Susan Tepper Keeps At It

In the 29th in a series of posts on 2017 books entered for The Story Prize, Susan Tepper, author of Monte Carlo Days & Nights (Rain Mountain Press), discusses what propelled her into writing.

Writers usually have some inkling, I believe, that they will be doing this work. I never had an inkling. My dream from childhood was to become an actress, and so I left Long Island for the city when I was seventeen to attend drama school. Looking back on it all, I think it was the reading of so many plays that cemented language into my brain.

When acting with its limited rewards finally exhausted me, and I had moved out of the city, and was in my yard pulling weeds, with not the slightest clue of what I’d do next with my life, I began to get a message in my mind: Write that story. It pounded me all summer long.

Finally, sometime that August I sat down and cranked out a very long story. Mostly autobiographical with some juicy fake details. Then I took it to the New School where it was massacred in the workshop. Since I’d been banging around New York and other cities for years as an actor, rejection didn’t mean a whole lot to me. It sort of bounced off. They didn’t like my story. Oh, well. Except – except I happened to luck upon a great writing teacher in that first workshop, Alexander Neubauer. And when he returned his photocopy of my story, he’d written wonderful notes and at the bottom he put: Keep Writing. He underlined those two words a bunch of times. Wow! That’s what went through my mind: Wow, I can do this! It was revolutionary.

From that point forward I was seemingly jet-propelled by an unstoppable force. I went on to take workshops with Darcey Steinke, Jeanne McCulloch, Jamie Cat Callan, and another male instructor who will remain, due to his obnoxious verbal behavior, anonymous. But even he gave me something important to take away. I was a sponge. As playwright G.B. Shaw wrote in his play Overruled: “I soak up dirty water as well as clean.” Because that is the essential role of the creative writer. To construct worlds around what is soaked up during living.

My mother, who was a poet, humor writer, and essayist, had a lengthy non-fiction piece published in The New York Times opinion page when she was seventy. She had no journalism background, she was a sporadic writer, did it when she felt like it, with no career aspirations. It proved the point that good writing will rise to the top. She tossed great books my way. Somehow, she knew what I didn’t know about how my life was going to play out. Sadly, my mother died just a few weeks ago, and that shared path feels lonely now. She must have sensed she was near death, because she kept asking me when my new book would be coming out. Thankfully, she had seen the cover artwork in advance, so she saw something of this book. That gives me consolation.

Lobbying: At the Algonquin

Being a writer is so much fun, it’s the most fun I’ve ever had, and it’s what I most enjoy doing every day. I love talking with other writers about craft and life and love and disappointments. Recently I started an author/book Interview Series "Live From the Algonquin" to bring back some of that bygone writer glam. The Algonquin lobby is so elegant, and we order Prosecco, and for those few hours, it feels like we’ve stepped back in precious time. 

Susan Tepper on Making the Most of Insignificant Things

In the 45th in a series of posts on 2013 books entered for The Story Prize, Susan Tepper, author of The Merrill Diaries (Pure Slush), talks about randomly organizing collections and refusing to see obstacles.

How often does an idea for a story occur to you, and what triggers those ideas?

I get story ideas constantly, several a day, and often when I first wake up in the morning. Everything and anything. I have to push them away. It’s my belief that a writer can make a story out of the most insignificant things, such as a mud puddle.

If you've ever written a story based on something another person told you would make a good story, what were the circumstances?

Never. I don’t like it when people say “Oh, this would make a good story.” My answer invariably is, “Yes, you should write that story.”

What's your approach to organizing a collection?

I don’t really have an approach, I kind of follow my instincts. Though I did steal an idea from Billy Collins. He said he threw all his poems on the floor, then walked around randomly picking them up and making a pile. I did that for my first collection “Deer” and it worked really well, it had this organic unity for which I thank Billy Collins.

What's the worst idea for a story you've every had?

I wanted to write a story about a man who vacuum-packs his annoying wife in one of those blanket storage devices that suck the air out of the plastic bag and flatten the blanket. But I couldn’t get that story off the ground. But now that I think about it, maybe I should give it another go.

What's the best story idea you've had that you've never been able to write to your satisfaction?

I tried to write a contemporary version of Pride and Prejudice before others started doing it successfully. Mine was pretty sexy. I made Miss Lizzie into a contemporary character who wears red leather, a thong, and goes back in time in order to snag Mr. Darcy. I think it came out too clichéd. 

Where do you do most of your work?

On a teensy computer in a newly fixed up room in my house. It used to be a junk room but I recently transformed the space adding a red leather desk chair, an aqua cage-type metal thing to hold my books, and there are always fresh flowers on the desk. Also some very nice pictures on the walls which are painted a pale butter yellow. And there’s a Pier One candle to attract the muse.

In what other forms of artistic expression do you find inspiration?

I write a lot of poetry, I’m about 50/50 with poetry and fiction. My first published book was a poetry chapbook called Blue Edge (Cervena Barva Press, 2006)

What's the best and worst writing advice you've ever gotten?
The best was: Writing is a business.
The worst was: Writing is hard—are you crazy?—you’ll never get published.

What obstacles have you encountered as a writer, and what have you done to overcome them?

I don’t see obstacles in anything. I’m wired not to see them. My mom is like that. She is a poet and essayist who got a piece on The New York Times Op-Ed page when she was 70 years old.

What's the shortest time it has taken you to write a story?

Micro-fictions I’ve written in five to ten minutes.

What's the longest time it has taken you to write a story?

I have stories I’ve been working on for over a decade. They kind of get lost. Then I’ll be poking around and find one, and start to re-work it. It’s good to do this, especially with very long stories. The span of time gives you a better perspective on what you’ve gotten down and what the story still needs.