Interview with Eowyn

Eowyn Ivey

Today I'm interviewing Eowyn Ivey, an author whose literary debut, The Snow Child, comes out via Little, Brown Feb. 1. I first met Eowyn in person last spring, but have known about her for years through mutual friends. (And yes, her name comes from that Eowyn in LOTR.) We also have daughters the same age, with the same name and some of the same talents so we run into each other performing mom-duties occasionally.  She lives with her family north of town, semi-off-the-grid, and is a life-long Alaskan. Last summer she spent rafting down the Copper River, writing her second novel and doing subsistence stuff like berrying, hunting and gardening.  She is sooo generous with her time, and sooo very talented, I'm always a bit in awe of her whenever we meet. I know you'll feel the same after reading her words, and will rush out to put in your order for her book ASAP. (BTW, isn't that a great photo? That was taken by another mutual friend. I'm surrounded by talented people!! When will that rub off? *taps foot*)

1. You found your agent in an unusual way. Please share!

I was attending the Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference in Homer several years ago. I know a lot of writers go to conferences hoping to pitch to an editor or an agent, but that wasn’t my goal. I went to learn more about the craft and meet other writers. I was there with my mom, Julie LeMay, who is a poet. Jeff Kleinman from Folio Literary Management was the presenting literary agent, andI was impressed with the titles he represented. But my novel wasn’t finished, and I wouldn’t have signed up to speak with him if my mom hadn’t kept prodding me. What did I have to lose? At least I could get a feel for how the novel might be received if and when I was ready to query agents. I described my concept to Jeff, and he asked to read the first 100 pages. Since I wasn’t there to pitch, I hadn’t even brought my manuscript! Thankfully, I was able to get the pages to him; he read them there at the conference and offered to represent it.

Isn't that a great story? I had no idea how lucky she was until I joined the query trenches a few weeks ago. It's like Eowyn got one of those Amazing Race fast-forward passes.

2. From your blurb, The Snow Child appears to have elements of a re-telling, magical realism and historical. What's its genre and how did it get classified?

It’s general fiction.  Although it has a fantastical element and is set in the past, it isn’t a genre novel. You’ll see it described as “literary fiction” by some bookstores and websites, but it’s a label I’m uncomfortable using myself because it seems to be a value claim. “Literary” to me is something that has stood the test of time. But The Snow Child would be shelved in the fiction section of a bookstore or library.

3. You did research prior to writing this book. Talk about how important the research was to your plotting.

The research provided more inspiration than facts. I was working a shift at Fireside Books when I stumbled on a children’s picture book called The Snow Child, illustrated by Alaskan artist Barbara Lavallee. That’s when I first learned of the Snegurochka fairy tale. Right then I knew this was the storyline I had been looking for. As I began writing the novel, I continued to learn more about the fairy tale. I discovered that over the centuries it has been retold in many versions and media– Russian lacquer paintings, Arthur Ransome’s translations. There’s even an opera and a ballet based on the fairy tale. All of this fueled my imagination.

Fireside Books is our local bookstore. I spend a regular chunk of Christmas dough there each year. So do my kids.

4. How important are beta writers or critique partners to you?

My family is my primary source of writing support. As I wrote each night, I would come downstairs and read sections aloud to my husband and older daughter. At the same time, my mom and I had an ongoing arrangement – each week she would give me a poem and I would give her a chapter. The rule was that, because these were first drafts, we could only say what we liked about them. It was really about having a deadline and encouraging each other. I was also fortunate to have other people who were willing to read finished drafts of it, including my dad, fellow authors and booksellers, and former coworkers from the newspaper business.

5. What authors inspire you with their style? Or, if you had to compare your book to others out there, what are they?

I could write pages and pages about the authors who have inspired me. My writing was born out of my love of reading. When I was a little girl, I devoured books such as Little House in the Big Woods, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, andThe Boxcar Children. As a teenager I read everything from David Eddings to Lois Lowry to Stephen King.  It was in college and later that I discovered authors such as Louise Erdrich, Larry McMurtry, Annie Dillard, Cormac McCarthy, Annie Proulx, and Charles Frazier. I am a member of a book club, and we’ve read a lot of classics over the years -- Frankenstein, As I Lay Dying,Middlemarch, Crime and Punishment. I read Austen, Nabokov,  Hemingway, Melville, Joyce, Chekov, Woolf. I also read a lot of modern fiction such as The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Tinkers, Everything is Illuminated, The Green Age of Asher Witherow, The Ice-Shirt. As a bookseller, I’m in constant contact with the fabulous new books hitting the shelves. I just finished Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, The Detour, and The Marriage Plot. Now I’m reading Pure by Julianna Baggott. As you can see my taste runs from westerns to fantasy, literary fiction to classics. And I would love to think that what I read influences my own writing.

