Jo-Ann Mapson

How much of you is there in characters like Chloe, Margaret, Lainie and Rose?

People ask me this question so often that I have to believe I'm doing something right in creating believable characters! Much of what I choose to write about is indeed loosely based on my own real life feelings, but not in the way readers might expect. I wish I had a life as exciting as one of my characters. I'd love to be as brazen as Chloe, as talented as Margaret, to overcome my griefs the way Lainie did, and more than any of them, I'd like nothing better than to be as sure-minded, loving, patient, and compassionate as Rose. Unfortunately, writers lead somewhat boring lives. I spend a lot of time sitting in a chair looking at a computer screen, or paging through research books. Don't get me wrong, though. I love the writing process.

Do you write about your real life experiences?

Thematically, yes. I think every writer's sensibilities filter through her fiction. My books explore issues and situations I either know about or want to understand. Shadow Ranch is probably the most personally revealing book I've written in terms of autobiographical material. However, Bad Girl Creek, the one I just finished, and the most fictional, feels more honest to me than the others.

Why is that?

For one thing, it's written in first person, present tense, which makes it feel more immediate. Also, I was somehow able to write closer to the bone than in my books. Why this happened is a puzzle to me. All I know for sure is that stories can be a way to illuminate shadowy places, and I enjoy traveling there. To me, that shadow side of human nature is a fascinating destination.

For example, I was taking an ASL (American Sign Language) class with my son when the instructor, who was deaf, told me that there were no heroes for the deaf in literature. This resonated deeply with me, and not pleasantly. I recalled as a young reader identifying so closely with characters that I felt I could slip into their lives while I read. What a loss not to experience that. While I had no frame of reference for being deaf from birth, I could imagine what it would feel like to lose one's hearing. I visited the California School for the Deaf in Riverside, California, where a student extended every courtesy, including a personal tour. Her parents were gospel singers. She was slowly losing her hearing, and explained to me how she did not fit in the deaf world or the hearing world. This interest led to writing Peter in Blue Rodeo, who loses his hearing as a result of illness. While in reality my son indeed has a hearing loss in one ear, he functions just fine in the hearing world, and deeply loves music. He has been, at times, “mother deaf,” and I feel I can write about that with relative ease, and also extend the metaphor of mother deafness into the plot of a novel.

But sometimes I write just to understand how weird people can be to one another!

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The setting of your books seems so real. In fact, there's a quote somewhere that says, “You wouldn't be surprised to have one of Jo-Ann Mapson's characters knock on your door.” Can you comment on landscape and character, and what makes your books feel so “real?”

In some ways, I suppose I'm a pagan. I absolutely revel in nature. I feel close to God when I see a craggy mountain, or cross-country ski in new snow, or ride a horse down a wooded trail, or walk my dogs along bluffs and catch a glimpse of the Pacific Ocean. For too many years I lived in a suburb with very little nature. To cope I transformed my backyard into a bird sanctuary, complete with feeders, bird-and insect attracting plants, and constantly observed the goings-on. I saw an immature hawk carefully go after the old and infirm birds. When he grew large enough to successfully hunt bigger prey, he left. I watched a hummingbird lay eggs in a nest the size of a thimble. I raised an abandoned mockingbird nestling. I got to know the habits of roof rats that tooled along the fence from yard to yard. I also traveled a lot, to New Mexico and Alaska, soaking up as much wilderness as I could hold. I try to recreate that love of wild places in my books, to fashion a landscape I'd like to live in or visit, in hopes that my readers will also feel that way. If you look closely, the environment of my books is where I slip in my strongest political views, too.

The same applies to my characters. I prefer the company of working class people. I especially enjoy women with seasoned lives, slightly sarcastic humor, and who are unafraid of their strengths and celebrate them—including sexuality. I also love men—and I am blessed to have some terrific ones in my life—they're not all commitment phobes and shallow, honest! Exploring the differences between men and women is great fun to me as a writer. The complexities of human beings—and what they do to one another in the name of love--never ceases to amaze me.

Why did you move to Alaska?

I had lived in California for forty-seven years. My “cup” wasn't just empty, it was tipped over, bone-dry, cracked, and had a jillion cobwebs inside it. A trip to Alaska in March 1997 lit a spark inside me. I returned four times, checking out the weather in all seasons, and found them equally intriguing. So I moved. In a lot of ways, Alaska is primal. It insists that I watch my step. On a daily basis, it lets me know that it's larger than my ego, and this re-prioritizing has affected my writing in a way I like. The people here are marvelous, open, for the most part friendly, and they have great stories that they love to share. The air is clean. Our ocean has whales. I enjoy cross-country skiing. Moose walk through my front yard. Magpies and ravens serenade me. For now, I call that heaven.

Why do you write so much about animals?

Animals provide a great vehicle for subtly expressing human characters' foibles, flaws and deeply held secrets. Men who can't say, “I love you,” generally have no trouble kissing a cat or talking baby talk to a dog. Animals bring out the true heart of many people. Animals have touched my own life in a lasting way, especially in the case of my late horse, Tonto, a barn-sour leopard Appaloosa who came to me when he was nineteen years of age. Losing him was a grief of the highest order. My dogs have distinct personalities and needs, which they let me know on a daily basis. I think it's a good thing to celebrate animals in fiction. Most great books have animals in them—Moby Dick, My Friend Flicka, Misty of Chincoteague, My Dog Tulip, just to name a few. Without animals, my books feel pale and two-dimensional.

