David Schulman: Conversation

David Schulman, a writer and novelist who grew up in Sylva, in Western North Carolina, is the creator of the Gritz Goldberg books. I came to know David and his work through Tommy Hays’s Advanced Creative Prose Workshop at The Great Smokies Writing Program. As I read the pages of the novel-in-progress that David brought to the workshop—“The Late Gatsby,” a second Gritz Goldberg book—I fell in love with Gritz, a therapist turned part-time sleuth, and a thoroughly lovable and unique character. I had to know more about him so I acquired the first Gritz, “The Past Is Never Dead.” It was a delightful mystery, as entertaining as the pages I was reading in workshop. In his books, David combines humor and Asheville history, adds a dash of mayhem, a ghost (or two or more), various eccentric characters, and turns out a well-crafted novel that is a joy to read. I became curious about how the character of Gritz evolved and how David came up with the plots of his novels, and decided to ask him.

Genève Bacon: David, I know your family ran a retail clothing store and that after you were graduated from college you went into business for yourself, at the age of twenty-three, and opened your own retail clothing store. You built a highly successful chain of six stores—David’s and Boo-Boos Outlets—in Western North Carolina, which you sold in the early 1990s. How did you evolve from retailer to writer?

David Schulman: From 1971 to 1991, I wrote some radio spots for my stores and a few letters to the editor. After I went out of retailing I took some one-day workshops to get acquainted with the writing process. Then I discovered, in the early 1990s, that the University of Iowa granted degrees totally off- campus/online—the only state institution in the country to do so. I took writing classes with them for eight years, many of which were taught by MFA students at the Iowa Writers Workshop. It was during this time that I began working with Gritz and even took a screenplay course with the Gritz character. I took so many classes during those years I found out that if I combined my other credits from Western Carolina State University, I could get a new degree. The result was that in 1999, at the age of 50, I graduated U of I with a BLS degree. I followed up with more writing workshops.

At the same time (the mid-1990s), I began to write a monthly column, called “Roaming the Past,” for a magazine underwritten by the Blumenthal Foundation in Charlotte. I interviewed mostly elderly Jewish citizens across the state about their lives and about notable historical events in North Carolina’s Jewish history. For two years in a row, 1994 and 1995, I won the annual N.C. Press Club’s prize for best personal columnist. The column was noticed by the Center for Jewish Studies at UNC-Asheville and I was hired by them to do a number of oral histories of Jewish citizens of Asheville and Western North Carolina.

GB: What led you to come up with the idea of the Gritz Goldberg character—a Jewish therapist and amateur detective ?

DS: Gritz was a vehicle for telling my story of being Jewish in the South during the 1950s and ’60s. It was a totally different experience from what other metropolitan Jews experienced, even very different from that of the Southern Jewish experience of today.

GB: How did you find the historical context of the Southern Jewish experience?

DS: During the tapings I did for UNC-A, many of the interviewees told me they had moved to Asheville in the 1920s and 1930s. Curious about what it would have been like in Asheville and Western North Carolina in those days, I visited Pack Library [in Asheville, the main branch of the library]. I searched through the microfilm issues of the local newspaper, “The Citizen,” now called the “Asheville Citizen Times.” Going day-by-day, I came across a 1936 murder at the Battery Park Hotel, one of Asheville’s premier hotels. The story fascinated me because the hotel itself was part of my own history. My Bar Mitzvah celebration had been held there and, as a kid, my father would take me out of school to go with him to the hotel to see the traveling salesmen who set up to sell merchandise for the stores in the area, including my family’s store. The story of that murder sparked the idea for the plot of my first Gritz novel, “The Past Is Never Dead.” I had gotten the start I needed.

At the same time, one of the people I taped for the UNC-A project, Leo Finkelstein of Finkelstein’s Pawn Shop, opened a closet to show me memorabilia he had collected on Asheville history in general and Jewish history in particular. What caught my eye was a Wanted Poster of William Dudley Pelley that Leo said he had taken directly off a telephone pole. When I asked Leo what the poster was all about, Leo said, “Oh, you wouldn’t be interested in that!” Oh, but I was.

