Heide Weidner: Interview with Lisa Romeo
Hello Lisa. Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed for this year’s issue of Under the Sun. First, could you give us some background about yourself, things you would like for the readers of Under the Sun to know?
First, let me say how much I appreciate that Under the Sun published my piece, “Old Men Who Write,” in its first online issue, 2013; that essay was a foundation piece for my just-published book, Starting with Goodbye: A Daughter’s Memoir of Love after Loss. I like to stay in touch and support journals that have shown interest in my work, something I recommend to writers making their way in the literary world.
I wrote and published short pieces for years, and I mention this because many writers worry that writing books is the only way. I’m proud of all that came before the book, and I’ll continue to write short pieces in the future.
As for background, words have always been at the heart of what I do, but in many forms. I’ve worked as a freelance journalist, equestrian reporter, daily website editor, public relations specialist, and currently as author, writing teacher, editor, and writing coach.
One of the essays in this year’s Under the Sun, Toti O’Brien’s “Down the Alphabet,” tells the story of a girl starting to write. Her experience reminded me to ask, ‘How did you get started as a writer?’
My sister taught me to read and write when I was five, before she left for college, and from then on it was all reading, all writing, all the time. My father told me made-up bedtime stories, and he read newspapers, poetry, and nonfiction books and wrote essays and short stories that stayed in a drawer. Mom was always reading a magazine and carried on a voluminous correspondence at the dining room table with far-flung friends and relatives.
I started writing short stories about a girl and a horse (intended to convince Dad to buy me a pony!), but when friends and I produced a neighborhood “newspaper” we sold for a nickel, I transferred my love to journalism. I became editor of the high school newspaper and graduated from Newhouse School at Syracuse University with a journalism degree. After college, I competed on the horse show circuit for three years while freelancing for equestrian publications.
What was most important when you set out to be a writer? What is most important now?
During those early years covering equestrian sports, the thrills were landing big interviews (Olympians, international riders, trainers) and reporting on the next great horse/rider pairing just before they got noticed.
I loved the freedom of being on the road, and all I needed then (early to mid-1980’s) was my typewriter, paper, Wite-Out, envelopes and stamps! I think back to those days often and remind myself that, even today, my writing needs can be simple: something thrilling to write about, a computer, internet connection, and a notebook.
Perhaps owing to my journalism training and that early reporting from the road, I can write just about anywhere and have developed a deep respect and love for deadlines.
Was there anyone in your life who supported your writing? Inspired it?
My parents and older sister read every word and praised them, even when, I’m sure, much of it was pure dreck! As I write in the book, it was my father’s love of words and reading that I sought to emulate, though I would have never admitted it to him then, which I explain in the memoir, too, how we were often at a disconnect.
Because I wanted a horse, I read every horse book and magazine, and so naturally began writing about horses. I was inspired by Nancy Jaffer, who was one of the first women to cover horse sports for a major newspaper (the Star Ledger in New Jersey), and Marie Lafrenz, who wrote for equestrian publications well into her 90s.
Meanwhile, I also wanted to write more mainstream essays and was inspired by Joan Didion, Anna Quindlen, Marion Winik, Joyce Maynard, Barbara Kingsolver, and many others.
How difficult was it to have your first piece published? What advice can you give beginning writers?
I began submitting my writing after finding Writers’ Market in my local library when I was thirteen, mailing stuff out weekly, to Seventeen, Tiger Beat, local newspapers. The rejections rolled right back in, but I was undeterred. Not long after, Horse, Of Course magazine published a humorous essay. Next came a letter to the editor of The New York Times, and, at sixteen, a personal essay in the New York Rangers Magazine. I remember those three distinctly; after that it all jumbles together. I wrote about all kinds of things for a diversified list of magazines and newspapers and, later, websites.
My first publication in a literary journal came in 2007 (I didn’t even know what a lit journal was until I began an MFA program the year before), and now that’s my favorite niche to publish in.
Based on my own experience, the advice is to start out by writing what you know and can’t shut up about; let your passions guide you early on. Start on the submission road early, put in the miles finding the right venues, then send out your work, send out your work, send out your work. You can always pivot between different kinds of venues as your work grows.
