Summer Rewind: Crafting Stories that Ignite the Soul with Sue William Silverman

Well, hello, Sue, I am so glad to have you on the podcast.

Welcome.

Sue 3:57

Thank you, Lisa. It’s great to be here and see you.

Lisa 4:01

And I’m so excited that we get to talk about your book, which I have up here, and I have my thumb in here. So, I’m just going to show you like all the little highlights and the tabs. When I read a book for the podcast, or if I’m doing a review, which I did both for you, I have to like engage, like I am touching and moving and dog-earing doing all that stuff, and that’s really how I get to digest the material.

Sue 4:30

Well, I have to say that when I see one of my books all marked up like that, it makes me very happy. So that’s great.

Lisa 4:38

Well, good. That was my hope. I’m going to give you a chance to share what you’d like us to know about the book and about yourself, and then I have a few little notes that I made to myself that I’m going to share that are my little margin line messages.

Sue 4:52

Sure. So, I am Sue William Silverman, and I teach at Vermont College of Fine Arts, which is a low residency MFA in writing program. And in fact, I was just elected co-chair of the writing department, so that makes me very happy.

Congratulations.

Thank you, thank you. And I’ve written two memoirs and two essay collections. And then, of course, you know, this new book, Acetylene Torch Songs: Writing True Stories to Ignite the

Soul.

And I think I wrote this book because, first of all, I really love creative nonfiction. I want to encourage other people to write their narratives as well. And, there’s some misunderstanding about what creative nonfiction is.

And so, I think it was also to sort of convey my interpretation of creative nonfiction, that it is an art form as much as poetry or fiction. So yeah, so, that’s my new book. And you know, basically, you know, it is a craft book about creative nonfiction.”

But I also see it as kind of a hybrid book in that for each chapter, I wrote personal essays to highlight the theme of those chapters. And then there’s also a long section about the importance of creative nonfiction, and how it’s a form whereby we can share our obsessions, our secrets, our traumas, our joys, what haunts us, so that it’s a very flexible genre in that way.

Lisa 6:32

Yeah. One of the things that I love is that this book feels very comprehensive and that it’s asking me to really think about why I write and where I’m writing from, you know, and really thinking about the soul inside myself and how to embody the work. And so, some of the notes I made to myself were, “motivates me to be a better writer,” “see storytelling as meaning-making,” “the purpose of story is to embrace the lesson.” I have all these different things that I was writing in here as I was allowing this to wash over me, to feel motivated by it.

And I love the fact that you wrote these essays in conjunction with the craft material because, you know, there are tons of great craft books out there that I love and that I recommend. And sometimes they have excerpts from other people’s work, but there’s a way that you can’t break it down and know for sure, like, is this exactly what the person meant, or why they made a decision. You lay it out there for us.

And I also love that you talk about this as an art form because I think that there’s a certain kind of personal writing that people do to get things out on the page, to feel their feelings. But really, if we’re writing for an audience, we are creating art. It is something different and we need to know how to do both.

Sue: 7:59

Exactly. Yeah, and that’s why a lot of the naysayers of creative nonfiction call it navel gazing and stuff, which just makes my hair catch on fire.

It makes me so angry. But at the same time, we have to know what creative nonfiction is, and how you turn your life into art. I mean, it’s not just Xeroxing your life.

It’s not just, “Oh, I remember this happened, or I remember that happened.” It’s about how you take those memories that you have or your obsessions, whatever it is, and discover the metaphor, the experience, and the voice of the experience so that we are in fact turning our lives into art.

Lisa 8:37

Absolutely. And, you know, I’m glad that you said that about the navel-gazing because at the AWP Conference, which is the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference, we saw each other there, which was lovely, and I was at a panel presentation on grief, and there was a question about navel-gazing where people were asking, “What’s navel-gazing? What’s not navel-gazing, which don’t have to go down that rabbit hole.

But it makes me think about the purpose of writing, and how do we embrace what creative nonfiction is and have confidence that what we’re doing isn’t selfish or narcissistic. Or without purpose.

Sue 9:16

That’s exactly right. Because when you’re turning your life into art, you are telling a universal story. And that story relates to everybody because you’re, I mean, what are we all writing about? We’re writing about love, grief, loss, joy. These are emotions that we all relate to. And so, if you convey those emotions through sensory details and metaphorically, then you’re writing the universal condition.

And those are stories that people can relate to. I mean, it’s really why memoir and personal essay is such a popular art form. I mean, people really love reading it.

And it helps us connect to one another. And just sort of, I mean, the letters that I get from people who read my books, I mean, it’s really touching. It really is.