I did further research and found that Pelley, a nationally known figure who had run for president, was a fanatical Nazi supporter with a wildly interesting, nutty and dangerous past. His followers, for example, had attacked the San Diego naval base in a rowboat. Pelly arrived in Asheville in the 1930s and set up a hate-mail-production operation—without much success, I might add. He also went around holding some séances. And I had another strand to weave into my novel.

Then one day in the late 1990s, in pursuit of more information about Asheville history, I went out to my father’s store in Sylva (which he ran until he was 91) to talk with one of his cronies, John Parris. John was a well-known, long-time journalist and columnist for the “Citizen Times.” He asked what I’d been doing since selling my stores and I told him I was thinking about writing a mystery based on the murder at the Battery Park Hotel. And John said, “Oh, I covered that for the ‘Citizen’ and spent the night next to Martin Moore [the Negro convicted of the crime] in Central Prison before he was executed. Would you like my notes? I save everything. . . .” As they say, the rest is history.

GB: What was the next step after you had a finished manuscript of “The Past Is Never Dead”?

DS: I took the usual route of sending it out to agents.

GB: How long did it take before you got an agent?

DS: It was something like two to three years. Let me tell you, it was a lonely and debilitating journey for a writer to receive so little affirmation for his writing. But in the end, I found a fantastic agent who was enthusiastic about the book. He presented it to 13 publishers in all. We both thought the major New York publishers would “eat up” the uniqueness of Southern Jewish history being told in a mystery setting. Boy, were we surprised. They didn’t get the book and were not excited by the idea, except for one major editor who did love it. He took it to committee where it did not get through. Twelve major publishers rejected the book; the 13th was a regional publisher that did get it!

GB: It’s been some five years since the first Gritz appeared. What did you do in the interim between Gritz 1 and the start of Gritz 2?

DS: After “The Past Is Never Dead” was published, I toyed with two other novels: one was a second Gritz, the other a non-Gritz novel. After about 60 pages of each, I realized they weren’t working. The plots seemed to vaporize and I lost interest in them.

GB: How, then, did you find Gritz 2?

DS: I kept remembering one of the things people commented on during my two-week book tour across five states in 2004. They pointed out the fact that Zelda Fitzgerald had a long history at Highland Hospital in Asheville where she died, and that F. Scott Fitzgerald had a history with Asheville as well. I researched almost all the books written on the two and fell in love with their dynamic as a couple. I envisioned Scott and Zelda appearing to Gritz to ask him to solve a problem, and bingo! Plot and characters clicked into place. And that’s how “The Late Gatsby” was born.

GB: How close are you to finishing Gritz 2?

DS: I was putting the finishing touches on it and close to sending it off to my agent when I got a letter from him saying that he had closed up shop—a victim of the downturn in the publishing business. So now I have to start the process of finding an agent all over again.

GB: Will you being working on a third Gritz while you make the rounds with Gritz 2?

DS: I certainly hope to continue the series, although I have not decided on the plot of Gritz 3.

GB: Thanks, David, for sharing your and Gritz’s history with us. I wish you luck with “The Late Gatsby."

Check out David’s website: www.thedavidschulman.com. David’s first Gritz, “The Past Is Never Dead,” may be obtained through amazon.com.

Jerry Stubblefield: On the Road to Publishing a Novel

Jerry Stubblefield is a playwright turned novelist who published his first book, Homunculus, earlier this year. His plays have been produced in New York City’s Off-Broadway theaters and at SART. He has published short fiction and has taught creative writing at the Asheville School’s Summer Academic Adventures Program. Jerry is a native of Texas who moved to Asheville from New York City in 1990 with his wife and their two children.

GB: Why did you decide to forgo an agent and shop the book yourself to a publisher?

