To access Part I of this interview, click here.
Q:
You do a lot of other writing in addition to this very time-consuming work on Tell Me a Story. How do you juggle your varied projects? Any advice to your fellow writers on time management?
A:
Yep. If you’re going to have a lot of things going on, each one needs to have its time carved (in stone). I wrote my column on Fridays. That’s it. Fridays only. I teach but I’ll only read student papers one day a week (if they’re a day late, they wait a week and a day), and so on. And I write deadlines on a calendar as if they’re someone else’s imposed deadlines even when they’re only mine. And I still wish I had about three extra days each week.
Q:
Many of these stories are wonderful and it surprises me that they had fallen into obscurity. Can you describe your process for finding the stories?
A:
Wow…big long amazing process. Part of this has to do with having done it for a decade and a half—I’ve plundered everything imaginable, every library and everything else under the sun (including eavesdropping whenever I’m in any sort of unfamiliar place—city, town, party—like my Bulgarian friends’ parents’ birthday bashes…a mother lode that day!) When I travel I go to things like dance concerts (often old folktales are source material for choreographers, I’ve discovered). When I’m anywhere I look for old museums where there often will be little pamphlets of local folklore. When I first started I spent weeks at a time in the Girls’ and Boy’s Library at University of Toronto where 18th century children’s lit is stored. I buy used books. I read recipe books that often include old stories. And then I look for cross-references. Every story I use has at least three (often more) sources—and since I’ve done so much research, I have cases of material stored. I plunder Jillian’s brain (she’s a compendium of source material); I talk to my nieces and nephews who find rare things in odd places. It’s one of those things that’s just always on my mind, so I’m always half-looking. In the earliest years (the first 10, say), I was much more methodical and earnest. Now I just listen closely. And now, too, I know more about the shape of stories, how different cultures take different kinds of stories and emphasize different elements, wind up with different outlooks out of similar material. It’s fun, and sometimes exhausting, but if anyone has any stories they love, please send them my way (that’s another thing I always do—I ask everyone).
Q:
When you write specifically for something to be read aloud, what do sorts of things do you keep in mind that are unique to this form, as distinct from writing, say, a novel or a memoir? Or do you feel writing is writing, regardless?
A:
All of the stories on the CD were originally in print. BUT, when I’m revising them for readings, I do make some changes. I think writing is writing, but I think stories also need to be flexible—that different voices, different rhythms, different needs mean the text has to be fluid enough to change. For instance, one little thing. In the recordings we usually delete all the he saids and she saids, and sometimes when I first hear an actor read a story and I’m just listening, I’ll discover something that’s missing, something that I can’t SEE (that I hadn’t realized was missing in the original version), and I’ll add. I do think good writing is good writing, but I also think that means the writer can’t be so precious that he or she isn’t willing to play, at least a little bit. (I’ve never studied audio readings of some of the great books, and I’d be curious to see if audio works are word-for-word renditions. Not sure. But it does make me curious…)
Q:
It feels like Tell Me a Story is a fusion of various disciplines. We've got writing, music, drawing, acting... Is this something you're particularly passionate about? Bringing disparate art forms together in concert?
A:
What I love about Tell Me A Story, the audiobooks, is the fusion because each one of these stories, with the addition of music and voice changes—sometimes utterly. One of my favorite examples of this actually is Jack McGee’s Two Frogs From Japan. On the page Two Frogs is a kind of cute story—not brilliant, not particularly insightful or particularly exciting. Just kind of fun. With Jack’s reading and Laura’s amazing jazzy music—soooo not Japanese and yet so perfect—it’s become this parable, a true fable. It became, to me, brilliant. And then there’s one of my other favorites, Searching for Fear which with Poppy Champlin’s voices became truly scary—it was always kind of funny scary. Now it’s one of those “you’re laughing one minute and freaked out the next” stories. Laura dazzles me. Laura is—well, she’s just a magician. She loves music the way I love words, and working with her has made me feel like a kid again—like a kid learning how to use language in all sorts of new ways.
We haven’t yet nailed the performance part of this whole thing because I think there’s a way we could do a better job of our in person performances of this stuff—but we haven’t done it. Maybe one day. For now, when we’re in the studio doing the mix, the three of us—Lori, Laura and I—along with our amazing mixers—just get high. Truly high.
The closest I’ve ever felt to this is working in theater—and I don’t consider myself a truly good playwright—so I don’t have a chance to do that as much as I’d like.
So for now…well, the third one’s about to come out. And then as soon as I can earn back the money it costs to make this one…well, Laura and I have already started talking about the theme for the next one…
Damn money! If only it grew on trees.
To purchase any of the Tell Me a Story CDs online, visit mythsandtales.com.
