's important as a creative person to have a space in your life with creativity that is unbounded and unassociated with money only because it fosters exploration. If your entire creative pursuit is dictated by making money, I don’t think you’re going to end up being very happy as a creative person, because where do you get to play? Or make a mistake? Or do something that nobody wants but you actually like it?

Perhaps it's best, then, to make money in something entirely unrelated to your art?

I think it leads to more joy. And I should qualify... this isn't true for everybody. Like some people who are more entrepreneurial in nature might find it really satisfying to make a work of art and have it sell regularly in demand; that might really fire them up. I think it's important to ask yourself, “What brings life to my soul?” That should be guiding the process. But in my experience I’ve met many artists who have gone the route of pure commercialism, believing that to be a successful artist they must make as much money as possible from their art, which I don't personally think is true. I think being a “successful” artist doesn’t have to be related to how much you get compensated. But anyway, I’ve known many artists who’ve gone the direction of needing their art to either produce a livelihood or at least a partial livelihood, and often burn out because it does require having a commodity, a product. 

So if someone likes a rectangle you made on a wall – and now they want it blue and now they want it in red – you churn out the same thing over and over again; for a lot of creative people that can get exhausting. It’s like, “Well, this might be selling and people want this, but I’d really like to make a triangle and not a rectangle, but no one wants to buy the triangle.” So I don't make it, and then I shut myself down. You know what I mean?

Or some people spend all their creative energy making a rectangle, so they don’t even have the energy for the triangle.

Right. Forget about even clueing into the fact that they want to make a triangle!

What would you say to the person whose income-producing job leaves very little time or energy to pursue their art at all?

That’s a very real problem too. Definitely, I feel like that’s really hard to balance, especially when you have a family and child, and you know, that all complicates life choices. I would say for people who feel like they don't see any space for anything. I would just try to encourage them to carve out 15 minutes on a regular basis to do something creative that makes them happy. That could be worth doing just for their own psychological wellbeing, whether or not it goes anywhere. And I feel like that's always doable when we think about just tiny, tiny steps. So that sometimes helps to break it down as opposed to getting overwhelmed by the enormity of, “Oh now I want to become a composer or filmmaker,” or whatever. These big, large ideas overwhelm us and we don't take action, all because daily life is just enough to handle. So sometimes just even small, tiny movement over time can open up something in us that grows potentially.

I'm a big believer that our stories are meant to be shared. So how do you balance valuing the creative process versus the discipline required to complete something so it can be shared?

Yeah, I am also very much an advocate of sharing your creative work with the world. That's probably what drives me the most with creating; I want it to impact people and impact the larger culture. So I almost always create with an end goal in mind. I actually am a very disciplined person by nature, which helps obviously. Especially because a lot of what I do is self-driven, and then once I create it, I go find a place in the world for it. That requires being fairly self-driven and structured. But I try to balance between moving intuitively with my creative work and then bringing in a structure to complete it.

So I'm not regimented when it comes to the actual creative process or thinking up ideas or having the birth of some new thing in my spirit. I kind of let that be very free-flow. But once something's been established in my mind like, “Okay I’m seeing this idea and getting thoughts around it,” then I’d say that's where my structured mind kicks in, and I’m like, “OK let’s start working on this and showing up for this every day to do it.” And then when it’s finished find the right place for it to go. For me that would be a gallery exhibit - or if I wanted to sell work in a store - or find another public art opportunity, or whatever. It takes different forms.

At what point do you step in and start to structure it?

In the beginning, I give things space to just kind of form - start writing whatever it is, or start drawing on the paper, or whatever it is you're doing. But I really take an observer role and I watch it and I don't just let myself go on forever. It's more like I'm working with it. I talk about this concept a bit in my chapter on listening. So as I'm writing, or as I'm painting the thing, I watch what's forming so I can get in sync with what it wants to be. Because I think usually creations have something they want to be if we're willing to partner with them; it doesn't just have to be us imposing our structure on something. I think we can have this reciprocal relationship that we're creating. So as I listen to it and observe it, that actually helps me with the structure. I'm like, “Oh here are clues for what I think this wants to be. Now what structure can I bring in to support what's already forming?”

I love that idea of partnering with our creative projects. So what about writer's block? Do you believe in it?

