Joy Castro Interview with Tiara Marchando

November 2007

  1. What inspired you to begin writing?

    I’ve always been writing, as far back as I can remember. I used to write little illustrated books, peopled by animal characters, and staple them together, before I attended school. In first grade, when we had to stand up and tell the class what we wanted to be when we grew up, I said, “A writer.” The other kids all looked at me like I was crazy—like, we all knew how to write, right? So I guess that, for me, a peculiar drive to write has always been there. In high school, something clicked when I read Katherine Mansfield’s “A Cup of Tea” in our textbook (when we were supposed to be diagramming sentences). That Mansfield could convey so much about human beings in such a tight, suggestive little package really opened a door for me. In college, I tried to study political science, and then I tried to study art, but literature finally pulled me in. In graduate school, I wrote a scholarly thesis (on Wallace Stevens) and a scholarly dissertation (on Margery Latimer) but I was always writing creatively and publishing on the side. Like a vice. That kept it fun.

  2. Did you have a favorite writer when you were younger? Who was it? Why?

    I loved Beatrix Potter when I was very young, and then Frances Hodgson Burnett and Laura Ingalls Wilder. I was a pretty undiscriminating reader, though. I remember loving anything about horses. As an adolescent, I read Harlequin romances whenever I could get my hands on them. Ours was not a literary home, so my reading choices were kind of haphazard. I read instruction manuals, cereal boxes, you name it.

  3. By sharing your amazing life story in The Truth Book you have become an inspiration to many and are often referred to as the Little Engine that Could. How did you feel when the book was finally published?

    Thanks for your kind words. I felt nervous. My memoir disclosed things that I had kept private for my entire adult life. But its publication also made me feel sort of clean, honest—like there would be no more hiding, no more secrets, no more shame and pain about what had happened in the past. No more trying to pass for “normal”, as I had been struggling for so long to do.
    I also felt curious and excited. How would people react? How would critics respond? I was grateful for the warm response the book received.

  4. You mentioned in an interview with Steve Charles that being a Jehovah’s Witness was “a bizarre, unacceptable portion of my past that makes me weird and unacceptable to others”. This was before The Truth Book was published. Do you still feel that way about your past?

    No, I’m happy to say that I don’t. With Steve, I was talking about why I had been inhibited, for so many years, about disclosing that material, and the nervousness I felt about publication. That’s over now.

  5. Most people write because, like you, they have a story to tell. What is your advice on coping with the fear of letting that story out?

    I write because I love the medium of language; I wrote long before I had an urgent story to tell. Words and sentences enchant me; I’m a glutton for them. Writing is play, a very complex kind of play. Maybe that’s why, when life hurts, puzzles, delights, or deranges me, language is the medium I choose. The discipline and the high of making art are addictive and transformative.
    To people aching and fearful about letting out a story they fear is transgressive, I would suggest that they bide their time, surrounding themselves with trustworthy friends and fellow lovers of literature while reading broadly and deeply. That way, they can be absorbing the writerly skills they’ll need to tell their story well, when the time is ripe. Or maybe they’ll decide that writing’s not really what they want to do after all, and that’s okay.
    Too, I would remind them that many, many works of great literature were and remain transgressive of ordinary human norms. Artistic achievements don’t come without risk. Bide your time and learn your craft until you can’t hold your story in anymore. Then take the leap.
    And then, as Samuel Beckett wrote, you get to spend a lifetime on the attempt: “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

  6. What pushed you to begin teaching? Was it a childhood dream—like writing—or did you realize later in life that it was what you wanted to do?

    Economic necessity. I was a mother at twenty, halfway through college, and teaching English in high school was the best way I could envision to provide for my son and myself; my only other skill was waiting tables, and I was an easily distracted waitress—not a good thing. In any case, a generous professor encouraged me to go to graduate school instead, and I began teaching while in grad school to earn my stipend.
    I love teaching now, but it was not my dream, because by nature I am shy and prefer anonymity. I had to find other ways to be an effective teacher than being the kind of dazzling lecturer-performer that had wowed me as an undergraduate. I’ve read a lot of books about pedagogy, looking for alternatives. One of my favorites is Teaching to Transgress, by bell hooks. I have also been moved and taught by Mike Rose, Parker Palmer, and Mary Rose O’Reilley. When it comes to teaching, I’m very much a perpetual learner.
    Fundamentally, though, I try to be a good teacher by imagining myself in my student’s shoes. What does he or she need most at this moment? How can I communicate my suggestion in a way that he or she can really hear? Imagination and empathy are the biggest help to me with this. As a teacher, I’m more of a listener than a talker. My close reading skills are a huge help with line-editing students’ manuscripts. I care about every sentence, as well as the big picture of the work.

  7. You have an impressive record of involvement with programs developed for the betterment of communities in need. How does the Solstice MFA program fit into this criteria?

    I love Pine Manor’s focus on diversity; that’s huge for me. I also love working with students who are so devoted to writing that they’re squeezing it into their busy lives with a low-residency MFA program.
    But I need to confess: the decision to work with the Solstice MFA Program was almost entirely selfish. I wanted to work with MFA students, I wanted to work with Meg, whose own writing and professionalism blew me away from the first, and I wanted to work with the fantastic faculty she’d put together. To be a colleague, even part time, with Dennis Lehane, Terrance Hayes, or Laure-Anne Bosselaar? No two ways about it: I made this choice for me.
    And it’s been a blast so far. I’ve gotten to work with terrific students and gotten to know writers I really admire, like Laban Hill, Jackie Woodson, and Helen Elaine Lee. Everyone! Does this sound like a commercial? I really mean it. My colleagues here are so great, the students are so talented and motivated, and Meg and Tanya run everything so smoothly, that it’s a joy to teach in this program.

  8. What is your definition of a perfect professor? How closely do you mirror that image?

    Thoroughly drenched in his or her field, sensitive, kind, permanently curious. Passionate about the material, compassionate toward students. A brilliant lecturer when necessary.
    That’s my ideal, my goal, and I don’t know how often I hit it; that would be for students to say. But I do know that all of the professors who’ve changed me have had one or more of those qualities, so that’s what I strive for. I am not a naturally brilliant lecturer, so I really have to work at that aspect.

  9. What expectations do you have of your students?

    That they will work as hard as they possibly can, that they will hungrily read as much wonderful literature as they can, and that they will be profoundly committed both to honesty and to art. (And when the demands of honesty and art conflict, that they should choose to write fiction when art dominates and choose scrupulous accuracy when writing creative nonfiction; memoir has been plagued by enough scandals.)

  10. What is your philosophy on teaching?

    I love the root of the word ‘education’: educare, to lead forth. The work of leading forth the best from within a broad variety of people is delicate, difficult, and fascinating, and I love both the challenge of the work itself and the reward of witnessing people’s excitement when they see themselves grow. I’ve been very influenced by Paulo Freire’s work Pedagogy of the Oppressed and its hope for education that brings freedom and justice to the people who need it most, education that grows from the people’s deep knowledge about their own experience and needs. Writing is not necessarily a path to freedom and justice, but it can be.

  11. Is there anything about you that you think people should know that can’t be found in a biography?

    I’m still a ridiculously devoted mom to my beautiful son Grey, who’s nineteen now. Oh, and I love small wild birds; I don’t know why. And trees.


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