JS: I made that decision after having squandered a lot of opportunities sending out the manuscript to just about every agent in the country before it was anywhere near ready. So I pulled back and worked and revised to make sure the manuscript was ready before I sent it anywhere else. I was lucky to have as a personal friend a professional editor/writer who was willing to go through the book with me and suggest changes. Once I had a publishable product I analyzed myself the way a publisher would look at me: a writer with no agent, living in a smallish city far from New York, with no fiction credits beyond a published story or two. I knew it would be difficult to get the manuscript read let alone published.

GB: How did you go about finding a publisher and what were your criteria?

JS: I went to the library and asked for the Literary Marketplace. This huge volume lists all agents, publishers, publications, etc. , and I checked out every single book publisher in the country using the following criteria. First was no reading fee, followed by: would read new/unknown writers; would accept unagented submissions; did not do “subsidy” publishing and had no association with any such operation; did not offer services such as editing, marketing, etc., for a fee; published literary fiction and did not specialize in genre fiction; was not in business to publish any particular author (such as himself or his girlfriend); paid the author. It turned out that some of these criteria seemed, at first, to be met, according to the listing in the LMP. But closer investigation showed that they weren’t. I might have wasted a lot of time on one publisher had I not taken the extra step of verifying that by “literary fiction” he really meant “fiction written by my brother-in-law.” There are clues sometimes, but I had to follow up on some of the publishers. The list I developed narrowed down to one publisher, a small press in Seattle called Black Heron Press.

GB: And did they pay you?

JS: Well, while I required that I be paid, I didn’t restrict myself to how much and or when. Black Heron Press does not pay an advance, it only pays a royalty based on sales, and even that’s a long time coming. But for getting my first book published, that was okay. My criteria had led me to a sincere and serious publisher, and as a result I got a very nice, high quality hardback, and distribution through a group called Midpoint Trade Books.

GB: Did Black Heron promote the book through advertising or marketing?

JS: Since the print run was small, one thousand copies, there was no appreciable advertising beyond sending out review copies, and I haven’t expected much in the way of sales. More important to me, the publisher has stood behind the book, though, and has, at considerable expense to himself, submitted it to nominating committees for several highly prestigious awards.

GB: I know you’re working on a second novel. Will you return to Black Heron to publish it?

JS: If Black Heron is interested, I would certainly be interested in Black Heron, having had a positive experience there. Certainly they will have the opportunity to consider it. However, I’m planning a different approach this time and it may not be as good a fit for Black Heron. For the second novel, I plan to seek an agent rather than look for a publisher on my own. In a word, the first book was about getting published; the second one must be about receiving some income. I need to come through for my infinitely patient and faithful family as well as myself. So trying to get a reputable New York agent to sign me on is the obvious step once I’ve finished the book.

GB: Homunculus has been called an “often funny, penetrating psychological study” and a work of “dark genius.” What can you tell us about the new novel you’re working on?

JS: The second novel is a more ambitious, more complex work concerning, among other issues, the spiritual aspect of a difficult, unconventional relationship. The working (and probable) title is The Paraclete. I have a rough draft completed and a lot of work ahead to get a publishable manuscript done by the end of this year. If I meet my deadline, somebody should buy me a large drink, Genève.

GB: You’re on, Jerry, and thanks for talking with me.

Abigail De Witt: On Writing

Abigail De Witt studied at Harvard and the Iowa Writers Workshop, an has taught creative writing at Applachian State University, University of North Carolina-Asheville, Harvard Summer School, and the Duke Writers Workshop. She is the author of two novels, Lili and Dogs, and works privately with writers out of her home in Burnsville, NC.

Genève Bacon: Abigail, I have worked with you for eight years and have had the benefit of your unflagging encouragement and astute criticism. Speaking for myself, you have helped and inspired me to grow as a writer. What inspires you?

Abigail De Witt: I draw inspiration and have learned most of what I know about writing from reading good books and teaching passionate students. The truth is, an eager but unskilled student can teach me as much as a brilliant one. Helping someone who doesn’t have a facility with language, who doesn’t know how to get inside his or her characters, or who can’t develop a conflict, gives me a deeper understanding of language, character, and conflict—but a gifted student is easier to learn from.

GB: What do you think is the most important element is writing?