A writer's block or a creative block... Yes, I think there are always times when we get stuck or don't know how to move forward and I think that happens for different reasons. There are times when we are feeling resistance and we maybe know what's on our plate or we know the project we're trying to birth - and it's just like we're being resistant to showing up for it. And so that would be one category of resistance. In those cases it's helpful to either trick ourselves into creating or jumpstart ourselves - taking a walk or doing an experimentation or whatever mind trick we need to do to jumpstart our creativity again - if we feel like we're just not showing up because we are not feeling it.

But then I think there are other times--and you can look at my chapter “The Ebb and Flow”-- where the creative process seems to shut off completely. Those periods where it's like, “OK I've tried all my little tricks to get myself to create. I've done all these things and there's absolutely nothing, zero. I feel nothing. I have no ideas, like a blank.” I think those seasons also happen on the creative path. And I've learned over time to be much more OK when they come and more able to ride them out. Whereas I think when I first experienced times like that, I freaked out as I go, “Oh my god, what's happening? Am I not going to create ever again? What's wrong with me?” But I think over time I've realized that there is a natural ebb and flow to creating - sometimes there are longer periods where we just aren't creating. I call them dormant seasons and I think it's in those seasons when deeper things are allowed to process and kind of go underground that will surface in our future seasons of renewed activity. Basically there's value in having space in life. We live in a culture that basically says you have to be “on” all the time and I would question that because that doesn't allow for renewal, it doesn't allow for rest; it doesn't allow for new ideas to foster and incubate and then come out later. I think there are periods of what seems like stillness, and I think they are actually necessary and a valuable part of the creative path. But you're not going to get that affirmed in the larger culture; the larger culture doesn't understand. If you're not constantly producing, constantly active, you're told, “What's wrong with you?” But we're not machines.

If something completely new is going to be birthed... I can use pregnancy as an example. When a woman is pregnant, everything that's happening is happening inside. But it’s certainly super valuable - you don't have the option of skipping that stage! If you’re going to produce something really different or not the status quo, it would need time to come out. But the time before it comes out might not look like much is happening.

Do you think much about talent? Whether you or someone else is talented?

It’s not actually something I think about very often. I think people do have an innate talent, but I don’t think that means people can't be creative. I think everyone has something creative to express, a piece of their soul to express to the world. And so I like to encourage people to see the possibilities in their life. I think people too often get fixated on seeing themselves as deficient. And I think, “Well, that doesn't help get us anywhere.” I can do the same in my own life, like “Where am I not measuring up?” Or “I'm not good enough” you know. That's not a helpful message to perpetuate. I feel like we need to be affirming people's potential and everyone has creative potential. So whether they have a more natural inclination for something or not, I feel like they can still express who they are to the world and leave the world better for it. Really people should just do what brings them joy. Look for what lights you up inside or what's life-giving for you, because you're going to be happier.

Of course, the peaks and valleys are par for the course when creating. So when do you know if it's truly time to shelve a project?

I actually end up finishing most things, which is, from what I understand from other artists, a bit atypical. I have a very strong left brain, in addition to the right brain, so I think that makes me a bit of an anomaly, or less common at least, in the artist world.

I think one gauge is what I referenced before. “Is this project life-giving?” Because I think if a project is feeding us in addition to us feeding it, then it has greater potential to be finished or is easier to see through in the midst of the peaks and valleys or the times we're frustrated or want to end it. I think it helps increase the odds that it will be finished. So that's why for me, if it's just totally life-sucking for me, it makes more sense for me to shelve those kind of things and resume with something that has more of an energetic spark. There has to be life coming back.

Also, I think having a strong sense of self really helps a lot, because if you're clear about who you are and what your own creative voice looks and sounds like, you have a better sense of when a project really aligns with your dharma and it's bursting to the finish line, versus when it might be something that's more in the camp of experimentation and it's not necessarily meant to go all way. So I think having a strong sense of your creative voice can help to make those kinds of decisions.

I've noticed in my writing workshops some people feel compelled to underline that they are NOT a writer. And yet, there they are writing! Why do you think  people are reluctant to call themselves a writer or an artist?

