By Zinta Aistars
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| My desk in the Cottage on the Hill |
When author
Kristina
Riggle approached me about participating in The Next Big Thing, a meme for
writers, I said, "Huh?" And then I said, "What's a meme?"
And then I said, "What's the Next Big Thing?"
Kristina is a terrific author, very prolific, and
she
wrote about her new book coming out in November,
The Whole Golden World, as her contribution to this meme.
Meme, it turns out, means something
like a game of tag for a cultural idea spreading in a viral manner from person
to person.
Well, that's a lot of next big things. Each writer tags
several other writers after answering a series of questions about that work in
progress. But who am I to argue? Any one of us may produce the next big thing,
and because of my work with
The Smoking
Poet, an online literary magazine, I have had the pleasure of getting to
know a great many wonderful writers. It would be easy to tag a few. I would
love to know what my favorite writers are working on!
Okay, I'm in.
But what about MY next big thing?
For those of you who have been my faithful (or sporadic)
readers of this blog for the past year or two (oh you adorable people), you
know that I have not just been writing, but
living my next big thing. I moved to Z Acres, a 10-acre century-plus-old
farm in southwest Michigan, in March 2012, and I am a pig in mud. And woods.
And pond. And field. And Cottage on the Hill.
I fell in love with this place even before that, and with
each day that I wake up on this land, and each night that I go to sleep here, I
love it more, and my roots sink ever more deeply into this place. Place, that
particular place we come to call Home, is a powerful thing.
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| Me and Venus de Milo in snow |
Being bi-cultural, a Latvian born in America, raised within
the Latvian culture and with English as my second language, I have perhaps a
stronger appreciation for Home than most. My parents were ripped away from
their home during World War II, and I was taught to think of Latvia as my home,
too, even if I was born in the U.S. With a great many trips there, sometimes
living there for short periods of time scattered over the years, the sense of
home on the Baltic Sea took in me.
I felt at home in Latvia; I felt at home in the United
States. At the same time, I felt homeless.
Where do I fully belong? At some point in my life, I had to
claim one place, one place I could call mine, and know that I would not leave
again. I had changed addresses in my life more than 30 times, and I was tired
of it. I will not move again. At Z Acres, I am, at long last, Home. I suspect
it's no coincidence that these ten acres in many ways remind me of the
landscapes of Latvia.
So, over this past year of living here, I have felt that
special power of being rooted in place. As an artist, as a writer, I could feel
the creativity coming up through my newly rooted self, come up through my blood
and into my heart, into my mind, into my spirit, and it has demanded to be
released in artistic expression.
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| Z Acres, my muse |
From this big thing, finding a permanent Home, from that
warmth and security and peace, from the quiet of country living, a new project
was born and is now in progress. I call it, tentative working title: ZILA.
1) What is the
working title of your current/next book?
Zila is a feminine version of "zils," which means
blue in Latvian. It is the name of the narrator for the book. Not a real name,
but a nickname.
2) Where did the idea
come from?
I led into that, didn't I? Since my first three books, all
in the Latvian language, were published, I have been playing off and on with
various ideas for new projects. None have really stuck with me, or subsequently
me with them. Reasons have varied, but I long ago learned to listen to my heart
and follow where it leads me. Living at Z Acres has meant listening to the
voice of the land around me, and also to accept the healing it offers. I feel I
am something of a medium between this beautiful land and the paper I write
upon, telling its story and how it wraps up with mine.
3) What genre does
your book fall under?
This kind of question makes me smile. I think of Zila as an
autobiographical novel, which, of course, doesn't really make sense. An
autobiography is nonfiction, a novel is fiction. One is truth as we know it,
the other is well-told lies. I would argue, however, that all art, in whatever
medium, is autobiographical. That includes novels about little green women on
Mars. We instill our character with our own life sense, our own values, and
that all stems from our own life experiences.
4) What actors would
you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
While writing to me is a very visual process, putting on
paper what I see in my mind, I can't say that I have visualized it as a movie
on the silver screen. I see the character of Zila (can you tell I have a thing
for Z?) in my mind in ever more elaborate detail, which means she is unique and
not with the face of any actress I know. Really, I think such things, if ever,
come later, and perhaps more in the mind of an agent than in mine.
Meanwhile, since I also enjoy photography, I have considered
adding photos from Z Acres to the manuscript, adding that element of nonfiction
intertwined with fiction. I love the idea of blurring that line.
5) What is the
one-sentence synopsis of your book?
After a lifelong search for Home, Zila finally finds that
one place that can hold her—but discovers that having a safe oasis in the world can
open up many unsafe meanderings in her mind, back over time.
6) Will your book be
self-published or represented by an agency?
I would begin by looking for a traditional publisher,
probably, although I am fascinated to observe and read about the
self-publishing adventures of other writers. There is something to be said
about keeping control, even as there is much to be said about the overall lack
of quality in far too many self-published books. A good editor is absolutely
crucial.
I have read about a few very successful, big name writers
who have walked away from six-figure contracts and have published and marketed
their own books. Certainly, the world of traditional publishing has changed,
and continues to change, immensely. I may take a closer look at both options
once I reach that point of readiness.
