Today, Hartford Books Examiner extends a warm welcome to Melissa Crandall.
A resident of Connecticut, Ms. Crandall is the author of Darling Wendy and Other Stories. Published by Seventh Circle Books in 2008, the collection includes the title story, which won the New England Writer’s Network 2002 Short Story Contest. Glenda Baker, Editor-in-Chief of NEWN Magazine called Darling Wendy “creative, original, and flawless…” The book is currently averaging a five star (out of 5) rating on Amazon.com.
A born storyteller, Crandall wrote, illustrated, and published her first book, The Dog and the Fox, at the tender age of six. Since then, she has contributed to several fanzines, dabbled in poetry, and written entries in both the Star Trek and Quantum Leap series. She has also been featured in several anthologies, journals, and other publications.
Ms. Crandall recently took the time to reflect on Darling Wendy, offering Hartford Books Examiner a glimpse at where she’s been and where she is going…
1) The composition of the short story seems to be a lost art, and many novelists have confessed that they'd much rather write an entire book than grapple with that format. What drew you to the short story?
I can’t say that I was drawn to it. I battled with the short story format for a long, long time. Never could seem to nail it. Everything I wrote always wanted to be longer, either a novella or a novel, or they were absolute garbage short pieces. Darling Wendy came as something of a surprise to me. I knew starting out that it wasn’t going to be a novel, but I wasn’t sure where it was going. (Stories and characters have a way of dictating their own lives, separate from what the writer “thinks” might be best.) At any rate, the first version was somewhat shorter and didn’t have the confrontation between Pan and Wendy, just a namby-pamby “cliff-hanger” ending, what-if sort of thing. In retrospect, it was just awful. Someone read it and said, “You need to expand on this” and I took the recommendation to heart. I never expected it to turn out quite as it did, but there you have it. Darling Wendy was my trial by fire. Working on it taught me a lot about writing a short story and I’ve found it “easier” to accomplish as time goes on. (“Easier” in quotes so as not to tempt Fate.) I have a story I’m working on right now called Picture Perfect that is denying short story status. This one wants to be a novella. I just have to stand back and let it roll.
And, seeing as you've just completed a draft of a full-length novel, how does the process compare to writing a book?
In a way, the writing of a short story is more precise. You don’t have the time or space to develop characters or plotline, you have to plunk the reader down right in the middle of things, fill them in as quickly as possible, and get to the chase. In a novel, you have the luxury to spend time with details…not that it makes the process any easier! It’s like anything – there are days when the words flow and days when they don’t.
Do you have a preference?
Whatever works for the particular story I’m trying to tell. I learned a long time ago to not try to force a story into a format it doesn’t want. You’ll lose every time.
2) Your stories deal with poignant subject matter--life, love, and loss. How have your own experiences inspired your craft?
When you’re a writer everything goes into the hopper. I never know what experience or image will spark an idea. (As an example, the novel I just finished – WEATHERCOCK – was inspired by a Jethro Tull song of the same name playing on the radio as I passed a particular billboard image. How random is that?) “And to All a Good Night” is the coupling of my love of snow with my work with a 102 year old Hospice patient. “Centaur” came out of a writing workshop exercise. “Transformation” was a blend from bits of a story I worked on with a friend and the life/death of my niece Leslie Cootware. EVERYTHING inspires the work.
And how difficult is it to take such grand (and universal) themes and explore them in a handful of pages?
I don’t really think about it. I don’t sit down and say, “Okay, world, stand back! Today I’m going to explore the notion of life after death.” Whatever comes, comes. It was only after compiling DARLING WENDY AND OTHER STORIES that I recognized the thread that runs through the tales – that of confrontation (with the world, with ourselves), passing through conflict/fear/challenge, and coming out the other side. How are we changed? Are we changed? What does it do to us as human beings? Does it leave us better or worse? Does it matter? That’s what interests me – how we survive those things that shake us, how we meet those challenges that make our knees quake.
During a radio interview I was challenged with the notion that my stories are “dark.” I was really startled, because I don’t see them that way.
3) Another recurring theme throughout the stories seems to be the inability to recapture time and the commonality of taking things for granted (relationships, memories, etc.). Is that a fair assessment?
I’d say so, although I never thought of it that way or really noticed it. (I’ve heard that writers go through that. Some learned individual comes up and starts talking about the “unifying theory that draws in the subconscious perceptions of our audience gestalt and blah-de-blah-de-blah” and the writer is going, “Listen, mack, I’m just trying to turn a buck.”) Time passes. We all lose the things and people that we love. We all take things for granted until they’re gone and then we nail ourselves on the Guilt Tree. I’m as prone to that as anyone. I’m not trying to get preachy with my stories; if anything, they’re a reminder to me not to take things for granted. If someone else gets a message out of one of my stories, that’s between them and the story.
4) One of the stories, Dreams on Racks, was originally written by your friend David Jessup. He never sold the piece but allowed you to rework it as your own. I would imagine that experience would be somewhat akin to buying a house from a friend, remodeling it, and then having them over for dinner.
Something like that, although this was more like a collaboration.
What challenges did that process pose?
The big challenge was that the story didn’t want to be written. Dave had crafted the bare bones of the idea, but it needed fleshing out and absolutely would not cooperate. I can’t tell you how many times I took that story out of the file and tried to work on it and ended up putting it back in frustration. And then, one day, the pivotal point was just there, in my head, and I knew what had to happen. But it took nearly 30 years to get there.
And how nerve-wracking was it to have Mr. Jessup read the finished product?
