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In Their Own Words: Part 2

To celebrate the 20th Annual Lambda Literary Awards, we asked 12 of the world’s best out writers to share their insights into the genres in which they tell their stories.

Today, we feature interviews with Kelley Eskridge (science fiction), Sarah Waters (historical fiction), Shamim Sarif (international fiction), Rebecca Walker (memoir), Val McDermid (mysteries) and historian Lillian Faderman.

Val McDermid: Crime Fiction

Val McDermid, whose books include six mysteries featuring lesbian journalist Lindsay Gordon, is one of the world’s leading crime writers. She also writes the Tony Hill and Carol Jordan mystery series, which has been adapted for British television as the ITV series Wire in the Blood, now co-starring former Bad Girls star Simone Lahbib.

AfterEllen.com: Before you wrote Report for Murder, had you read a mystery novel that featured a lesbian character?

Val McDermid: Yes. I’d read Barbara Wilson, Mary Wings and Katherine V. Forrest. In a sense, reading them gave me permission to write a lesbian detective. They made it OK for me.

AE: Is there pressure on mystery novelists not to feature lesbian protagonists out of fear that such books will not appeal to mainstream audiences? How do you respond to that fear?

VM: I suspect mainstream publishers are aware that novels with lesbian protagonists may not appeal to mainstream audiences. But that doesn’t necessarily translate to putting pressure on writers. My own experience has been that my editor has let me get on with writing the books that matter to me, regardless of the sexuality of the characters. And I’ve always written the books I wanted to write.

AE: Do you intend to write more Lindsay Gordon mysteries, or to feature lesbians in other novels?

VM: Almost all of my novels feature lesbian characters; they are among the regular returning characters in the Tony Hill and Carol Jordan novels. I try to write about lesbians within the landscape of the wider community most of us inhabit. So they’re there, a presence not an issue.

As to Lindsay, I don’t know if she’ll return. Hostage to Murder came as something of a surprise to me, but it was a happy surprise. If she comes knocking at the door of my imagination, she’ll always be a welcome guest.

AE: What do you look for in a good mystery novel? What determines whether you’ll keep reading?

VM: A story that intrigues me, characters whose fate I care about, and good writing.

AE: Could you name a few mystery writers who inspire you?

VM:I don’t know that I’d use the word inspire; more that there are some writers whose work I always grab hot off the shelves. They’d include Denise Mina, Peter Temple, Stella Duffy, Reginald Hill, Steve Mosby, Allan Guthrie and Ellen Hart.

AE: What types of books do you like to read outside the mystery genre? Any particular favorites?

VM: I look for the same things in literary fiction as I do in mysteries. Among my favorites are Ali Smith, Margaret Atwood, Peter Carey and Sarah Waters.

AE: Could you list some of your favorite mystery novels that feature lesbian characters – perhaps a few that may be overlooked?

VM:Sisters of the Road by Barbara Wilson

With Child by Laurie R. King

Blue by Abigail Padgett

Mouths of Babes by Stella Duffy

Hen’s Teeth by Manda Scott

Everything You Have Is Mine by Sandra Scoppettone

Idaho Code by Joan Opyr

Merchant of Venus by Ellen Hart

The Blue Place by Nicola Griffith

Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey

Next page: Shamim Sarif on international fiction

Shamim Sarif: International Fiction

Shamim Sarif’s first novel, The World Unseen, is now a motion picture screening at gay and lesbian film festivals around the world. Her second novel, Despite the Falling Snow, is being developed into a film. Her forthcoming third novel, I Can’t Think Straight, has also been made into a film and is currently in post-production.

AfterEllen.com: What appeals to you about writing international fiction?

Shamim Sarif: My great-grandparents emigrated from India to South Africa, where my grandparents and parents were born. I was born and raised in London. My wife is Palestinian from Jordan. International is a concept that is just second nature to me, and so naturally became a part of my writing, just as it is part of my life.

At the same time, I think human beings have much the same fundamental emotional and physical drives, so setting and culture can provide a unique perspective for what are often universal experiences.

AE: Which comes first: the characters you want to write about, or the setting in which they live?

SS: The characters are definitely what develops first, although with both The World Unseen (apartheid South Africa) and Despite the Falling Snow (Stalinist Russia), the political backdrops are integral to the characters’ challenges and their responses.

AE: Do you remember the first work of international fiction you read that had an impact on you?

