Connie is the May author in the Spotlight here on Booksnob. She agreed to answer some questions about her book and I would like to welcome her. Connie's book Delicate Armor has recently been selected as a finalist in two categories at the Midwest Book Awards! Yeah! Connie is a former high school teacher and an avid reader. Read her interview and find out some insight into her book Delicate Armor and check out her favorite authors!
1. Tell us a
little bit about yourself:
I grew up in a
small prairie town in Southwestern Minnesota, with lakes, sloughs, woods, and
farmland for my playground. I have a special fondness for that area, especially
Lake Shetek, meaning ‘pelican’ in the Ojibway language. This region figures
into my book and becomes a character in its own right. I think of Dylan Thomas’
lines from his poem, “Fern Hill,” when I recall growing up there: “Now as I was
young and easy under the apple boughs/About the lilting house and happy as the
grass was green,/The night above the dingle starry,/Time let me hail and
climb/Golden in the heydays of his eyes,/And honoured among wagons I was prince
of the apple towns/And once below a time I lordly had the trees and
leaves/Trail with daisies and barley/Down the rivers of the windfall light…green
and golden…famous among the barns.” Often, on a summer’s day, we children sat
under Hottie Holenbeck’s mulberry tree, eating berries and sugar cookies,
wearing Hottie’s gifts of ribbons in our hair.
Now I live on a
bay west of the Twin Cities, and I have two Shetland Sheepdogs who go rowing
and kayaking with me. I was a career teacher of the French language and culture
at Chaska Senior High School. Since my retirement, I have been writing fiction
and poetry full time. Music is equally important. I’ve played classical piano
since I was a girl and have incorporated songs into this novel. My mother loved
poetry and sang and hummed tunes as she went about her housework. My father was
a terrific story-teller.
2. What inspired
you to write Delicate Armor?
Over time, several
real life experiences/scenes persistently popped into my mind and wouldn’t let
go. The only thing you can do when that happens is to write them down. Those
became nuggets for a series of short stories, then linked stories, and finally,
a novel. I’ve always read a great deal and kept journals. Beginning as a
tomboy, I had such a wonderful relationship with my father. He was a charming,
easy-going, likeable man who taught me how to fish, hunt, respect and get along
in the natural world.
A novel also needs
conflict; one of the plot points is a Cain & Abel-type situation between
Callie’s father, Will, and his brother. Other family members and townsfolk make
themselves known, as well, and not always for the better. Every character,
though, is dear to me. But at the heart of Delicate Armor is this strong bond
between Callie and her father, which greatly influences her formation as she
comes of age and helps to prepare her for the inevitable losses she must face.
3. Can you tell us
why or when you decided to become a writer?
I came into
writing as a profession during middle age. In retrospect, it seems that my pursuits
and endeavors prior to ten years ago, came together like a series of beacons converging
in preparation for this challenging, yet rewarding stage in my life. While
growing up, I read everything I could check out at our local library, so the
writer in me likely began forming at the age of 10 or 12, when I read Treasure
Island and imagined myself stowing away on a pirate ship. I kept journals, continued
reading, studied great literature in college, and have always been keenly aware
of my surroundings: places, individuals and their speech patterns, how and why
they behave as they do. During my last year of teaching French, I signed up for
evening writing classes, attended summer conferences, and joined a writers’
group. The key is uninterrupted seat time, alone at the desk. Now, writing is
as important to me as eating and sleeping.
4. Usually, an
author puts some of her own life experiences in the book. Did you do that?
Yes. Delicate
Armor is semi-autobiographical, layered with lots of fiction, conflict, and
subtext. It was liberating once I determined not to write a memoir. For me,
fictionalizing my material allows me to go deeper. A friend of mine once said,
“You picked through your life and had fun with it.”
5. What authors or
books influence you?
I keep going back
to Chekhov, Steinbeck, Truman Capote (especially his short stories), Saki, O.
Henry, Kurt Vonnegut, Rick Bass, and some Irish authors, such as William
Trevor. I love excellent poetry and am a fan of scores of poets, including Joyce
Sutphen, Ted Kooser, Arthur Rimbaud, W. B. Yeats, Wendell Berry, Maxine Kumin,
William Stafford, Dorianne Laux, Jane Kenyon, Paul Verlaine, Marge Piercy, Joe
and Nancy Paddock. I love great lyrics, too, such as Johnny Mercer’s line from
“This Time the Dream’s on Me,” “…to see you through, till you’re everything you
want to be…”
I’m currently
reading Jonathan Franzen’s Corrections and Freedom, and am impressed with his
style, exquisite word choices, and turns of phrases.
6. What is the
most important lesson/idea you want readers to take away from Delicate Armor?
Callie begins her
story as a young girl and ends it as an adult. I wrote with readers in mind and
hope they will appreciate my carefully worked prose and be able to identify
with the universal truths and experiences I was trying to set down within this
family saga.
7. Are you working
on another book?
Yes, I’m very
excited about A Stone for Amer. Several of the characters from Delicate Armor
take the lead in this next fictionalized story, some of which serves as an
important thread in the novel. It is based on my father’s experience as a
teenager in the early part of the twentieth century, when he and my grandfather
traveled by train from Southwestern Minnesota to Eastern Montana, in order to
claim the body of his uncle Amer.
8. In one
sentence, tell readers why they should read Delicate Armor.
As Dave Wood wrote
in his February 2, 2012 review, “Peel the layers to find the soul…[of
this]…startlingly good first novel...”and as Mary Ann Grossmann wrote in her
October 28, 2011 review, “Callie Lindstrom is one of the most appealing
protagonists in this season’s crop of debut novels by Minnesota writers.”
