Jacqueline Vogtman on A Mother’s Magic

by: Jacqueline Vogtman

In an episode of True Blood, a guilty-pleasure HBO show I watched religiously in my 20s, the vampire Bill Compton says something I always found profound (particularly for TV): “You think that it’s not magic that keeps you alive? Just because you understand the mechanics of how something works, doesn’t make it any less of a miracle…which is just another word for magic. We’re all kept alive by magic, Sookie.”

I’ve been writing magical realist short stories now for about 18 years, since my final year of undergrad, and all throughout my MFA program and beyond I’ve returned to magical realism and its sisters, fabulism and speculative fiction, though I’ve tried out other types of writing. For me, though, magic doesn’t conjure (get it?) wizards and Harry Potter, or witches or Tarot cards or vampires. I find magic in our real world, particularly our natural world, and yes, also in being a mother. 

When I was pregnant back in 2013-2014, I marveled at the miraculous changes in my body, that first kick, that first heartbeat, and the sheer fact that we created something—a whole being, soul included—out of nothing. (Well, I know it’s not really out of nothing; I wasn’t absent during sex-ed class.) And even after my daughter was born, the magic didn’t stop, and still hasn’t stopped eight years later. 

I was particularly fascinated by breast milk, how a newly-born infant will sometimes squirm its own way up a mother’s body to get at it, how the first drops of colostrum carry protective benefits, how the composition of breast milk will change over time to adapt to the baby’s age and health, how my body would let milk down at the mere thought of my child or her cry in another room. All of this is not to say breastfeeding wasn’t very hard—it was, let me tell you, and I almost didn’t make it through—and I know that some parents are not able to or choose not to breastfeed, and that does not make their nourishment of their children any less magical. But for me, the idea of breast milk was a profound mixture of science and magic, biology and spirituality.

For a long time after my daughter was born, I didn’t write. When I finally did, the first story I wrote featured the magic of breast milk (though this was capitalized on by the patriarchal-capitalist system in a near-future semi-dystopia). The story was titled “Girl Country,” and it became the title story of my first published book, coming out from Dzanc Books in May 2023. Many of the stories in my collection focus on mothers and children because I find magic every day in raising my daughter. From watching her grow taller overnight, to that first tooth that fell out and then miraculously grew back, to creating imaginary worlds with her toys, to exploring the budding plants in our backyard, to watching deer dance in a field, to that first word read and that first story and poem written: all of it is magic, and I hope she grows up knowing this too. 

Jacqueline Vogtman won the 2021 Dzanc Short Story Collection Prize, and her book Girl Country will be published by Dzanc Books in May 2023. She received her MFA from Bowling Green State University, and her fiction has appeared in Hunger Mountain, Permafrost, The Literary Review, Third Coast, Smokelong Quarterly, and other journals. She is currently Associate Professor of English at Mercer County Community College in New Jersey and resides in a small town surrounded by nature, which she explores with her husband, daughter, and dog. Find her on Instagram @jacquelinevogtman and online at jacquelinevogtman.com.

L.S. Stratton on Reading Your Reviews

It’s time for a new interview series… like NOW. No really, actually it’s called NOW (Newly Omniscient Authors). This blog has been publishing since 2011, and some of the earlier posts feel too hopeful dated. To honor the relaunch of the site, I thought I’d invite some of my past guests to read and ruminate on their answers to questions from oh-so-long-ago to see what’s changed between then and now.

Today’s guest for the NOW is L.S. Stratton, author of Not So Perfect Strangers, which releases on March 28

Has how you think (and talk) about writing and publishing changed, further into your career?

I’m definitely warier of any hard-and-fast rules when it comes to writing and publishing. I’ll give a couple of examples.

“Don’t open a novel with the weather or with someone waking up.” This was drilled into me by books and blogs on writing—until I saw several bestselling novels do that very thing. 