It's a good question, because the whole journey to be able to call myself an artist took time. And I envision the same will be true of calling myself a writer. And why is that? I think people maybe just need to have enough lived experience to feel like they can really own that, whether that's psychologically or confidence-wise or to feel emotionally connected. Who knows how people relate to those titles? But I feel like for me in terms of “art” I needed to be at a certain level of confidence, whether in having completed enough art projects and shown them to the world or done the things which, in my mind, felt like, “This is what artists do and I'm doing these things before I can call myself an artist.” People have definitions around what all these things mean. But whatever those definitions are, I think people need time to journey down their path and own it. And it's not an overnight process. Ownership of identity means different things to different people. It's a very personal journey.

Was there any one thing that helped push you over the edge?

There were several markers that did matter. When people did first buy my art, that was a big deal, it did mean something to me. Or when I was in my first gallery show, that really did mean something to me. So the traditional markers people use did impact me and it did have significance for me in my journey. And even though in my own evolution I've evolved to a place of self-value that isn't reliant on those markers, it doesn't mean they didn't play a role. And so I think when people first purchased my art and the gallery exhibition in particular - when those first began - that was really exciting and it helped me feel like, “Oh, I am an artist.” These signposts for the things that the world defines, that mean you are one, they do still affect me even though I do ascribe to gain value from some kind of higher plane, but it doesn't mean they don't have meaning and value. The only problem for me with those markers is when they become the only things that people identify themselves by and then they start to be controlled by them; then I think that's a problem. But they serve a purpose for sure.

If there is one takeaway from your book, what would it be?

That there's value in your creative expression. I really want people to be -- not just encouraged in a general sense, but hopefully come away with a deeper belief in the value of what they have to offer the world, because that can drive all kinds of good things. And I feel like the other things will get figured out, like where the money comes from and how this works and what the journey looks like; those are all challenges everyone has to figure out for themselves. But if you're driven by a deep belief in the value of what you're doing, that's what's going to propel you over the long haul.

To learn more about Karen, visit karenkinney.com

See all interviews

A Conversation with Cari Lynn

I have long been curious about ghostwriting, and recently had the opportunity to speak with Cari Lynn about this topic and her work and experience over the years. She is the co-author of the recently released memoir, Becoming Ms. Burton, about the life of social justice crusader Susan Burton. As the co-author of several investigative nonfiction books on everything from sex trafficking to an insider look at commodities trading, she speaks candidly about the challenges of being a ghostwriter, the state of publishing, and how important it is for writers to take a stand. Scroll down to read our interview below!

---

CARI LYNN is a journalist and the author of several books of nonfiction, including THE WHISTLEBLOWER: Sex Trafficking, Military Contractors and One Woman's Fight for Justice with Kathryn Bolkovac, and LEG THE SPREAD: Adventures Inside the Trillion-Dollar Boys' Club of Commodities Trading. Cari forayed into fiction with the historical novel, MADAM,(Penguin/Plume, 2014) based on the true story of New Orleans's experiment with legalized prostitution set in the 1800s. Cari has written feature articles for numerous publications, including O, the Oprah Magazine, Health, the Chicago Tribune, and Deadline Hollywood. She has taught at Loyola University and received an M.A. in Writing from the Johns Hopkins University and a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Maryland. A longtime Chicagoan, she currently lives in Los Angeles.

She is the co-author of the recently released Becoming Ms. Burton: From Prison to Recovery to Leading the Fight for Incarcerated Women (The New Press, May 2017) about the life of social justice crusader Susan Burton. The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof calls the book “stunning” and deems Susan Burton “a national treasure.”

To learn more, visit carilynn.net

Karin: Let's talk about ghostwriting. What was your path to this work?

Cari Lynn: Well I never wanted to write fiction. It happened because the stories find you, or occasionally you find them.

So I have a bachelor's in journalism and a masters in writing; during graduate school I started getting articles published and was working on my own book. And then this doctor, a clinical psychologist who rescues orphans, called me to say he was having an awful experience with a ghostwriter that he had hired. I have known this man since I was in kindergarten; my parents are psychologists and they had known each other. And I said, “Well, let me take a look.” I was fresh out of grad school and I thought, “Oh I could do something with this. This is great!” And we did the book and I loved doing it. It felt important, and I loved working with him.

Was it a book from the get-go with him?