Sue 9:45

And people say, well, I don’t write, I don’t have a voice, but sort of thank you for telling my story too. But there are even people who say, well, my background is different from yours, but I can relate to what you’re saying. Because you are writing from this emotional depth of the soul in such a way that it is telling a universal story.

Lisa 10:27

And that really is the power of creative nonfiction. And we are going to talk about a very specific thing that is in your book, but you mentioned metaphor. And I think that’s also an important topic, which I did not create a question for.

But you know, when I’m doing this podcast, things come to my mind, and I say, “Let’s go there.” What would you like us to know about the uses of metaphor or the power of metaphor in terms of helping people understand and shape their stories?

Sue 10:54

Right. Well, here’s how you get a metaphor, because people think it’s a very complicated sort of thing, and it isn’t. Basically, okay, if I’m experiencing something, I have a feeling, you know, joy, anger, fear, loneliness. If I just say to you, hey, Lisa, I’m really upset or I’m angry, that doesn’t mean anything to you. It’s very abstract. So, what I have to do is discover a sensory detail that would convey that emotion in a tangible way. And that’s what it is.

I could give you an example, if you want.

Lisa 11:33

Examples are always great.

Sue 11:37

I happen to have my best example of a metaphor right here. Well, because it’s short. So, this is from Love Sick, which is about recovering from sex addiction. And I’m just going to set it up quickly. I’m a freshman in college, and I’m having an affair with a man old enough to be my father. And he has this maroon scarf. And I want this scarf. And so, after we go out on a date one night, I just I take this scarf. Okay, so that’s the setup. And now I’m back in my dorm room. And I’ll just read through it. And then I’ll tell you where the metaphor comes in.

[Excerpt from Sue’s book, Love Sick.]

“So alone later in the dorm, I press the scarf against my nose and mouth. I take a deep breath. The scent is of him.

Leaves smoldering in autumn dusk. And I believe it is the scent I’ve always craved. One I will always want.

I don’t understand why the scent of the scarf seems more knowable, more definite, more tangible than the rest of him.”

Okay, so in real life, there was this maroon cashmere scarf. And if I were not writing metaphorically, I would just say, oh, this man had a scarf, and I took it. I wanted it. I brought it back to my dorm. And I smelled it. And it was nice. And that’s it. I mean, it’s just that means nothing.

So, then the author me, who’s writing now in the present, I look back at that scarf and think, oh, what did that scarf mean? And what I come to understand as a writer, reflecting on my book, reflecting on my narrative, is that this maroon scarf is a metaphor for loss and longing. And sort of, I mean, I didn’t know I was a sex addict then, but I was.

He clearly was as well. And because I couldn’t have the man, because I didn’t have love, all I could have was this scarf. And so, by describing the scarf as leaves smoldering in autumn dusk, and I believe it is a scent I’ve always craved, one I will always want, those aren’t thoughts I had in that moment at all. I was a freshman in college. I didn’t know anything. This is what I bring to the work now when I’m writing.

And I don’t understand why the scent of the scarf seems more knowable, more definite, more tangible than the rest of him. So that’s how I took this red scarf and made it into a metaphor, as I say, for loss, because I’m never going to have the man and longing because I’m never going to have the man. And the kind of nostalgia, you know, and a sort of emotional kind of death, you know, leaves smoldering in autumn dusk.

I mean, it’s kind of is a metaphor for several things. And that’s how you take a tangible, sensory image, something that’s sort of outside of yourself, and you convey it in such a way that it conveys how you’re feeling inside. And that’s all a metaphor is, basically.

So that’s how you avoid the abstract language. You just, hey Lisa, I felt really sad and lonely and, you know, boohoo and nobody cares except for your therapist or somebody.

And so that would not be art, but by taking that man’s scarf and conveying it in such a way that it does reflect those inner feelings of loss and loneliness, and also comfort, you know, it’s a warm cashmere scarf. And again, because I can’t have the man to really comfort me, I have a scarf.

So that’s the way you take something as simple as a scarf and make it a metaphor.

Lisa 15:20

That is a beautiful example. And what I’m going to tell people is I want you to, after, you know, you’re listening, go back and listen to it again. And I want you to listen and notice what’s happening in your brain, what images are showing up, what happens in your body. How does this sit with you in a way that is different than say, I’m sad, right? Because that’s part of what happens. It fires different neurons in our brains, and that’s what makes creative nonfiction so satisfying. It’s not just the dissemination of what happened. It’s, you know, all the feelings, all of the moments in that meaning-making. And so that was such a great example.

And we are going to talk about a way that other people can do this, whether you’re planning to publish your work or you’re just working on something for yourself, how you can think about your writing in a way that helps you make meaning from your experience and that is the concept of masks. Sometimes I talk about masks in different ways, and I have had other guests come on to talk about masking.