“Self-publishing isn’t real publishing.” I had my first short story published when I was in college, which was about two decades ago. This was back when self-publishing was treated like it was subpar or not “real” publishing and authors were discouraged from doing it if they wanted to be taken seriously. Now we know that was hilariously off base. Those who were smart enough to ignore the naysayers and get into the market early were able to build platforms, huge careers, and even have an impact on trends in traditional publishing. (Fifty Shades of Grey and The Martian, anyone?)

Let’s talk about the balance between the creative versus the business side of the industry. Do you think of yourself as an artiste or are you analyzing every aspect of your story for marketability? Has that changed from your early perspective?

I have too much imposter syndrome to think of myself as an "artiste", but I try my best to take creative risks in my writing. Some authors have their formulas: plot points or characters that tend to reappear in some incarnation in their novels. I’ve done it too. When I used to write romances under another pen name, I would hit a certain number of love scenes per book. I think embracing those formulas is the business side to writing. You do it either because it worked before and/or it fulfills readers’ expectations of your work. But even though you can say with relative confidence that you’ve mastered how to make a good spaghetti or pancake, eventually you’re going to get bored with cranking out spaghetti or pancakes. You want to try something different, to challenge yourself. That’s the creative side of me. I have to give in to it occasionally, or I’d get bored with writing. 

The bloom is off the rose… what’s faded for you, this far out from debut?

Reviews. (And this is coming from someone who has written reviews and gotten a starred review before.) I understand that they’re necessary. They can help build buzz for books in some instances. But I used to see them as critical feedback I should definitely listen to. I’d try to take them very seriously, but they could be so subjective and all over the map; the same book would get a review saying the pace was too slow, and another reviewer would describe it as fast-paced. I eventually understood that this was more for fellow readers than for the authors. 

You release your book into the world, and what people do with or take from it after that point, is out of your control. I’m not saying to disregard feedback or critique. That would be foolish. I value my editors’ notes and my beta readers. But beyond that, I’ve learned not to take reviews too seriously or at least try not to take them too seriously.

Likewise, is there anything you’ve grown to love (or at least accept) that you never thought you would?

I’ve learned to accept or be at peace with my writing career and realized that sometimes, treading water rather than making big waves isn’t so bad. I never got the splashy debut and envied the writers who got that opportunity. But I have seen authors who got splashy debuts, that got the big burst on the book scene, and they kind of . . . disappeared. I don’t know why. Maybe sales with their second book didn’t match the sales of their debut so their publishers elected not to exercise their first-option clause, or they knew as writers they were “here for a good time, but not for a long time,” as they say. 

That’s why I tell debut authors that even though a huge emphasis is put on the monster-sized advance or being a bestseller or landing the big book clubs, it doesn’t mean your career is over if you don’t get that. And I’ve seen authors who were midlist for years gradually move up to bestsellers after building their readership with consistent, quality work and finally landing the right publisher that was willing to give them the marketing and PR budget to help them excel. Being an author is challenging enough; don’t put additional pressure on yourself.

And lastly, what did getting published mean for you and how was it changed (or not changed!) your life?

When I first got published, I’ll be honest . . . I took the whole experience for granted. I was 19 and a short story I wrote in two weeks and submitted to a writing contest on a whim, landed me my first book contract and put my work on store shelves nationally. I then took a break from writing to finish my degree and start working in journalism and I assumed it would be just as easy to get back into fiction writing and get another work published. Wrong! So wrong! I got rejected so many times, I can’t even count. The feedback was brutal. But that humbling experience made me appreciate it even more when I finally got another book published. I have respect for the writing process and my job as an author that I didn’t have two decades ago. This isn't a hobby that I can just pick up and put down; it’s a craft I’ve decided to dedicate my life toward.

L.S. Stratton is a NAACP Image Award-nominated author and former crime newspaper reporter who has written more than a dozen books under different pen names in just about every genre from thrillers to romance to historical fiction. She currently lives in Maryland with her husband, their daughter, and their tuxedo cat.

