Writing Those Important Things: A Conversation with Kathleen Thompson
Kathleen Thompson is the author, most recently, of A Tale of Three Women. It was a pleasure to be able to talk with Kathleen about her award-winning fiction, her MFA days, and, of course, her novella.
Bradley Sides: Thank you, Kathleen, for taking the time to answer a few questions for us over at the AWC. I want to begin by talking about your participation in our most recent Contests. You were one of the winners in the “First Chapter of Novel” category.
For our readers who haven’t yet picked up a copy of the 2022 Awarded Writers’ Collection, which features your award-winning “Blame it on the Moon,” do you mind telling us what this opening chapter is about?
Kathleen Thompson: This first chapter sets a detailed scene of a day in the life of a sharecropper family in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, in the 1950’s. Few readers will recognize such a scene, except perhaps from an old movie; however, the heart-stopping incident of a runaway mule hitched up to a wagonload of dried corn and all the consequences that such an incident might portend probably will not be lost on any reader. Pulling corn, picking cotton, reading by the light of a kerosene lamp—all paint a rather dark life for a fourteen year old and a family whose only means of transportation is a mule-drawn wagon and their water source, a well in the ground. Katie Lou Taylor wishes the Taylors weren’t so different. She wishes on the wings of a redbird, on the length of a pulley bone, on the half moon—whether the sickle moon is catching water, or pouring it out. What she really wishes is that the Taylors and their old sayings did not stick out like a sore toe.
BS: And the longer novel. You told me you’ve finished it, right?
KT: Yes, the novel is finished. For now anyway. (I’m not so naive after earning an MFA in writing. Anything sent to a publisher has to be edited. ONE. MORE. TIME.)
Even after all these years I have nearly finished an edit which would classify it as a coming of age novel for marketing purposes, and not just a young adult.
The initial story has a beard. I drafted it whole cloth after my first meeting with the Prattville Creative Writers in February, 1981. We had moved back to Alabama with my husband’s work after some ten years in Savannah. I had been actively dabbling in poetry and keeping a journal while teaching high school English. That first meeting set me on fire for writing. Prize-winning poetry and prose were both awarded and read. I can do this, I thought. And then I went home, immediately picked up my notebook and pen, and the story came gushing out. (BTW, that has happened only one other time. While I was earning the MFA in Writing from Spalding University, I had another story birthed whole: “Woman’s Wait.” It is published in an online magazine. Waypoints Issue 1.)
BS: You are a novelist, of course, but you are also a poet. For you, how similar are the two—novel writing and poetry writing?
KT: (Ah-ha, she says. Very similar, but very different. It’s not for everyone. But here’s a chance to let my brevity shine.)
My Ars Poetica, : )
Poem
A poem is writ in sweat and tears.
I write, my dears,
in sweat and tears
to quell my fears:
I will not knit.
A poem is writ in sweat and tears.
Seriously, for me the two genres are very close, so close that I could substitute the word novel for poem in my ars poetica. Poems can meander here and there and still hold together nicely if I begin with an apt image. My stories tend to be character-driven rather than plot-driven. Some days I couldn’t buy a plot. Now, a poem can happen when I’m not even looking. Sometimes it can sneak up on me unmentioned. But hardly ever whole cloth. Wherever in life there is a comparison, a metaphor, or just a simile, a poem is not far behind. I hunger for likenesses and differences in observing nature, and in human nature.
Sometimes I think my poems are prayers.
Writing is too hard to write about just any old thing; therefore, I write only about things important to me. That doesn’t mean I write myself into every character. How boring that would be.
I’m currently writing nonfiction as I edit fiction. Some days, I wonder if I’m writing fiction or nonfiction. Arthur Gordon once told me in an interview in Savannah that good writing is full of lies that tell the truth. I’m looking always for the truth. I use whatever genre serves me best at the moment to get certain truths.
BS: You got your MFA at Spalding. Did the program cater to both sides of your writing life? Or did you have to choose either fiction or poetry as your focus?
KT: My thesis for the MFA was a complete collection of short stories. That followed studying one semester of poetry, and then switching over to fiction.
The process you inquire about was the very core and beauty of Sena Jeter Naslund’s writing program and what it offered that others didn’t: a person could try two courses of study. When Sena came to sign Ahab’s Wife at Alabama Booksmith just after 9/11, I asked her the same question.
And my stroke of good luck continued. Sena said a poetry applicant from overseas was not coming that initial semester because of 9/11. She invited me to apply for her spot. I had already bought Ahab’s Wife at the Monroeville conference. After that first meeting with Sena, and reading her first blockbuster, and attending the first residency, I knew life had forever changed for this little sharecropper, who had owned only one book in first grade.