6. What was going out on sub like? How did you fill the waiting?

It is a torturous process, especially having worked in journalism for nearly a decade. I was used to a fast turn over, same-day praise or rejection. In book publishing we’re talking months or even years. But I tried to put that nervous energy to good use. I wrote short stories, I began working on the next novel, and I read a lot.

7. Now that TSC has been on shelves in other countries and is doing well, talk about your expectations for the US debut. What advice have any publishing experts given you?

I don’t think anyone can give me advice on this one. The truth is no one – not the editor, the agent, the publisher, the bookseller, and certainly not the author – can predict how a book is going to do. We all just follow our guts, write and read what we love, and it can be surprising which books hit the bestseller list and which ones never see the light of day. I’m not talking about quality as much as theme and subject and approach. I believe a lot of different factors in society influence what books become well-loved at a certain time. So instead of trying to play that impossible guessing game, I’m just grateful for each email or tweet I get from a reader in Oslo or London or Orlando who has enjoyed it.

When I say 'doing well' I really mean it's a bestseller. Like, in Norway. And possibly in other countries by now.

8. You landed a grant to help fund research for your next novel. Talk about that process, including any tips for grant writing or research you may have learned.

It’s true what they say – try, try again. I’ve applied for grants before and not received them.  I think a few things helped me this time with the Rasmuson Foundation. I had a very concrete project that would clearly help me write my next novel. I had a polished excerpt from the novel in progress. I had improved my resume with short story publications and the acquisition of my novel by Little, Brown & Co. And I had attended a fabulous session at Association of Writers & Writing Programs conference in Denver that was all about how to write a grant proposal. I highly recommend to anyone who wants to write and publish and apply for grants to attend conferences like these. You can get a tremendous amount of helpful information!

9. Your debut is coming right up. How will you balance publicity for this book with writing on your next?

 We’re planning a book release part in conjunction with Fireside Books at the Inn Café in Palmer that evening. As for balancing everything, my goal is to enjoy the incredible ride. I write because I love to, and I always find the time when I set my mind to it. I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find The Snow Child opening new doors for me to publish essays and short stories. But however much writing I do, or don’t do, I know that publicity opportunities for The Snow Child are once-in-a-lifetime -- never again will I have a debut novel.

10. I've heard it said that landing the second contract can be harder than the first. What's your opinion on that?

I have no idea. I guess when I finish my next novel, I’ll find out.

 Well, dang. I was hoping you'd dispel that as an urban (or literary) legend. Sometimes the literary life seems like a climb up Lazy Mountain - just when you think you've hit the summit, you see another peak to climb...and then another...and another....

Alaskan fast five

caribou and Mt. McKinley

Do you prefer moose or caribou?

Caribou, but I’ll never turn down a moose.

Dip-netting record? (or gill-netting if that's how you roll)

Only four.  I’m lacking as a dip-netter. Lucky for me, my husband Sam is a natural and fills our permit almost every time he goes out.

Oh, we're tied! I caught four last summer...but I had my son's help. That net is gigantic and I kept slipping and getting stuck in the mud. And the salmon we caught averaged 15 lbs., which didn't help matters when we had to haul them onto shore as the creek rose. Bleck.

Cords of wood it takes you to get through the winter?

Six. And for those who don’t know the measurement, a cord is wood stacked 4 feet high, 4 feet wide, and 8 feet long. So about six of those.

Also, Eowyn chops that herself. You should see her arms. (Kidding. Or am I....)

Gallons of water you must haul each week?

300. And we do laundry in town. We used to make do with just 50 gallons at a time, but we recently got a larger holding tank so we’re getting spoiled with hot baths and everything.

Luxury item you can't live without? (Mine is Oregon Chai Tea. Mmmmm.)

