I’m delighted to join Mimi Herman, author of the Kudzu Queen, A Field Guide to Human Emotions, and Logophilia, in this engaging conversation about her writing life

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Mimi Herman is the author of The Kudzu Queen, A Field Guide to Human Emotions, and Logophilia. Her novel The Kudzu Queen was selected by The North Carolina Center for the Book for the 2023 Library of Congress “Great Reads from Great Places” program and longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her writing has appeared in LitHub, Michigan Quarterly Review, Shenandoah, Crab Orchard Review and many other journals. Mimi is a member of the Board of Directors for the Association of Writers & Writing Programs, a Kennedy Center Teaching Artist, a Warren Wilson MFA alumna, and a Hermitage Artist Retreat Fellow. She directs weeklong Writeaways writing workshops in France, Italy, Ireland, New Mexico and online. For more information visit her at www.mimiherman.com andwww.writeaways.com.

As people learned about your book, what unexpected things happened along the way?

The Kudzu Queen has brought the world to my door—and to my inbox—in ways I never anticipated. Since publication, I’ve rediscovered friends from childhood, high school, college, grad school and beyond, who write to tell me their favorite characters, to give me chapter-by-chapter updates on their reading, to invite me to their book groups. I used to go to the library and think: there are millions of books here, thousands no one ever reads, so why bother? To have people say that they’re reading my book—and loving it—is a gift beyond anything I imagined.

Do you neglect personal hygiene or housekeeping to write? Or vice versa?

Housekeeping? What’s that? Oh, right, that’s the thing I spend two days doing before I have people over for dinner or a party. Or the thing I do when the writing isn’t going well, and I need to create order somewhere, even if it’s not appearing on the page. I’m an overachiever, so the problem with housekeeping and me is that I’ll start out cleaning the bathtub, and end up replacing the plumbing. As for personal hygiene, you’ll be relieved to know that I tend to keep that up pretty well, no matter how the writing is going.

What writing mistakes do you find yourself making most often?

After all these years of writing, you’d think I’d learn to write a book in order, instead of creating an eighteen-foot smorgasbord of scenes and then trying to organize it into a four-course meal of a novel.

Why should people want to read your books?

I’m not a great advocate of “shoulds,” but I like the idea of people reading my books because I listen to characters with the same interest and affection that I have for actual people. My goal is always to understand who my characters really are, in all their complexities and quirks, and to help their stories live in the world in ways that allow readers to understand their own lives.

What do you read that people wouldn’t expect you to read? What’s the trashiest book you’ve ever read?

I’m a cyberfiction geek. Two of my favorite writers of all time are William Gibson and Neal Stephenson. Check out Gibson’s Pattern Recognition and Stephenson’s REAMDE!I also love mysteries. As for the trashiest book I’ve ever read, suffice it to say that yes, I read trash. When I first started writing fiction, I considered myself the original plotless wonder, and I figured out that trashy fiction is great for learning how to write plot. Or maybe that’s just an excuse for the fact that sometimes I need to crawl into bed and indulge in a delicious diet of literary bonbons.

Are you fluent in any other languages? If so, do you find that knowledge has any effect on your writing? Is it important for people to learn other languages? Why?

Fluent, no, but I learned French and Hebrew by the age of 14. I also studied Latin for four years in high school and Sign Language for two in college. Since then I’ve Duolingoed my way back to French and ventured into Italian. I think knowing languages can be useful in understanding how other people think. It’s not just the vocabulary, but also the syntax, the way people from different nationalities organize words in a sentence. For writers, having a familiarity in a second language lets you to consider the connotations and derivations of the words you use. Plus, learning a language teaches you to listen, an essential skill in writing good dialogue.

What surprising skills or hobbies do you have?

I love building—and rebuilding. My house is turning 100 years old this year, and over the time I’ve lived here, I’ve built kitchen cabinets and countertops, installed two sinks and three toilets, refinished floors, built a deck, designed and soldered a copper wineglass rack, and patched and painted almost every wall in the house.

Has your education helped you become a better writer?

