ArtSake

Artists and creative individuals are often asked (or decide) to make their work available for free. ArtSake guest blogger Bren Bataclan, for instance, gives away all of his Smile Boston Project paintings; playwright Charles Mee makes the full texts of his plays available online for other artists to “remake.” Others might choose to not share any work without direct remuneration.

So, where do you draw the line? Do you donate art to good causes? Share excerpts to build interest? In our conversations with artists in numerous disciplines, we’ve asked: How much art do you give away?

Jendi Reiter, poet
Good question! I hardly ever give my poetry books away, because I think it’s important for creative writers to be recognized as professionals, and unfortunately in our society that means getting money for our work. However, since the publisher of my first chapbook is going out of business, and I still care about this work reaching an audience, I plan to ask her for the right to create and distribute an e-book version for free.

Alice Bouvrie, filmmaker
I often donate a DVD to a relevant, non-profit organization to be used as a fundraiser – either as an item in an auction, or for a screening with a paying audience.

Suzanne Strempek Shea, writer
The question once could have been “How much art don’t you give away?” Early on, I used to give away a lot, between stories, talks, classes and book donations. I was grateful for anyone’s interest in my books, and appreciated any opportunity to spread the word. I’m still grateful for anyone’s interest (no readers/audience/students and I don’t get to do this for a living) and the chance to spread that word, but as I’ve been lucky enough to get busier and busier, I’ve had to pick and choose when and where to donate work and time – because I have only so much time. In recent years I’ve become my family’s primary breadwinner, so I’ve actually been soliciting more paying work to fund dog kibble and other household necessities. I do try to donate work when I can, in continued gratitude for that all-important interest from readers.

Lilly Cleveland, painter
I have given away work for worthwhile causes and fundraisers (mostly silent auctions). This always generates another request from the same group each and every year. I still donate original art work but the donation is NOT tax deductible (Ed: in MA, only the cost of materials is tax deductible for the artist). Once, I heard an interesting solution from Kathy Bitetti of the Massachusetts Artists Leaders Coalition. Give a 20% off coupon as your donation so that the art buyer can come to your studio and pick out a painting and receive the discount. Raffle off the coupon or donate to silent auction.

Elizabeth Searle, writer
“A gift;” you are “gifted.” These are the somewhat lofty terms we use to describe any sort of talent. I once heard a poet advise his students, “If you write for money, money is your God.” Or as Jon Stewart put it, talking about show biz: “You don’t go into it for the health benefits.” In the theater world, while the profit motive is strong, I’ve found there is still at heart a playful spirit of: “Let’s do a SHOW! My Dad’s got a BARN!” These days, I enjoy all the outlets – online and elsewhere – that writers can make “free” use of in today’s topsy-turvy literary world. Of course I prefer pay. But I also like jumping into the mix and giving some of my work away, sometimes in connection with a good cause or two. I have spent over a decade working (and playing) within the group PEN/New England, trying to find ways for writers to use our particular gifts to “give back.” Art for art’s sake – wisely, the MCC named this blog for that creed. Whether or not you eventually luck out money-wise, I think that’s what it comes down to, “art-wise.”

Eric Hofbauer, composer and jazz guitarist
When art became monetized it forever changed the public’s relationship to it. For better or for worse, art and especially great art gets much of the attention and respect it deserves by the price tag it wears. This was the status quo for decades and it worked in all artistic disciplines quite well until the internet flooded the world with free “amateur art” of all kinds. Now the artist must be willing to give something away to reach potential buyers, agents, venues, critics, and most importantly audiences. Personally, I give away full recordings to critics, and all other music industry people, including my musician friends and colleagues without hesitation. I also give away “teaser” or sample tracks via online outlets, like my website, soundcloud, spotify, etc. to my fan base and potential audiences. There is still a vivacious audience in the world who respect great art by placing a financial value on their relationship with it. The 21st-century artist must find ways for “free art” to reach these audiences and pique their curiosities and passions without diminishing art’s reputation by being associated with amateur art outlets.

Jendi Reiter’s most recent book is Barbie at 50; Alice Bouvrie’s film “Thy Will Be Done” screens at First Parish of Watertown on Feb. 10, 7 PM; Suzanne Strempek Shea’s most recent book is Sundays in America; Lilly Cleveland teaches watercolor painting at South Shore Art Center; Elizabeth Searle’s most recent book is Girl Held in Home; Eric Hofbauer will perform at the Lily Pad, Feb. 3, 7 PM and at Longy School of Music Pickman Hall (w/Charlie Kohlhase’s Explorers Club), Feb. 4, 8 PM.

Image: Joe Wardwell (Painting Fellow ’12), NEVER BE STRONG (2011), oil on canvas, 18×32 in.

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Part of the thrill of making art is discovering how your audience interacts with your work. In our conversations with artists in numerous disciplines, we’ve asked: What’s the most surprising response to your work you’ve ever received?

Kathleen Volp, visual artist
I have been under the impression that the subject of many of my pieces was a deeply textured cantaloupe. I was surprised to find many viewers didn’t even remotely see a cantaloupe! Not even a kumquat. People saw protoplasm or coral or some kind of micro-organism or a CAT scan of the brain. It’s all good, even exciting, but really, really shocking to me. How could I not have seen this in my own work?

Mary Kocol, photographer
When I first started exhibiting at Gallery NAGA in 1993, some people thought the photographs were paintings – perhaps because I presented the work without mats or glazing, the traditional way to exhibit photos back then.

Ilie Ruby, writer
I once had a short story ravaged by wolves in a writing workshop. A friend suggested that the best revenge was revision. I looked over the story, dotted some i’s, crossed some t’s, and decided I was happy with it as it was. Then I haphazardly tossed the story into a box marked “contest,” (not knowing what contest it actually was). A few weeks later I received a phone call: “Congratulations, your story has just won the Edwin L. Moses Award for Fiction chosen by T.C. Boyle!” I received a huge prize, a small amount of satisfaction, and learned never again to listen to wolves.

Joshua Meyer, painter
I once stood in front of my paintings with the poet Robert Hass as he described my art to me. I felt like I was in the midst of one of his poems, a participant.

Scott Tulay, visual artist
My daughters, who are eight and five, consistently complain that my drawings are “too scary.” They will ask me, “Why can’t you draw something nice, with color, like with a rainbow?” Once in a while, however, I’ll do a drawing, and they’ll tilt their heads to the side and say, “Not bad, Dad.” This scares me.

Christopher Faust, painter
I had someone point out to me that there was something wrong with my composition – that the figures were too in the middle. When I told him I knew that and I did it on purpose, he kind of got angry and confused, then he stopped talking to me. I also had a piece stolen recently from a show.

Tara Masih, writer
“I love that story about your father.” When I told the woman it was fiction, that the character was not my father, she burst out, “Don’t tell me that! It was better when I thought it was real.” People seem to have a pathological need to have writing be autobiographical.

