Interview with A. LaFaye!
In the midst of the Hollins Children's Literature summer semester, not only has Hollins professor Alexandria LaFaye paused in the midst of her teaching to answer some questions for me, but she's also found the time to do this with a brand new baby!
A. LaFaye is the author Worth (winner of the Scott O'Dell award for Historical Fiction), The Year of the Sawdust Man, the recently released Water Steps and many more titles. She's also a fantastic person & loves helping her students make their books the best they can possibly be!
KF: Are you a musically-inspired writer or do you need silence? If you write to music, care to share any of your fave writing songs/singers/groups?
AL: I use music about half the time and it’s always thematic-with Worth, I used a prairie cd complete with a thunder storm and cows, for instance.
KF: Is there any writing advice you wish you’d never heard?
AL: Anything that begins with the premise-"to be a real writer you …." I hate that line-mostly because it's a culturally restrictive misconception about being a writer 99% of the time. And I'm sure it also has to do with the fact that it usually excluded me with whatever came next because I didn't do it. I.e. I don't write every day like most writers advise that "real writers" do.
KF: Come clean: Out of all your characters, which one is your favorite? No fair saying all of them, but if you’d rather turn it around and say your least favorite, I suppose I’ll forgive you.
AL: My least favorite main character would have to be Raleia Pendle (ETA: From Strawberry Hill) because she is narrow minded and selfish in a world with a myriad of opportunities for her to expand herself. That changes over the course of the novel, but the girl she is at the beginning is quite the brat, in my opinion. Ironically, my Aunt Teresa is convinced she's based on me. Yikes. Actually, the character in that book that is based on me, is Raleia's little brother Ticton.
KF: How did you start writing historical fiction? What draws you to particular times & their stories?
AL: I love history, I have an undergraduate degree in history, and I’m also trying to get people to see the every day people of history and understand that 98% of history is about understand how everyday people live-so writing historical fiction just seemed like a natural extension of all of that. I'm always looking for the untold tale-the plantation owners who decided to follow through with the "40 Acre and a Mule" idea after the Civil War (Stella Stands Alone) or the kids whose lives where changed by the arrival of the orphans on the Orphan Train vs. the orphan train riders themselves (Worth).
KF: Writing historical fiction and fantasy are often compared as similar kinds of writing, where you have to place the reader in a totally different world and help them find their way. But what do you think is the biggest difference when writing historical vs. fantasy? Do you find one trickier than the other?
AL: They both require carrying "the fourth glass" as it were- I take this image from a restaurant in Mankato, MN where the waitresses would have balance four glasses in one hand - the first three are setting, character, and plot and the fourth glass is adding the "other worldly" aspect of history or fantasy. History is based on an actual world that existed and must be researched until you internalize the facts and zeitgeist where as fantasy is a world you create and have to make vicarious for your readers. I would say fantasy is therefore "trickier" because it's more about sharing an internal world than a past world.
KF: You seem to know a lot of (what many people would call) random facts! How much of your vast store of knowledge comes from research for your books or, conversely, how much does information you encounter inform what you work on? This might be a bit of a chicken-or-the-egg question, so any examples are welcome!
AL: I collect them all over - TV, museums, reading, conversations with folks, newspapers, magazines, etc. I would say my knowledge comes from research for books, teaching, and studying - I learned a lot of taking courses from a broad range of subjects in school. I would have to say that my random facts don't inspire a lot of my books until they start to gather momentum by connecting with other facts.
Take WATER STEPS as an example. That started because a student of mine at SUNY Plattsburgh wrote a picture book about Champy- Nessie’s (as in Loch Ness) immigrant cousin in Lake Champlain and I thought - fantasy is best served with 50% realism and 50% fantasy-or even more on the realism side if you’re doing reality based fantasy, so I started searching for a scenario where that would fit and came up with the idea of Silkies in the lake and my knowledge of them came from random collection of facts from references to Molly Hunter novels and THE SECRET OF ROAN INNISH, plus Irish folklore research in response to the film HARVEY. After seeing that, I had to learn more about Pookah's and was woefully disappointed to find out that they're evil and homicidal. Yikes.
Couple all that with my background in psychology which is drawn from a fascination that goes all the way back to high school and carries through a false start in psychology in college to currently research into the field and you have Kyna coping with a crippling fear of water. Probably more info than you want to know, but then again, you were asking for about my pedantic tendencies now weren’t you?
KF: Since this is my blog and I love Hollins, I'm going to take any chance to talk it up- including asking you to! What’s your favorite part about the Children's Literature program at Hollins University, from either a student perspective or a teaching one?
AL: COMMUNITY- Hollins is about being with people who understand and love the field from a critical and creative perspective and they love being with folks who share that love and it's evident in every aspect of the program, the classes, the public events, the program parties. I loved it as a student and continue to enjoy it as a faculty member.
KF: Knowing how much of a help you are when it comes to critique/revision, here’s a question from Travis M.: What is your most successful revision technique?
AL: Recursive Revision-revise as you write-hit a roadblock in a chapter, go back to the beginning of that chapter or the chapter before it-reread-revise-and re-immerse yourself in your fictional world. This also works when returning to a piece after a hiatus of any length. Reread-revise-re-immerse each time you return to a piece and you’ll have a much more polished and homogenous manuscript when you’re done.