(Can you hear me laughing?) VERY! Dave’s always been very, very supportive of my writing, but this was different. This story had begun life as HIS baby. The basic feel of the story remained, but I had substantially changed the body of the work. What I hoped most was that the ending would work, that Dave would be pleased with the resolution. I came home one day to a phone message from him and I could hear the smile in his voice: “Got the book today. You nailed it, kid. You nailed it!” I sat down and cried.
5) Your subject matter is very eclectic--you explore everything from werewolf legends ("Moonwalk") and re-imagined fairytales ("Darling Wendy") to historical couplings ("Goodbye, Norma Jeane") and deadly dramas ("Brother's Keeper"). Was this a conscious decision on your part or is it a natural extension of your personality and interests?
Well, as a writer I’m interested in darned near everything, at least to some degree. I read voraciously and widely – this week, on my coffee table are library books dealing with Arthur Conan Doyle, the story behind “Hunt for Red October,” a book about George Mallory and the finding of his body on Mount Everest, C.S. Lewis’s “Prince Caspian,”…you get the idea. I may consciously begin with an idea for a story – for example, “What if there was only one person alive who remembered snow?” – but I don’t know how much of the creative process beyond that is conscious. Like anything, if you get in the zone, it just comes. (Then again, there are other days when you battle for every stinking word.) One of my sisters once said to me, “I don’t approve of your subject matter.” My response (after thinking “Who cares?”) was “You think I have a choice?!”
6) You have very strong opinions about your work. Which story do you find to be the strongest from your collection? 
Darling Wendy.
And the weakest?
Brother’s Keeper.
Why?
I think of Darling Wendy as the strongest because everything just came together for me in that story. It’s the tale that showed me I could write a short story. (Although I had no luck selling it to any magazines.) Brother’s Keeper…I’m not altogether satisfied with the ending.
Also, how does reader response compare to your own judgment?
I am constantly surprised (and delighted!) by the comments I receive from readers. There are those who just LOVE Brother’s Keeper and those who have gotten really angry at me over Darling Wendy. The biggest surprise in the book is a little story called Transformation. I had a woman write to me to tell me that she was reading that story in line at the post office and bawling her eyes out because, like Kate in the story, she had lost her husband to cancer. She said that the story brought her peace and gave her some hope. Heady stuff for an author to hear. I’m happy the story worked for her but I’m daunted by that sort of response as well.
7) Can you share with us the challenges that come after a book is published?
Well, first off I guess I should say that DARLING WENDY AND OTHER STORIES is not my first published book. That was ICE TRAP, a Star Trek novel I wrote in collaboration as part of “L.A. Graf.” My first solo endeavor was another Star Trek novel, SHELL GAME. Next came two more media-based novels: a Quantum Leap book called SEARCH AND RESCUE (horrible title and my fault) and EARTH2.
Those books were, in their way, easy to promote because they came through standard publishers – Pocket and Berkley. DARLING WENDY AND OTHER STORIES came through a small press in NYC – Seventh Circle Books.
What have you found to be the most difficult part of promoting DARLING WENDY?
Getting people to believe that it isn’t self-published. I’ve been refused book signings and shelf space in so many bookstores (major chains as well as independents) based on that. One book store manager came this close to calling me a liar when I told her it wasn’t self-published, but was produced by a small press in NYC. Because she’d never heard of Seventh Circle Books, she assumed I was having her on. Another bookstore manager told my publisher that she didn’t think the book would “resonate” with her customers. What the heck does that mean? Did she even look at the book? Nothin’ but universal themes in there. If you’re going to do this work you have to develop a thick skin and the ability to laugh.
What do you think booksellers could do differently that would help to introduce new books/authors to readers?
Being open to new ideas/faces; a willingness to seek out and promote local authors. What I’m hearing is that a lot of book stores feel that their hands are tied in what they can take on and promote. If you’re not tied into a major distributor, they can’t order your books. There’s a plethora of reasons/excuses. An independent bookstore has a bit more lee-way there – they can afford to stretch their wings and perhaps offer some books you might not normally find. But even there it can be hard to get in. I’ve contacted several in Connecticut and Rhode Island, but only two (Written Words in Shelton, CT and Burgundy Books in East Haddam, CT) have invited me in.
8) What can you tell us about your next project?
WEATHERCOCK is a speculative rite of passage tale that takes on the question, “Who do we become when the role that defined us no longer applies?” It’s another of those universal themes you mentioned earlier, something we all face at least once in our lives.
The story centers on a teenaged boy named Kinner, and the chaos and personal growth that ensue when he fights to redefine his place in the world by challenging the fate meted out for him by tradition. He’s been protected his entire life, trained to assume a man’s traditional role, but he loses everything when he’s sentenced to death for sterility. His troubles lead him to meet Rai, a rag-tag soldier with an enormous talent for trouble. She’s up to her armpits in bad news and the last thing she needs is to play nursemaid to some half-grown motherless whelp with bizarre ideas about his place in the world. They run afoul of Captain Remeg, a woman involved in a shifting game of intrigue with the queen. Impelled by a madwoman’s quest, these three will face-off across a world unchanged (and unchallenged) for centuries. What’s left in the end will depend upon them…and a shadowy figure known as Weathercock.
WEATHERCOCK is complete and I’m seeking an agent for it.
Next up is a novel that began life as quite another sort of thing than what I’m now envisioning for it. The working title is CALL OF BLOOD and it deals with the mysterious bond between fraternal twins.
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You can visit Melissa Crandall at her web-site or follow her blog.
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