Rick Berry, painter
Tears.

Paul Goodnight, painter
Silence.

Jeff and Jane Hudson, musicians
YouTube and iTunes.

Shelly Reed, visual artist
Well, the most common response is that people very carefully and diplomatically suggest that I add at least a bit of color. The most surprising response was when someone contacted me from my Web site and asked me to design their tattoo.

Merrill Comeau, mixed media collage artist
I was working at the National Park of the Old North Bridge, on the edge of the Concord River. As I walked down, I fell into a sink hole of mud up to my knee. When I got to a good spot to work, I removed my boots and socks, washed them out in the river and hung them on branches to dry. I set out my tarp, stacks of fabric, lunch, etc. and worked all day. When I climbed back up to the bridge, the Park Ranger told me a group of women, seeing me on the edge of the river, asked where to leave money for the homeless person (me).

Salvatore Scibona, writer
My local Provincetown bookseller tells me that on the day my book (The End) came out, he sold a copy to a woman from New Hampshire, a tourist, the wife of a retired minister. It sounded interesting, she said; she liked the cover. What could be more commonplace than a person on a walk in a small town stopping to buy a book and taking it home? But also, what could be more unlikely, more uncanny from a writer’s point of view, than that a stranger he will never know should walk down a street with years of the writer’s thoughts in her bag?

Image: Kathleen Volp, BOUND MELON #2 (2011), photographic transfer, oil, metal and graphite on fabric and wood panel, 12x12x1 in.

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We’ve been exploring some of the practical issues working artists face in their creative careers.

We asked curators, arts leaders, and visual artists: What’s the first thing you’d tell to an artist looking for new opportunities to present his or her work?

Brian Crete, Creative Director and Gallery Administrator, UFORGE Gallery
It’s best to start slow and have a clear objective. I encourage artists to focus on gaining exposure rather than putting their energy into immediate financial success. Developing a proper foundation and being able to self promote is key for any serious artist. Social media and websites are important tools for today’s artist. When approaching curators, galleries and creative spaces, artists need to remember they’re on an interview, so be prepared. Learn about the organization’s mission as this will help clarify if an opportunity is good for you. Group shows, open critiques and reviews are some of the best ways to gain exposure and build your network. Be present, enjoy the experience and take risks since unknown opportunities may be on the horizon.

Paula Tognarelli, Executive Director, Griffin Museum of Photography
It is about building relationships with curators. It takes time, and success does not usually happen overnight. An artist today has to be able to market his/her work, yet at the same time be mindful and respectful of a curator’s time. I often encourage artists to keep me informed through exhibit postcards or emails. I don’t want to get an email every week but once every three months is not intrusive to me. An artist should ask how a curator would like to remain informed. I also encourage artists to take part in opportunities that provide exposure for them. Portfolio reviews, auctions and group exhibitions are good ways to begin to get work out into the public sphere. Today it is imperative for any serious artist to have a website that is current and presents work in an informative way.

Carolyn Hulbert and Stephanie Goode, Founders of the Rifrákt Artist Collective
Carolyn: Communicate with other artists and/or collectives. Do research; see where and how other artists are presenting their work, locally, nationally and internationally, through websites, blogs and art openings. This is why I love being part of a collective – everyone shares what they know and it creates immense room for rapid growth both artistically and art career wise. Something I constantly do is research other artists. If I get into a show, I look everyone up, especially when I like the work, or it’s similar to mine. I read their statement, bio and artist resume. Perhaps they’ve been part of a biennial that’s right up my alley. Or if it’s a local artist, maybe they’re part of an interesting collective or they’ve shown at a nearby gallery that specializes in emerging artists that I haven’t heard of. Sometimes it’s not about new opportunities as much it’s about your communication skills. Every showing artist needs a contact list, in short, people that enjoy your work and will show up to an event. I’ve seen artists have great opportunities and almost no one shows, and I’ve seen artists show at pizza shops/cafes have an amazing turnout and sell almost everything. Communication is key.

Stephanie: I would first think about how you want to be portrayed in the public eye. Is it a DIY underground vibe you’re after or are your eyes set on high art spaces? It’s not unattainable to aim high but it’s easier to start with more feasible venues. There are so many cafes, restaurants, and other venues to host work at besides the traditional gallery scene. I think starting there helps with the building blocks of how to communicate with your audience, the curator, and how to present yourself as an artist to strangers. You learn a lot, surprisingly.

Candice Smith Corby, Artist and Director of the Cushing-Martin Gallery at Stonehill College
I have two vantage points – one as an artist and one as a college gallery curator, and my opinions and actions are influenced by both of my positions. As a curator, I really appreciate a submission that is very organized. There should be a well-written polite cover letter addressed to the correct person with correct spelling. Artwork examples should be good images that are described well and in detail in an image list. They should not be folded and wadded up inside an envelope that is too small. I prefer to receive a physical submission rather than through email, however I do look at websites that artists refer to via email. As an artist, I think it is important to represent yourself professionally with a clear and concise submission packet. Follow submission criteria or you could be disqualified. Make sure the venue is right for your work but send as many submissions out as possible, knowing that one will eventually be welcomed. Make sure the work is consistent and the images are good representations. From both angles, quality is what rings true, even when taste wavers.

Image: Installation view of VISUAL LYRICS, the November 2011 show at UFORGE Gallery. UFORGE uses an innovative monthly assignment model to spark creativity and encourage unique art submissions.

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As an artist, is it better to earn your living in a field related to your creative work? Unrelated to your creative work? Solely through your creative work?

In our conversations with artists, we’ve asked: What’s the best/worst day job you’ve ever had? Artists’ answers often provide insight to the conundrum of how to make money while thriving as an artist.

Among some of the “bests” artists have cited are jobs with some connection to their artistic practice. Elizabeth Hughey, a poet, said that her best day job was “traveling to International Book Fairs (Frankfurt, London) to sell the rights to translate books into different languages.” Similarly, Tara L. Masih said that working for Bedford Books taught her “all the skills that helped me branch out as a freelancer and then develop and edit (The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction).”

On the other hand, working in a related field has its pitfalls, possibly draining creative energy best reserved for the art. Photographer Paris Visone counts working as a wedding photographer as tied for worst with selling sausages (her tongue, I would guess, only partially embedded in her cheek).

Recently, I was discussing local children’s book creators with a librarian at a Cambridge Public Library, and during our discussion, I handed her a book I wanted to check out: 39 Uses for a Friend, which is illustrated by Rebecca Doughty (Painting Finalist ’10). Rebecca, it turned out, was not only local – she was, at that moment, behind the library counter. I learned that Rebecca works part-time as a librarian for the Cambridge Public Library system. She told me that she was no longer creating children’s books, at least for now. Why did she choose library work over creating children’s books – work more closely related to her painting?