You are a writing teacher and you give workshops for writers. What are some of the things you teach in your classes? In your workshops?
That varies. I teach in an MFA program, working with students as they produce their creative thesis, so there the emphasis is on developing a high level of craft, the art of revision, and taking risks on the page.
Some semesters I teach creative nonfiction to undergraduates, where the emphasis shifts to inspiring the rough draft and candor on the page, reading like a writer, trusting the writing instinct, and the art of peer feedback.
For specialized workshops or seminars—at conferences and other writer gatherings—I like to narrow my teaching to a specific topic within the creative nonfiction genre. For example, memoir writing while grappling with spotty memories, experimenting with personal essay structure, and submissions.
A few things I always emphasize are writing into the discomfort zone; having a robust revision practice; constantly growing as a reader; getting high quality feedback and then trying new things based on that feedback.
How do you find time for your own writing?
Like everyone else, writing must fit around paid work. I’m a night owl, which helps. I do have a flexible schedule and mostly work at home, so some days I can earmark a few hours for my own writing. But then I have to catch up with everything else on nights and weekends.
If there’s a “secret,” it’s these (uninteresting but true) things: I don’t have many hobbies; don’t have pets to care for; I’m not obsessed with a clean house; I rarely sleep more than six hours a night; my husband doesn’t mind when I closet myself away writing; and my kids are now nearly grown.
Is it important for writers to write every day and have a specific time for it?
Cookie-cutter writing advice rarely works for adults with careers, family, and other obligations. That doesn’t mean we should be lax. I believe in writing regularly. Figure out what that means for your life. Maybe that’s during the train commute three mornings a week. A few nights a week when everyone else in the house is watching TV. Writing in a café at lunchtime.
Bottom line: time is limited. If you want to write, you have to not do something else. Find out what that something else is and move writing in to the time you would have spent on that. Then, be flexible, be nimble. Routines fall prey to life’s upsets; be able to regroup, make a new plan, and keep going.
Do you have techniques for getting started?
If I’m out when I get an idea, it starts with scribbled notes on scraps of paper, or on my phone in an email to myself. At home, ideas for new pieces go in my writer’s notebook, then I wait to see what accumulates there.
When I have an assignment, or want to write something for a particular venue/reason, I begin at the computer and do what I call a “brain dump” by just downloading everything that’s in my head about X. It’s not prose at that point, just thoughts, notes, snippets; directives to myself (research A; find out why B happened). The sentences aren’t lovely, there’s no structure. The important thing is to give all the stuff swirling in my head one place to exist, then see what happens. I print it all out, put it aside, and don’t look at it for a little while.
One of your workshops, “The Gift of Incomplete Memory,” deals with memoir writing. How do you encourage writers to tackle areas of memory that are incomplete? For example, my mother was hired out, at the age of fourteen, to a farmer when all she wanted to be was a teacher. She ran away, through the night, to tell her father, “If you send me back, I will kill myself.” It’s a dramatic story, but I no longer can ask my mother about details. Can I invent them? How do I go about it?
In most cases it’s the narrator/author’s memory that is impaired. In your case, it’s being unable to plumb another’s memory, the assumption being that if you could, the story would fall into place. However, even if your mother were alive and willing to discuss the event, you can’t assume you would get at that full memory. What you would eventually write would be filtered, first through her own (faulty) memory, edited by what she thought her daughter wanted to hear or could deal with knowing, or what she was prepared/able to disclose. Then it would have passed through your own filter, and finally onto the page. Everything we write in memoir is memory upon memory.
That said, there is a long list of what a memoir writer can do to foment better access to her own memories. It includes engaging with visuals, talking with others who have/had access to what’s in question, formal and informal research, immersing oneself in archival material, taking “field trips,” reading adjacent accounts, engaging the senses, and so much more.
