Michele Morano interview

This interview with Michele Morano, author of “Grammar Lessons: Translating a Life in Spain”, was first published in March 2007.

Where were you born and raised?

Michele Morano picture In Poughkeepsie, New York, in the beautiful Mid-Hudson Valley, which has the best of both worlds, as far as I’m concerned: the Catskill Mountains in the distance and a train to Manhattan.

What was it that first got you into writing and when did you start writing?

I decided to become a writer during an eighth-grade career report project. I think I was out sick the day everyone chose their careers from the folders in a metal filing box, and when I came back, there were only two left: physical therapist and writer. Until then, it hadn’t occurred to me that writing, which I loved to do, could be a career.

Of course, there’s deciding to be a writer, and then there’s actually writing. I didn’t get around to the latter until college, and I didn’t get really serious about it until graduate school.

Which writers have influenced you the most?

So many. In terms of sensibility and scope, Virginia Woolf, Montaigne, and Faulkner are at the top of the list. For prose style, Joan Didion, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, and Tobias Wolff. And then specific pieces that I’ve written have been inspired by specific authors such as Albert Goldbarth, Alain de Botton, Pico Iyer, and Barbara Gowdy.

What kind of things do you write?

I write a lot of personal essays – that is, essays whose subject matter is drawn from my life but whose aim is to transcend that subject matter and get to something true. My essay collection, Grammar Lessons: Translating a Life in Spain (March 2007) is about travel and a lot of other things – learning a second language, memory, the way we tell stories about ourselves in order to get to know other people. Most of my essays mix serious topics with humor, narrative with a good deal of reflection in order to explore how memory and imagination work on experience, transforming it into a part of identity.

What are you working on now?

At the moment I’m working on a novel about a fifteen-year-old girl who spends a summer working in a fireworks company, literally making bombs. It’s a coming-of-age story that deals with the proximity of beauty to violence, creativity to destruction. I’m also working on a new essay that plays with the line between non-fiction and fiction by using an unreliable narrator.

What is your writing day like?

Unpredictable. I don’t have a set routine, as much as I’d like to. Some days I write first thing, while other days I don’t start until after dinner and then work into the night. This depends in part on the time of year, since I teach at a university and my schedule varies from term to term. But even in the summer when I have more freedom, I don’t write every day. I’m a binge writer, and when I get on a roll (usually prompted by a deadline), I can work hard for long stretches. But then I exhaust myself and have to take time off. I wish I could adhere more to a schedule, but I simply can’t make that work. I rebel every time.

What’s the most exciting thing about writing for you?

Definitely it’s the “a-ha” moments when I work my way around to understanding something big and important. This is especially true in essay writing, which involves interpreting your own experience, recognizing and understanding patterns that point toward some kind of truth. And then finishing a piece I really like is exhilarating. This has almost nothing to do with publication, which is exciting in its own way. This is about satisfying my harshest critic – myself.

What’s the most frustrating thing about writing for you?

How long it takes. I’m in awe of people like Joyce Carol Oates and Francine Prose, who write novels, it seems, in the time I spend taking a bath. I’m a slow writer, and the “a-ha” moments I just mentioned take a while to materialize. I wish there were some way to speed that up.

What’s the best piece of feedback that you’ve had from your audience?

A couple of readers have contacted me to say that one my essays really spoke to them, helped them understand their own experience even though the essay was very much about me. That’s been gratifying. It validates my belief that if I write well about myself, the essay will be much larger than me.

Do you write for a particular audience, or is your first priority to satisfy your own creativity?

I think of audience quite a bit as I’m writing, especially in terms of narrative pacing. I’m always strategizing ways to keep a reader interested, given that there are so many other things a person could be doing instead of reading my work. But my first priority is really my own creativity – proving to myself that I really can pull off whatever crazy thing I’ve set out to do on the page.

Do you have a homepage? Do you have any short stories or poems published online? (If so, please provide the URLs):

My homepage is www.michelemorano.com

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