“Over the years I’ve had many different kinds of jobs to support my artwork,” Rebecca said in a subsequent email exchange, “and always preferred those I didn’t bring home with me at the end of the day. It was by chance that I illustrated my first children’s book, and then being in the publishing world took on a life of its own. Eventually it was too difficult to have two creative lives, both self-generated, and both requiring all my energy. There was also the uncertainty of working contract to contract. So I had to make a choice, and painting came first. For me, life is happier when commerce isn’t involved in the making of things, and the studio remains, as much as possible, a free zone. I also missed the social aspect of going to a job outside the studio, and was lucky to find part-time work at the Cambridge Public Library. Now I work in a lively, not-for-profit place surrounded by books. It’s possible that I’ll make a book again someday, but, for now, this is simpler, and saner.”

Of course, unrelated work is sometimes too unrelated, or just plain stultifying, exhausting, or otherwise soul-crushing. Some of the “worst” jobs: picking Styrofoam peanuts out of fields of mud (William Pierce), stamping cigarette cartons (Scott Tulay), or detasseling corn (Kathleen Volp).

Often, making money solely through artistic work is seen as the ultimate goal, but this can have its own challenges, such as the potential for work to be shaped by commercial necessities or the sheer difficulty of making ends meet.

Perhaps writer Michael Downing put it best: “Writing is definitely the best/worst day job I’ve ever had.”

So, what day job has worked for you (or, what hasn’t)? What do you think makes for a good day job as an artist?

Read about the best and worst day jobs artists have discussed on ArtSake.

Image: Rebecca Doughty, DRAG (2009), acrylic on wood, 9×8 in.

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Artists’ careers can take many trajectories. In our conversations with working artists, we’ve asked: Can you point to any one decision you’ve made as an artist that has had the most impact on your career?

Joan Leegant, writer
Probably the smartest thing I did was to enroll in a master’s program in writing, a low-residency MFA at Vermont College, now the Vermont College of Fine Arts. I was 47 years old and had been writing for 7 or 8 years and needed a more rigorous way of dealing with what I was doing. The beauty of the low-residency model is that, other than going to the campus twice a year for 10-day residencies, you are basically on your own, writing a lot of fiction, but with a mentor, a serious working writer who becomes your dedicated reader. After 2 years of this, with 4 different mentors, you can learn a lot about yourself as a writer.

Patrick Gabridge, playwright, writer
In 1990, I was living near New York (in New Jersey), and decided to self-produce my first full-length play off-off Broadway. I partnered with a director to start a small theatre company to produce the show and rented a theatre for a weekend, helped find the cast, designed and built the set, all while in the midst of moving to Denver with my wife, Tracy. The production taught me as much about writing and producing, in the space of about 8 weeks, as I could have learned in graduate school (for less money). It also gave me the confidence to take similar leaps in the future.

Steven Bogart, playwright and director
Hmm, well I decided to stay in education (as a teacher) and that has had its ups and downs as I’ve struggled to find time for my own personal artistic endeavors. And I’ve wondered what a professional life in the theater would have meant, but at the same time, I have created some amazing and mind blowing theater with my students that I probably would not have been able to do professionally and pay my bills. I love creating with my students, and my work in education has really informed my approach and ideas about theater – what it is, and what it could be. Working with students keeps giving back to me in wonderful ways. I’m still connected with many of my alums and it has been personally and artistically rewarding. (Ed. note: Bogart recently left his full-time teaching position and now teaches part-time as he concentrates on his career as an artist.)

Huckleberry Delsignore, crochet artist
A little over a year ago I lost my job. Little did I know at the time, it was the best thing that could happen to me. My children were in school full time and I had only one thing I needed to focus on: making my art career happen. I crocheted as much as possible, kept my web site fresh and up to date, and did my best to let people know what I was up to. A good web site is an amazing resource these days. I guess the one decision was to take myself seriously as an artist and to work harder than I knew possible to make cool stuff happen.

Adam Schwartz, writer
To be the best father possible to my daughter. I adopted my daughter in 1996, and that happened to be the last year in which I published a story before my (2011) novel came out. I didn’t have much time to write between having a demanding teaching job and being fully involved in my daughter’s life. I’m reluctant to say, though, that it had a negative impact on my writing career. I’m sure that the experience of being a parent will enrich my writing for years to come.

Leslie Williams, poet
I wish I could say I made “decisions” in the sense of strategy, or even in being fully conscious about the work of poetry. The main thing for me has been sticking to it over the long haul, which is not really a choice, as anyone who writes poems knows – even in the dry spells there are little nagging lines and phrases in your head that call you back. For me it’s been crucial to find a group of serious working poets to meet with on a semi-regular basis. I was fortunate enough to stumble into the most magical summer group the first summer we moved here and that too has really sustained me.

Holly Lynton, photographer
When I was an undergraduate at Yale, I began taking classes in photography. Initially, I was into creative writing and thought I’d be a writer. Immediately hooked on photography, I found a natural ease in making ironic and humorous street photos, very much smitten with the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson. After a year, I hit a rut. This lasted for three semesters, and each semester I thought about giving up photography, but each semester I found one negative I wanted to print and reasoned that I couldn’t print it without darkroom access. I’d only have dark room access if I signed up for the next photography class, and so I did, and I persevered. In my last semester at Yale, I had a breakthrough in my work that thankfully moved me out of that rut… It’s those moments that add up and have impact.

Jamie Cat Callan, writer
A long time ago, I decided to let go of the debilitating idea of becoming an overnight sensation. I let go of the notion of the acclaimed debut novel. I no longer care about being the next new thing. Rather, I’ve embraced the idea that I can be that gal who has been quietly and consistently writing all along (since 1973) while raising a daughter, making a living, moving around, experiencing all the unexpected ups and downs of living a full life. The overnight sensation ship sailed long ago, but I am here and this is my journey.

Laura Harrington, playwright, writer
There’s one decision I’ve had to make several times that seems like it’s had the most impact. It’s a decision that’s often been made in very dark times. And that decision is simply to keep going, to keep writing.

What decision had the most impact on your career? Leave a comment and join the conversation.

Image: Daniel Ranalli, SNAIL DRAWING/DOUBLE LINE START (2007), snail drawing in sand, 20×28 in. Images from Daniel’s Snail Drawing series are included in Dance/Draw, the major fall exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts/Boston, running through January 16, 2012. Daniel is also participating in the ICA’s 75 Artists for the 75th exhibition, as well.

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An artist’s creative practice shares time and energy with family, financial, and other necessities of life. In our conversations with working artists, we’ve asked: How do you balance the unconventional challenges of an artist’s work with other aspects of your life?

Huckleberry Delsignore, crochet artist
My daughters are ages 3, 5 and 7. Balancing life as a single mother is complicated but they are proud of what I do and love playing with (my) masks. I make art to preserve my sanity. I must be actively engaged in a creative project or I feel myself wilt. Fortunately, my work is easily transportable, so I am often crocheting at the park while they play. I also stay up very late and get a lot done while they are sleeping.