SS: Having been steeped in English literature here in London, I had a huge attraction to American literature in my teens and 20s and thought of it as “international” and different. Otherwise, Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy opened up a world of Indian fiction that I hadn’t explored before. Garcia Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera introduced to me a textured way of using language, and I remember being transported to a hotter, more languid place by it.

AE: How has international fiction developed or changed in recent years, especially in regard to portrayals of lesbians and bisexuals?

SS: I would say it’s become more mainstream. In England at least, The World Unseen was never categorized as a lesbian novel. Sarah Waters, Ali Smith, Jeanette Winterson are all major, mainstream writers.

AE: Name a favorite author outside your genre and explain why you appreciate their work.

SS: I admire crime writers because such skill is involved in the intricacy of weaving a plot that culminates in a surprise that is shocking and yet plausible. As my reading time has decreased in the past years (two small children take a lot of time!), Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski novels are my most recent example of crime books I enjoyed, especially because of the feisty, intelligent female protagonist.

AE: Pick a basic element of novels – setting, characterization, plot, language – and talk about an author whom you admire for his/her particular skill in that area.

SS: Jeanette Winterson uses language with a sort of languid precision that is a pleasure to read and absorb. There are some books I like more than others (The Passion is a favorite), but her use of words is always intense and yet delicate.

AE: What international books have you read recently that featured lesbian characters?

SS: The last book I read which featured a lesbian character was Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee. No part of this book was an easy read. There is a bleakness to the prose that reflects perfectly the view of present-day South Africa that Coetzee presents.

I am usually bad at finishing books that deprive me of any beauty, but this one haunted me still, perhaps because I read it as we were coming to the end of a year living in Cape Town. It crystallized all the misgivings about South Africa’s future that had been growing within me throughout our time there. But within that specific setting, it dealt with very human frailties, which is the key that can make great “world fiction” relevant to any reader anywhere.

Next page: Sarah Waters on historical fiction

Photo credit: Charlie Hopkinson

Sarah Waters was working on her Ph.D. thesis on lesbian historical fiction when she decided to pen her first novel, Tipping the Velvet. That book, as well as Fingersmith and, most recently, Affinity, have been turned into major BBC productions. Affinity will be the opening film at the San Francisco LGBT Film Festival in mid-June and will air on Logo (AfterEllen.com’s parent company) later this year.

AfterEllen.com: Do you remember the first work of historical fiction you read that had an impact on you?

Sarah Waters: I’ve been a keen reader of historical fiction for a long time, but the novel I remember having the greatest impact on me is Philippa Gregory’s Wideacre. It’s quite a commercial novel, very much in the bodice-ripper tradition of women’s historical fiction (my paperback edition, for example, has raised gold lettering on its cover), but what I love about this book is how brilliantly Gregory takes on and subverts her own genre, in order to make quite a complex analysis of women and power. I read the novel just as I was thinking about starting a Ph.D. on the ways in which lesbians and gay men have written about the past, and it had a real influence both on that work and, subsequently, on my own fiction.

AfterEllen.com: What makes a great novel in this genre? What do you look for?

SW: There are two kinds of historical fiction which fill me with dismay. The first is fiction which uses the past as a sort of picturesque backdrop, and gives no thought to the essential difference and strangeness of the past. When you read this sort of novel, the effect is of modern characters wandering about in fancy dress.

The second kind is fiction which over-uses its research, to the extent that you sometimes get the feeling certain details are included simply because the author wants to demonstrate that they’ve really done their homework. So a great historical novel, to my mind, is one which transports its readers into a radically different mindset; a novel whose author obviously knows their period inside out, yet manages to wear their research very lightly. Mary Renault’s novels of the classical world, I think, do all of this, absolutely brilliantly.

AE: Who are a few of your favorite lesbian or bisexual characters from historical fiction?

SW: One of my favorite lesbian historical novels is one of the first I ever read: Isabel Miller’s Patience and Sarah. I love both of its main characters: They feel like complex, rounded people dealing with real, vital issues of identity, community and love.

I’ve also always been a big admirer of Ellen Galford’s novels. Lots of them have some sort of historical element, but my favorite of all her characters is Moll Cutpurse, from the novel of the same name. She’s a swashbuckling, cross-dressing Elizabethan butch with a heart of gold – who could ask for more?

AE: Can you talk about how the era in which you set your novels affects the style of your narrative?