ADW: The use of sensory detail. Besides drawing the reader in—how can we inhabit a character’s world if we do not know how it smells, tastes, sounds, and looks?—a single sensory detail is often the genesis of an entire novel. A writer can take one sensory detail—a woman’s bloodstained hands, for example—and, simply by asking why?, come up with a plot and a cast of characters.
Sensory detail keeps us honest. It’s easy to fudge the truth with abstractions—she was sad, he was angry, they were upset; what do those phrases really mean?—but when the narrator of “What I Did for Love,” having had an abortion, is sickened by a plate of runny eggs, I know how deeply un-nourished she is, how uncared-for. To be abandoned is to feel a kind of nausea—to be homesick—and when I see those runny eggs I feel lonely with the character. To use another example, in one of the stories in “Coping With Purgatory,” when Toby Heaton’s narrator describes hitting “a small girl in pigtails” with his car—“I hear the ‘whumpff’ of her slight impact as she hits the side of the car, feel the tremor through the steering wheel”—I feel that tremor shudder through my body. And when Heather Newton (“Water Stories”) describes the log-home salesman trudging up the road to a customer’s house and “water seeps through the soles of his worn Gucci shoes,” that image sums up the character’s failed life.
Having worked with you, Genève, I know your stories best, but in Irons in the Fire, all of you have created worlds that are vivid, honest, and compelling, and I am grateful to have been introduced to the stories of Toby Heaton and Heather Newton. I know I will be re-reading them and learning from this wonderful collection for years to come.

GB: Thank you, Abigail. Your generous words about our book are much appreciated.

Copyright © 2009 by Genève Bacon

Pat Riviere-Seel: On Becoming a Poet

Pat Riviere-Seel has been a newspaper journalist, publicist, editor, and free-lance writer. She is currently associate editor of the Asheville Poetry Review and past president of the NC Poetry Society. Her first collection of poems, No Turning Back Now, published in 2004, was nominated for a prestigious Pushcart Prize.

Genève Bacon: Pat, given your nonfiction writing background, how did you wind up as a poet?

Pat Riviere-Seel: I began writing poetry in high school and had a few poems published there, and as an undergraduate I won a couple of awards for my poetry. In the 1990s, I attended a writers’ workshop in Spoleto, Italy, and I took a workshop with poet A. Van Jordan in Asheville. It was then I decided to apply to MFA programs. I found a low-residency program at Queens Univer-sity in Charlotte in 2001 that had just gotten under way. Being part of that first class, where everyone—teachers and students—were still molding the program, was appealing. An additional plus was the low student-faculty ratio with the emphasis on producing creative work. It was there, as I worked my way toward the Masters degree, that I called myself a poet. And that was the turning point in my growth as a writer.

GB: In what way?

PR-S: When I began the program, I had no idea how much I did not know! I needed an MFA program to take my work to a higher level. The greatest benefits of the program were being in a community with other poets, the lasting friendships I developed there, and beginning a system-atic approach to the study of poetry: history, theory, and craft. An added bonus was the excite-ment, joy, creativity, and spirit of exploration that we all brought to that first graduating class.

GB: Do you recommend that writers—fiction as well as poets—pursue an MFA?

PR-S: No, not at all. MFA programs are not necessary—or even desirable—for all poets and writers. For me, it signaled my willingness to claim an important part of my identity. I dis-covered there was a big difference between saying, “I write poems,” and saying, “I am a poet.” There are fine poets and poets far more academically disciplined than I who can devise their own course of study and approach to poetry. Neither Walt Whitman nor Emily Dickinson had the benefits of an MFA program. Whitman even self-published Leaves of Grass, and Dickinson had only 7 of her 1,775 poems published during her lifetime—and those were done anonymously.

GB: Thanks, Pat. For those interested in reading some of Pat’s work, sample poems from her new book, The Serial Killer’s Daughter, due out in February, may be found at: www.mainstreetrag.com/store/ComingSoon.php Click “author information” under the cover. And note: the publisher is currently offering a 30% discount on advance sales of books ordered online. Also, be sure to check out her website: www.patriviereseel.com/.