Joan Leegant, writer
The crazy late night hours are an inconvenient aspect of my writing life that I’ve more or less learned to live with. Sure, every now and then I tell myself that now, this time, I’ll write during the day, but invariably the experiment falls apart after a few days or a week when everything I attempt comes out wooden, and I’m pulling teeth and grumbling at everyone in my path. So then I’m back to keeping hours that make it hard to do a “regular” life and require all kinds of compromises. There are times, for instance, when I don’t go out with people in the evening because it takes too many hours afterward to unwind and get down to work. There are other times when I don’t write at all, weeks or months, because I’m teaching and need to have a more normal sleeping schedule, or I can’t throw myself into the teaching and the writing at the same time. There are still other times when I’ve chosen not to write because there are other opportunities I don’t want to ignore… What has helped me with this question of balance – or, more accurately, perhaps, the lack of balance – is to try to fully embrace whatever it is that is keeping me from the writing, including things I didn’t choose, things that are difficult or painful but are simply part of the messy business of life.

Holly Lynton, photographer
My family is hugely important when it comes to my creative work. My husband is extremely supportive of what I do, and has also been a model in many photographs… Both of my children can articulate clearly what it is that I do. Involving them in my art is a sign of respect, and they understand the ups and downs of it, as they see it firsthand… I also want to teach them what it means to have ambitions, creative desires, and a goal to pursue, and how one goes about pursuing one’s goals. I believe this is important behavior to model directly, so the more they are involved the more they see how that all works.

Sharon Howell, poet
I have a husband – who is an artist – and two children under 10, so my life has some significant delightful chaos in it. One thing we’ve been doing as a family over the past couple of years has been helpful, if difficult: my husband and kids have been spending about half the year in the rainforest of Costa Rica, living on a farm and riding horses to a little bilingual school. I miss them terribly, but the unaccustomed solitude here in Cambridge has allowed me the mental space to write in a way otherwise impossible. I also get to visit them and hike through the mountainous jungle looking out to the Pacific Ocean, where giant blue morpho butterflies float by and you see toucans and monkeys regularly. This provides a healthy contrast to winter in Massachusetts.

Allan Reeder, writer
I’d say it’s more juggling than balancing. Getting to my desk at five in the morning or even earlier used to be the solution, until my son decided that he, too, liked the early morning (a writer-in-training?). So now I write during whatever moments I can. It’s continually surprising – and reassuring – what can happen, what can fall out of the imagination and into words, if I just sit down to let it happen. But I know that when only twenty minutes of writing produces a promising new turn in a scene, it wasn’t just those twenty minutes that did it – there were hours of previous writing in the mind that contributed. And reading.

Further research: Somerville artist Tim Devin surveyed artists to find out how they managed their time, in terms of hours and routines. You can read what he found out by visiting his web site and downloading the “Creative people and time management” PDF.

Image: a crochet mask by Huckleberry Delsignore, photo by Jay Elling.

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On the blog, we’ve had the chance to exchange ideas with dozens of Massachusetts artists, exploring their work and the way they make it.

A number of these artists, along with creating their own work, also teach. What do they try to instill in emerging artists? Here, we share some of their insights into the creative life.

Melinda Lopez, playwright
Break your characters. Don’t protect them. That’s the number one thing I see — a playwright has everything lined up, beautiful words, great characters, and killer story, and then they can’t follow through because they love their characters too much. You have to break their little spines, and leave them in the dirt and see if they can get up. If they can, then it’s a comedy.

Daphne Kalotay, writer
Of course it’s possible to over-revise, but most people don’t revise enough. I know it sounds schoolmarm-ish, but it’s true. The ability to revise is probably the most underrated and necessary skill, even more important than imagination. Because your imagination will only get you so far; then you need to fix everything up – develop it fully, make sure it flows and is well-formed, that it isn’t under-baked or overly wordy or unnecessarily confusing. From what I’ve seen as a writing teacher, in most cases what stops aspiring writers from reaching their goal is an unwillingness to revise as much as is truly necessary.

Holly Lynton, photographer
A teacher of mine once told me that it was not talent but persistence that carries you through as an artist. I firmly believe she is right. There are many aspects that go into a creative practice. Determination, critical evaluation, perseverance, challenging oneself, and staying true to a vision. I was taught to work to find my own point of view and perspective, to have as a goal the ability to create photographs that would immediately be recognized as mine. If I showed you a slide show of images by truly great photographers (assuming you had a good photo history background), I bet you’d be able to name most of them. That is a lofty goal of course, so I also try to encourage artists to find balance. Happiness. Happiness for me is key, as it’s an attribute that so often seems highly unattainable. At least among several people I’ve known. I try to encourage emerging artists to find a way of living and working as an artist that gives them a happy, balanced life, because I also believe that self-esteem can be fragile when developing an art career. For me, having a family enabled me to stay grounded, that and moving to the country. It took me a while to learn an important lesson, again taught to me by a great teacher, that being an artist is a way of life, a way of seeing the world, a way of thinking, and that you are that no matter what. Having an art career is something separate.

Steven Bogart, playwright and director
Be patient and give yourself permission, lots of permission, to explore anything that stirs your heart and imagination. We hear the word “no” way too much in our lives and it puts a vice grip on our creative impulses. I see this all the time in schools. As a director and theater teacher, my mantra to them is to be invested in the success of every other person in the room with you. I don’t believe the art of theater can be achieved without this kind of commitment.

Allan Reeder, director of Writing and Publishing Program at Walnut Hill School for the Arts
I like what novelist Zadie Smith wrote in an essay a few years ago – that “[r]eading, done properly, is every bit as tough as writing.” I agree with her that good reading is not only a skill but an art, a talent. I try to cultivate this through my teaching, in part because the possibilities for development of a literary piece depend so much on a writer’s being able to see what’s already there in a draft, or potentially there, if she can read it and re-read it with imagination, with vision – to see it on the screen in the mind. Go back and look again, see again. I strive to help our writers to get better and better at finding the possibilities that are inside that scene, that moment, that line, that gesture they put there in a draft originally for no clear purpose. Once a detail on the page is picked up again for its promise or potential, then it’s time to pick up the pen again and get to work on the language, making it more specific, more precise. The possibilities open in achieving precision.

Lois Roach, playwright and director
Life is messy. I tell my students that all the time. And that’s where your scripts and your stories come from. They don’t just come from four friends sitting in a coffee shop.

Jamie Cat Callan, writer
Follow your muse. Don’t worry about where you’re going or where you’ll end up. Write from the heart and believe that there is a place in this world for your voice, your story, your style. No one else can be you. You are completely unique and amazing in your own way. And as long as you stay true to yourself, your contribution to the world will be completely true and unique. Oh, and one other thing. Be kind to your writing. It lives and breathes outside of you. It’s a gift to you from your muse, so if you are kind to your own creations, your muse will make a habit of visiting you often. I don’t believe in tough love when it comes to teaching writing. I believe in love. Kindness. Gentleness. And of course a whole lot of joie de vivre.

Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro, playwright
Keep a journal, write two hours a day, read hundreds of plays, go to a play a week, get to know your local playwrights and rush to see their plays, when you have writer’s block distract yourself with a 10-minute play and submit it to the innumerable festivals in your favorite cities all over the country, have close friends (other than yourself) that you study and know inside out. Never give up, never despair – after three decades of doing what you love most, the Huntington might give you a call. (Ed. note: Alfaro will premiere her play Before I Leave You at the Huntington Theatre Company in October 2011. The above is quoted from Adam Szymkowicz’s blog.)

Justin Casinghino, composer
As a teacher, I have two primary concerns. I want my students to stay open minded about everything they hear and everything they create, keeping them unafraid to go out on a limb and try something they are unfamiliar with. At the same time, I am particularly concerned with teaching composition as a craft. In other words, it is important to me that my students be aware of and study what and how the past masters of the craft have done. I think that allowing students to explore their own path, while also keeping them in touch with the lineage of composition, is the most beneficial method of study for the young composer.

Adam Schwartz, writer
Keep writing because it brings meaning to (your) life and not because (you) have visions of fame and success.

Image: East Somerville Community School mural project led by artist David Fichter, part of MCC’s STARS Residencies.

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In January, we shared the first half of a conversation between Lise Haines and Elizabeth Searle, where they talked about recent projects, like Lise’s novel Girl in the Arena and Elizabeth’s rock opera Tonya and Nancy, and otherwise explored the writing life and their life as writers.

In this second part of the two-part conversation, they discuss new trajectories in their careers, the things you don’t talk about in polite society (but you write about in interesting fiction), and the fun kind of suffering that is a writer’s work.

Elizabeth: I’ve noticed that we’re both going on a new trajectory, in our careers. You could say that our earlier works would be classified as literary, capital L, which is sort of like the word liberal, people don’t say it anymore. And with Girl in the Arena, not that it’s not still the high quality literary writing, but it’s definitely got the page-turner, plot element that’s very clear and strong. And I also feel that Girl Held in Home will be a plot-driven book. It was based on an actual incident in our neighborhood, where a girl – in real life, it was a grown woman – was being held in a wealthy home as an unpaid servant, and her visa was under the family’s control. They had frightened her somehow into believing that she had to do this. In my version of it, a teenage boy discovers this situation and gets a crush on the girl. In his All-American way he wants to help her but in a way he’s exploiting her. What set this book in motion was that some of the boys who lived in the real-life house where the woman was being held did a very strange thing on Halloween of 2001 – right after 9/11. They came from a family that claimed to be related to the Saudi royal family, and they went Trick or Treating in the neighborhood dressed as, in their own words, a terrorist and a dead American. In my fictional version, they have a reason: in their own misguided way, they think they’re protecting their family. I have no idea why, in real life, they did what they did. But it was one of those incidents that I wanted to explain to myself, to delve into.

Lise: It sounds like we’ve both found ourselves wandering into a very political area. Why do you think that is, for you?

Elizabeth: I come from a very political family. You mentioned 9/11. Girl Held in Home is very much a post-9/11 book. And Girl in the Arena strikes me as a post-9/11 book.

Lise: I still write mainly about families, triangulated relationships, how we move on from loss. But suddenly, I found I couldn’t hold back about something larger. It feels as if all of the stakes are higher, now.

Elizabeth: Have you ever written scripts?

Lise: No, I haven’t.

Elizabeth: You’re the one writer in America who’s held out and not written a film script!

Lise: I’m giving serious consideration to the screenplay, and maybe a graphic novel at some point.

Elizabeth: You should do a graphic novel of Girl in the Arena – do the sequel! I love that form, and you’re such a visual person.

Lise: I’m finishing up a novel as we speak, and then it will be time to clear the board again. I like this concept of transmedia overall, where one creative product can take many forms: a novella becomes a libretto becomes a film becomes a rock opera. And can’t you just see Tonya and Nancy The Game? It’s such a playful concept, that we can invent and reinvent and completely torque things around. And maybe in some ways this keeps us ahead of some of the unending anxieties with bookstores closing, lower profits on e-versions, the closing of libraries, less people reading in a traditional way. It would be very easy to simply get depressed and derail. But I think we have to fall back on that adage about the mother of invention and get re-energized. And that gives us the steam to do the fundraisers and other events to help the libraries and bookstores, and so on.

Elizabeth: The direction I’ve moved in is mixing writing and music. I’m a huge music fan, so putting words to music is such a joy to me. I got to do this for the musical and for the rock opera, and now I’m working on a new full-length opera with a terrific locally based composer, Pasquale Tassone. It is based on a play by an Italian playwright, and I am translating it into a libretto.

Lise: Do you sleep?

Elizabeth: I don’t. I don’t sleep. My son goes down around nine, and the hours between nine and one AM are very key for me.

Lise: That sounds like my schedule, though my daughter stays up late too. I usually get about four and a half hours of sleep.

Elizabeth: But nighttime is a great time to write, because everything shuts down. I get a lot of work done during those times. And I enjoy it.

Lise: Another thing about graphic novels and musicals and the themes of celebrity: it’s an interesting blend of high art and low art.

Elizabeth: I love that blend. It’s a very current thing.

Lise: We have that impulse to turn everything upside down and re-examine it, make sure we haven’t boxed ourselves into a corner with art that nobody can relate to.

Elizabeth: I think the current generation – even including us – is so steeped in pop. Pop culture and popular entertainment are about the only things America does well. That’s why the words “Celebrities in Disgrace” mean so much to me. (Ed. note: “Celebrities in Disgrace” is the title of Searle’s novella, short film, and blog.) That’s a title that came to me with the Tonya and Nancy incident, back in ’94, but to me, it just becomes more and more what our culture is all about. I feel like that part of a writer’s job is to engage your times, whatever they are, and our times are certainly tabloid times. These are our stories, our folk tales. And that is in a way what my blog is all about. Not only do we just dish on celebrities in disgrace and indulge in it, but especially in the guest posts, people talk about the weird deep emotions they feel about some of these people. One of the impetuses of the blog was a conversation I had with Steve Almond. At the time, he was worried, he said, about Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise was having his jumping on the couch moment, and not many people were sympathetic to him. But Steve was reading all sorts of mid-life crises things into whatever was happening with Tom Cruise. And I know that feeling. Again, I think people can identify heavily with something from a tabloid story. Maybe they don’t want to talk about it. But those are the most interesting things in writing, these weird feelings you wouldn’t talk about in polite society. But you would on my blog.

Lise: Okay, to switch tracks for a second. Here we are in an organization that supports and funds artists. What do you think it takes to feel really supported in this culture? Do you think we’ll see a point in time where people can no longer create art because they simply cannot afford to produce it?

