When a Character Won't Let You Go
International bestseller Shelley Read on the surprise of writing a novel when you don't think you're a novelist
“I remember the moment I realized this is a novel: Oh no. I don’t know how to write a novel. I figured out how to write a novel by writing one.” —Shelley Read, author of Go as a River
Preview: Emerging Form Episode 143 with Shelley Read
“Language means so much to me,” says international best-selling novelist Shelley Read. “I love the challenge of trying to capture something essential about life through the written word.” In this open-hearted, humble conversation (airing Tuesday July 22 at 5:30pm on KVNF, and dropping this Thursday on our podcast feed), Shelley shares with us how a single moment alone in the woods with a deer and two fawns became the starting place for a novel—her first novel—that took her thirteen years to write and went on to sell over a million copies worldwide. We talk about how she writes scenes, her devotion to language, how the main character of her book “lodged in my heart” and then drove the novel, how she went from writing poetry and non-fiction to fiction, the strangeness of writing a mega-bestseller, and what she has learned about her own creative process through this journey.
Shelley Read’s debut novel, Go as a River, is an international bestseller translated into thirty-four languages, currently in development for film with the Mazur Kaplan Company. Winner of the High Plains Book Award for Fiction and the Reading the West Book Award for Debut Fiction, Go as a River is also a Sunday Times bestseller, a Goodreads Choice Award finalist, an Amazon Editors’ Pick Best Debut Fiction, an Indie Next Pick, and a Colorado Public Radio Books We Love selection, among other national and international accolades. Shelley was an award-winning senior lecturer at Western Colorado University for nearly three decades, where she taught writing, literature, environmental studies, and honors. She is a mom, mountaineer, world traveler, and fifth-generation Coloradan who lives with her family in the Elk Mountains of Colorado’s Western Slope.
You can meet Shelley in person at the Grand Mesa Writer’s Symposium August 8-10 in Cedaredge. The event features numerous workshops and gatherings, including an open mic. For the keynote, Christie will talk with Shelley, the poet Wendy Videlok (a previous guest on our show) and nonfiction writer Tim Winegard about their work. More info at: https://www.grandmesawriters.org/
What We’re Reading and Listening to:
Rosemerry:
I was lucky to read an advance copy of Francis Weller’s new book, In the Absence of the Ordinary: Soul Work for Times of Uncertainty. More than reading this book, I want to internalize it—infuse its messages into my breath and tattoo its invitations into my actions. I want to live into the potential it envisions and share it with everyone I love. Francis Weller bids us embrace the journey into the realm of soul, dreams, mystery, imagination, and darkness, offering practical ways to weave the threads of medicine found there into our daily lives. In a muddled world, Weller brings clarity, wisdom, intimacy, reverence, and fluency with what the wild soul most wants. ‘You are necessary,’ he writes. ‘It is time to become immense.’ It doesn’t come out until mid-August, but friends, I would suggest pre-ordering it so you can have it right away. And it really helps authors when you pre-order their books!
I’ll admit I don’t read many thrillers, but I am LOVING Not the Killing Kind by Maria Kelson. I mean, there was a gory murder on page one. But the writing is so beautiful, and the story of a single adoptive mom doing whatever she can to help her son, well, it touches on all the love and fear parents feel about our kids. And dang, when it all goes wrong, it really all goes wrong … I can’t put this book down.
Christie:
Atmosphere is the fourth Taylor Jenkins Reid novel I’ve read. This one takes place in the 1980s, and follows Joan Goodwin as she earns a chance to train to become an astronaut. As a space nerd, there was no way I wasn’t going to get hooked. The characters are vivid, and I enjoyed the stories about NASA and the competition and camaraderie among astronaut candidates. Like the Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, this novel is a love story between two women who have to navigate a world that isn’t accepting of their love, but it also has a fast-moving, action-heavy plot.
Last time I was at my local library, I picked up Dog Songs by Mary Oliver and couldn’t put it down. What’s not to like about a book of poems celebrating dogs and our relationships with them? Also the things they teach us about living, how they break our hearts and are so, so worth it.
The Offering
Not the perfect ones
hanging from the bough,
red and hard in the hand,
but the fallen ones,
sun-warmed, likely bruised,
often with earwigs
that squirm out the top,
oh, these soft ones
nearly gone,
more nectar than flesh.
Do not be offended
when I offer you this peach.
They are, by far, the sweetest.
I gaze into my heart.
It, too, is blemished,
scarred, bruised, mottled,
fallen, ready
to be yours.
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
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This week, we talk with Shelley about how she gets herself into a space where writing can happen, why reading is the best teacher for writers and what questions she asks herself about the texts she reads. We also talk about the blessing of aging and how more life experience can be at the heart of our craft—and what our younger selves might have to offer us, too. If you are not yet a paid subscriber, you can go now to our website, EmergingForm.substack.com, or by clicking the button below. Thank you!
Two Questions:
(share your answers with us here on Substack or in our FB group)
What is most exciting for you right now about your own creative practice?
Who is your best creative supporter? What makes their support so wonderful?
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