7) How long did it
take you to write the first draft?
Still writing it! And then there will be the second draft,
the third, the fifteenth …
8) What other books
would you compare this story to within your genre?
Goodness, I hope none. None than I have read. All right, all
right, I'll relent here a bit. I read a lot of nature books, memoirs, people
deep in nature and how they connect. One book that really stood out with its
beauty and honesty is Siesta Lane: One
Cabin, No Running Water, and a Year of Living Green, by Amy Minato. Annie
Dillard is forever an inspiration, especially her nonfiction, but I wouldn't
dare to compare.
9) Who or what
inspired you to write this book?
I've already answered that question in bits and pieces
throughout the previous questions, but nothing has made this more possible than
place. This is a story of place and of belonging.
10) What else about
the book might pique the reader's interest?
An excerpt, surely! Here you go:
Absolute silence.
But no. It takes a
moment for the ears to lose their inability to hear. A moment to disperse the
sirens, the blaring horns, the constant human chatter, the unending simmer of
sprawl, houses upon houses and buildings upon buildings and roads crossing roads
swimming in sound, buzz and bump and blather, cacophony never ending. The ears
become deaf. Cauliflower ears boxed useless by NOISE.
A moment of sitting
still here. Just a moment, and the ears shyly begin to open again. Deafness
dissolves. And there, the faint hum of insects in the grass. The chatter of an
irritated squirrel. The caw of a crow and then all its brothers. The mewling of
a cat bird in the bush, fooling you. The burping of bullfrogs encircling the
pond. The odd trilling, almost prehistoric, of sand cranes in the field beyond
the trees—and if you listen to the breeze in the tree tops, you’ll notice that
it makes a different sound depending on the tree. The tall pines shush as they
wave from side to side. The walnut tree with its rows of thin leaves on a long
stem, softly rustling one against the other. The willows bend into the breeze,
swing like a woman’s skirts, and chatter like moving water.
Sit still a while
longer, ears open now in wonder, and you will hear how the world is filled with
music. Next, your skin begins to feel that same breeze, its tickle and caress
and glancing kiss, and your eyes widen to a thousand, no, a million shades of
light and shadow, of a rainbow of color, even there where you once saw only
green, brown, gray.
A thrill runs through
your body, head to toe, and you must move, must move, rise to walk the land,
sensing the slight inclines and dips in the earth, the occasional hard edge of
stone beneath, the soft spots where rodents have tunneled unseen, your step
sinking slightly where below, life there, too, teems in constant flow. Tall
grasses brush against your shins, and your fingertips touch the tops of the
grasses lightly, feeling the wave pass through your body, you, the grass, you,
the wind, you, the earth, you, the hum of the insects and the chatter of the
squirrels and the ancient trilling of the cranes, you, the earth crumbling
where you tunnel through to emerge again, you, whole.
And now to tag another batch of writers to pique your
literary interest:
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| With Joe Heywood at WMUK |
Joseph Heywood is a
Michigan writer that I met some years ago when doing an author interview on
WMUK radio, an NPR affiliate station in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I had read his
Woods Cop mystery series, based in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and I love his
work. It's a series firmly based in place, it's fun, it's funny, it's serious. He
writes about an area I respect and love since my childhood, and I admire how
immersed he gets in his subject matter, spending much of his year living in the
UP, riding along with woods cops.
Jeanne Hess
is another Kalamazoo, Michigan, writer whom I have known for many years, since
I worked at Kalamazoo College. It's a small liberal arts college that really is
different from any higher education institution you could stumble across. K's
claim to fame is study abroad, not just for a few weeks, but for months, even a
full year, giving students an education that far exceeds anything you could get
in a classroom. Jeanne fits that description, too. She has been teaching
physical education at K going on three decades, has also been a chaplain there,
but what she does far exceeds anything you'd find in a gym. I'm no sports fan,
yawn, but when I read Jeanne's book,
Sportuality:
Finding Joy in the Games, I was blown away. Now I get it: why sports have
turned me off at the same time that I am drawn into the hero's quest that
happens in sports. She has a really important message, and I hope people
listen.
Chris Killian,
yes, is a Kalamazoo, Michigan, writer, too, only he isn't. The world is his
oyster. By now, you're also getting the idea that Kalamazoo produces some
pretty incredible talent—and you're right. Something in the water, maybe, or
all those local craft beers, or mind-thriving institutions, but Chris is
working on something really, really incredible. That's all I will say about
that, the rest is up to him, but Chris caught my attention when he drove a van
called Harry around the swing states during the last elections, talking to, you
know, YOU, on the streets, in the cafes, in the bars, in the laundromats,
wherever you are, day in and day out, to report on what you were thinking about
the elections. Now, he's back home and writing like a man on fire. I've been
honored with a glimpse at that on-fire manuscript, and I still haven't picked
my jaw up off the floor.
Visit these writers next week to read about the next big
thing on their desks, leaving wisps of steam on their heated-up keyboards, coming soon to a bookshelf
near you.
