I’ve just finished writing an article for the Limestone Post on the Writers Guild at Bloomington‘s Local Authors Book Fair, to be held Saturday, November 2, 2024, at the Monroe County History Center. There’ll be 31 local authors whose books have been published either traditionally or non-traditionally — that is, either by a publishing house or self-published — on hand. In doing the story I got to meet some awfully cool writers, including Molly Gleeson, who is organizing the affair, Rebekah Spivey, Keiko Kasza, and Claire Arbogast. All but Kasza were recorded for Big Talk editions (Keiko, a native Japanese speaker, is shy about speaking English publicly, althoughI think she’s being too hard on herself).
We five covered so much stuff, much of which doesn’t appear in the printed story or on the program episode, that I figured, hell, why don’t I just turn parts of those chats into Pencil posts? And so I will.
These conversations will be edited for accuracy and narrative flow. Otherwise, I’m presenting them in Q&A format, just as we recorded our conversations.
I’ll start today with Molly.
MG: What’s your writing all about?
MOLLY: I write fiction and I write some memoir nonfiction. The books I’ve written are…. [pauses, laughs modestly] not published.
The most recent book I’ve been working on, I call it my smutty, apocalyptic, survivalist, lesbian love story. The grid goes down and there’s this group of women traveling north, trying to get into Canada. They have to go through the Boundary Waters in Minnesota. It’s an adventure.
MG: How long have you been working on it?
MOLLY: I started in September of 2020 so it was a really dark time.
MG: Depressing!
MOLLY: Yes. It was kind of an antidote, actually. It’s not a depressing book. It’s meant to be hopeful. It has a happy ending. People, in spite of adversity and terrible things going on, can still fall in love. They still thrive. Life still happens.
I finished a novella in April. It’s a contemporary story about a woman who’s recently divorced with a ten-year-old kid. Her kid is being bullied at school and she confronts the principal. She and the principal end up having an affair. It’s a love story.
MG: Humor?
MOLLY: Yes, a lot, actually.
MG: You’re balancing the adversity with humor.
MOLLY: Yes, you have to.
MG: How do you write?
MOLLY: In the last five or eight years, I write everything by hand.
MG: On what?
MOLLY: A notebook. Like Moleskine or something.
MG: Cursive or printing?
MOLLY: Oh, cursive! Then at some point I’ll put it on the computer.
MG: Which way do you think better?
MOLLY: For some reason, it’s been by hand. I don’t know why.
MG: That’s how you were raised?
MOLLY: Yeah, that too. I’m really old school.
MG: When do you write?
MOLLY: I’m not a good routine person. I write, usually, in the afternoon. I’m not much of a morning person. I don’t write for long. I don’t put a lot of pressure on myself to write. I know some writers are like, “I have to get a thousand words today!” I’m not like that. It doesn’t work for me that way.
I have to feel it first. With my stories, I always know the beginning scene and I know the end scene. And it’s kind of a mystery to fill it in.
MG: It’s a discovery.
MOLLY: Yeah, yeah, yeah!
There’s the pantser/planner thing. If you write by the seat of your pants, they call you a pantser. Or are you a planner? Do you plot it all out? I never outline.
MG: I read somewhere once that Kurt Vonnegut wrote in different colors for each character and their dialogue. We’ve all got our ways, our tics.
MOLLY: Yeah. It has to be that way. You have to find what works for you. Otherwise, you won’t write. You have to find your way.
MG: When are you going to publish?
MOLLY: [Laughs] Ah! [Sighs] Well, the book fair has taken over my life. But I did an online class in May. It was incredibly helpful. It was though Authors Publish, a Canadian organization, nonprofit. They offer classes and free lectures and workshops and stuff. Anyway, I took this class called Revising Your Novel or something like that. I took notes and now I need to work hard on that.
So, the question is, when will I publish? It could be a while. But I do have shorter things out that I’m trying to get published.
MG: Are you afraid?
MOLLY: Nah.
MG: Well, I am.
MOLLY: Okay.
MG: I’m always afraid.
MOLLY: Well, yes. Life in general.
MG: I think, “Why would anyone want to read my stuff?” I have to go through these mental gymnastics.
MOLLY: Like the imposter syndrome. Yeah, yeah! They’re always hovering back over your left shoulder.
MG: The bad guy.
MOLLY: The bad guy! Yes, it is!
I’ve gotten away from, “I have to get this published traditionally,” “I have to make money,” ” I have to be famous.” I’ve let a lot of that go. The writing is the thing.. For me it’s I just need this in my life. I may never “make it.” That’s not the thing. It’s creating something. You’ve made something. You’ve told some truths.
MG: Do you enjoy the actiual physical work of writing?
MOLLY: I do. I mean, the tortured artist thing is…, we’re over that! [Laughs] It can be joyful.
It can also be work. Especially going back and editing.
MG: People don’t realize you can be writing and not have a pen in your hand or your fingers on the keyboard. I do the dishes every morning, but I’m actually writing.
MOLLY: Yes, yes, exactly! The moments that you wake up at five o’clock in the morning and you’ve got some idea. Or doing the dishes. Or taking a walk. Or talking to somebody. You are always writing.
MG: When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
MOLLY: I came to it late, but I actually worked on a student newspaper in high school. There was something called the “Whole Press.” It came out in the Herald-Times — it was called the Herald-Telephone back then. It had writers and editors from all the high schools: Ellettsville, Bloomington North, Bloomington South. I was an editor for South. That’s where I learned how to write.
I got my masters degree at the Indiana University School for Public and Environmental Affairs. My $60,000 mistake! I’m not very good at what I should be good at. [She took a job in Washington, DC after getting her masters.]
My family came to DC for Thanksgiving. My older sister’s boyfriend at the time said, “Why aren’t you writing?”
I said, ” What would I write about?
I was probably 32. I didn’t have an answer for that until I was probably 40.
I knew I wanted to be a writer. I just didn’t know how to start. After my fiasco in DC as a federal employee, I went overseas for a long time and taught English in China, Japan, and Saudi Arabia. I did that, in part, so I’d have something to write about. Later I realized you can write about anything. And I do now. I write about anything. But back before that, I thought I had to have something “big” to write about.
So I wrote a partial memoir of my time in China and then, later, I wrote a whole novel about Saudi Arabia. I taught overseas for like seven or eight years. Then I came back here because my parents are here. And then I got involved with Women Writing for (a) Change. That helped me write regularly. They have “circles” — workshops, basically. They have retreats. A lot of great opportunities. It’s also for all genders, too, sometimes.
MG: Thanks.
MOLLY: I enjoyed it.