July 17
Hello all –
It has been a busy spring! Following is an interview with Margaret Bikman at the Bellingham Herald. I was also in Portland, Olympia, on Whidbey Island, and in Denver, Colorado. I will read with other Hedgebrook alumnae at Elliott Bay Books this weekend, so I hope to see some of you there. Next month I will visit Albuquerque, Leavenworth, and Bellevue. See the end of this newsletter for specific times and places. For reviews, see links on the home page of my website. I am working on a short story collection. What are you working on?
Best, Kathleen
kalibros@earthlink.net
June 21, 2007
Alcalá unveils her sources
* MARGARET BIKMAN *
Seattle writer Kathleen Alcala’s first nonfiction collection of personal
essays explores her connection with her family, her heritage and what
shapes her as a writer of fiction.
Q: How did you decide which essays to include in this book, and how
did you decide the order in which to place them?
A: These essays started as a response to the many questions I received
about the basis for my fiction. People wanted to know about my family.
When I put them all together, I found that they fell naturally into
essays that were about childhood and the past, to essays about the
writing process, and finally to essays in which I applied my aesthetics
to literature and contemporary events.
Because the essays talk about creativity in a very personal way, people
have responded very strongly to them as more than biographical or
historical writings. They really take them to heart.
Q: I’m intrigued by your comment that your experience with Mexico
has been “both a fairy tale and a stern taskmaster that, while
gracious, has no patience for the romanticism or idealism it is so
easy to bring to such a beautiful country.” Yet in your
storytelling, you invoke the spirit of memory, and much of it seems
to me to be quite romantic, in the classic sense. Could you
elaborate on your thought?
A: My early memories of Mexico are, of course, those of a child, and so
have the sort of clarity and simplicity with which children recall the
past. I think that my mother’s family also romanticized the past, as
opposed to the economic realities of their lives. Thus, my descriptions
of Mexico probably have those layers of memory and perception that make
even the ordinary seem beautiful. So when, at 18, my cousin gave birth
to a brain-damaged child because they were too far from medical help, it
brought me up short. When you have to make due with what you have, there
is no room for romanticism.
However, Mexicans really love Mexico, even the poorest, and are able to
look beyond the drudgery of making a living to sing while walking down
the street, and to fight passionately for social justice. One has to
hold an idealized view of what is possible in order to do that.
Q: What is magical realism, and how is it important in your writing?
A: I began writing stories in this style before I knew what it was ? it
is simply the way stories are told in my family. I tell people that I
made my husband read ?One Hundred Years of Solitude? by Gabriel García
Márquez before marrying me, so that he would have an idea of what he was
getting into. Sometime in the '80s I read an article in the program for
the play by Federico García Lorca, "Blood Wedding," staged by Intiman
Theater in Seattle, that used the phrase "magical realism," and included
a book list. This was the first time I understood that people saw it as
a school or style of writing.
If you look at anthologies such as Black Water and Black Water 2,
edited by Alberto Manguel, one sees that it is a style used all over the
world by people who value the unseen as much as the seen, and who often
have to write in elaborate metaphors in order to subvert the political
or social order of their respective countries. As in my description of
Mexico above, it gives this style of writing a haunting depth that
results from seeing below the surface of a grim society to the idyllic
possible.
Q: What are some of the important elements of having a live
performance space, whether it’s for theater or for sharing stories?
A: Hearing stories told is a feast for both the eye and the ear. The
best storytellers, even on paper, tend to come from cultures where oral
storytelling is still practiced, such as the Irish and people from the
southern United States. It probably shapes their brains in a different
way, and they are able to recall and use dialogue and description in
their work in a way that immediately pulls you into the situation.
Telling a story to a live, present audience also forces the storyteller
to be sensitive and responsive to an audience, and tailor the story to
suit them. I am honored to know people such as Vi Hilbert who understand
that the power of their presence comes from the stories themselves.
