This interview with Nancy Mendenhall was first
published in July 2006.
Where were you born and raised?
I was born in Seattle and was in the Puget Sound
area, mostly living in the country, until I married. I spent my summers on the
mid-Columbia River, at White Bluffs, until I was six, at my grandparents' fruit
farm. Memories of the river, desert, and farm were one impetus for my book
about White Bluffs.
What was it that first got you into writing and when did
you start writing?
I used to write letters to my relatives as a child because
in those days my family did not use the long distance phone for chatting.
Parents expected their kids to write--probably girls more than boys, but I
still have a few letters from my boy cousins too. I believe my first serious
attempt at writing was essays I was assigned in high school that required some
research. That really interested me--digging up information and putting my
slant on it.
I started writing fiction in college, and later yet, poetry. I
had many children then, and poems were short--something I could squeeze into my
day, or night.
Which writers have influenced you the most?
One very early memory is my mother reading "Alice in
Wonderland" to me. That was a favorite, and she knew by heart all the
verses. As a child I liked adventure stories. I had an aunt who liked to read
these aloud to me and her sons: Kipling's Jungle Books, Robin Hood, Ernest
Thompson Seton's "Rolf in the Woods". "Treasure Island" I
must have read four times. And London's "The Sea Wolf", "The
Last of the Mohicans", sort of in that order. We did not get anything like
Winnie the Pooh. Then we would spend the whole summer dramatizing outdoors for
ourselves the story she was reading. Naturally that turned into reading for
ourselves avidly all winter, whatever was in the house. I remember
"Kamiakin, Last Hero of the Yakimas". That was a history of a famous
chief I went back to when I was writing about Central Washington. In high
school I continued down this same path. I read Howard Fast's novels - they had
interesting social issues in them. And Twain, more of Jack London, Richard Wright.
I was interested in the social sciences and read authors like Margaret Mead and
Ashley Montague. My mother was a social worker and had a lot of Freudian books,
so I read Freud when I ran out of other things. That was pretty gloomy stuff
for a kid. I preferred things about Native Americans, and other social topics.
In college I read what was assigned and little else, because
by then I had three little children and was simply trying to get through the
courses, graduate and get a job. I majored in English lit and the Romantics,
Victorians and Modern Romantics were my favorites, in particular Blake, the
Brontes, Hardy, Lawrence, Forster, Melville, Twain, Archie Binns. And of course
Hemingway. Everyone was influenced by Hemingway that took a writing course. I did
take several in fiction writing, and I remember one prof who told me,
"promise you will keep writing". I did.
After college, working, again I had little time. I did read
more social issues. Paul Goodman, C. Wright Mills, some biographies of people
like Ruth Benedict. Then, when I was commercial fishing, the book that turned
my life around was Peter Mathiessen's "At Play in the Fields of the
Lord". It was so good it made me want to start writing again. I ended up
in graduate school, in English lit again. This time, still busy with children,
I wrote some fair poetry that got published. I'm very much a fan of
Matthiessen's: "Far Tortuga", "Killing Mr. Watson",
"The Snow Leopard". I admire the way he uses a rich exotic backdrop
to explore the universal story, and his ear for the language. On a lighter
side, Martin Cruz Smith is great for exotic adventure.
Where do you stand on the nature v. nurture debate? Were
you born a writer, or were there factors in your environment that enabled you
to become a writer?
I believe I was born to observe and think, learned early
to read and dramatize, and from that came writing. You begin to think you have
a better story of your own, or at least it's your own if not better. My aunt
and my mother in particular nurtured all this in me very young. My mother as a
child was writing little plays for the neighborhood kids to act out. Then she
started a little newspaper-- I found all this out much later. I think my aunt
lived in a dream world of those adventure books, where she escaped her
household drudgery but chose to share it with us. We kids invented the outdoor
dramas on our own, and I saw that my own kids did the same, with no adult
encouragement needed.
It does seem to be a part of child nature. No one encouraged
me to start writing, as everyone just wanted me to get good grades, get through
college, and get a job.There were several people in the family active in the
visual arts, and several others who could sketch well, but only one made a
living at it.
