Interview with author S. L. Woodford
09/15/2014
09/15/2014
1. “A Fruitful Tale” is told from the perspective of a pear in a bowl of fruit. What inspired you to write from the point of view of an inanimate object?
A dear friend of mine is a wonderful cartoonist. One day, she sent me a postcard, dancing with little fruit people. At the center of the card was Toupee von Pear. His image was so friendly that I had to let him tell a story about me! Toupee and his inanimateness gave me a safe space to explore my feelings about being a graduate student at Yale and doing something with my life that no one else in my family had ever done.
2. Describe your process of creation; how do you go from idea to finished story?
It starts with a feeling I cannot unfeel, a striking image I cannot unsee, a potent experience I cannot unlive. I feel something, I see something, I experience something--and then I must write about it. The writing process, usually aided by a pot of tea and a room of dark wood, helps me to understand what I felt, what I saw, what I experienced.
3. Who are other writers that have helped to shape your own creativity, and how?
My current approach to sentence structure is strongly influenced by Neil Gaiman. He always challenges me to think of a piece of prose as something to be spoken, something to be sung, something to be shared around a fire with friends. A.A. Gill encourages me to write long, languid sentences, filled with multisensory lists, while E.B. White's clean conciseness reminds me to not get too carried away.
Jane Austen, George Eliot, and Henry Fielding help me to stand back and carefully watch human nature, with both humor and compassion. And the writings of C.S. Lewis and the hymns of Charles Wesley gently remind me that the ordinary and extraordinary, the sacred and the secular, are closely intertwined.
4. If you could choose a favorite character from a book, who would it be and why?
Daniel Deronda, from George Eliot's Victorian novel of the same name. Daniel is this wonderful combination of strength, spirituality, intelligence, and compassion. After spending many years reading about (and being annoyed by) the angst-ridden heroes of Charles Dickens, discovering Daniel was such a joy for me. Here was a Victorian hero whose personal tragedies opened him up to the needs and sufferings of others, instead of closing him down! He is a book character who inspires me to try to live my life with equal sensitivity.
Clink the link below to view S.L. Woodford's short story in Issue 1:
A Fruitful Tale by S.L. Woodford; illustrations by Jenny Blair
A dear friend of mine is a wonderful cartoonist. One day, she sent me a postcard, dancing with little fruit people. At the center of the card was Toupee von Pear. His image was so friendly that I had to let him tell a story about me! Toupee and his inanimateness gave me a safe space to explore my feelings about being a graduate student at Yale and doing something with my life that no one else in my family had ever done.
2. Describe your process of creation; how do you go from idea to finished story?
It starts with a feeling I cannot unfeel, a striking image I cannot unsee, a potent experience I cannot unlive. I feel something, I see something, I experience something--and then I must write about it. The writing process, usually aided by a pot of tea and a room of dark wood, helps me to understand what I felt, what I saw, what I experienced.
3. Who are other writers that have helped to shape your own creativity, and how?
My current approach to sentence structure is strongly influenced by Neil Gaiman. He always challenges me to think of a piece of prose as something to be spoken, something to be sung, something to be shared around a fire with friends. A.A. Gill encourages me to write long, languid sentences, filled with multisensory lists, while E.B. White's clean conciseness reminds me to not get too carried away.
Jane Austen, George Eliot, and Henry Fielding help me to stand back and carefully watch human nature, with both humor and compassion. And the writings of C.S. Lewis and the hymns of Charles Wesley gently remind me that the ordinary and extraordinary, the sacred and the secular, are closely intertwined.
4. If you could choose a favorite character from a book, who would it be and why?
Daniel Deronda, from George Eliot's Victorian novel of the same name. Daniel is this wonderful combination of strength, spirituality, intelligence, and compassion. After spending many years reading about (and being annoyed by) the angst-ridden heroes of Charles Dickens, discovering Daniel was such a joy for me. Here was a Victorian hero whose personal tragedies opened him up to the needs and sufferings of others, instead of closing him down! He is a book character who inspires me to try to live my life with equal sensitivity.
Clink the link below to view S.L. Woodford's short story in Issue 1:
A Fruitful Tale by S.L. Woodford; illustrations by Jenny Blair
