{"id":3972,"date":"2016-09-07T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-09-07T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/87bedford.com\/?p=3972"},"modified":"2020-10-09T23:17:27","modified_gmt":"2020-10-09T23:17:27","slug":"interview-with-adrienne-clarke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/87bedford.com\/index.php\/2016\/09\/07\/interview-with-adrienne-clarke\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Adrienne Clarke"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Adrienne Clarke<\/a> discusses “You Will Leave<\/a>,” the story’s themes of loss, heartbreak, and secrets, and publishing her first young adult novel Losing Adam<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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Adrienne Clarke<\/a> is a writer of YA and literary fiction. Adrienne\u2019s short stories have appeared in a number of publications including The Storyteller<\/em>, A Fly in Amber<\/em>, New Plains Review<\/em>, Silly Tree<\/em> Anthologies<\/em>, and in the e-zines  Les Bonnes Fees, The Devilfish Review, <\/em>and Rose Red Review.<\/em> Her story \u201cFalling\u201d was awarded first place in the 2008 Alice Munro short fiction contest. An excerpt from her second YA novel Losing Adam<\/em> (also unpublished) recently won first place in the Young Adult category of the Seven Hills Literary Review<\/em> contest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was the inspiration for \u201cYou Will Leave\u201d? How did the story develop\/change from conception to completion?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chekov said, \u201cevery\nfamily is unhappy in its own way\u201d and I think he\u2019s right. Within every family\nlies some heartbreak, and usually a secret or two. Relationships between\nfathers and daughters can be particularly delicate and I wanted to explore the\nfeeling of abandonment. The loss of a parent can have a devastating, lasting\nimpact at any age, and I wanted to write about one woman\u2019s attempt to come to\nterms with that loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did the main character, Kate, first form in your imagination? Was there a pivotal moment, in the course of writing the story, where you discovered something unexpected about her? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Spoiler<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
Kate was a difficult character to write because I\u2019d created such a painful future for her. How does someone begin to live in the present when they know something terrible awaits them? I didn\u2019t know the answer when I started writing and I still don\u2019t, but through Kate I began to understand the desire to live, to be in the world right now, no matter what fate holds in store for us.  Kate\u2019s decision to be present in her life for as long as she can, and to accept her father\u2019s love, flawed as it may be, is (I think) a tremendous display of courage. <\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\n\n

How would you describe your writing and revision process? What have you found to be most helpful for you when dealing with writer\u2019s block?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel like I\nconstantly revise and yet at the same time I know I don\u2019t revise enough. I have\na good friend, also a writer, who says the craft of writing is essentially\n\u2018rewriting.\u2019 She\u2019s probably right but I get attached to first drafts. At some\npoint, however, you must be prepared to make changes for the sake of your\nstory. In terms of writers\u2019 block, I think the only cure is to write through\nit. Sometimes, you must give yourself permission to write many terrible words\nin order to get to the good ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s the most valuable piece of advice you\u2019ve received as a writer and what advice would you give new writers?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was younger,\nI only considered advice that talked about craft, how to make my writing\nbetter, but now that I\u2019m a bit older I know that the best advice is: don\u2019t give\nup. You have to decide to make good art even when no one\u2019s paying attention. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are you currently reading?\nWhat book has been most influential on your life or on you as a writer?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m currently\nre-reading The Shadow of the Wind<\/em> by Carlos\nRuiz Zafon which has one of the most charming, endearing narrators you\u2019ll ever\nmeet. I like to come back to this novel every few years because it really is a\nlove letter to literature. The second part of your question is much more\ndifficult to answer! I\u2019ve loved many books that have affected my life in a\nmyriad of ways, but if I had to choose, I\u2019d say Wuthering Heights<\/em> for its intense passion and darkly romantic\nsensibility. It\u2019s a book you can come back to again and again and make new\ndiscoveries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anything else you\u2019d like to share?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you for asking! My first young adult novel Losing Adam<\/em> is now out in the world and I\u2019m thrilled that people are finally reading it. A coming of age story about first love, fairy tales and the pain of living with mental illness, this book has been part of me for a long time. For that reason, I\u2019m very gratified that Losing Adam<\/em> garnered a silver medal in the 2018 Independent Publisher Book Awards and was selected as a finalist in the Eric Hoffer Book Awards. It\u2019s now available on Amazon and in select independent bookstores.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Adrienne Clarke discusses “You Will Leave,” the story’s themes of loss, heartbreak, and secrets, and publishing her first young adult novel Losing Adam.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/87bedford.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3972"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/87bedford.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/87bedford.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/87bedford.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/87bedford.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3972"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/87bedford.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5216,"href":"https:\/\/87bedford.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3972\/revisions\/5216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/87bedford.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/87bedford.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/87bedford.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}