Oh, and it looks like I’m done. Thanks for the great questions. I hope my answers have been helpful.
KF: Thank you, for taking the time to do this & providing such fascinating answers!
A. LaFaye is the author Worth (winner of the Scott O'Dell award for Historical Fiction), The Year of the Sawdust Man, the recently released Water Steps and many more titles. She's also a fantastic person & loves helping her students make their books the best they can possibly be!
KF: Are you a musically-inspired writer or do you need silence? If you write to music, care to share any of your fave writing songs/singers/groups?
AL: I use music about half the time and it’s always thematic-with Worth, I used a prairie cd complete with a thunder storm and cows, for instance.
KF: Is there any writing advice you wish you’d never heard?
AL: Anything that begins with the premise-"to be a real writer you …." I hate that line-mostly because it's a culturally restrictive misconception about being a writer 99% of the time. And I'm sure it also has to do with the fact that it usually excluded me with whatever came next because I didn't do it. I.e. I don't write every day like most writers advise that "real writers" do.
KF: Come clean: Out of all your characters, which one is your favorite? No fair saying all of them, but if you’d rather turn it around and say your least favorite, I suppose I’ll forgive you.
AL: My least favorite main character would have to be Raleia Pendle (ETA: From Strawberry Hill) because she is narrow minded and selfish in a world with a myriad of opportunities for her to expand herself. That changes over the course of the novel, but the girl she is at the beginning is quite the brat, in my opinion. Ironically, my Aunt Teresa is convinced she's based on me. Yikes. Actually, the character in that book that is based on me, is Raleia's little brother Ticton.
KF: How did you start writing historical fiction? What draws you to particular times & their stories?
AL: I love history, I have an undergraduate degree in history, and I’m also trying to get people to see the every day people of history and understand that 98% of history is about understand how everyday people live-so writing historical fiction just seemed like a natural extension of all of that. I'm always looking for the untold tale-the plantation owners who decided to follow through with the "40 Acre and a Mule" idea after the Civil War (Stella Stands Alone) or the kids whose lives where changed by the arrival of the orphans on the Orphan Train vs. the orphan train riders themselves (Worth).
KF: Writing historical fiction and fantasy are often compared as similar kinds of writing, where you have to place the reader in a totally different world and help them find their way. But what do you think is the biggest difference when writing historical vs. fantasy? Do you find one trickier than the other?
AL: They both require carrying "the fourth glass" as it were- I take this image from a restaurant in Mankato, MN where the waitresses would have balance four glasses in one hand - the first three are setting, character, and plot and the fourth glass is adding the "other worldly" aspect of history or fantasy. History is based on an actual world that existed and must be researched until you internalize the facts and zeitgeist where as fantasy is a world you create and have to make vicarious for your readers. I would say fantasy is therefore "trickier" because it's more about sharing an internal world than a past world.
KF: You seem to know a lot of (what many people would call) random facts! How much of your vast store of knowledge comes from research for your books or, conversely, how much does information you encounter inform what you work on? This might be a bit of a chicken-or-the-egg question, so any examples are welcome!
AL: I collect them all over - TV, museums, reading, conversations with folks, newspapers, magazines, etc. I would say my knowledge comes from research for books, teaching, and studying - I learned a lot of taking courses from a broad range of subjects in school. I would have to say that my random facts don't inspire a lot of my books until they start to gather momentum by connecting with other facts.
Take WATER STEPS as an example. That started because a student of mine at SUNY Plattsburgh wrote a picture book about Champy- Nessie’s (as in Loch Ness) immigrant cousin in Lake Champlain and I thought - fantasy is best served with 50% realism and 50% fantasy-or even more on the realism side if you’re doing reality based fantasy, so I started searching for a scenario where that would fit and came up with the idea of Silkies in the lake and my knowledge of them came from random collection of facts from references to Molly Hunter novels and THE SECRET OF ROAN INNISH, plus Irish folklore research in response to the film HARVEY. After seeing that, I had to learn more about Pookah's and was woefully disappointed to find out that they're evil and homicidal. Yikes.
Couple all that with my background in psychology which is drawn from a fascination that goes all the way back to high school and carries through a false start in psychology in college to currently research into the field and you have Kyna coping with a crippling fear of water. Probably more info than you want to know, but then again, you were asking for about my pedantic tendencies now weren’t you?
KF: Since this is my blog and I love Hollins, I'm going to take any chance to talk it up- including asking you to! What’s your favorite part about the Children's Literature program at Hollins University, from either a student perspective or a teaching one?
AL: COMMUNITY- Hollins is about being with people who understand and love the field from a critical and creative perspective and they love being with folks who share that love and it's evident in every aspect of the program, the classes, the public events, the program parties. I loved it as a student and continue to enjoy it as a faculty member.
KF: Knowing how much of a help you are when it comes to critique/revision, here’s a question from Travis M.: What is your most successful revision technique?
AL: Recursive Revision-revise as you write-hit a roadblock in a chapter, go back to the beginning of that chapter or the chapter before it-reread-revise-and re-immerse yourself in your fictional world. This also works when returning to a piece after a hiatus of any length. Reread-revise-re-immerse each time you return to a piece and you’ll have a much more polished and homogenous manuscript when you’re done.
Oh, and it looks like I’m done. Thanks for the great questions. I hope my answers have been helpful.
KF: Thank you, for taking the time to do this & providing such fascinating answers!