This week we present an interview with author Linda C. Wisniewski. Her book Off Kilter: A Woman’s Journey to Peace with Scoliosis, Her Mother & Her Polish Heritage accomplishes what many of us wish to accomplish when we are writing personal essays. Reviewer Marc Schuster of Small Press Reviews explains it this way:

Wisniewski conjures the ghosts of a troubled and emotionally fraught childhood throughout the majority of her memoir so that she can exorcise them in the final chapters… Expertly balancing pathos and triumph, Wisniewski never wallows in self-pity. Rather, she gathers strength from her setbacks and finds a renewed sense of purpose with every curve life sends her way. In this sense, Off Kilter is a fine testament to the resilience of the human spirit and to the healing power of the written word.

Sheila
Hello Linda. Reading your book aroused memories of my growing up years, though my heritage is not the same as yours. I grew up the child of Jewish parents from Brooklyn in a mixed Catholic and Jewish new suburban neighborhood in NJ. My parents were the first in their families to be born in the US — their parents were from Russia, Austria and Lithuania. My mother once told me, looking out over our backyard to the backyard of the house behind us where a Catholic family lived, that Jewish families and Catholic families were no different from one another.

When I read your book, I heard my dad’s yelling, even though other than a huge temper and being a control freak and a workaholic, he was not abusive as you describe your father; even so, my sister, who was 18 months younger than me and I were both afraid of him! Your story made me remember our noisy house of relatives weekends when everyone gathered, the lack of boundaries (yes, everyone followed everyone around the house talking, yelling, interrupting), and much more.

I know of course there were differences—we didn’t go to school with nuns pretending to be devils or think about being nailed to a cross—but there are a lot of similarities because of that post WWII era for one thing, the concentration on what others would think, and the being told about not crying.

You do a wonderful job of portraying it all.

Linda
Thanks for your personal comments on Off Kilter. It’s always interesting to me to see how different readers relate to it. There seems to have been a common postwar culture in America among ethnic families. Maybe there’s another book in that…

Sheila
I think you are right about that, and I also think the mark of a good read is the way the reader inserts herself into the material and takes on the story.

Over what period of time did you write the essays in this book?

 Linda
About four or five years. I wrote and published a few each year, starting around 2000, began to gather them together in 2003, wrote some transitions and new essays on the same overall theme, and finished the collection in 2006.

Sheila
You published many of the essays between 2002 and 2005 in magazines anthologies such as Mindprints, Retrozine, Chocolate for the Woman’s Soul, A Cup of Comfort for Women in Love, and Releasing Times. How did you decide on where to submit your essays?

Linda
Yes, things started with the essay that became the book’s introduction. It was published in a literary magazine called Mindprints, whose editor nominated it for a Pushcart Prize. One of my mentors read it and advised me to “expand this into a book.” I stopped sending them out when I knew I was working on a book. Before that, when I was just starting to submit my work, I looked in Writers Market and online for places that published memoirs. I checked market listings like Creative Writing Opportunities (CRWROPPS) on Yahoo.

Sheila
How did you know you had enough essays for a book?

Linda
In the beginning, I had the essays about how unbalanced my body and life were, and an idea of using my spinal curve as a metaphor. I added the last few chapters/essays to complete the theme of straightening out my life. When I felt I’d done that, I knew the book was finished.

Sheila
And once you had all the essays, what kinds of decisions did you have to make when you were putting them into one collection?

Linda
I wanted all of them to apply to the theme of an “off kilter” life, being out of balance with one’s true self. So I left out essays I’d written that were not directly about that issue. Also, I tried to make the book roughly chronological, so I left out some work that made the same point and tried not to be too repetitive. Looking back, I think now I’d delete a few sentences that feel redundant.

Sheila
How did you discover Pearlsong Press as a match for your manuscript?

Linda
I’m not sure, but I think it was from one of the many online writers’ newsletters I subscribe to, like Hope Clark’s Funds for Writers. My publisher and I have wracked our brains trying to remember but neither of us can recall! When I was searching for a publisher, I targeted my search at the ones who published women’s memoirs, and when I read Pearlsong’s mission statement I knew it would be a good fit.

Sheila
What was that statement?

Linda
It’s pretty long but the part that appealed to me says:

Pearlsong Press is an independent publishing company dedicated to providing books and resources that entertain while expanding perspectives on the self and the world…

Pearls are formed when a piece of grit or sand or other abrasive, annoying or even dangerous substance enters an oyster and triggers its protective response. The substance is coated with shimmering opalescent nacre (“mother of pearl”), the coats eventually building up to produce a beautiful gem. The self-healing response of the oyster thus transforms suffering into a thing of beauty.