My husband was a sketcher and a folk musician. My mother had
lots of art books. My father painted in oils. So there was the general interest
in the arts all around me, but no one writing for the sake of writing - except
letters, lots of letters. It is the general interest in the arts that matters.
In my family, the mix of nature and nurture is impossible to separate out.
There are a lot of courses teaching creative writing
nowadays, but do you think that good writing can be taught?
Certainly skills can be taught. I learned quite a bit from
the writing classes I took as far as technique goes. But first, you have to
have something to say, and be able to offer a fresh look at your topic. There
have been some fairly clunky writers in our history who had something to say
worth reading, could illuminate the human condition for us, as they say. I am
bored to death by a fine stylist with nothing to say. The best way to learn to
write well is to read a lot, and widely, and read early.
And then to begin to read the better writers, with attention
to style as well as content. The problem with high school and college writing
classes is that many of the young people enrolled in them haven't had the
breadth of experience yet to say something significant. Today it is even worse
because they are watching TV instead of reading - we never did that, and I
still don't. I know kids who are straight A students who never read for
pleasure. I am curious to know what their writing is like, but apparently it
gets them through school.
Have you entered writing competitions? If so, have you won
any prizes?
No, I haven't. I have been happy enough, now that I am
retired and have more time, to just get something finished. And a few
publications.
What kind of things do you write?
Right now I am writing social histories. I published
"Beachlines:
A Pocket History of Nome" in 1997. In 2006, "Orchards of Eden:
White Bluffs on the Columbia, 1907-1943." I write about things I have much
first-hand knowledge of and then do extensive research as well.
What, for you, is the best piece of prose that you have
ever written?
I suspect that a novel about fishing in Alaska that I have
been revising for the last five years may be the best, but I had better get it
done or who will ever know?
What are you working on now?
I am writing a book about small-scale fishing that is on
the order of what I did for small-scale farming in "Orchards"
mentioned above. They are both topics I am close to and both are inevitably
tragedies.
What is your writing day like?
I am retired from salaried work now so have the great
luxury of pretty much writing when I feel like it. However our summers are very
short
in Alaska, so I mainly put it aside then. I find that the
things I write at night don't look nearly as fine the next morning, so I try to
write before I am too tired and just rambling. I had to train myself to compose
on a computer and that took a while, and it is hard on one to sit for long at a
screen, so I take frequent short breaks. Sometimes I go to our camp and write
in longhand again and that is a pleasure.
Where would you like to be in 10 years time?
I'd like to be living where I am right now, doing what I
am doing, but travel in the winter. However, I don't like to be just a tourist;
I like to have some purpose or work to do when I travel. I'd like to finish the
two books and get them out to an audience that can benefit from them.
What’s the most exciting thing about writing for you?
Probably the most fun I've had writing was the interviews
I did of the knowledgeable and articulate elders for "Orchards". That
made me want to do a second book on that order. Putting all the information
together into a whole that has strong theme, and peopling the story with
individuals that are rich and convincing characters is a real pleasure.
What’s the most frustrating thing about writing for you?
I hate having to sit at the computer. But the worst thing
I suffered was preparing the index for "Orchards". Yet it was
important to have one and no indexing program could do it. I could have written
a draft of another book in the time it took to get that index as I wanted it.
What’s the best piece of feedback that you’ve had from your
audience?
The people from the locations thanked me for writing
"Beachlines" and "Orchards", and making the histories so
interesting and true, as they perceived them. "You got that just
right!" They said they now understood much better what had taken place and
that it really helped them personally to appreciate where they came from and
how events occurred. Others thanked me for writing what they knew they should
have written but couldn't.
Do you write for a particular audience, or is your first
priority to satisfy your own creativity?
The social histories are a combination of both. The novel
in progress will be mainly to satisfy my own needs to tell a unique story.
Do you have a homepage? If so, what’s the URL?
I am working on this with alaskawriters.com and will have it up
soon. Meanwhile, info@fareasternpress.com,
my publisher, has more about "Orchards" and me.
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