And one way to think about masks is to think about the ways that we put masks on that probably are not the healthiest for us. So, for instance, you know, people pleasing. So, we have a smile on our face, even though we’re feeling rage or you know we put on a mask to look normal when perhaps we’re not feeling the way everyone expects us to feel.

So, there’s a way that people who are neurodivergent will mask.

But you’re talking about masking in a different way, and how we can use the concept of masks. You have all these little words that I love, and I’m going to say one of them. I listened to it in advance, so hopefully I will not butcher it. But if I do, please correct me.

Prosopon. You use this word prosopon to talk about these masks we can put on that help us go into the past. Can you talk about that for us?

Sue 17:12

Yes. So, in the book, I have a chapter about masks. And really, these are literary masks.

So, you know, don’t think about like a Halloween mask or, you know, Mardi Gras mask, or even your N95 mask. It’s not like that. This is a literary mask.

And how I envision these working is that by sort of constructing a mask through voice, sensory description, and metaphor, these masks are revelatory of who we are inside. In other words, these masks don’t hide us. They make us more almost transparent, not just that we see the external self, but they’re revelatory of the internal self as well.

So, for example, my first book is Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You, which is about growing up in my incestuous family. The voice of that narrator or the mask that she wears is that of this young, wounded girl. So, all the details in the book, you know, the metaphors sort of convey that. And that’s the mask that she wears.

Then I wrote my second book, Love Sick, which I just quoted from about 28 days I spent in rehab for sex addiction. This is a completely different narrator.

She must wear a different mask. Her persona is tough and edgy, that addict sort of fighting, getting better, and all of that. So, when the narrator switches, I have to construct a new mask for this new narrator so that it’s really a way both to deepen yourself as narrator and to differentiate all these different parts that we’re writing.

In every essay, I’m kind of a different narrator, and in every book I’m a different narrator. And how do I convey that? I convey that through a mask, and that word you mentioned, prosopon, is from the Greek, and that’s the word that they used in Greek play that if an actor came on stage and they were sad, they would put on a mask that looks sad.

So, it would sort of show you their feelings. And so, it’s kind of a play on that. I have just a few sentences from two different essays from Acetylene Torch Songs that maybe could showcase what I mean even more clearly, if you like, I could sort of refer to those.

Absolutely.

So, one essay is called “My First Day in School,” and basically, I’m just out of rehab. And this is the first day I’ve ever taught. Ever.

And first of all, I’m scared, because I’m not sure I know how to teach. But also, I’m just out of rehab, and I worry that the students are going to somehow sense that I am recovering from sex addiction.

So, I was nervous and everything. This is just a few sentences from the opening paragraph. This is the essay, “My First Day in School.”

[Excerpt from essay in Acetylene Torch Songs]

“I walked into the classroom wearing a baby blue dress with a lacy white collar. I set the English Composition 101 text on the teacher’s desk and stood before the students. Twenty-five college freshmen watched me.

Their gaze, plus the fiery autumn Georgia sun glazing the windows, felt more like radiation than warmth. Fearful of hyperventilating, I slowed my breathing. I turned and wrote my name on the board.

When I looked back, they all still stared at me. Could they see the real me? As if I wore a scarlet letter on my baby blue dress.”

So, the mask in that section is, first of all, trying to look innocent in this baby blue cotton dress with this lacy white collar. You know, if I wasn’t concerned about masks or kind of metaphor, I could just say, well, I wore a blue dress that sort of fit.

But to be specific about how this dress conveyed this mask of innocence helps to deepen the character and then some of the other details about the warmth that felt like radiation is just sort of this fear of exposure and shame and all of that and, you know, the scarlet letter. Okay, so hold that in your head. So that’s one mask.

And now I’m going to just read a few sentences from another essay called “Graduate Studies in Hebrew.” And, hopefully, you’ll see how the mask changes. Okay.

[Excerpt from second essay in Acetylene Torch Songs]

“Bored, with strait-laced Israeli mores, I was determined to have sex with M tonight. I slipped on an embroidered mini dress I bought in the old city earlier that day. No bra, leather sandals.

My braid hung almost to my waist. Only a hint of mascara. I thought M might be more attracted to my flower child self than to someone appearing older and sophisticated.”

Okay, so here the voice changes. The voice in the first sounds sort of frail, scared, you know, and the second one, the voice sounds, you know, kind of tougher, edgier.

This narrator is out to seduce this man. So, when I say voice, that’s the voice of the mask.

So, the mask changes.

And when the mask changes, the metaphors change. The voice changes, the sensory details change. So that, you know, you’re able to differentiate them.

