Ask Annewrites
1. Who's your favorite person you've ever interviewed? Why?
A crabby elderly woman who runs a knitting shop here in Chicago. She’s really cranky but really helpful and generous. Representative anecdote: A young woman comes in with a hat she’s having trouble with. The owner grabs it and says, “Look. You have a ridge and a valley, a ridge and a valley, and here you just have ridges. Dear God!” Then she spends half an hour helping her get it right. I love writing about random people I meet and helping other people understand why I find them so fascinating. That article was the perfect chance to do that.
2. How did you come to your own version of faith, being a pastor's daughter?
A big part of it was realizing in college that there is a very big disconnect between the everyday practices of most churches and the needs that people actually have in their lives. Another part of it was discovering feminism, and getting angry about how women are left out of the church’s representations of the divine. Another was discovering the wisdom of Buddhism, which says hey, guess what, if you are kind to yourself, and take time to get quiet and discover your basic goodness, you’ll be happier. And recently, a big part of it has been figuring out how to relate all of that to Christianity, which, despite everything, is where I seem to belong in this lifetime. My awesome liberal church is a big help. So is all the Buddhist reading I do.
3. One of my favorite stories you did was about the Peach Pit Lady. I also loved your stories about Americus, Ga. Do you still write fiction? How did you come to love/accept your writing style?
It took me a long time to believe that I could write, because I thought that writers wrote fiction, and I didn’t have any impulse to do that as an adult. I also thought that journalism was all about hard news, and I didn’t have any impulse to do that either. So I thought that left me with academic writing, and it took me a while (the length of my masters’ program, actually) to admit that I just wasn’t interested in being a permanent part of that world. I didn’t figure out that there was another way to be a writer until I was in my mid-20s. Boy, am I glad there is. It’s what I’m made for. The kind of writing I do is not only a way for me to make money and be creative; it’s also a way for me to become less fearful as a person and embrace the world.
4. What's the biggest lesson you've learned in your life?
That other people want to be loved just as much as I do. That there is a seed of humanity in everyone, no matter how fucked-up they are, and helping them water that seed is what helps them be less fucked-up. That connection is possible if I make an effort, am a little bit brave, and am patient and generous with myself and others. (I’m counting that as one lesson put three different ways.)
5. What's your biggest fear? How do you wrestle with it? What have you learned about yourself through it?
I have a bad habit of assuming that I’m supposed to know things automatically. Like with my retirement account. I hate calling up and asking questions about it because I feel as if I’m already supposed to know the answer. So I often procrastinate about that kind of thing, out of an unwarranted sense of shame. But if I think about it, well, how am I supposed to know? Why should I know? In the words of Harriet the Spy: So what? I can always learn. But I’m still practicing remembering that. It’s taught me that I still have plenty to work on spiritually, and that’s fine.