SW: I’ve written three novels set in the Victorian period, and am working on my second, now, with a 1940s setting. The move from the 19th century was a fascinating and quite challenging one for me. I usually try to capture the specific idiom of the period I’m writing about, so my Victorian-set novels are rather long and extravagant, full of gothic twists and turns.

But to move to the ’40s was to take on a much “drier” and more subdued style, and it took me a long time to find my own voice within that. I also found that my lesbian characters became a lot more depressed and guarded! Now, however, I feel as much at home in the 1940s as I ever did in the 19th century. I like looking at that tired postwar British world and finding the little points of passion in it.

AE: When you moved from academia to writing fiction, where did you turn for help in the fundamentals of fiction: creating characters, structuring your novel, developing themes, etc.?

SW: I started writing my first novel, Tipping the Velvet, after finishing my Ph.D. thesis on lesbian and gay historical fiction. The academic work I had done provided the springboard for the novel, but I had never written any fiction before and in terms of characterization, structuring, pace – everything, actually – I was absolutely clueless. The whole thing was a leap of faith.

I would write a paragraph and think: “Hey, I’ve written a paragraph! Let’s see if I can turn it into a scene.” Then, a bit later: “Hey, I’ve written a scene! Let’s see if I can extend it into a chapter.” And so on.

The thing that helped me most was reading. I’ve always been a big reader, but now I had to start reading in a different way – trying to figure out how authors had achieved the effects they had, then seeing if I could do something similar. Eventually I began to get to grips with things. But every book brings new technical challenges, and often I still feel like a beginner.

AE: Name a favorite author outside your genre and explain why you appreciate their work.

SW: I’ve never been a huge fan of detective fiction: Too often in detective novels, it seems to me, characterization and literary style get sacrificed in favor of pace and general “sensation.” So when I am drawn to a crime novel, it’s generally of the more psychological variety, and one of the greatest exponents of psychological crime fiction has to be Patricia Highsmith. Her novels are amazing pieces of storytelling, often with an unsettling, amoral edge. If I could write a novel as subtle and compelling as The Talented Mr. Ripley, I would die happy.

Next page: Lillian Faderman on nonfiction

Lillian Faderman: Nonfiction

Lillian Faderman is the world’s most renowned scholar of lesbian history and literature. Recently retired from her 44-year teaching career, Faderman is currently writing a prequel to her 2003 memoir, Naked in the Promised Land. She spoke to AfterEllen.com by phone.

AfterEllen.com: A lot of your nonfiction fills in gaps in lesbian life, giving us a history where none existed before. Was that your intention?

Lillian Faderman: That’s exactly what I wanted to do, and I wanted to do it for personal reasons. I wanted to do it because I came out as a lesbian in the mid-1950s, in 1956, as I talk about in my memoir.

I came out in the era when the only books were the pulps, and I was so happy to find them because there was practically no other fiction about lesbians, but I was so upset that always – whatever the surreptitious message was, and however wonderful it was to see these images of women falling in love with one another, women being sexual with one another – invariably they ended miserably, and the surface message was that this was terrible, that love between women would end in tragedy.

AE: Do you remember the first novel you read that had a happy ending or treated lesbians as you wanted them to be treated?

LF: There was Claire Morgan’s The Price of Salt. That’s Patricia Highsmith, of course. I still remember images from it even though I have not reread it since the mid-’50s. I remember the turmoil between the main characters, but the story did not end unhappily … I remember being so thrilled with that – that neither woman had to pay her debt to society because she loved another woman. That was such a rare exception.

AE: What other early books do you remember that included portrayals of lesbians?

LF: I also remember reading The Well of Loneliness and being so repelled by the fact that Stephen had to give up the woman that she was in love with. I couldn’t quite believe that that’s what all women did if they were lesbians, that they gave their lovers up to heterosexuality to make their lovers happier. I remember how mad that made me, how disgusted that made me.

Of course, many of the pulp novels were that way. I remember reading Beebo Brinker novels and just loving the image of Beebo, who was such a handsome, wonderful character, but even there being so sad that Beebo could never find her mate, that these women were always going off to heterosexuality.

AE: Do you read contemporary fiction featuring lesbian characters?