Good coffee with real half-and-half, no sweetener.

Thanks, Eowyn! She'll be popping by to answer any questions periodically, so fire away!

Paying it forward with Heather Lende

In honor of Alaska Book Week, I'm interviewing Heather Lende,  an author whose considerable talent with words is matched by her generosity, kindness and quiet humility. Through her lyrical writing and focus on small-town life, she is Alaska's version of Garrison Keillor...only way better looking.  Her books, If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name and Take Good Care of the Garden and the Dogs, are ones to curl up with at night and feature stories you'll savor long after you read the last page.

1. You're from the east coast. Talk about how living in Haines (pop. 2,271)is different than New York. (NOTE: You can get to Haines by ferry, by driving through Canada or taking a small plane.)

Let's see. Haines is about as different from suburban NYC as a place can be - in lots of ways. In New York, bears and moose are in the zoo and here we eat them. Also in New York, you buy bagels and lox and here we make them. There's more, too - in bigger places people live with like-minded neighbors. They send their chidlren to school with other children who have the same values, socio-economic standing, etc. In Haines because we're so small, this is all mixed up. One public school is a great leveler, as is one clinic, one golf course, one gym, one boat harbor...you know?

best thing about living in Haines:
The people, the isolation and its extreme environment/location.
 Okay, actually there is also a great library, bookstore, public radio station, pool, new school, theater, weekly independent paper and in the summer, great places to eat.

and worst thing:


Fall in Haines, AK

 The people, the isolation and its extreme environment/location.

2. Your obituary writing is a key component behind your story making. Tell us how writing obits has trained you to be a better writer.

In all ways. In school they say to write what you know or show, don't tell. Well, what does that mean? When I write obituaries, my one unspoken question is 'prove it.' That is why I don't write: 'she was nice.' I write: 'every Christmas for 37 years she baked cookies for the crew at the post office.' I also think that writing obituaries teaches you to listen carefully and get all the details right. You don't want to spell someone's name wrong in the last thing that's written about them. For me, writing is more about paying attention and being fundamentally curious than anything else I'm not a great writer in 'each sentence sings' kind of way. It's the stories I tell.

 And I have been very very lucky to write about a long list of diverse and interesting subjects (and sources) through my work. It has also given me a huge amount of empathy. People are loved for all kinds of reasons, by all kinds of people and when you write an obituary, you're always looking for the good in people.  I've been criticized for that but I'd rather add a positive voice to the world than a negative one.

3. I've said this to you before - you are the mistress of the lyrical, meaningful ending. How do you do this so consistently? Do the words just 'come' or are you missing chunks of hair trying to find the right phrase?

I feel very strongly that if you write what many people read, you have an obligation to say something more than what you think about the new picture on the Cheerios box. That's journaling. Writing is taking that observation and making it mean something - or actually, realizing that something so normal, so un-newsworthy, as much of my material is - has meaning. It is not so much a deliberate way to write a piece as it is my way of thinking and observing.


4. Both of your books have been on shelves for a while.  Is it easier or harder to keep up promotion momentum than it was with your first book?



View from Haines

 I'm very lucky in that my publisher promotes my books so I don't have to. What I have done (at their advice) has been pretty easy once I got over my initial terror. I maintain a web site and blog and Facebook presence. It also makes any promotion I have to do much easier. I can say 'just take that interview off my site' or picture or whatever. I don't have to spend time saying stuff I've already said again.

5. What are your favorite book promotion tactics?

The ones I have liked the most are the radio tours my publisher has booked for the launch of the paperbacks. It is so nice to stay home and answer quick questions Sometimes it can be pretty funny, though, since the time change hangs me up. I have had calls at 4 a.m. and sort of bolted up and said God knows what to some person I haven't caught the name of. Mainly, I find the best thing and most rewarding book promotion (not sure it's the right word since it doesn't sell more books) is talking to book clubs and classes via Skype. It's easy and fun and I'm always amazed at how appreciative the audience is to talk to a 'real author.' It's a huge gift to me that they're interested and yet they act like I'm doing them a favor. I still can't quite believe that.