Absolutely, and by that I mean my education at all levels. My wonderful 4^th grade teacher, Miss Stevens, got me started with poetry. And my 6^th grade teacher, Mrs. Williams, let me design an extra credit project, writing a book of animal poems.

In high school at Carolina Friends School, I got to do all the arts—writing, acting, making art, dancing, singing—and fell in love with learning. This made me a better writer and, I hope, a better teacher and human being. Throughout my professional life I’ve tried to make learning as magical for my students as it was for me.

In college I was lucky enough to be mentored by Max Steele and Doris Betts, who taught me how to write (Doris with her beautiful calligraphed “Don’t turn off the picture” in the margins of pages of unmitigated dialogue) and how to feel safe and comfortable in the presence of someone I admire (hours spent in Max’s comfortable office armchair, talking about writing and the fact that characters in student fiction never seem to have to do things like pay the rent or buy groceries).

And in the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers, I had the gift of four brilliant mentors: Richard Russo, Robert Boswell, C. J. Hribal and Charles Baxter. Do you have hours? Because that’s how long it would take me to describe all I learned from these amazing writers and teachers—and dancers! Dances at Warren Wilson were legendary, and have led—I’d like to believe—to a sense of balance and risk in my own writing.

How long did it take you to write your book?

When I first started talking about The Kudzu Queen, in podcasts and other interviews, I remembered that I’d been working on it off and on for a long time. Sixteen years or so, I thought. But late last summer I came across my very first handwritten pages—some of which are actually in the completed book—and realized I began writing it in August 1994!

Of course, while writing this book, I did a few other things: published a couple collections of poetry and a nonfiction book, designed and directed Poetry Out Loud for the state of North Carolina, became a Kennedy Center Teaching Artist, taught over 20,000 students and teachers, and cofounded Writeaways writing workshops in France, Italy, Ireland and New Mexico. But the book got its start, well…quite some time ago.

What’s next for you?

I’m currently working on my next novel, set in Ireland in the mid-1980s, which involves a young American woman just out of college, a missing child, and a drag queen named Holly Unlikely.

A Writer is Never Not Writing

On the road with my imagination

One of the best things about being a writer is that you can take your work with you no matter where you go. Of course, this is true now for lots of jobs because of Zoom and the internet and the acceptance of hybrid work. But a writer has always been able to work anywhere because all we need are a few transportable tools (pen and paper even) and our imaginations.

A Fish Story

January 23, 2017 No Comments

One thing my fisherman son has taught me is how important patience is to a writer. My son has fished all of his life. For two years, when he was nine and ten, he went to nearby lakes whenever he could, and each time he told me he would bring fish back for dinner. He didn’t.

But failure didn’t seem to bother him. It was the process he enjoyed, finding just the right bait, putting it on the hook, and sending if off into the depths. He loved sitting or standing on shore, waiting for a nibble, taking in all of the activity around him. So if he didn’t catch anything, it wasn’t a loss because he had gained so much from the experience, filling his vision and hearing with sights and sounds that enriched him in every way. It also gave him an opportunity to drop out of the daily treadmill and think without interruption for a long period of time.

We writers should be familiar with this process. We constantly dip our pens (or computer fingers) into the depths of the unconscious, hoping to snag images and characters, memories and experiences, that we can later embellish with our imaginations. And even if a particular writing period isn’t as fruitful as we’d hoped (no fish for dinner that night), the practice itself of tuning out the outer world and turning inward has its own benefits, a kind of meditation without the ritualistic structure.

This kind of work requires a high degree of patience. For those of us who write novels, it can take many years for one to finally crystallize and be ready for publication. But that’s only the beginning! Finding a publisher is another arduous route we have to take, and there’s no guarantee that our work will ever be accepted by a traditional publisher. Therefore, we must take pleasure in the activity itself, recognizing that the undertaking is as important as the product.

I was recently reminded yet again of this need for patient watching what I’m snagging from the waters of the unconscious while revising a novel that will be published in 2019: Tillie: A Canadian Girl in Training. While I had written a good deal of the narrative, I was having trouble finding the main character’s voice and style. If I’m not drawn in by a character, I’m certain my reader won’t be either, and I wasn’t connecting with her in the way I wanted to. But I kept playing around with the material, and eventually the character broke free of whatever restraints I had put on her, becoming fully realized. Such a relief to have all of that time and effort pay off!