LF: I do, yes. There are several writers that I really love. I love Dorothy Allison, and of course the aunt in Bastard Out of Carolina is – for us who are lesbian – clearly a lesbian character. I think straight readers would not see that; straight readers wouldn’t know that she’s a lesbian character because Allison is so veiled about it.

I love Sarah Waters. I think she’s probably the strongest lesbian writer around. I loved Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith and The Night Watch.

I love early Jeanette Winterson. I think The Passion is the most wonderful lesbian novel, and I really liked Oranges Are Not the only Fruit. I don’t like later Jeanette Winterson; I think she became purposefully more obstruse and self-consciously arty. I don’t think it’s working, but the early stuff was absolutely wonderful.

I like Sarah Schulman. I’ve followed her career since the early 1980s when she published The Sophie Horowitz Story. I think she’s one of the more sophisticated, interesting lesbian novelists.

AE: What changes do you hope to see in the next decade in books about lesbian history?

LF: What’s happening now is that so much of the work on lesbian history is so theoretically sophisticated that it’s out of the reach of readers who aren’t academics, and that worries me a lot – that a lot of writers don’t feel they need to speak to general lesbian readers.

For me that was so crucial. I wasn’t speaking to other academics. The motivating factor in my work was my feeling that I was writing books for the person I was when I was young that I couldn’t find myself. I wanted to inspire lesbians. I wanted to give them their history. I wanted to fill in this gap that I didn’t have when I was a young lesbian.

AE: Could you recommend a few books for AfterEllen.com readers that relate to a single subject of interest to you?

LF: Four books from different genres:

Lesbian history: Between Women: Friendship, Desire and Marriage in Victorian England,by Sharon Marcus.

Nonfiction essays: Pink Harvest,by Toni Mirosevich.

Fiction: Tipping the Velvet,by Sarah Waters. I just think it’s perhaps the best lesbian novel of our era.

Memoir: Name All the Animals,by Alison Smith.

Next page: Rebecca Walker on memoir

Rebecca Walker: Memoir

Rebecca Walker’s latest memoir, Baby Love, about her journey through pregnancy and into motherhood, is now out in paperback, and will be released in the U.K. and Australia in May and June. She teaches workshops about memoir in many locations around the world, including this summer in the south of France.

AfterEllen.com: Name one or more books or authors that inspired you to write memoirs.

Rebecca Walker: There have been so many memoirs, it’s hard to name one or even five, but I will try. Memoirs of a Beatnik by Diane DiPrima, Words of Passion by bell hooks, Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy, the collected diaries of Anaïs Nin, and Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir.

Then there are all of the brilliant autobiographical novels: Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin, The Lover by Marguerite Duras, The End of the Story by Lydia Davis. And don’t forget shorter essays: Moments of Being by Virginia Woolf, A Place to Live by Natalia Ginzburg.

I’ve always gravitated to the lives of others presented seemingly without artifice. I’ve been most inspired by memoirists who have taken huge risks of self-disclosure, and in so doing, showed others a way to live authentically and without shame.

AE: How have memoirs developed or changed in recent years, especially in regard to their portrayals of lesbians and bisexuals?

RW: Well, judging from the fact that my book Baby Love and Jennifer Baumgardner’s Look Both Ways are the only memoirs I read this year that included bisexual content, things are not looking great. But I do think things are changing. I’d like to see more books in which fluid sexuality is just part of a rich tapestry of content, not the sole, driving focus of the narrative.

AE: What makes a great memoir? What do you look for?

RW: A reliable narrator, a compelling structure, a fascinating context and an illuminating story of self-discovery.

AE: Are there subjects a memoirist should not tackle? Should some personal information be off-limits because it is simply too personal or too painful?

RW: Each writer has to find that line for him or herself. I would be hesitant to set an objective boundary based on social acceptability. Most great art has pushed the edge of what is considered appropriate for public discourse. The same is true – or should be – for memoir.

AE: Do you have any suggestions for women aspiring to write in this genre?

RW: Don’t wait. Write now. Tell the truth. Be prepared for any and all reactions to your book, from best-sellerdom to being disowned, as I was. Or the double whammy: both.

AE: Name a favorite author outside your genre, and suggest one good book of theirs that readers should pick up first.

RW: Claire Messud is a fantastic novelist. I love her first novel, The Last Life. I’d also have to say Junot Diaz. His stories, Drown, had a big impact on me, and I’m looking forward to reading his new novel: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

AE: Recommend three or more memoirs that relate to a single subject of personal interest or expertise.

