Ask the Author: Ellyn Bache
Answered Questions (6)
Ellyn Bache
I spent nearly a year helping to collect the stories in "Kaleidoscope: 20 Stories Celebrating Women's Fiction" -- a project that was great fun and not terribly "serious" -- and am just getting back to a very different kind of book, tentatively titled "Ladies Who Know," about a group of women who started a domestic violence shelter 20 years ago and are still running it -- at a time when a long-held secret seems about to destroy not only the shelter, but their reputations and friendship.
Ellyn Bache
I'm re-reading "Turtle Moon," my favorite novel by my favorite author, Alice Hoffman. I'd first read it many years ago and wanted to see if I still liked it as much. I surely do. For me, this is her book with the perfect combination of realism and magical realism, where her language and the rhythm of her sentences evokes a whole range of emotions steeping in the brilliantly-evoked Florida heat. I have loved many of Hoffman's books, but I think this will always be at the top of my list. And yes, I believed absolutely in the angel trapped in the gumbo-limbo tree.
Ellyn Bache
Remember when millions of women waited for the new issues of magazines like McCall’s and Good Housekeeping not just for the recipes and decorating tips but for the short stories that appeared each month? Like lots of other readers, I loved them. They were the first stories I ever published. Then, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, women's magazines stopped using fiction -- and in some cases, stopped publishing altogether.
I didn't realize until years later how nostalgic many women were for those days. Time after time at book events, they'd begin reminiscing with real fondness about how much those stories had meant to them, how nice it had been that they were short enough to finish even with their busy lives, and how much they still missed them.
Those conversations were the germ of my collection, "Kaleidoscope: 20 Stories Celebrating Women's Magazine Fiction," which includes my stories published over a 22-year period during the heyday of women's magazine fiction -- stories that give a good sense of that much-loved genre -- sometimes poignant, sometimes funny, and (to my surprise when I went back to them) with a remarkably contemporary feel. This project has been a lot of fun to put together -- and so far, rewarding for those coming to this type of fiction for the first time as well as for fans of women's magazine fiction back in the day.
I didn't realize until years later how nostalgic many women were for those days. Time after time at book events, they'd begin reminiscing with real fondness about how much those stories had meant to them, how nice it had been that they were short enough to finish even with their busy lives, and how much they still missed them.
Those conversations were the germ of my collection, "Kaleidoscope: 20 Stories Celebrating Women's Magazine Fiction," which includes my stories published over a 22-year period during the heyday of women's magazine fiction -- stories that give a good sense of that much-loved genre -- sometimes poignant, sometimes funny, and (to my surprise when I went back to them) with a remarkably contemporary feel. This project has been a lot of fun to put together -- and so far, rewarding for those coming to this type of fiction for the first time as well as for fans of women's magazine fiction back in the day.
Ellyn Bache
I only had a serious case of writer's block once, many years ago, and I found I just had to wait it out. Sometimes, especially after I've finished a major project, I feel for a time that the well is empty. It's a miserable feeling, but if I'm patient, eventually it fills up.
Ellyn Bache
Keep at it! I've known so many talented writers over the years who got discouraged and gave up. And I've known others with just a teaspoon of talent who've persisted and done well. The writer John Gardner said becoming a good writer is like becoming a good athlete. You practice your basketball shot day after day and can't make the basket -- and all of a sudden you can, time after time. So much of what we learn as writers happens beneath the surface. If you work at it every day, you'll be a better writer five years from now than you are now. And probably better-published, too.
Ellyn Bache
There have been so many good things about being a writer that I hardly know where to start. In the early years when my children were young, I would get up early and write in longhand for half an hour or so, usually on a project I'd never be able to get to once the household woke up. It was lovely to have the sense of accomplishment that brought -- and it brought me my first freelance sales, too.
Later, I was amazed -- and still am -- that people I didn't know would listen to me -- that they'd read my fiction, comment on it, let me become part of their world.
Writing is a very interior business. For me it's been a way to work through issues that trouble me, have the fun of playing with language, and -- to my surprise -- overcome what was once a crippling shyness. Over the years, gradually, I learned to speak to reading groups and (even scarier) other writers. I still treasure above all my time alone at my desk, rummaging through the stories in my head -- but I'm grateful, too, that writing has been a way to live the interior life and also live out in the world.
Later, I was amazed -- and still am -- that people I didn't know would listen to me -- that they'd read my fiction, comment on it, let me become part of their world.
Writing is a very interior business. For me it's been a way to work through issues that trouble me, have the fun of playing with language, and -- to my surprise -- overcome what was once a crippling shyness. Over the years, gradually, I learned to speak to reading groups and (even scarier) other writers. I still treasure above all my time alone at my desk, rummaging through the stories in my head -- but I'm grateful, too, that writing has been a way to live the interior life and also live out in the world.
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