So, if you’re reading “My First Day in School,” you won’t be able to see that narrator in “Graduate Studies in Hebrew.” Or if you’re reading “Graduate Studies in Hebrew,” you won’t be able to see that narrator who’s teaching for the first day. So, these masks help us really focus on who this narrator is. At the same time, they’re revelatory of showing who we are inside.

Lisa 23:13

Yeah, I love those examples. And I love how the images aren’t just different. It sounds different, right? You know, the language that you use is different. And what I love about this is that it allows you to externalize who’s telling the story. And I think that’s so important.

If you’re telling a tough story, you know, you’re going deep into something, maybe even high trauma. If you are looking at it as if the mask is telling the story, you have some externalized way of thinking about who the person is that is telling the story. That’s different from connecting perhaps too deeply with, say, the wounded part of yourself.

And it’s like all inside you. So, I think that can be very overwhelming for people. That’s where my brain was lighting up, going like, yes, all the stuff we can do and look at how amazing it can be.

Sue 24:07

Yeah. I mean, if you think about it, you, the author, are constructing this mask. You have that power. So that’s very empowering. I get to construct this mask however I want to. I’m not going to be this person who somebody else labeled me as this, or somebody thinks I’m a victim, or somebody called me some bad name or something.

No, I control it now. I have the power. I construct this mask using the language that I want, the sensory details that I want, the voice that I want.

Lisa 24:42

Yeah. And that brings me to the next thing I wanted to talk to you about, which is voice. And so, you know, you talk a lot about the importance of hearing the work and hearing what the work is supposed to be.

And I had these notes in my book. “Masks are how we see. Voice is how we sound, or maybe how we hear.”

So, can you help us identify how masks connect with your voice and what advice you’d give to authors who perhaps have lost their voice or don’t really know how to grasp the words that are needed to tell their story?

Sue 25:15

Yeah, so every mask does have its own voice. So, you know, in that essay, “My First Day in School,” the voice did sound sort of frail and scared and like, oh, am I going to make it through this day? Versus the voice in “Graduate Studies in Hebrew” was tough.

You know, I’m going to go out and I’m going to seduce this man. As misguided as that may be, that was the voice. So, what you really want to do is listen very carefully and sort of try to listen.

What does this essay or memoir want to sound like? And so, it’s sort of falling inside that moment and really sort of getting your own self out of the way and just falling inside the work, and sort of just listening. How does this want to sound?

And you can also ask like, well, how did I feel in this moment? Was I scared? Was I feeling really full of myself? How was I feeling? And how can the voice convey that? What are the language choices that you make?

Like in “My First Day in School,” the language choice that I made was to use, not that the Georgia sun was hot, but that it felt like it was radiating. So, by choosing that word, radiation, that adds to the voice. And it conveys the idea that this narrator really is scared of being just, you know, sort of exposed and just crumbling, and just, you know, bad things are going to happen.

So, it’s choosing the language that helps make up the voice. The other thing goes back to sensory details, which I think is sort of at the heart of, I mean, it’s at the heart of metaphors, the heart of so much of our writing. And so, you know, you meant, you said something about writers who feel like they’ve lost their voice.

Well, okay, I’m going to say, I don’t think that we ever really lose our voice, but we may have trouble hearing it at times. And if you do have trouble hearing it, always go to a sensory detail. I mean, that’s how I do it time and again, because these sensory details are sort of portals into our work.

And it will sort of open up, and I think that you’ll be able to hear the voice, like that first line in my first days of teaching is when, you know, this baby blue dress with a lace, wispy collar, immediately, because that’s a sort of fragile image, immediately the voice then becomes fragile.

Yes.

Whereas in “Graduate Studies in Hebrew,” you know, this woman has this long sort of sexy braid and is not wearing a bra and all this stuff. So again, these sensory details will help lead you to the voice because your voice is there, and it always is. It’s a matter of finding a portal to enter it.

As I say, usually you’re going to find that portal in a sensory detail that’s part of that experience. That’s, you know, if the action is taking place in a bedroom, what are some details in that bedroom that you can slant or convey in such a way that they will cast light on your interiority. So, look for those sensory details and don’t just write them straight, as Emily Dickens says,” write them slant,” which means write them in such a way that they convey how you are feeling inside.

Lisa 28:49

Yes. And I love that. And this idea that we find our voices, the portal to voice is sensory detail.

And, you know, one of the words you used in “My First Day of School” was radiation, which is a great word, right? And it’s, it’s powerful in that there’s this connotation of what it means and it’s very precise, and it gives you this connection to, like, you know, nuclear war and all these other things. And yet, listen to the word radiation.

It is as soft as baby blue dress. So, there’s a way that those words go together, even though the image of the sun radiating is so powerful, right? So, I love that you’re able to do that and to create that sense of voice through the specific details and then also just thinking about how things sound, right?