The pearl-creating process reflects our company’s desire to move outside a pathological or “disease” based model of “mental health” and “mental illness” into a more integrative and transcendent perspective on life, health and well-being. A move out of suffering into joy.

And that, we think, is something to sing about.

Sheila
That does seem to portray what writing can do for us, what reading someone else’s healing can also do.

Did you study memoir writing? With whom and what are the highlights of what you learned?

Linda
Oh, yes! In the beginning, I took adult ed classes at the local high school. Then I found two wonderful organizations that offer classes and workshops. The Story Circle Network is for women life writers. I’ve taken classes online and workshops at their biannual conference in Austin. The International Women’s Writing Guild is for all genres, and I’ve attended their summer conference at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs NY for several years, as well as Big Apple weekends in NYC. I met women there whom I still consider my writing mentors – Susan Albert, Maureen Murdock, Susan Tiberghien and others – and learned from their classes as well as critique sessions at Skidmore.

Let’s see, highlights — what stays with me most is, “write your story; don’t worry about what others will think; keep writing and don’t even think about publication until it’s the best you can make it; women’s personal stories need to be told; put it aside for a week or two, then go back and do self-reflection on what the piece really means.”

Sheila
What attracted you to writing a memoir in the form of a collection of essays?

Linda
The fact that I already had a lot of it written! When Maureen Murdock suggested expanding the essay I had entitled “My Body, My Self” into a book, I was completely bewildered. I decided to keep writing short memoir pieces and essays, with no particular theme except that these were the stories I wanted to tell. By 2006, I was able to look over my work and find three big themes – suffering, my mother, and my Polish heritage. I thought I’d have to write three books! A sister writer/screenwriter wisely asked, “Are you afraid you won’t have anything left to say if you put everything into one book?” She encouraged me to find one overarching theme and to put my whole heart into Off Kilter, and she was right.

Sheila
What was the hardest part of writing these essays?

Linda
Trying to be fair to everyone while being true to myself. And getting details right. My publisher and I went through several revisions as I kept finding things I wanted/needed to change – dates, place names etc. At some point, I just had to let it go and acknowledge it was as “correct” as I could make it.

Some of the most emotionally painful scenes – schoolyard snowball fight, abusive dad, etc. – caused me to shed some tears, but never enough to make me stop writing them! The self-reflection and self-disclosure part, showing myself as vulnerable and flawed, was difficult. If I was going to expose the flaws in others, it was important to do the same with myself as well. Otherwise, it’s not fair to the characters or the reader. One thing that helped was remembering that a teacher once told me, once your book goes out into the world, it’s not yours anymore. People react to it from their own place.

Sheila
What was the most surprising part for you as you wrote and collected the essays?

Linda
I was surprised and pleased to find that recalling the most painful scenes – humiliation, verbal abuse, etc. – was less painful with each revision. By the time I’d finished, there were no tears left. It was like I’d turned them into something separate from my life. I’ve heard other writers say that the work becomes the memory, and the original memory is gone. I think that’s true.

Sometimes when I do a reading, people get teary-eyed listening, but not me. I’m done. 🙂 – That’s the healing power of memoir!

Sheila
What are the pitfalls in writing essays for a collection?

Linda
I had most of these written before I decided to put them together. I think it would be hard to start out “writing essays for a collection” because you might be tempted to edit in your head before you write. I believe in putting it all out on paper first, then looking for the meaning, then shaping the piece to make the meaning clear to the reader. I liken this to what my husband does in his pottery studio. Put all the clay on the table, THEN shape it into what you want. (At least I think that’s what he does!)

Sheila
What are you currently working on?

Linda
I’m writing a novel about my ancestor from 18th century Poland. She is the earliest person we can find in our family tree, and I’m curious about her.

Also, I’m writing essays for a collection about mixed feelings….so we may see if what I said in the previous answer is correct – can I do it without editing too much too early?

Sheila
How has having your book out impacted your current writing life?

Linda
Since I’m promoting Off Kilter, I have less time to write my new work, and I get no sympathy when I complain about it! 😉

This week, I’m doing a book talk and signing, and I’m also making progress on the novel, so it’s hard to switch gears from talking about memoir to writing fiction from day to day. I guess I love a challenge!

Sheila
What advice do you give those who want to examine their lives using memoir as their form?

Linda
The advice I was given: Just do it. Don’t think too much at first, just write the story that is aching to be told. Write and write and write. Then revise, then examine. As you revise, the meaning of events will come to you. Don’t force it. Step away from the computer and take a walk. You’ll be surprised at the insights you get when you open your heart and mind.
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