6. You write about people you live with in a small town. How do you avoid offense?


Haines boat harbor


I don't know. I hope I do. I do, however, always do my best to write about people in a way that first transcends some local issue - that has a wider significance in the point I'm trying to make and to me personally. In other words, this is my story so I share how their action in words, life, etc., impacted mine, rather than tell their story for them. And I do it in the same way I write obituaries - in the way they would like and that their friends and family agree with. So I wouldn't quote someone's enemy saying: "She shot at me everytime I cut through her yard and  was crazy as a loon." Instead I'd have her best friend say, "She was a real character; she'd actually shoot at trespassers. Thank goodness she couldn't hit the broad side of a boat shed." It's the same thing, just a different way to say it.

7. Your blog is also filled with life details. How do you decide what to share and what to keep private?

By the time I write about it, the news is not private to me or my family or friends. For instance, I have not written about my youngest daughter's pregnancy until now because she's not married and it has been a bit emotional. But now that she's four months along and posting photos on Facebook and we're all feeling happy about it, I will. When I do write about it, I will at first try to re-create that initial response to bring the readers alongside me and connect with many other parents who have had similar life-changing moments. 

8. On your first book tour, you mentioned the mystique people assign to being Alaskan. Do you use that? Or are you quick to dispel it?

Both. I'm very proud to be an Alaskan and to know how to do the stuff we do and live the rural Alaskan life. At the same time so much of it - local foods, shopping, volunteering for hospice or the Humane Society, getting outdoors, hanging around with people who disagree with you, sending your kids to public school, using the library - can be done anywhere. Here in Haines, a lot of this happens by default - we have no choice. In bigger places, people who want to live like this can do it. They just have to be more intentional about it. I encourage that.

9. What are you working on right now? Title yet? Or pub date?

I'm finishing a novel, A Hole in the Middle of a Pretty Good Heart. It has been accepted by an agent and needs some small revision before it goes out in the world to hopefully be published (after what no doubt will be a long list of rejections. That is what happens to all good books, right?) Luckily my nonfiction has a good track record and Algonquin Books will be publishing a third book of essays, as yet untitled (and not finished) in about two years.  Also I'm a Woman's Day columnist now and a contributing editor, which means when they say 'jump' I say 'how high?' and I still write local obituaries.

 10. Weirdest thing a reader has ever said to you about your books?

"Too bad my husband didn't die sooner or he would've been in it," speaking of If You Lived Here...


Fast five: (Alaskan version of optional questions - except the salmon recipe request bc I'm on the hunt for new ones.)

Do you prefer moose or caribou?
Sitka black tail deer

Favorite smoked salmon recipe?Creamy smoked salmon fettuccine

Fishing near Haines

Most fish you've ever caught dipnetting? (or gill netting if that's how you roll.)

About 20 gill netting. But the family record is 36. I wasn't on the boat that day. If I had been, I would've quite at 15 - that's my ideal weekly limit.  The smoke house holds about eight fish and I have two big canners. We can eat the rest fresh if the family are home. But after 20 it's crazy. I'm processing fish for days and days.

Biggest vegetable you've ever grown?
Down here we don't grow huge vegetables but my strawberries are the size of plums.

NOTE: Heather specified 'down here' bc Haines is hundreds of miles south of where I live in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley. Here we are world-renowned for huge veggies. Seriously. Check your Guiness BOWW. We grow cabbages as big as small houses.

What you splurged on using your PFD*? (I'll go first. I'm getting a vacuum sealer. Also we're going to Cancun.)

I gave about half of it to the Haines Library Community Foundation and animal rescue kennel through the PFD Pick, Click & Give charitable gift program. I bought a ticket to Mexico with the rest.

 So we are both sourdoughs, the definition of which is: sour on the weather with enough dough to get out. *snort*

PFD: permanent fund dividend, a yearly cash amount paid to each Alaskan out of the Permanent Fund Endowment. Yup, we get paid to live here. Thanks big oil! :)
And thanks Heather, for hanging out with me today.

Blogs I love:

Anita Grace Howard: she's creative, fun and sophisticated. She posts great book trailers, query success stories and beautiful poems.

Sleuths, Spies & Alibis: A brand-new blog aimed at MG/YA mystery writers and readers.

The Authoress: Her blog, Miss Snark's First Victim, offers monthly agent contests and the upcoming Baker's Dozen auction.