The sound can say a lot about what you’re trying to say or what your feelings are about a specific topic. And, you know, just start writing. Don’t worry about it in the beginning and then get curious afterwards.

Sue 29:54

Yeah, that’s a good point. And let me just emphasize that. None of these things come to me in the first draft.

I mean, don’t think, “oh gosh, you know, I’ve written this draft, and I don’t know what I’m saying.” These metaphors come slowly, you know, kind of draft after draft after draft. Like in that section I read before about the maroon scarf. For the first three years of writing that book, it was just a maroon scarf. That’s all it was.

Year four, whatever it was, finally I’m like, “oh my goodness, that maroon scarf has so much power around it. I must do something with it.”

So, it took a long time for me to understand how that A, the maroon scarf was a metaphor and then, B, it was a metaphor for what. So don’t panic, you know, if you don’t get it right away. Writing is, it’s a lot.

Think of the long term.

Lisa 30:46

Yes. That was one of the things when I read this in your book, I was like, thank you. You know, how many drafts it takes for you to write, because I’m a slow writer. I am. I’m very deliberate. I have to think about things.

You know, what does it mean? I do lots of drafts, and I think normalizing the fact that that is what writers do, and that’s how you create your best work. And best isn’t always just like the smartest, but it’s the truest.

You know, I think that’s the important piece.

Sue 31:18

Absolutely. Write to your truth. That’s what creative nonfiction really is, a search for truth.

It’s not a search for fact. It’s not a search to show, oh, I’m just so smart. And, you know, I mean, you know, Acetylene Torch Songs, it’s not an academic book. I’m not an academic. I mean, I teach, but I’m not an academic in sort of that formal sense of the word. So just write to your truth.

And when I say truth, I mean, like emotional truth.

Lisa 31:46

Yes, absolutely. And I think, you know, that’s where you settle something inside yourself. I often talk to people about how there’s a question inside you. There’s something that’s asking you to write about this. And when you get to that emotional truth, you’re going to know that the piece is done. Maybe there are still copyedits or proofing to do, but you’re going to know that the truth is there because your body is going to feel different. There’s going to be something different about you after having written this.

Sue 32:15

Absolutely. I mean, when I start an essay or book, yes, I know sort of my life and kind of where it all went, but I really don’t know where the book or the essay is going to end. Like, I don’t know what emotional truth I’m going to end with. If I knew ahead of time, why bother writing it?

Exactly.

I write to discover what the emotional truth is of this one episode or this whole narrative, whatever it is.

Lisa 32:43

Yeah, and I think that’s where the juice comes from, you know, that’s where the energy is. It’s when you don’t know because that’s what allows you to play and to be curious. And one thing I’m curious about since we’re talking about masks, and, I’m going to, you know, share my own answer.

I was thinking about all the different masks that we can inhabit, and you know, some are easier for us to inhabit than others. And I was curious which masks or mask is the most difficult for you to inhabit?

Sue 33:14

I would say the most difficult one looking back on my books probably was or is the mask from Love Sick about sex addiction. Because I think that I had maybe, not so much now, but certainly back then I had the most shame around that. Like when I was writing my first book about growing up in my incestuous family, I don’t even mention sex addiction, even though obviously at that point I was in therapy. I knew I was struggling with it.

And I knew that the sex addiction evolved because my father sexually molested me. But I thought that no way am I ever going to write about that. I mean, I don’t want people to know that I was basically a serial adulterer.

And I mean, I’m laughing about it, because I’m still embarrassed in many ways. But, you know, but then I thought, I don’t know, then I just realized, no, I have to write about it because I really did need to understand what it all meant. But I would say that, and it is easier for me to talk about it now.

But I would say that over the long haul of these four books that I’ve written that that probably was the most difficult and the most difficult to convey in that it was a complicated mask. It had lots of different decorations and things on it because there’s the mask of the addict herself who’s thrown into rehab and doesn’t want to be there and is really pissed off, angry, storming up and down the hall of the hospital, saying, “I’m leaving,” you know, and all that. And then there’s also a mask of the narrator who knows, “oh, I really do belong here if I don’t get better now.”

I mean, I’m just going to emotionally die or something. And so, then there’s the mask of this narrator struggling to recover. So how do you make those masks kind of cohere so they’re not discordant, but they sort of evolve one from the other and sort of can go back and forth?

You know, one day, I’m out of here, and the next day, no, I’ve got to stay here. So just from a technical standpoint, it was also difficult to write. And Love Sick probably took me longer to write than any of my other books.

Lisa 35:34

Yeah. And thank you for sharing that, first of all. And as you were talking, it makes me think about the mask that was the hardest for me.