Eleanor Lerman on Writing a Love Letter to NYC + Its People

Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come to us like a lightning bolt, through the lyrics of a song, or in the fog of a dream. Ask any writer where their stories come from and you’ll get a myriad of answers, and in that vein I created the WHAT (What the Hell Are you Thinking?) interview. 

Today’s guest for the WHAT is Eleanor Lerman, author of The Game Café: Stories of New York City in Covid Time — nine stories of people who live in New York City—or are traveling there—in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Ideas for our books can come from just about anywhere, and sometimes even we can’t pinpoint exactly how or why. Did you have a specific origin point for your book?

In the height of the covid pandemic, when the television news continually featured stories about “the death” of New York City because people were fleeing, the hospitals were overrun, the business districts were deserted and no one would ever return to offices, etc., etc., I became incensed at the idea that anyone could think New York City was ever going to become a ghost town. To begin with, as a lifelong New Yorker and the daughter of a factory worker, the argument seemed to me to stem from an elitist view of urban life—the people “fleeing” were actually those who had a choice to do so because they had the wealth to own a second home in the suburbs or to simply buy another home in an area where the pandemic was having less of a devastating impact. So, the stories in my collection, The Game Café: Stories of New York City in Covid Time were born from my outrage at the notion that a city built by immigrants, fueled by the work and ingenuity of a diverse population, offering community to people across the gender spectrum, and that provides opportunity to anyone willing to take on the challenges of urban life could be brought down by the coronavirus. Each story in the collection focuses on the lives of different individuals coping with the pandemic in their own way and each, in their own way, is going to find a way not only to live through this dark time but come out on the other side with a new understanding of how deeply integral their relationship to the life of the city is to their own individual life story.

Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it?

There are nine short stories in the collection and each is built around the same concept: how the coronavirus pandemic has affected the life of a particular individual. Some of the characters have lost their jobs, one is living in Los Angeles and decides to drive home to New York, others reassess their relationship to a sibling or an adult child, and some are suffering from long-term illnesses (not Covid-related), but the decisions they make and the experiences they have all stem from how the pandemic is impacting their lives.

Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper?

This is almost always the case, whether I am writing a short story or a novel. Once a character begins to take on substance and develop a voice, he or she usually helps to move the story along in a direction I had not necessarily anticipated. That’s fine because I begin any story with knowing how it will end and as long as I’m moving towards that ending, letting the characters change the plot as we move along is actually helpful. What I have learned about my work is that I trust myself as a writer so no matter how the story changes, I can adapt.

Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by?

I have been telling myself all kinds of stories in my mind since I was a child so there is always something brewing, 

How do you choose which story to write next, if you’ve got more than one percolating? 

It would be unusual for me to find myself in that situation. I am very disciplined about my work, meaning that I don’t wait for inspiration (whatever that means) but rather, sit down at my computer every day intent on working. The stream-of-consciousness thing that goes on in my mind all the time just pushes one idea forward from that long, rolling river of ideas and that becomes the one I focus on.

I have 6 cats and a Dalmatian (seriously, check my Instagram feed) and I usually have at least one or two snuggling with me when I write. Do you have a writing buddy, or do you find it distracting? 

My office is an old purple couch and I sit on one end with a laptop. For over twenty years, there has been one or another small dog snoozing away on the other end. The day after my previous, much-loved dog passed away, I sat down on the couch, opened the laptop, looked over at the empty spot on the other side of the cushions and knew I couldn’t go on unless I had a new assistant. Two days later, I did. She’s a little white dog and her name is SuzyQ. And now, my work proceeds just fine.

Eleanor Lerman is the author of numerous award-winning collections of poetry, short stories and novels. She is a National Book Award finalist, the recipient of the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets, and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship as well as fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts for poetry and the New York Foundation for the Arts for fiction. She has also received the John W. Campbell Award for the Best Book of Science Fiction. Her most recent novel, Watkins Glen (Mayapple Press, 2021), received an Independent Press award, among others. Find her online at eleanorlerman.com and on Facebook (facebook.com/eleanor.lerman).