Pamela Gwyn Kripke is a journalist and author of the novel, At the Seams (Open Books, 2023), and the story collection, And Then You Apply Ice (Open Books, 2024). She has written for The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Sun-Times, The Dallas Morning News, The Huffington Post, Slate, Salon, Medium, New York Magazine, Parenting, Redbook, Elle, D Magazine, Creators Syndicate, Gannett Newspapers and McClatchy, among other publications. Her short fiction has appeared in literary journals including Folio, The Concrete Desert Review, The Barcelona Review, Brilliant Flash Fiction and The MacGuffin. Pamela holds degrees from Brown University and Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and was selected to attend the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop. She has taught journalism at DePaul University and Columbia College in Chicago and has held magazine editorships in New York and Dallas. She has two daughters and lives near Philadelphia.
1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
I wrote my first book, a memoir titled Girl Without a Zip Code, in 2018. I didn’t realize at the time, as a journalist without much knowledge about book publishing in general and small presses in particular, that I could have pitched the indie publishers. Instead, I sent it to a few agents, who rejected it, so I self-published it, too quickly I think. I love the book, and it confirmed for me that I could write longer than 1500 words. My recent work, a story collection titled And Then You Apply Ice, is similar in all the writerly ways but different, logistically, as it was published by a small press.
2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?
I’ve been a widely-published journalist for 30-plus years and have written for some wonderful and prestigious publications. Just before the pandemic, I began writing and submitting short stories. This felt like a natural progression from writing essays, which I’ve done for a long time. During the lockdowns, I started a novel, At the Seams, based on an episode in my family’s history, and it was published in 2023. The collection came a year later and includes a few of the previously published stories.
3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
If by “start” you mean putting the first word on the page, physically, that does not take long. But the ideas run around my head for a while before I do that. Mostly, I’m thinking about whether something would make a good story or not, whether it has what it needs. I’m not spending time gearing up to write or putting it off or indulging some desire to traipse around Thailand. As a trained journalist, I view the work as my job, so that is what I do. On the sentence level, the final drafts are quite close to the first. I like for each sentence to be great before I move on, as they are a chain. The rhythm of one sets up the next. Sound is important to me. And to my dog, who has heard a lot.
4 - Where does a work of prose usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
I’m new to writing book-length works, so I’m not sure there is anything usual about it yet. The novel began as a newspaper column, which prompted the idea for a memoir, which ultimately turned into fiction when I hit too many dead ends in the research. After having a few stories published in literary journals, I had the idea to group them. So, I analyzed them for common themes and then wrote new stories, with some recurring characters, that would live nicely with the original ones.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
With At the Seams, I began doing readings. Though I’ve taught classes in rooms of people, I don’t really love speaking in front of groups. The beauty of writing is that people hear your voice without your having to talk. But, the marketing. So yes, I do them. I enjoy answering the questions that people have more than the actual reading. I’d love it if someone else would do that part.
6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
I’m interested in the ways that beings interact and specifically, how the actions of one can affect the life course of another in tumultuous and presumptuous and also welcome ways.
7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
I think that writers offer ways to see the world. We’re all seeing the same thing, but what affects us, what the story is, is different person to person. So, I guess that we give readers a look at what they may have seen, too, from a completely different vantage point. The result of that, or maybe it’s a goal, is to broaden perspective and help people to be more tolerant and generous. I think we’ve hit a low point with generosity.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I’m used to working with editors as a magazine and newspaper reporter. And as a freelancer for a long time, I’ve worked with many, most of whom have been excellent and generally make the work better in some way. I’ve also worked as an editor, so I understand and respect the process. It’s always interesting and helpful to hear what other experts think.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
When I began pitching pieces to magazines and newspapers, I’d be ecstatic when a story was accepted and pretty upset when one wasn’t. A musician friend advised me to rein it all in, to be just a little bit happy or a little bit annoyed. He said to only put the work out there when I believed it was at its best. That helps to maintain an emotional equilibrium regardless of one person’s opinion.
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (short stories to memoir to essays to the novel)? What do you see as the appeal?
It’s been easy and fun. And, each genre uses different muscles, so one sharpens the other. It’s kind of like cross-training.
11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
Now that my kids are out of the house, my dog is responsible for starting the day, and he does it well. We are outside by 7, typically, earlier with the time change. For years, I had tea and plain toast upon our return. Now, it’s coffee, and the toast is topped with avocado and tomatoes. Without it, the world is crooked. I check the usual things on my computer - mail, the headlines in The Times, my book’s amazon page - and then I continue writing where I left off the day before. This is never at the end of a paragraph or a chapter. I’ll always begin the next chunk of writing, even if it’s a few words, which makes for easy entry the next day. In the afternoon, I do the work that pays most of the bills, the teaching and editing and assorted assignments. There is exercise at 3:30 and often, a return to the words after that.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I take a walk or do an errand in the car. The radio is tuned to a country music station. Though I’m a New Yorker, I spent 17 years in Texas, my daughters’ childhoods, basically. A lot was difficult for me there, but it’s where my kids grew into the people they are now, so I love it for that. Listening to songs about trucks and sundresses and heartache is nostalgic, and that feeling gets me thinking creatively.
13 - What was your last Hallowe'en costume?
When my kids were little, they insisted I dress up with them. I remember being a flower child, a ballerina and a rock star in a pink Betsey Johnson. But my favorite costume came before they were around. For a grad school party (I was studying Journalism), I dressed up as the NBC peacock. I constructed the feathers from wire and crepe paper, in one piece, pinned to my back. They extended over my head and beyond my shoulders; I remember having trouble getting into the cab.
14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
The arts and science have been long standing interests. I’ve always made things with paint, fabric and yarn and still do. My grandfather was a dressmaker (he’s a character in my novel), and my mom sewed, too, and painted. I grew up covered in oil pastels and all else, and I played instruments and danced. Creativity was valued and encouraged. My dad was a surgeon, so I also learned about spleens and cell organelles way before kids typically do. Many of my characters know about all of these things.
15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
I try to read a lot of different things…short stories, newspapers, essays, novels. I’ll read sappy women’s fiction and also scholarly articles on legal topics.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I’d like to choose a suitable boyfriend.
17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
I may have become an architect. I’m both artistic and analytical, and I love houses and buildings and dimensions and design, so I think it would have made sense.
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
My mother says that in second grade, when the other kids wrote a paragraph, I wrote six pages. Apparently, my teacher, Mrs. Roman, stapled them up on the board, one paper on top of the other like a book. Even for a year and a half in college when I thought I’d be a doctor, I worked for my college newspaper and radio station. I’ve always carried a pen and paper. When people talk, I see the words in typeface.
19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
I’ve just started Instructions for a Heatwave, by Maggie O’Farrell, which is promising to be great. And I loved the film, Nyad.
20 - What are you currently working on?
I’ve just begun work on a novel about a mid-life relationship. See question #16.
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