In your particular case, I might suggest (if possible), you visit the location(s); study old maps and orient yourself with the physical place; talk with those to whom she may have told the story and/or knew her then; immerse yourself in the time period and region’s culture; write down everything you know (or can surmise) about Mom’s young life/relationship with her parents; research child labor laws at the time/the practice of hiring out teenagers; gather photos of that period, of Mom and her family; find published accounts of girls that age in similar situations.
The important thing is to not rush it. Do one or two activities and then let things settle. Each undertaking fills in blanks but also raises new questions, points you in unexpected directions. Often, writers find that the memory they are chasing leads them to something else more vital to the story.
Eventually you may find you have enough to write confidently about this episode. Or, you may choose to/have to write more speculatively (“I try to picture her…I imagine that she…Perhaps she…”). Another solution is to take the reader into your confidence about all you don’t and cannot know (“Mom only ever said X, and so I have to fill in the rest… I’ll never know if X, but it helps when I think of…”).
One of the essays we published dealt with a sibling who later wrote an angry comment in response to the author’s piece. How do you deal with writing about family? Friends? Do you ask their permission?
I may find out for myself soon since my memoir, Starting with Goodbye, will have just been published! I didn’t ask anyone’s permission, though I did ask close relatives if they’d like their name changed (I automatically changed names and details of extended family members and some friends.)
During the final revision, I asked my older sister to fact-check a few things (about my parents from before I was born). I did the same with my childhood best friend, who appears in key scenes. I read my brother short passages on the phone, to verify details of my father’s work life since they were business partners. I warned him that he may not like parts of the book that depict our strained sibling relationship. He acknowledged as much and we left it at that.
In one chapter I recount a time in my grief when I was irrationally jealous that my husband still had a father, and I unkindly compare his father to mine. I wanted to be sure it was clear to the reader that this outsized reaction was fueled by grief and emotion. I asked Frank if there was anything he wanted me to change, and his input helped me insert some important nuance.
I once had a mentor who said the only response to any reader feedback, pro or con is, “Thank you for reading.” I think that’s wise.
What are creative nonfiction chapbooks? I read about them on your site.
I attended a panel about this at the 2018 AWP conference (and reported on it for Assay Journal). They are much like poetry chapbooks, anywhere from eight to forty-eight pages (approximately) of short nonfiction prose, one piece or several pieces, connected or not. I think such chapbooks are a great option on their own or while working toward a longer manuscript, just something else a writer can aspire to.
Another one of your workshops deals with publishing. Can you talk a little about its agenda? You mention in the write-up that you will “focus on writers’ making decisions about what, how, when, and why to publish their work, from personal blogs to major websites, literary journals, anthologies, chapbooks, newspaper/magazines, and books. Print or online? Short pieces or full manuscripts? Publish as you go, or wait until completing a full book manuscript?”
The idea for this came out of the over-emphasis and pressure—and possibly damaging focus—on writers to produce a book-length manuscript above all else. When writers feel forced to think only of producing a book, they lose out on the valuable experience of writing, revising, completing, and publishing shorter pieces along the way. I talk about how writing and publishing articles, essays, interviews, even blog posts, prepared me for the longer haul of a book manuscript—and let me develop parts of Starting with Goodbye as I went along. We go over ways to refine or enhance a book idea by writing chunks of it in short pieces, and what’s to be gained by working with many different editors.
What are your goals for the coming year?
Since my first book has just been published, I’ll be doing all I can to introduce it to readers. Even when traditionally published, in 2018, that’s an author’s job. For me that will include bookstore and library appearances; readings, panels, and presentations at conferences, book festivals, etc.
Next up will be to start the next book, but first I need to figure out which of three different ideas pulls at me most. I’m looking forward to getting back to editing duties for Compose Journal in the fall (we’ve been on hiatus), and finally, I have this vision of not always working six and seven days a week.
Thank you very much, Lisa, for this interesting and fact-filled interview.
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2 comments
Cora Schenberg says:
Aug 30, 2018
I just heard Lisa speak at Hippocamp–she’s wonderful! What a smart, creative, generous soul.
Roesle Zoller says:
Aug 28, 2018
This interview inspires me to write on a daily basis.