I grew up in a home where there was addiction and a lot of abuse and violence and chaos. And so, the voice of the wounded person who has things happen to her is easy to inhabit, even though there’s a lot of pain there. And then the voice of like, hey, I have healed or I’m not, I mean I haven’t figured everything out, but like, you know, I’m strong, I’m sturdy. That can also be a comfortable voice. I think comfortable as in familiar, right? Those are familiar voices.

For me, when I was writing the memoir that I have on submission right now about my brother’s death, I was screwing up all over the place and doing all kinds of wild, chaotic things. And so, I had to really learn to love that person who screwed up a lot, who didn’t have anything figured out, and yet thought she had everything figured out. It took so much compassion, you know, to both love that person enough to not get embroiled in the shame, and to be able to tell the story true, and to get clear about, okay, well, what does that mean, or how can I bring all of this to life and own it?

Sue 36:54

See, okay, I just have to say this is why I love creative nonfiction, because I completely related to everything you just said. I mean, I haven’t even read it yet. But the way you describe it, I mean, that’s it. That is the human condition.

And we do have to show, I mean, like in Love Sick, I was just an emotional train wreck, but I had to show and kind of feel empathy for that emotional train wreck and understand the motivation that I wasn’t born this way, nobody’s born a sex addict. But things happened that caused me to have that addiction.

And so, you know, whatever our sort of screw-ups are, and we’ve all got them, we’re all human, it’s just if we can be emotionally honest about it and find that truth, then we really do relate to each other’s stories. I mean, like, you know, like I feel closer to you right now, just having had this conversation. I mean, that’s it.

Lisa 37:57

That is the power. And I love that we are getting closer through this, even though we’ve just started getting to know each other.

I know.

And, you know, I think about how I first trained as a fiction writer. I learned a lot about fiction, and then I found my voice in creative nonfiction. And what I found is that the people that I met in the creative nonfiction classes that I took, and anytime I teach or even when I’m working with my students, you know you’re someone’s soul in a way that is different.

And this is not to knock fiction. Fiction can do a lot of different things that are different. But there is a way of knowing, of deeply knowing people that is a gift.

Sue 38:39

I completely agree. And by the way, I started out writing fiction as well, and I was terrible at it. I have like five unpublished novels that are just so bad.

I mean, I would never even want them published. But the second, well, I would say within three minutes of switching and writing creative nonfiction, it’s like I found my literary home.

But within, honestly, like three minutes, like, oh, I could never find my voice.

I mean, I really could not find a fiction voice. My fiction, it just sounds awful. But within, honestly, three minutes it was like, oh, I was writing in the wrong genre.

Lisa 39:20

Right. Yes, I had the same experience. And I would write things and people would say, like, these sentences are lovely, but something’s missing or I don’t feel like I’m getting the whole story. And that’s because I was trying to veil everything that I really wanted to talk about. But when you do this, you don’t get to the truth.

Sue 39:46

God, our stories are so similar. That’s fascinating. Yeah, completely.

Lisa 39:49

I love that. And see, this is why we do this work. And that’s why we have these conversations.

They’re so great. And when I was reading this book, you know, thinking about masks and thinking about the way we frame things, there’s a word in here—I’ve spoken to several people who read your book, and the words stood out to them too.

And that’s the word mis-loved. You know, I’m going to try to quote this from memory, but “my father mis-loved me.” And it’s such an interesting and evocative line if you know the story. Where did that descriptor come from and how does that help you? How does that help the reader?

Sue 40:27

Thank you for that question. I think that’s really, I mean, it’s sort of interesting to me as well because initially I was just writing that, oh, my father sexually molested me, or we had this incestuous relationship. And I kept feeling that that wasn’t really getting to the heart of it.

That if I say my father sexually molested me, that’s like a physical act. One thing that he did to me. Well, incest is more than just this physical act, it is a whole relationship. And of course, my father thought he loved me. He told me he loved me.

I thought I loved him. Of course, what he did was not love. And so basically, he kind of stole my soul. And so just to say sexually molested me, that doesn’t convey the fact that he stole my soul. But mis-love really gets much closer to the truth of what this relationship was, that it was a form of love because he thought that he loved me. And fathers kind of do love their children, but it was so wrong.

And so, it’s a mis-love. Yeah, so it’s sort of the antithesis of love. So, the word mis-love just sounds more inclusive.

Yes.

In terms of what that whole relationship was.

Lisa 42:05

I love that. And I think what I love about it is, as you describe it, it accurately portrays what you’re trying to portray, you know, that it’s within the spectrum of love, which is at the very far end of it and is very complicated. And it also is just a great reminder that, you know, when we’re doing this work, it’s as much a search for the right words, the words that truly convey what we’re trying to say.