When my time was up with Sena at her signing that day at Alabama Booksmith, she offered this nugget roughly quoted, “Kathleen, it doesn’t matter which writing program you choose, you will excel in whatever genre or program that is. I can tell by your enthusiasm.” Such affirmation from a literary giant!
BS: I’m going to ask a very, very broad question: To you, what is A Tale of Three Women about?
KT: This book is about a simple case of mistaken identity and how that alters forever the lives of three women and one man. Most importantly, this could happen to “Everyman.”
One of life’s little ironies is that when I went to Spalding, third residency was held at The Brown Hotel. (Talk about the high life. That and the previous semester at The Seelbach.) The Brown Hotel was a part of the legacy of Louisville’s “invisible benefactor”. Another irony is the town of Brownville was Brown Wood Preserving Company, a creosote plant, a pole yard, and houses built for men who worked at the creosote plant. All four of my brothers lived in Brownville with their families at one time or another. My daddy took a job there and we moved in when I was in ninth grade.
Imagine my shock when I opened up the desk drawer in The Brown and discovered information of the owner and builder of this beautiful hotel: James Graham Brown. This was the man who founded the creosote plant in Alabama. His very plush life was written about by local Dorothy Park Clark. (Louisville’s Invisible Benefactor. The Life of James Graham Brown.)
This is the thing: as you keep writing, somehow the work comes to you in ways that help to embrace and layer your writing. Just now I read a paragraph which just by chance I had opened to, this “life story” and that very page mentioned Brownville and the creosote plant. (The book had been presented to my brother-in-law upon his retirement of running the crane on the pole yard and my sister passed it along to me.)
It reads, “In 1923 the Brown Wood Preserving Plant was built at Brownville, AL. This was the original site of the logging camp which had once furnished timber to Fayette. Here telegraph poles, barn poles, fence posts, and some lumber are treated with creosote or pentachlorophenol. Brownville is a “company town” with a commissary, a meeting hall, and many houses available to rent for employees.”
See my point? That little factual tidbit from this book lends many directions the plot of my novella might have taken had I only been aware at the time of writing. Reality of the situation was more engaging than anything I might have imagined.
BS: Parts of you are in this novel. How did you decide how much of your own life you wanted to include in these pages?
KT: At first, I thought nothing of what the title might suggest beyond the literal, except perhaps a “menages a trois.” That I really didn’t want! My third semester Spalding mentor thought that it was just too much to swallow for two characters to have the same name. I wrote a whole page argument about how it could and did work. (I will save you from that.) Actually, my novella was birthed from two short stories, and one was named, “A Tale of Two Women.” Also within my Spalding critical thesis were several “will/free or not?” stories based on some version of family incidents as told to me by a rather free-wheeling nephew.
Long story short: A simple case of mistaken identity in A Tale of Three Women alters forever the lives of three women and one man.
I must also include something that I learned from my mentor and friend, Helen Norris Bell when I interviewed her for my MFA Critical Thesis for Spalding. It was learned by Helen from the famous imagist poet, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle). Someone asked H.D. how she wrote her story; and she said, “I do not write the story; the story writes me.” Helen was struck by that line, even though she declared H.D.’s novel “autobiographical and not very good.” Helen said, “At some point in the story in which you are deeply involved, the story takes hold of you. It writes what it wants to write, what it needs. You are at the mercy of the tale.”
I embrace Helen’s (and H.D.’s) theory above all.
BS: As we close, you have a book event coming up soon. Fill us in on the details, so local folks don’t miss out.
KT: LOCAL AUTHORS DAY:
Meet authors and readers.
Seeing, Selling, Signing!
Autauga Prattville Public Library
254 Doster Street
Prattville AL 36067
Phone: (334)365-3396
March 2, 2023
5-7 p.m.
BS: Thank you again, Kathleen! I’ve enjoyed talking to you. Best of luck to you and your writing, and I hope you have a great event in Prattville!
After our interview, Kathleen was kind enough to send along some extra content to share with the AWC. Here is a publicity video that gives a little more about Kathleen and her work:
Kathleen Thompson holds a BS from the University of Alabama and an MFA in Writing from Spalding University. A former teacher, she is still trying to determine whether she is a vagrant poet who has fallen off the straight and narrow, or a writer who loves writing lies that tell the truth, or a nonfiction writer who makes much of metaphor. Neither her four poetry books, nor numerous award-winning stories published in journals, make the matter definitive, except to say she is a writer who loves to write in all genres. Most recently her novella, A Tale of Three Women, 2020, was published by Excalibur Press, Daphne, AL.