Valerie Nieman v. 3.0

I was trying to explain the Folk School experience to a friend the other day. How nourishing it is, how you learn within the classroom and over meals and on rambles across the mountain landscape. How it is a place apart that returns you to the world restored. I am anticipating my return in July as both a teacher and then a student. In this interview for the John C. Campbell website, I talk about teaching and learning in a noncompetitive environment. http://blog.folkschool.org/2015/03/03/discovering-author-valerie-nieman

Writing is a tough business. It’s not laying bricks, sure, but it does demand the mental toughness to keep hitting the keyboard long after saner folks would have taken up orchid hybridization as an easier hobby. But we keep on keeping on, putting one word after the other. The late Octavia Butler, a black woman writer in science fiction (for far too long a bastion of white males), commented, "You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That's why I say that one of the most valuable traits is persistence." So – we work, in order to do better work. It’s an apprenticeship, and if we want to become better writers, we create journeyman efforts until we can accomplish a masterwork. We’ve seen a lot of advice for writers over the years – write every day, write so many words every day, take part in marathons like Nanowrimo. But the best advice I ever received came from the ...

I had the pleasure of being selected to participate in a blog hop called My Next Big Thing . I was tagged by Nancy Hinchcliff, writer, editor, educator, musician, and innkeeper from Louisville, Ky. I was asked to respond to  the following ten questions concerning my most recent project. 1.  What is the working title of your book or project? Backwater 2.  Where did the idea come from for the book or project? There never seems to be just one idea, but two or three or four that come together, becoming more than the sum of the parts. I had made notes toward a novel several years ago, when I found my high school yearbook in the course of packing for a move. Among the comments and mottos written by friends was an inscription from the “popular girl,” to the effect that she hoped we could put all that behind us and be friends. I could not remember that small spat, but the minor mystery haunted me. I also read several comments referring to my “adventures at Pine...

The AWP Conference in Washington, D.C., last month (was it really a month ago?) gave me the opportunity to meet up with John Cochran, a fellow staffer at the News & Record during my time there, later reporter at the Congressional Quarterly. We chatted about our novels-in-progress - not one but two for him! - over breakfast in the wonderful Omni Shoreham. A good bit of the conversation concerned that eternal problem for the writer: Is this any good? Today he posted this great comment on Facebook: "I was talking to a friend and former boss not long ago about the difference between news writing and fiction writing. Here's how he put it: Daily journalism is like sailing around a harbor or a bay, within sight of land; fiction writing is like navigating in open waters with nothing but the stars and wind to guide you." Such an apt analogy! News writing nearly always provides you with buoys and lighthouses and channel markers in abundance. We have information, know how t...

It's only five weeks until the release of Blood Clay , yet this morning I had another title ghost through my head. There's something about naming the child that is difficult, sometimes impossible - the right name has already been taken, is too close to another, too plain, too exotic. Just like in families. One aunt has a lovely name but an unfortunate history. The father loves Angela and the mother loves Helene and the great-aunt chooses - Zenobia? Blood Clay started life with a working title of Feral , which links to the behavior of cats, dogs, people, and communities - but also conjures up images of horror movies. I tried Birds Without Nests - maybe it was the negativity, but that didn't fly. My publisher loved the book but hated the title, and there was a flurry of email as we tried various options. Finally, a recurrent image in the text provided a path. But should it be Blood/Clay ? Clay/Blood ? Blood and Clay ? We settled, at last, on Blood Clay . And I like it. You c...