It was a manual for him, mostly, because he was lecturing all over the world and he wanted a handbook for parents. So he would dictate because he was used to dictating his report for clients. But what I was interested in was so much more of the narrative element of these stories, of these children, because -- and this was the motto with Becoming Ms. Burton -- “heart first, then the head.” If you want to change minds, you've got to affect the emotions first. Because I was interested in hearing about these children, we would have a child's first name, their whole backstory and his involvement, and I would sometimes interview the parents. We called them “case studies.” So it ended up becoming a lot longer and a lot more narrative, which resonated more with the families. So that's kind of how it started.

What's the biggest challenge as a ghostwriter?

So you're working with people who have a great story but can't write the book themselves. Okay, fine. But in no other realm... Let's say you commissioned a piece of art or you're working with an architect to build a house or something. No matter how much you're involved going through the architectural designs, rarely do you hear a person say that they built the house. The point of commissioning a work of art is to say I have a work by 'so-and-so'. No matter how much input you have, the attribution is still to the person doing the heavy lifting.

Not so when you're a co-writer and that's really challenging. I understand my role and it's not about the attribution, but it's about -- I spend an hour interviewing somebody and then I go and spend 10 hours crafting that. And then I email them some pages, and they just magically appear in their inbox. If I'm doing my job well it looks easy. And as you know, it's not.

They don't appreciate it.

And then when there starts to be outside praise coming in -- the best praise you can possibly get with the subject (that's the author, I'm the writer) is, “It sounds like you, I hear you.” And that's to me the best praise I could get, we could get. But it makes the subject say, “Well what do I need her for?”

Tell us about your most recent book, Becoming Ms. Burton. What was the process like?

This one was the hardest books I've done. I had the biggest learning curve; there's so much subject matter. It was like an onion. I mean, the more layers I peeled there were more things that were interesting to me. So a lot of this was me going off and exploring other realms. Susan lives in Compton. Her homes are in Compton and Watts, and we spent a lot of time together.

How did you meet her?

So a friend of mine did a short documentary film about her. I was at a screening of this film and Susan was there, and I ran up to Susan and said, “I think you have a book in you.” I did not know that Susan had spent some time working with an L.A. Times writer and it was not a pleasant experience. Nothing resulted in it. That had been several years earlier, so she sort of had a bad taste about the whole thing.

So you knew straightaway that you were interested.

Yeah, I just had that feeling that I wasn't going to be able to let this story go. There was something very compelling about this story, the women, about Susan, her presence. She's tough; she's a tough cookie.

The other thing is... This book took two-and-a-half years. So they have to be perfectly comfortable. I say, “I am the best friend who will not go away.” And it's hard; it's true. So you don't want anyone who's reluctant or has any doubts, because it's intense. I said to Susan, “Listen I'll send you The Whistleblower.” It was the book that felt the most relevant at the time.

Knowing Susan as well as I do now, I'm shocked at the sequence of events because she got the book, she read the book, she called me. Now I go in her office and she has stacks of books. Who knows if she'll ever get to them? So I don't know what the timing was where she had a moment to receive it and look at it.

Then we met for lunch and just broached it.

How does one broach the subject?

There was zero that existed. So I said, “Let's do a sample chapter.” And then we had to figure out, okay, what's a chapter?

So at this point no one's funding this?

When you sell nonfiction book you can sell it on a proposal. That said, to me the proposals are harder than writing the book, because you really have to encapsulate this whole thing and often you don't really even know what the story is.

At the time I met her, Susan had a lot of cachet already. She was a Top 10 CNN Hero; there was the televised image of her acceptance speech on national TV. She was a Soros justice fellow and Harvard had bestowed some honor upon her. She was really making a name for herself in the criminal justice, social justice, activists' realm so that helped. And then Michelle Alexander who wrote the book The New Jim Crow, which had spent like a hundred weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, was very encouraging of Susan to do a book. She said she would hand it to her publisher and that was the right home for it.

So the plan was, I would do a chapter. We would hand it in to the publisher. If they wanted more, they'd ask for it. If it didn't happen, we'd re-group and see if we could get a grant. I would do a full proposal. We'd go through my agent, do the traditional route. It's hard to do that, and as it turned out, obviously I'm glad I did it for this. But writers shouldn't be writing for free and everybody wants you to write for free. I mean, I just had a literary manager call me when this came out and say, “Oh my gosh, are the TV/Film rights available?” We met for coffee and he said, “I have some other projects and other clients that I'd love to talk to you about.” He had a really interesting project that needed a writer -- a book. As he's going into it, I say, “This is fascinating, I'd love to do this. So before you make the introduction, we do a standard rate for the proposal.”

