I was pleasantly surprised by this lecture, which was held at the Atlanta History Center and sponsored by the Margaret Mitchell House. What did I expect? I only knew the author from her books, which are dark, serious, sometimes violent stories of working class families. And from her picture on the rear covers of the books, which shows a woman with sad eyes and inclined head.
In person she was thin, tall, with the unmistakable sad eyes. Although approaching seventy, she didn't have a single gray hair. It was her sense of humor that surprised me. Witty, wry, and slightly morbid. She was engaging and captivating.
She read from her latest novel, "The Gravedigger's Daughter", passages that I had already read, then took questions from the audience. The first question was the most interesting, about her method of working.
She envisions everything, similar to Robert Olen Butler's dreams. She called it pre-production work, similar to how a movie is made, essentially non-verbal. She does this while exercising, usually running. She imagines the novel or story in cinematic scenes while running. She used to do a complete short story in her head this way. At the desk she writes out these scenes in longhand; she writes everything in longhand. She then numbers the scenes to arrange them; structure is important to her. She said, "You cannot start a novel without pre-production."
An excellent "lecture", and an impressive author.
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