So the moral of this story is don’t take your hook out of the water too soon or you might miss out on whatever bigger fish waiting there for you to catch.

Do Writers Really Need a GPS?

March 1, 2016 No Comments

I have a love/hate relationship with my GPS. On the one hand, I appreciate being able to input an address and magically have this robotic voice guide me to my destination, assuming it knows where to send me. But I also miss the hands-on experience of studying a map and finding my own route, one that makes sense to me and is visually verifiable. When I’m being directed by my GPS, I’m totally in the hands of the GPS gods, and I lose the fun of making my own plan.

You may be asking, but what does this have to do with writing? Isn’t this a blog for readers and writers?

LexmarkAIOScan9 Yes. And that’s why I chose this topic.

It occurred to me recently that when writers follows an outline, when they know in advance where their story is going, they are using a kind of writer’s GPS. It may get them to a destination. But they’ll miss out on a lot. Instead of getting lost at times and stumbling into scenarios they had’t anticipated or letting the characters and situations guide them on this narrative journey, they rely on a plan that can eliminate the kind of surprises and interaction at the heart and soul of stories.

Okay, so I’m making a parallel between using a GPS and writing, and I’ve already extolled the virtues of maps that I can hold and peruse. You may be wondering what the difference is between writing that follows a plan (GPS) and writing that uses a map instead. Isn’t it the same thing?

Yes and no. Yes in the sense that somewhere in the writer’s unconscious a plan does exist, but she hasn’t teased it out yet. The reason it isn’t the same thing is because the GPS takes control. It assumes it knows where to go just as a writer does who actively plots a story beforehand. With a map, there are many more possibilities. We know that there’s a path, but we have to use our senses and trust in the unconscious to help us find it. That requires depending more on intuition than on conscious plotting.

What kind of device do you depend on?

Poetry & Perception

November 18, 2011 No Comments

Many of my poems reflect a continuing interest in perception and how we try to capture fleeting moments with language. The art that comes closest to what I’m trying to do in poetry is photography, the exploration of things in the world (and in ourselves) from various angles. The attempt to penetrate surfaces by using the very surfaces themselves.

I just re-read a piece in an old issue of Round Table Review that has helped me to understand what I’m after in poetry. In an article entitled “This Talk of ‘Soul’: What Does It Mean?,” Mary Stamper quotes James Hillman from his work Revisioning Psychology: “By soul I mean, first of all a perspective rather than a substance, a viewpoint toward things rather than a thing in itself. This perspective is reflective; it mediates events and makes differences between ourselves and everything that happens. Between us and events, between the doer and the deed, there is a reflective moment—and soul-making means differentiating this middle ground…. (qtd. in Round Table Review, Jan/Feb 1995, 7)

I’m trying to get into my poems the way we actually perceive the world, inner and outer, from the soul’s perspective, how the two collide and collude in the brain, the poem a reflection of that activity. Charles Olson and Denise Levertov were after the shape of the inner voice—they tried to capture how that sounded on the page. Others try to recreate the external world in traditional lyrics, or narratives, or some combination of the two.

I want the dimension in-between, where both come together; it’s a more accurate rendering of how we perceive. It seems only art and dreams can begin to duplicate that world for us. This idea connects to what Stamper says: “This means death of the notion that things appear to the soul in the same way that they appear in everyday contexts, that soul understands things in the same way that our egos do” (Round Table Review, Jan/Feb 1995, 8).

I also see a relationship between impressionist and some kinds of abstract paintings and the poetry I want to write—of just suggesting something. Giving only enough information/detail to set the imagination working. I don’t want everything spelled out. I want mystery in my poems, new worlds. Or as Mark Rothko responded when he was visiting Greece and someone there commented on Rothko’s striped paintings: “‘Why don’t you paint our temples.’ Rothko replied, ‘Everything I paint is a temple.'”