Elizabeth: I feel the thing that writers, and artists in general, can do, that can save us, is to band together in groups and support each other. I feel, for instance, that self-publishing can work, but it’s often not a good model. It’s one person doing everything. If only these people would band together, form a collective – there are models for that in poetry publishing, like Alice James Press. People are constantly bemoaning how many people are studying to be writers. Why can’t that work for us? We could support each other, buy each other’s books, support our local small presses.

Lise: So what’s going to happen when we see the day, as with music, when you can download literature for free? And suddenly, all of those years of the writer crafting an individual property, a novel…

Elizabeth: With e-books, I think there will be, as a literary agent acquaintance of mine told me, a period of chaos. And then things will start sorting out.

Lise: Although, the difference between the writing world and, say, the music world is that the musicians are living off their performances, right? We don’t have that track.

Elizabeth: But I feel like we’ll come up with things. It’s not like we’ve been making a mint the old way. Just to come back to Literary Death Match (Ed. note: discussed in part one.), which was packed with people: if you make it – whatever it is – a fun, interactive experience, you give people a reason to get off their couches and come out for an event or off their computers and into your book.

Lise: That brings up the idea of how much art is here to entertain, and how much we’re afraid of that idea, that it’s somehow too commercial if we actually entertain someone through our art. But look at the classics. Dickens, that’s pure entertainment, with those really deep notes in it.

Elizabeth: He would have won the Literary Death Match! People would pack the halls to see him read. The global economy has had a terrible affect on fiction publishing, but I think the smart, small presses are going to find ways to make it work for them – like e-books, like events.

Lise: I think as life gets more sketchy on the financial end, my characters go more and more into survival. The novel I’m working on now certainly echoes that.

Elizabeth: Writers tap into the zeitgeist.

Lise: Where does your sense of humor come from?

Elizabeth: Well, I think a dark place. (Laughs) I often find things funny that I don’t know if everyone does. The various plots I’ve mentioned are terrible things, really scary in real life. But they have a dark humor to them that’s appealing and interesting to me. It’s just where I’m drawn. You are not on the bubbly bright side of humor, either!

Lise: No, it’s a very dark humor. I think mine comes primarily from my stepfather, whom I call my dad. He just has a certain sensibility. Kind of wry and dark. I see my daughter has it now.

Elizabeth: The kids these days!

Lise: Humor is, in another way, a survival skill.

Elizabeth: I remember something you said once at a reading, Lise, “I dedicate this reading to my daughter, who will never be old enough to read this book!” (Laughs) That, I totally relate to. I told my son that. He’s starting to get all-too-curious.

Lise: Yes, that was my first book, In My Sister’s Country. Another story I tell is that when Sienna was a baby, I was very focused on her as a stay-at-home mom. So when she napped was just about the only time I would write. Sometimes if I was right at the end of a scene, I’d turn up the heat a bit in the house. So she’d keep sleeping.

Elizabeth: I can remember doing that in my car. If we were driving along; I’d turn up the heat so he would fall asleep, and I could sit up in the front seat and get some writing done. Every writing mom knows those feelings.

Lise: And you can also change the type of project you’re writing. When my daughter was little, I wrote in small sections – prose poems or flash fiction that I eventually strung together.

Elizabeth: I’m glad you mentioned that, because one of the factors in me getting involved in theatre and film writing was that it much better suited having a young kid. I hadn’t had a book published in a while, partly because I tried a couple of times to write a novel with a young child, and I just could not get that continuous trance that you need. But I got the opportunity to write for the theatre, and I found I could do that in short bursts.

Lise: So when you actually sit to write… for me, I’m probably the happiest when I write. The actual act of writing-

Elizabeth: Is always fun.

Lise: Is such an absolute high.

Elizabeth: And if you lose touch with that, you’re in trouble. I’ve never lost touch with that. If I’m not happy with what I’m working on, I switch to something different. That’s the advantage to having all of these different projects.

Lise: But there have been well-known artists and writers who really suffer all the way through-

Elizabeth: You do suffer, but it’s a fun kind of suffering!

Girl in the Arena by Lise Haines was recently nominated for a South Carolina Book Award.

Elizabeth Searle is among the authors participating in Books in Bloom at the Robbins Library in Arlington, MA, on Friday, March 4 at 6 PM. Watch for another production of TONYA AND NANCY: THE ROCK OPERA in Summer 2011.

Lise Haines is the author of three novels: Girl in the Arena, a CYBILS nominee in 2009, was published in the US (Bloomsbury) with foreign rights sold in Turkey (Alfa-Artemis Yayinevi) and Brazil (Editora Underworld); Small Acts of Sex and Electricity (Unbridled Books), a Book Sense Pick in 2006 and one of ten “Best Book Picks for 2006″ by the NPR station in San Diego; and In My Sister’s Country (Penguin/Putnam), a finalist for the 2003 Paterson Fiction Prize. Her short stories and essays have appeared in a number of literary journals, and she was a finalist for the PEN Nelson Algren Award. Haines has been Writer in Residence at Emerson College since 2002. She has been Briggs-Copeland Lecturer at Harvard, and her other teaching credits include UCLA, UCSB, and Stonecoast at the University of Southern Maine. She holds a B.A. from Syracuse University and an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. She grew up in Chicago, lived in Southern California for many years, and now resides with her daughter in the Boston area.

Elizabeth Searle‘s new novel, Girl Held in Home, will be published in Fall, 2011. Her previous books are: Celebrities in Disgrace, a novella that the New York Times called “a miniature masterpiece”; A Four-Sided Bed, a novel, and My Body to You, winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Prize. Celebrities in Disgrace was produced as a short film in 2010 by Bravo Sierra. Elizabeth’s theater works have been featured in stories on Good Morning America, CBS, CNN, NPR, the AP and more. Her Tonya & Nancy: The Rock Opera was reviewed as “brilliant and touching.”

Images: cover art for GIRL HELD IN HOME by Elizabeth Searle (New Rivers Press, Fall 2011); praise by author Tom Robbins, from the back cover of GIRL IN THE ARENA by Lise Haines (Bloomsbury, 2009); Elizabeth Searle with the cast and creative team of TONYA AND NANCY, performed at Club Oberon 1/31-2/2 (photo by Barry Weiss); cover art for IN MY SISTERS COUNTRY by Lise Haines (Blue Hen, 2002).

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Both authors have made careers of writing highly-acclaimed literary fiction; most recently, Lise Haines wrote Girl in the Arena and Elizabeth Searle wrote the novella and story collection Celebrities in Disgrace. And both authors find their creative lives veering in intriguing new trajectories — working with genres, forms, and subjects previously uncharted in their writing lives.

Here, the two authors conduct a reciprocal interview, touching on literary death matches (of various sorts), writing what isn’t comfortable, and the way creative ideas take hold of us and don’t let go.

This is part one of a two-part conversation (read part two).

Lise: You just won Literary Death Match.

Elizabeth: I did! I got a gold metal. It was just like what Nancy Kerrigan always wanted so that was deeply meaningful for me.