And that’s why it takes a while, but it’s also why when we’re willing to take the time, there’s a huge payoff. You know, that line, it just stuck out to me. It rang a bell.

And when I talked to other people about your book, they were like, do you remember that line, mis-loved? I want to know more about that. And that’s because you found the right word.

And it rings a bell for us. And we want to know more. And yet there’s a way that you kind of understand it too. Even if you don’t understand it fully, it’s like there is an inner knowing.

Sue 43:06

Yeah, it sort of resonates with what the experience is. I’m glad that that worked because a few times I’ve sort of worried, or every now and then I’ve worried, well, is it accurate? But then I just kept thinking, well, yes, it is accurate. That is what I mean to say. So, thank you.

Lisa 43:28

Well, you’re very welcome, and thank you for writing those words because I think it just does important work, both in terms of how we think about things and about our writing.

And so, speaking of writing, you’ve written many books. And I think the fact that you’ve written so many books and you can pull from so many different projects is one of the reasons why Acetylene Torch Songs works. You have so many examples.

But one thing you’ve kind of evolved from is that you started out with traditional memoir, which is more like telling a story, and now you write more essay collections. And essay collections do a different kind of thing. I mean, they do different work. So, what do you think you’re able to do with these essay collections now in terms of experimentation and the way you think you’re able to do with these essay collections now in terms of experimentation and the way you think about things that perhaps you couldn’t have done with a more traditional memoir?

Sue 44:18

Yeah, that’s a good question. My first two books are kind of rather traditional straight-through narrative memoir. And then initially I realized, well, I did not have another story that was just a straight-through narrative. So, what am I going to do? I have to keep writing. So, I really started writing essays more out of sort of desperation, because I have to write something.

But what I’ve come to understand is that in an essay collection, you can kind of explore a subject matter from different vantage points, different points of view. Like each essay is going to be a different action. And as you write about these different actions, you’re still exploring the overall theme of the book.

But it is from a different vantage point, sort of like changing the lens of a camera a little bit, just shifting it. So, for example, in my essay collection, How to Survive Death and Other Inconveniences, so that book, it’s in three parts. And the first part explores sort of the fear of death and sort of metaphorically how I’m determined, of course, very ironically, determined to survive death because it scares me. The second part is more about sort of smaller deaths, or more emotional deaths, like addiction, illness, divorce, stuff like that. And then in the third part, I explore sort of the origins of my fear of death.

So, the basic underlying theme of the whole book is the fear of death. But in an essay collection, I can explore this kind of larger theme through sort of just a variety of actions and structures and voices or different masks. And it’s sort of like variations on the theme.

Whereas, let’s say, like in Love Sick, I don’t really have variations on the theme. It’s just like this straight-through memoir. And an essay collection is going to be made up of a bunch of pieces.

But ultimately, they do need to sort of cohere into a whole so that some of the parts is sort of greater than the whole. And it’s not like one is better or anything like that. It’s just, they’re just different.

So, after I wrote those two memoirs, then I wrote my first essay collection, The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew. And in that book, it’s sort of my very misguided search for spirituality. And there’s a lot of experimental essays in that.

Some are written sort of as a screenplay, just, you know, different voices, different masks. And then, as I said, How to Survive Death and Other Inconveniences is about my fear of death and dying but approaching it just from all these different angles and viewpoints that you sort of don’t do when you have this straight-through narrative thrust.

Lisa 47:19

Yeah. And so, some questions that are coming to my mind that might be helpful to listeners. If you’re thinking like, oh my gosh, now what do I do—do I do a traditional memoir? Do I have to do this essay collection—is to think about how many masks does your story need? And then, think about your reader too, right? Because the reader is going to have a certain mask that they need to learn from. And sometimes they need to learn from the different masks, right? Because there’s an inner player, a way that you can talk about things that’s different.

And so, I love that you have these different ways of thinking about what a project is and what a project can do. And then what you want to explore within the project, and I must say, there is an excellent graphic in your book, which every writer should have, regardless of whether they’re writing essay collections or essays. I just love this visual as a way of really thinking about what you’re writing and the work that it needs to do and how to organize it. It’s gorgeous. So go buy the book just for that. It’s going to be worth the money.

Of course, then there’s a thousand other reasons why you should buy it. So, we could talk forever because there’s so much to talk about with your book, and I just think we could have a lovely conversation. So, I look forward to seeing you again sometime.

Thank you.

What is the best writing advice that you would give to a new writer and an advanced writer? I’m asking you this, because you teach writing and I think you can think about it from different angles.

Sue 48:49

Right. So, for maybe somebody starting out, I would say more than anything is to believe in your story, just to own your story, have the courage to tell your story and do not show your memoir or essay when it’s in progress to anyone who has a vested interest in silencing you. Don’t do that.