How do you get your ideas?

Traveling, eavesdropping, reading other books—especially those that provoke me into questioning a subject I thought I was clear about. Family arguments, old movies, dreams, letters, photographs, unrequited desires….the list is endless. The problem is more of settling on one idea I want to spend a year with than coming up with an idea.

How long does it take you to write a book?

At least a year. So far all my books have had multiple points of view. This requires much thought as to each character, learning his or her back-story, and I do a lot of research, sometimes in books, sometimes by traveling. I plod through my first draft, learning as I go. Subsequent drafts allow me to see the emerging story more clearly. When I have a draft ready to show to my agent and my editor, at that time the book becomes something of a collaborative effort. Their wonderful insights guide me to the third, fourth and final drafts.

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Do you know the ending of a book before you start it?

Generally I know the highway we're traveling. I pretty much learn the ending by the time I get there. With The Wilder Sisters, I was working on the rewrite, having a hard time, when I suddenly I remembered the statue of Saint Anthony, which makes a brief appearance early in the story. This wonderful anecdote a friend had told me came to mind. He said that there's a Latino custom of taping a photograph of the one you want to love you to this statue, then hiding it under your mattress. In the case of his parents, he said that his father suspected his mother had done this, so he removed the statue from under her mattress, and placed her picture on the statue, too, letting her know he loved her back. This concept fit with the character of Rose's mother, Poppy, who is always trying to orchestrate her daughters' love lives, so I incorporated it into the ending and it worked. Now, don't you wonder what's under my mattress?

But sometimes when I reach the “ending,” I don't really want to stop. I watched far too many soap operas as a child (I was sick a lot; my mother loved--still loves--General Hospital. I'm sure this is why I tend to end my books with the feeling that the reader could pick up right where I left off, and continue the story, much like a serial.

Why is there so much sex in your books?

Oh, for Pete's sake, why not write about the most powerful force between men and women, the supreme influence that's responsible for wars, operas, insane behavior and so on!?! Furthermore, why not write about it in as honest and meaningful a way as possible? It always amuses me to hear this question when you consider that the sex scenes in my books add up to about ten pages out of four hundred. That alone says something about the power of sex, doesn't it?

Whom do you read?

Everyone. Usually about four books a week. I especially love Jim Harrison, Ellen Gilchrist, James Lee Burke, Alice Hoffman, Tom Perrotta, Jodi Picoult, Kent Haruf, The Ephron Sisters, Armistead Maupin, Jonis Agee, William Kittredge, Annick Smith (wish she'd write another book soon!), Sherman Alexie, Earlene Fowler, Leslie Marmon Silko, and the late John D. MacDonald. A recent read I highly recommend is Bluethroat Morning by Jacqui Lofthouse.

I read a great deal of contemporary poetry as well. Some of the poets I admire are Linda McCarriston, Mark Doty, Maxine Kumin, Sherman Alexie, Leslie Ullman, Adrian Louis, the late Lynda Hull, and again, James Harrison. I'm always on the lookout for new poets.

Nonfiction writers I read include: Edward Hoagland, Gretel Erlich, Rick Bass, Annie Dillard, Barry Lopez, Terry Tempest Williams and John MacLean, son of Norman MacLean, who is also an admirable journalist.

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What's the one question you wish journalists would ask you but never do?

Generally, when I finish an interview with a journalist, I limp away from the experience. Either I've repeated what I've said a jillion times already or I've been forced to defend my characters' actions (Chloe, for example, in Loving Chloe, who commits the sin of loving two perfectly, equally good men. Like men have never done this in literature!?!) Just once, I'd like to be interviewed by a journalist who delves a little deeper into my work, who doesn't have an unwritten novel burning inside him he's afraid to write that's making him bitter toward all fiction writers, but instead, loves his job and uses the occasion to ask complex, well-thought-out questions in hopes of illuminating a larger picture. If this ever happens, you'll hear me cheering from all the way up here in Alaska.

What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

First, turn off the television! Your mother was right; television rots your mind. Read as much as you can. Read widely. Also, find a physical hobby that takes you out of your head and into another world; this informs your writing in an entirely different way than books. Take writing classes at community colleges because quite often good writers end up teaching at this level. Read the work of your teachers. Question everything; there are no stupid questions. Keep a journal. Write everyday, even on Sundays, and vacations. Be, as my favorite writing teacher, Rich Linder, advised me, “someone on whom nothing is wasted.” Eavesdrop shamelessly. The world is your laboratory. Get out in it and observe everything. Then go home and write about it. If you're worried about offending someone with your writing, you can stop worrying. People are human; they'll always find something to be offended about. That's not your job. If you live through your own life, which is a courageous act in itself, you've earned the right to write about it.

Also, buy books, especially hardcover books. If you don't buy them, how can you expect anyone to buy yours when you get published? Contrary to myth, most successful writers earn a perfectly ordinary wage and even have to work supplemental jobs. I teach, and write freelance articles to make ends meet. Also, buy contemporary poetry books, because you can learn how to write a novel by studying poetry.

Finally, find an independent bookstore and buy your books there. The money you save on the Internet is generally made up for with shipping costs. People who run independent bookstores LOVE books. They KNOW books. They can TURN YOU ON TO WRITERS WHO AREN'T HOUSEHOLD NAMES, and in this way extraordinarily enrich your reading life. Support them. Bake them cookies. Send them Valentines. Let them know the job they do matters to you, a reader. When you are finally published, they will in turn support you.

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