Lise: I’ve not been to a Literary Death Match-

Elizabeth: Oh, you’d love it. It’s a literary event that really pushes the boundaries. There’s this great guy, Todd (Zuniga), who runs Literary Death Matches all around the world. He asks bookstore owners and people like that to recommend four writers. Jaime Clarke from Newtonville Books recommended me. Then each writer picks a literary entity to be their sponsor and get some publicity. I ended up being sponsored by Post Road magazine. For the Boston event, we gathered in the Enormous Room, which could not be more fun. I was trying to describe (that space) to my son, and he said, is it like an opium den? And I said yes, actually, it was kind of like an opium den-

Lise: From all your years of experience in opium dens, right?

Elizabeth: (Laughs) But with the giant pillows, it’s so comfortable. It’s a fantastic venue for readings. So they paired us into two groups, and I won my round somehow.

Lise: I did a reading there for Four Stories when my second novel, Small Acts of Sex and Electricity, came out. I loved it. Did you win by reading something?

Elizabeth: Yes, exactly.

Lise: And did the crowd vote?

Elizabeth: No, thank goodness. I would not want to be on the applause-meter. There were three judges: Steve Almond, Jennifer Haigh, and Steve Macone, who’s known as the “comedian-for-the-people.” Todd made it very clear: this is like American Idol, only not mean. And they all got into the spirit of it. So those three judged each round, and then you had two finalists. The final round of Literary Death Match was madness, just absurd. Whoever chose the most-followed Facebook authors won. All my Facebooking came into play! And I got the gold metal.

Lise: Okay, so you’ll have a new book coming out in 2011.

Elizabeth: Yes, in October 2011.

Lise: Called…

Elizabeth: Girl Held in Home.

Lise: If there was a symbol, like the Oprah symbol or the Newbury Award Winner symbol, would you put “Literary Death Match Winner” on your cover?

Elizabeth: I actually would, I would be crazy enough to do that. My work doesn’t tend to be that earnest, so this was my kind of contest, and I was really happy to win it. I think the literary community can do more of these kinds of events. It’s the opposite of sitting on uncomfortable folding chairs in a florescent lit space.

So Lise, you and I both have Girl books: Girl in the Arena and Girl Held in Home. Your novel was a big jump for you. Young adult literature is a hot market, but I know you didn’t necessarily write it knowing it was going to be billed both for YA and adult readers.

Lise: It’s not uncommon now when you have a young protagonist to see your work dually marketed as adult and young adult. I just wrote a book that I had to write, and I think the crazy thing for me was not how it got marketed but why I was writing this book in the first place. I think of myself as a pacifist. Any way to de-escalate violence is a good thing in my mind. And I’ve always avoided watching violent movies or graphic news programs. Suddenly I found myself writing about this girl who grew up in an entirely violent culture, the premise being that in the ’60s, someone introduced an underground movement which became a replica of gladiator sport in ancient Rome, with hints of Fight Club. Now, this girl is 18, and she’s watched six of her fathers die in the arena, because her mother is very embedded in this culture of gladiators. But I couldn’t figure out why on Earth I was writing it.

Elizabeth: But I don’t think you could read that book and miss that you are anti-violence.

Lise: No, but I was entering a world that I wasn’t necessarily comfortable in. About six months into it, I thought, that’s good, that I’m not comfortable.

Elizabeth: Right.

Lise: That I’m taking a lot of risks and exploring things I would not have done. I think a lot of it was a response to events like 9/11 and the quest to survive in a difficult economy, in difficult times.

Elizabeth: You’re in the arena.

Lise: We all are, every day.

Elizabeth: And (Girl in the Arena is) a mother/daughter story. There’s a lot of resonance. I also liked how you explore the culture of fame. You wrote, “The cameras are like a wall of painful light.” Were you consciously taking on that theme, too?

Lise: So many people who make marks in our world now are suddenly escalated to this crazy place of paparazzi. I saw a documentary recently about a young boy who was functioning as a paparazzo. He was in Hollywood and everyday he’d be out there until two, three AM, shooting photographs of the celebrities. And then because of the documentary, he became a celebrity. And pretty soon, he didn’t know who he was, and what he was doing. It’s hard not to hold a mirror up to that, since it’s such a part of our culture. You’ve focused very much on the Tonya (Harding) and Nancy (Kerrigan) drama. One of the things I love is that that story has created various streams for you. You started out with a libretto…

Elizabeth: Actually, I started out with a novella, Celebrities in Disgrace, although Tonya and Nancy are just background figures in that. And then I did the libretto for the chamber opera, Tonya and Nancy, which we performed at what was then A.R.T.’s Zero Arrow Theatre. Almost all of the libretto are words that Tonya or Nancy or (Jeff) Gillooly – all these various figures who are stranger than fiction – spoke. And then we created a whole different show that premiered a couple of years ago in Portland, Oregon, the home of Tonya. We did a showcase of it in L.A., and we’re going to bring it to Boston. It’s a ninety minute rock opera, with music by Michael Teoli.

Lise: And then you have the film short.

Elizabeth: Yeah, the film short (Celebrities in Disgrace).

Lise: You’ve created an empire.

Elizabeth: Well, sometimes you do find something that, for whatever reason, strikes deep chords.

Lise: So it’s a comic tragedy…

Elizabeth: And that’s something that I love about the Tonya and Nancy story. It has a dark comedy element that’s just absurd. It’s the dumbest crime of the century and yet it’s also poignant and sad if you know anything about either of their backgrounds, really. For those who are too young to know, Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan were two rival Olympic skaters, and Nancy Kerrigan was dramatically and horribly attacked, her knee was whacked with a steel baton. And she was seriously injured right before the Olympic skate-offs were about to begin. Suspicion focused on her rival Tonya Harding, who was in some way her opposite, and proof was eventually found that Tonya’s ex-husband Jeff Gillooly – you could not invent a character like him – was behind it. Tonya was never, it should be mentioned, proven to be in on it. But most people suspect she was. It was one of the first crazy tabloid stories that took over 24/7 news coverage. One of my inspirations for pursuing it was that at that time, the conservative commentator George Will made the comment, “This is a ridiculous story that has nothing whatsoever to do with life in America today.” And I thought, ridiculous story, yes, of course. But it has everything to do with life in America. I thought that back in ’94; I think it even more now. This story just carries for me. It touches on all sorts of themes of American life: jealousy, the glittery surface of these pretty skirts and girls skating, but violence right underneath it, just brutal violence. And this desperation for attention and fame and acclaim that they both in their different ways had.

Lise: And that phrase that Nancy was shouting out, “Why me?” That goes to the heart of anyone who’s ever suffered a tragedy.