I’d like to think that everything I write is one. There seems some evidence for the idea that we are changed by the things we create—actually shaped by them. Ralph Ellison shares this idea. He says the novels we write create us as much as we create them. And Joseph Brodsky believes language has a life outside of us and uses the writer.

Language is absolutely mysterious in its relationship to humans and the things it touches.

Pen-L Press will be publishing my novel Fling in 2015. A wildly comic romp on mothers, daughters, art, and death, the book should appeal to a broad range of readers. While the main characters are middle-aged and older, their zest for life would draw readers of all ages, male or female, attracting the youthful adventurer in most people. Though women may identify more readily with Feather and Bubbles’ daughter and mother struggles, the heart of the book is how they approach their aging selves and are open to new experiences. Since art and imagination are key to this narrative, artists of all ages would find something to enjoy. And because the book crosses many borders (Scotland, Canada, the U.S., and Mexico), it also can’t be limited to a specific age group, social class, gender, or region.

My first fan letter for Fling came from an 80 year-old woman who lives in the tiny village of Christina Lake, B.C. My son, who also lives there, had given her my manuscript to read. She said, “I just wanted to express to you how very much I enjoyed your writing. I started it and didn’t stop till I had read it all. I very much like your style and your subtle humor. Thank you for a most enjoyable read. I can’t understand why it hasn’t been scooped up by some publisher. But I know that it will be. In my estimation I know that it is excellent literary work. I am a voracious reader and have been since grade 4. I remember my first book was Tom Sawyer and I have never stopped since then. I go through 4 to 5 books a week. We are so fortunate here at the Lake now. The Library staff in Grand Forks come out here every Wednesday. I have become very fond of the young lady who comes out. She provides me with all the award winning books and orders others for me. Again I want to express to you how very much I enjoyed your manuscript. Have patience my dear….it will be published to wide acclaim I am so sure.” —Joan Fornelli.

Here is a synopsis:

Feather, an aging hippie, returns to her Calgary home to help her mother, Bubbles, celebrate her 90th birthday. Bubbles has received mail from the dead letter office in Mexico City, asking her to pick up her mother’s ashes, left there seventy years earlier and only now surfacing. Bubbles’ mother, Scottish by birth, had died in Mexico in the late 1920s after taking off with a married man and abandoning her husband and kids.

A woman with a mission, and still vigorous, Bubbles convinces a reluctant Feather to take her to Mexico so she can recover the ashes and give her mother a proper burial. Both women have recently shed husbands and have a secondary agenda: they’d like a little action. And they get it.

Alternating narratives weave together Feather and Bubbles’ odyssey with their colorful Scottish ancestors, creating a family tapestry. The “now” thread presents the two women as they travel south from Canada to San Francisco and then Mexico, covering a span of about six months. “Now” and “then” merge in Mexico when Bubbles’ long-dead mother, grandmother, and grandfather turn up, enlivening the narrative with their antics.

In Mexico, the land where reality and magic co-exist, Feather gets a new sense of her mother. The Indian villagers mistake Bubbles for a well-known rain goddess, praying for her to bring rain so their land will thrive again. Feather, who’s been seeking “The Goddess” for years, eventually realizes what she’s overlooked.

Meanwhile, Bubbles’ quest for her mother’s ashes (and a new man) has increased her zest for life. A shrewd business woman (she’s raised chickens, sold her crafts, taken in bizarre boarders, and has a sure-fire system for winning at bingo and lotteries), she’s certain she’s found the fountain of youth at a mineral springs outside San Miguel de Allende; she’s determined to bottle the water and sell it.

But gambling is her first love, and unlike most women her age, fun-loving Bubbles takes risks, believing she’s immortal. Unlike her daughter, Bubbles doesn’t hold back in any way, eating heartily, lusting after strangers, her youthful spirit and innocence convincing readers that they’ve found the fountain of youth themselves in this character. At ninety, she comes into her own, coming to age, proving it’s never too late to fulfill one’s dreams.

Fling, a meditation on death, mothers and daughters, and art, suggests that the fountain of youth is the imagination, and this is what they all discover in Mexico. It’s what Bubbles wants to bottle, but she doesn’t need to. She embodies it. The whole family does.