RW: Because I’ve struggled with depression, I’m committed to raising awareness about the prevalence of mental illness and the urgent need for its treatment.

Some of my favorite memoirs on the subject are classics: Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness, by psychiatrist Kay Redfield Jamison, and Willow Weep for Me, by Meri Nana-Ama Danquah, a Ghanaian woman writing about her experiences grappling with mental illness.

Next page: Kelley Eskridge on science fiction

Kelley Eskridge: Science Fiction

When not working as a part-time go-go dancer at a lesbian nightclub, Kelley Eskridge is writing the screenplay for her first novel, Solitaire. On May 30, Eskridge will be at A Different Light Bookstore in West Hollywood, Calif., to read from her short-story collection, Dangerous Space, along with her partner, author Nicola Griffith.

AfterEllen.com: Name one or more books or authors that inspired you to write in this genre.

Kelley Eskridge: J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert A. Heinlein and Harlan Ellison most jazzed me when I was a teenager discovering science fiction/fantasy – Tolkien for the huge feelings and the sweeping stories, Heinlein for the sexual and emotional autonomy of the characters, and Ellison for take-no-prisoners honesty.

And then I found James Tiptree, Jr. and Joanna Russ and Ursula K. Le Guin, and all the other marvelous women who showed me that science fiction was a place where I could explore my own truths, no matter how radical.

All these writers taught me that science fiction/fantasy is the playground of alternatives, where we can explore any human choice without pretense or apology. Where we can challenge any notion. And where we can tell stories that make people laugh and cry and fill them with wonder.

AE: What themes or topics do you particularly enjoy exploring?

KE: Gender, sexuality and identity. How we become ourselves – the small daily moments as well as the big dramas in our lives. There are so many ways to be human, and they’re all fascinating to me.

All my interests as a writer come together in a character called Mars who appears in three stories in my collection Dangerous Space. Mars is a person of great longing, sexually expansive, with a complete disregard for gender roles – someone who I hope takes readers to unexpected places within themselves. Mars is the space where I’m particularly alive as a fiction writer right now.

AE: What is one of your favorite quotes from a sci-fi novel? What makes it meaningful to you?

KE: “The king was pregnant.” – from The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin.

This sentence still turns my head inside out. That’s what the best science fiction does, right there in four words. Le Guin is one of the rockingest writers on the planet.

AE: Recommend a few science-fiction novels that relate to a single subject of personal interest or expertise.

KE: My favorite stories are about brave people and big feelings. I don’t care so much whether the writers or characters are women or men, queer or straight – I just want the people to feel so real to me that their hopes, fears and joys become mine. Here are five big-feelings books.

• J.R.R. Tolkien — Lord of the Rings. The ultimate quest story, brave enough to explore the consequences of doing what must be done.I love this book because there is so much joy in it.

• Robin McKinley — The Hero and the Crown. A girl who slays dragons, and that’s just for starters. A marvelous book about guts and stubbornness and finding one’s own strength. Give this to your favorite young woman.

• Emma Bull — Bone Dance. Urban science fiction at its best – real and gritty and full of beautiful, broken people, with the compelling character of Sparrow at their center.

• Kristopher Reisz — Tripping to Somewhere. Young-adult speculative fiction (witches in Atlanta!) with a gutsy and vulnerable teenage lesbian protagonist. The magic (literally) of our first experiences with sex and love …

• David R. Palmer — Emergence. A 12-year-old genius girl survives the apocalypse. I am a complete sucker for this kind of thing, and have loved this book since I was a teenager.

AE: Do you have any suggestions for women aspiring to write in this genre?

KE: Science fiction and fantasy are not the shallow end of the pool. Some people think that “genre” means crap writing, cardboard characters and comic-book plots. But if you want to be taken seriously, the quality of your work counts.

Write beautifully. Create compelling characters and put them into situations that matter. And write fearlessly. If you’re ever going to play with the idea that you think is too risky or too outrageous or “can’t be done,” science fiction is the space to do it.

The best science fiction isn’t about rocket ships or ray guns, and it’s not about aliens. It’s about being human.

Read part one of this article for interviews with Amy Bloom on short stories, Nancy Garden on YA fiction, Ariel Schrag on graphic novels, Joan Larkin on poetry, Charlotte Mendelson on contemporary British fiction, and Karin Kallmaker on romance.

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