Elizabeth: That got so much attention, and people view it in different ways. Both (Tonya and Nancy) bring up strong feelings. And when we do the show we’re now developing in Boston, it’s going to be very interactive, and we’re going to encourage – and you would relate to this with Girl in the Arena – a Roman coliseum kind of feeling. I would love it if the audience gets into a frenzy and then afterward thinks, whoa, what was that. Because these two women tap into primal stereotypes of women – the good girl, the bad girl. I’ve been working on this crazy stuff for the last six years, having many conversations with people, and they get worked up about Tonya and Nancy.

Lise: When you look at your entire writing career, which has many phases, do you ever wish you could just take all of the marketing end and just hand it to somebody? Okay, you do that, and I’ll go back to my study.

Elizabeth: That’s interesting. I imagine maybe a lot of writers would feel that. I have to confess that I like the marketing side. I look at it as totally different, though, from the creative side. As Bill Clinton used to say, Compartmentalize. The morning time, or the late night, my best mind times, are for writing, and I try to block out everything else. But then I enjoy promotion, otherwise I wouldn’t have either entered or won the Literary Death Match. Now that I have been introduced to Facebook and Twitter, and blogging, I enjoy that, too. But, do you feel differently? I remember a terrific interactive Powerpoint presentation you did at the Belmont Library.

Lise: At the time, I thought, I’m so modern, doing Powerpoint. I guess that’s so last century…

Elizabeth: I thought it was wonderful!

Lise: Two young guys at Emerson recently created a book trailer for my book. We’re seeing more and more book trailers, but I knew that I couldn’t get involved in making an elaborate film. So I talked to one of my former students, and he said, Well, I’d love to do that.

Elizabeth: And then your daughter did some trailers.

Lise: She got dressed up as a gladiator, she and her friend, and they went into Harvard Square and took their shields.

Elizabeth: Thinking about Girl in the Arena, I’m reminded of one of my favorite movies, Carrie. Stephen King knew the true horror begins in a high school gym shower. I think you play on some of the things that happen in a regular teenager’s life; they’re bigger here, and they’re horrifying. Quoting your book: “Survival can sharpen the mind if it doesn’t obliterate it.” That idea is so relatable. And Girl in the Arena strikes me as so filmable. Really, all of your other novels are very filmable, In My Sister’s Country and Small Acts of Sex and Electricity.

Lise: Maybe it’s because I have such a passion for film, almost as strong as my passion for literature.

Elizabeth: When you’re writing, do you see the scenes cinematically?

Lise: I think my mind is very cinematic when I write. For me, an average day has three realities. Along with dream/sleep time and the waking world, my writing life is like a very vivid daydream. I feel like part of my job is to report back on this third reality.

Elizabeth: That’s a great metaphor. You’re mixing, in that dream-like way, so many things from your real life. But it creates something new.

Lise: And once a character exists in your mind, you can’t really change their actions. You can change their stimulus – you can create a car crash, you can have somebody walk out a door – but the person you’re really invested in, that main character, you can’t ask them to make any decisions than the ones they have to make. Even if those decisions are suddenly so crazy and wild and bring out some different aspect of their personality.

Elizabeth: Knowing you, I could tell as I read Girl in the Arena that you were being led along. At a certain point, you were following what the characters you set in motion needed to do. One of the lines that really struck me was, “I am everything I am not.” (Your protagonist) becomes her opposite – which is great in fiction, a classic thing – she becomes the opposite of everything she stood against, at first.

Lise: And that line that keeps threading through, which is a Biblical line, “We know not what we do.” We’re compelled, we’re following this course, but we don’t really know exactly what we’re setting up, or where this could take us.

Watch for part two of this interview, where the authors talk new career trajectories, new trends in publishing, and writing what you don’t talk about in polite society!

Lise Haines will appear at Books in Bloom, a library fundraiser open to the public on January 28, 2011, 6:30 – 9:00 PM at the Belmont Public Library along with Leah Hager Cohen, Ellen Fitzpatrick, Daniel Golden, Megan Marshall, Mameve Medwed, Tom Perrotta, Clara Silverstein and Greg Tang.

A new production of the rock opera TONYA AND NANCY by Elizabeth Searle, music by Michael Teoli, directed by Janet Roston, will be playing January 31, February 1, and February 2 at Club Oberon of the American Repertory Theater (ART) in Harvard Square.

Lise Haines is the author of three novels: Girl in the Arena, a CYBILS nominee in 2009, was published in the US (Bloomsbury) with foreign rights sold in Turkey (Alfa-Artemis Yayinevi) and Brazil (Editora Underworld); Small Acts of Sex and Electricity (Unbridled Books), a Book Sense Pick in 2006 and one of ten “Best Book Picks for 2006″ by the NPR station in San Diego; and In My Sister’s Country (Penguin/Putnam), a finalist for the 2003 Paterson Fiction Prize. Her short stories and essays have appeared in a number of literary journals, and she was a finalist for the PEN Nelson Algren Award. Haines has been Writer in Residence at Emerson College since 2002. She has been Briggs-Copeland Lecturer at Harvard, and her other teaching credits include UCLA, UCSB, and Stonecoast at the University of Southern Maine. She grew up in Chicago, lived in Southern California for many years, and now resides with her daughter in the Boston area. She holds a B.A. from Syracuse University and an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars.

Elizabeth Searle‘s new novel, Girl Held in Home, will be published in Fall, 2011. Her previous books are: Celebrities in Disgrace, a novella that the New York Times called “a miniature masterpiece”; A Four-Sided Bed, a novel being developed for film and My Body to You, winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Prize. Celebrities in Disgrace was produced as a short film in 2010 by Bravo Sierra. Elizabeth’s theater works have been featured in stories on Good Morning America, CBS, CNN, NPR, the AP and more. Her Tonya & Nancy: The Rock Opera was reviewed as “brilliant and touching.”

Images: cover art for GIRL IN THE ARENA by Lise Haines (Bloomsbury USA, 2009); cover art for CELEBRITIES IN DISGRACE by Elizabeth Searle (Graywolf Press, 2001); Elizabeth Searle in the final round of Literary Death Match; avatar created in Second Life by Sienna Haines, based on GIRL IN THE ARENA; poster for TONYA AND NANCY playing at Club Oberon in Cambridge Jan 31-Feb 2.

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Candice Smith Corby, BENDING OVER BACKWARDS (2008), gouache on paper, 20 in x 24 in

In our recent Artist to Artist discussion between Candice Smith Corby (Painting Fellow ’08) and Julie Levesque (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’05), Candice discussed how she balances her work as a painter with her life as a mother – and she sometimes incorporates the idea in the work itself (see above balancing act).

Another Massachusetts artist is exploring similar terrain, though in a different medium. Winchester director and producer Pamela Tanner Boll (who co-executive produced the documentary Born into Brothels), has produced/directed Who Does She Think She Is?, now screening at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston on selected dates from Jan 9 through Jan 18. The film explores the lives of women who have declined to choose between motherhood and creativity, including Cambridge painter Camille Musser.

Who Does She Think She Is? next screens at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston on Friday, January 9, at 8:15 PM.

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