Marianne Apostolides

Question 1

Her Writing Journey

Answer 1

Started work on book on eating disorders​

Was doing research at Barnes and Noble​

Met someone by chance​

Got a book deal, an editor and an agent​

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The message is…move to New York

Serendipity is a recurrent element in writers’ careers​

Chance encounters are important​

You need to be ready to make the most of that chance encounter

Her editor left Norton​

Her book got orphaned​

Her second book got rejected at least 25 times​

Her agent dropped her​

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She expanded a short piece into a novella​

That got picked up​

And her career got underway again

Question 2

Important Lesson

Answer 2

Setbacks are a feature of literary careers​

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First books don’t always lead to second books​

Agents will drop you (or quit)​

Publishers will lose interest in you​

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Very few people don’t face some kind of adversity after they have published a book​

Every summit is another mountain (not really, but, also, yes)

Question 3

Writing as Training

Answer 3

Wrote a series of short pieces​

Tried to master a bunch of different things​

Did this to build her chops​

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This is a very smart thing to do:​

Set yourself writing challenges​

Focus on strengthening and broadening your skills​

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Sometimes training exercises produce publishable work

Question 4

Three way to integrate Ideas into Novels

Answer 4

Decontextualize them​

Integrate them into dialogue​

Focus on the bodily aspects of their language

Question 5

Decontextualize Ideas

Answer 5

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Take philosophical or scientific ideas/texts and put them in new contexts​

Splice these ideas/texts into the narrative​

This makes them strange​

This gives them new meanings and valances​

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Text as collage

Question 6

Integrate them into dialogue

Answer 6

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Have characters explain ideas​

Avoid characters becoming mouthpieces for the author​

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Give the dialogue stakes​

Make the dialogue natural

Question 7

Make them/their language bodily

Answer 7

Poetry is sensuous language (about sound, shape, sense)​

The language of philosophy and the sciences is/can also be sensuous​

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Focus on the physical/bodily aspects of the language of ideas

Question 8

Making dialogue Natural

Answer 8

Learn about your characters​

Learn their rhythms​

Learn their vocabularies ​

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Focus on replicating the flow of conversation between two people​

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Remember that good dialogue is reminiscent of real speech but not a replica of real speech

Question 9

Strategy

Answer 9

She relied on interruptions/interuptors for this book:​

A waiter arriving at a table​

A character watching a scene play out at another table while talking to their dinner companion​

Etc.​

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Integrate context into the flow of dialogue​

This makes dialogue feel grounded/located and natural

Question 10

Experimenting with Formatting

Answer 10

She right justified “I love you” and other sentences in the book​

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Not only poetry can be open form​

There is room to play with the formatting of prose