“Oh she's not going to pay for the proposal.”

I said, “I don't work for free. You do get what you pay for and no.” I think the more we say “no” the more they realize that writing has to be valued. When you do work for free, it's not valued. And to set up a collaboration like this where you're going into it saying that my time and my expertise isn't worth anything... even the easiest proposal takes three months. Proposals are hard, they're an art form. I've taken the time to perfect that, and yeah, to say this has no value...

The TV writer Matthew Weiner, creator of Mad Men, has written about how he would never have been able to do this without having a spouse who is the breadwinner. I don't have a spouse; I'm the breadwinner. So that really gets me. But you often don't feel as a writer like you can say “no.” Or like you can say, “Writers need to be paid.” So that's my soapbox now, because we don't have a guild or union.

Do you keep the TV/Film rights when you work on a book?

So the publisher should never get the TV/Film rights. The author(s) should retain them. And then it depends what kind of deal you strike. So that's the thing, there's no guild, there's no standard.

So what did you work out with Susan, was it 50-50?

So with most of mine, that's what I am. That's because I am often writing about people who can't pay me. And then you're operating off the advance, which is this unknown number. So most of my stuff comes on the back end. It's very risky and I don't recommend doing it that way. But for a book like this there was no other way to do it.

I've done projects in the past that have fallen apart because that advance comes in, and to me, that advance is the publisher paying for this book to be written. If there's leftover, it goes to the to the subject (the author), rightly so. The royalties can be a different story because that's when the author, or the subject, is out there promoting the book. But it is amazing how the shift happens -- and it didn't happen with this book -- but with ones in the past where the author will be like, “But that's my advance.” And it's like, “It's actually no one's advance. It's actually the publisher paying for you to have a book, so that you don't have to pay.” Yeah, there are egos involved.

In their minds, at what point you get paid?

They think that you should be honored to do this.

It's shocking, particularly because you're so well established.

What is the standard rate for a proposal?

So $10,000 for a proposal is pretty much the standard rate, which includes one or two sample chapters, a chapter by chapter outline, a comparative works section, bios.

What's your take on publishing these days?

I'm really cynical these days. I don't necessarily think that the end goal should always be a major publisher. It's not that pleasant out there, often. I'm not exactly a huge advocate of self-publishing either. Publishing needs to figure itself out now. And hopefully they will be forced to one of these days, because it's way too long. You know publishing imploded in 2008 when Borders and Barnes & Noble fell apart. I have to say Amazon - it's like one side's the devil, one side's the angel because they have a publishing arm and they actually have much better terms for authors than the major houses. They give higher royalty rates, and the payment comes right away, you don't have to wait. But then they're the devil; they're horrible for authors in all these other ways. But I'm hoping that they'll push the major houses into being more equitable.

The publisher that did Becoming Ms. Burton is my favorite experience of all time. I love them and I've never said that. It was a group of editors from major houses who thought that they weren't doing enough 'important' books and they got together and they formed The New Press. They're a nonprofit and their model is really something because they operate a lot off of grants and there's a big connection with academia. They have a lot of Pulitzer Prize winning authors. It was a pleasure, just a joy working with them.

It's funny because when I talk to my author friends, there's a big difference in the mindset of those of us who are doing this for a living and those who have some other means of support and are doing it for the love of doing it. I have friends who will say, “I'm just happy to get a book deal. I'm just happy to get it out there.” Yeah, of course. But when you're doing it for business, it's a business. It's your job. It's like a shopkeeper saying, “Well, I'm just happy to turn the lights on in the morning!” Yeah, but you need people buying stuff. So I have to wear that business and remind myself at all times this is a business, because I think the problem is not enough writers do.

I was reading an interview with Hillary Clinton who is working on a new book which she described as, “ridiculously hard.” I mean, she'd done another book and had a ghostwriter for it. It just struck me how she was going on about how hard this “working on the book” really was.

But it is... it's really hard! Even if you just went through what Hillary Clinton went through, it's just still really hard.

To learn more about Cari Lynn, visit carilynn.net

See all interviews