You don’t want to do that. Stay within yourself. Just know that you own your story. You have every right to tell it. And if you don’t write your narrative, nobody else will write it. And that’s very sad. So, your story is important. Your voice is important. So, just don’t think about what the outside world might think of it. Or you just stay within yourself and write it.

I think for maybe somebody who’s already written a book, don’t limit yourself to one or two books. We all do have all these different masks, all these different themes that sort of run through our life and that sort of comprise our lives. So explore them. My first book is about growing up in an incestuous family. My second book is about recovering from sex addiction.

Then my third book is a misguided search for spirituality. Then my fear of death. So, think of your life sort of expansively and thematically. And just keep pushing those boundaries.

I’m just sort of finishing up another book, an essay collection of flash pieces. And so, I mean, I could, I won’t, but I could say, “well, Sue, you’re so narcissistic, you have so much to say about yourself.”

But I really don’t see it that way. It’s just like, I have a lot to explore about myself and I want to know who I am basically. And so, writing just keeps me sort of sane and whole.

And so just, you know, even if you’ve written one or two books, you always will have another book. And if it’s not CNF, so I’ve written a few poetry collections. So that’s fine too.

Just keep writing.

Lisa 51:04

Amen to all of that.

And you know, when we explore ourselves, it’s a gift. It’s a gift to us. It’s a gift to others. So, give yourself permission to do that.

What is one way that you nurture your resilience as you are doing all this deep writing?

Sue 51:19

It’s by writing. It really is. I mean, it’s just by writing. If I am writing something scary that happened to me, something that’s very dark, that is still nurturing me.

Yes.

And the reason why it is still nurturing me or nurturing to me is because I now am controlling the narrative.

Yes.

And that’s so empowering. Like in the middle of COVID, when everything was just awful and just terrible things were happening, and I was writing about dark things on top of it all, that was still my safe place. Even though what I was writing was dark, I was figuring out my emotional truths. I was making sense of them. I was healing myself in a way, sort of filling gaps in myself, and through the discovery of sort of emotional truths. So really, the best way I know to nurture myself is to write.

Like I don’t, I mean, I know people say, well, I’ll go for a walk, or they’ll do something fun. And it’s not like I don’t go for a walk or like to do fun things, I do. But, really, at the end of the day, it’s just, it’s writing. It’s really how I nurture myself.

Lisa 52:47

And I love that answer. You know, when I first started this podcast, the first episode was just me. And when I talked about how Joan Didion, she writes to know what she’s thinking.

But I have always written to know what I’m feeling. There is something powerful about that. And just as you said, there is something incredibly powerful and empowering in the revision process. That’s where the magic is, because in the first draft, you’re getting it out. But in revision, you have an opportunity to master the story, to figure out what it’s going to be, to change your meaning, and the lens through which you see this experience.

Sue 53:25

And that is huge. It is huge. I mean, in fact, it doesn’t get any bigger or better than that.

Lisa 53:31

Yeah. Absolutely. So, you have a book out, which I want everyone to get. What are the best ways for people to find you online and to buy your book?

Sue 53:41

Thank you. Yes. So, my website is suwilliamsilverman.com.

I know that’s a long name, S-U-E-W-I-L-L-I-A-M, sort of like the boy’s name, Silverman, S-I-L-V-E-R-M-A-N. So suewilliamsilverman.com is my website. And the book is available, you know, basically at all the online places, amazonbookshop.org, through the University of Nebraska Press.

If you support your local indie bookstore, yay. And if they don’t have it, they’ll be more than happy to order it for you. And it doesn’t take that long.

And of course there are links to it on my website as well. And I’m on Facebook and Instagram, and I use sort of the usual places we hang out on online.

Lisa 54:30

And if you missed any of that, it will be in the show notes. So, it will be very easy to do that. And you know, one of the great things about ordering a book through your indie bookstore is that you are drumming up interest for the book. So, you’re not only supporting the bookstore, you’re supporting the author because usually they’ll buy more than one copy and you know, someone else in your area might be interested in reading it. So, it’s a win-win for everyone.

Sue 54:54

It really is. And I know sometimes it’s hard to get out to everything. But if you have a local indie bookstore in your area, they’re great, and they are so happy to just order it and then call you when it comes in and they make it as simple as possible.

So yes. Absolutely.

Lisa 55:11

Well, Sue, it was such a delight to have you on the podcast today. Thank you so much.

I look forward to our next interaction. And you know, I have several projects that I’m working on, and I am going to be looking at all my dog-eared pages and all the things that I tabbed and underlined in this book. So, thank you so much.

Sue 55:31

Thank you so much for having me. It’s been great talking to you. I’ve really enjoyed it. So, thank you so much.