Walter Benjamin, the philosopher and writer, said that the storyteller
makes himself a “vessel” for story, and although imperfect, is filled up
by the story and so makes it new, conveys it to a new audience.
As a writer, bookstores are a precious venue for me, but as a citizen, I
hope that we will provide public spaces where people can gather and talk
and tell stories in impromptu settings.
Q: How are the ideas of the sacredness of “the word” and the
sacredness of “place,” perhaps ascribed to different cultures,
enveloped in your fiction?
A: I have joked that I could have just written a 600-page novel instead
of three 200-page novels, and people would have been really impressed.
But when I began the first novel, “Spirits of the Ordinary,” I realized
that the worldviews of each novel would be entirely different.
“Spirits” is about a secretly Jewish family that holds the word as holy,
and has a son who is drawn to place. “The Flower in the Skull” is about
the meaning of place to a group of indigenous people from Sonora. People
who hold the word as holy have an advantage due to portability that we
see even today in a world culture that deals in information. But when we
forget the holiness of place, we destroy the very things that keep us
alive. “Treasures in Heaven” is about the endurance of people when even
these two are changed or removed.
I have really struggled to understand these things and convey what I
have learned in my writings, because they reflect the journey my family
has taken across time and place. I think these ideas are still relevant,
so I hope people will take them from my books and apply them in creative
ways.
Q: How do libraries open doors to your writing?
A: Libraries are magic places. When I was 6 years old, a bookmobile
visited my rural mountain community, and I went home with a couple of
Dr. Seuss books. After that, I was hooked. Being allowed to use my
uncle?s library in Chihuahua Mexico as an adult was an awe-filled and
humbling experience, because it was mostly off-limits when we were
little. I was raised with a great reverence for books. It must be
because, although my mother?s family was poor and moved a lot, her
father loved books and managed to take them along on all their journeys.
In doing the research for these novels, I was able to find or verify
information that had been ?lost? for decades, so it was almost a
treasure hunt for me. Although, like everyone else, I now do a lot of
research online, there is still nothing like the physicality of books,
of the pleasure of turning around between shelves and discovering the
unexpected, of wondering about the people who handled them before, or
who found this topic important enough to write about. I have to admit to
just sitting in my office sometimes and admiring my books!
Q: When do you sing? (taken from your essay with that title)?
My essay, “When Do You Sing?” is about my mother’s funeral and the
importance of music in my family. It is one of the few ways in which my
emotionally repressed relatives can express themselves.
While I can sing, I was never especially musically talented, so writing
is my outlet. Overcoming the “internal editor,” as I call her, is the
hardest thing that a writer has to do. I find that my students want to
write, have the talent and ability to write, but are constrained by a
sort of censor that all of us have built into our heads. When I can lock
that person in a closet and just start writing, I come the closest to
singing.
Reach Margaret Bikman at margaret.bikman@bellinghamherald.com
Used by permission of the publisher.
Copyright ©2007 The Bellingham Herald
All rights reserved. Any copying, redistribution or retransmission of
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Upcoming events:
July 21 - 7:30 pm, Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, fundraiser for Hedgebrook Writers Retreat with María de Lourdes Victoria Muguira, Wendy Call, and Jacci Thompson-Dodd.
July 26, 27 - Workshops at the Pacific NW Writers Association Conference, Hilton Seattle Airport and Conference Center.
August 5 – 7, Society for CryptoJudaic Studies Conference, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
August 17-18, A Book for All Seasons, Leavenworth, Washington. Workshop and signing.
August 19 – 2:00 p.m., Jewish Community Festival, Bellevue Downtown Park.
October 19 - Bedtime Stories 2007 for Humanities Washington with Charles Johnson, Jess Walter, and Jana Harris. Washington Humanities
November 9 – 11 Wordstock 1500 SW 12th Avenue, Portland, Oregon 97201
971.533.0700
www.wordstockfestival.com