The Interview with Jami Attenberg.

The creator of #1000wordsofsummer.

Hello to new subscribers and welcome to Sitting in Silence, a newsletter for readers, writers, and thinkers. The Interview has become a popular feature for the newsletter. I love talking to writers of all stripes regarding their journeys. They never disappoint. This issue’s conversation is with Jami Attenberg.

Jami Attenberg is the bestselling author of many books in multiple genres, including her latest, I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home, which is now out in paperback. You also know her as the creator of the worldwide writing phenomenon #1000wordsofsummer. She is a dear friend. Jami is one of the kindest people I know and works diligently for her community in New Orleans. We first met around the publication of her novel, All Grown Up, but I feel like I’ve known Jami for decades.

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And now for our talk…

Maurice: What are your earliest memories of reading or writing stories?

Jami: My earliest memory of reading was actually off the back of cereal boxes, probably when I was around four years old. That was how I learned to read. I don't remember much about children's books necessarily, or even being read to, but I recall loving D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths, being deeply fascinated with it, and also tearing through my mother's crumbling collection of Nancy Drew mysteries. My mother used to take me to the library for hours and I zoomed through everything in my age range. I also loved collections of old comics I would find at the library, like a hundred pages of Little Orphan Annie, and just being fascinated with learning her backstory.  I started writing stories myself when I was five years old, and because I received praise for it from my teacher and my mother -- I think an early story won some kind of competition -- it made me want to write more. It was nice to feel like I was good at something. I also think I felt satisfaction at creating a beginning, middle and an end to something. I liked solving the problem of a story.

Maurice: Yeah. I think we underestimate the importance of encouragement in our writing lives. When did you know that you were a writer? Did you have early role models? What was an early move you made to create the writer we know today?

Jami: I don't know if there was a cross-the-threshold moment that I knew I was a writer exactly. And perhaps I don't even know what it means to be a writer, although I do know it's a thing you need to claim for yourself if you ever want to pursue it. People are afraid to say it out loud, but really anyone can do it, and enjoy it, and benefit from it, even if it's not what they do for a living. There is perhaps a leap from "trying to be a writer" and "being a writer" that comes with selling your work for a while, essays, short stories, journalism, a first book. But I know plenty of people who don't receive financial remuneration for their work that I would consider a writer.

I'm not really answering your question here though. So, let's see...I suppose in high school, I knew that I was good at it, better at it than anything else I was doing. It was the thing that interested me the most. I was editor of the school paper, participated in after school writing programs, and was very luckily in a community that had a solid educational program to support my interests. My first creative writing teacher was a man named Tod Lacey, and he was extremely encouraging. I think I wrote to impress him.

I got an undergrad degree in creative writing, but I did not necessarily pursue being a writer doggedly until my late twenties, early thirties. Not in that "always be submitting" way. I didn't feel like I fit into that conventional mold. The way I found my voice was through the zine scene and then also through the internet. Just really diving into voicey first person kind of stuff, it was helpful to finding my way to the way I write now.

Maurice: Can you talk more about your "diving into voicey first person kind of stuff?" I remember after we first met, and you graciously handed me a copy of All Grown Up. I recall lying in bed reading that one and thinking, "why do I feel like I'm completely inside this main character's head? Is this safe? Will I be able to make it back out? LOL" The point being that you have such a gift for putting intimacy on the page, which is so hard to do. It's such a pleasurable experience for the reader. And you do it so well in all of your books! How do you do it?

Jami: I just write the characters till they sound like someone I know or would want to know or maybe would meet sometime. I have been traveling these past two weeks and meeting and observing lots of new people and have been thinking about how everyone shows you their weirdness eventually. If you keep talking to people long enough, they'll let something slip. And that's the stuff I'm interested in. So, I just keep writing characters long enough until they show me their weirdness. I write conversations they have with other people even if I'll never use it in the final text, just to see what they would say. I put them in different situations that have nothing to do with the story I'm telling. I think it's just about churning out scenarios and bits of dialogue and letting them walk around and stretch their legs in the world, and that's how I can observe them and also get inside their head.

Maurice: You have a brilliant new memoir called I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home, which everyone is raving about. You've written many books in the past, but I believe this is your first non-fiction book. I imagine it's a different kind of challenge to produce that same sense of intimacy where you are the subject. Did you have to find your own weirdness to get it done? And the structure of it is fantastic. How did you decide on the structure of the book?

Jami: I am definitely weird, and the book is in part about that weirdness. All artists are weird, I think!  My challenge was really to figure out how to dial it back enough to be consumable. In terms of the structure, I just dumped all the words I had into one big document and kind of dug my way out from there. I knew I had to create a bigger narrative arc out of all these smaller narrative arcs contained within these important moments and ideas from my life. It somewhat follows a linear timeline although I move around a bit within that timeline. Mostly I think it was about figuring out my personal growth arc, and how to represent that best -- sometimes that doesn't always follow a linear path, though. Important moments can show up in our lives and we often don't or can't recognize them till years later. Also everything in our lives -- past and present and future -- is sort of always happening at the same time anyway. I just felt my way around instinctively to figure out the best path for the information. In my mind there is a clear beginning, middle, and end to it all, though.

Maurice: Tell us about some of your favorite things.

Jami: You know I love books, love having piles of them everywhere in the house, but also I love giving books away so I can make room for new ones; that feeling of making room for the new is quite satisfying. I love writing, doing it and being done with it and then reading it and editing it and then re-reading it, because I love it when I write something beautiful or new (for me) or emotionally true; it really gets me in the gut when I'm at least a little bit good at my job. I love New Orleans, this city you and I both share, Maurice; for better or for worse, I love this complicated and beautiful town. I love big meals with friends, organizing them and having them both. I love really cold white wine on a hot summer day. I love swimming in the ocean. I love my little house. I love my dog.