{"id":4067,"date":"2020-01-06T21:12:30","date_gmt":"2020-01-06T21:12:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/87bedford.com\/?p=4067"},"modified":"2020-10-09T23:40:14","modified_gmt":"2020-10-09T23:40:14","slug":"interview-with-abbigail-n-rosewood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/87bedford.com\/index.php\/2020\/01\/06\/interview-with-abbigail-n-rosewood\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Abbigail N. Rosewood"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Abbigail N. Rosewood discusses her debut novel, If I Had Two Lives, <\/em>immigrating to the U.S. from Vietnam, and earning an MFA from Columbia University.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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Abbigail N. Rosewood was born in Vietnam, where she lived until the age of twelve. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University. An excerpt from her first novel won first place in the Writers Workshop of Asheville Literary Fiction Contest. She lives in New York City. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was it like growing up in Vietnam? Can you tell us more about the incident that changed your life overnight when you were seven years old?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\nchildhood spent in Vietnam is a special, unspeakable thing. It nurtured my\nsense of wonder, imagination, creativity, as well as formed an early armor\nagainst the elements. Vietnam is wonderful preparations for life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Memory is only approximation, but I remember my first taste of acute fear. Psychologists now might call it fear of abandonment. It was primal, overwhelming; my whole being was reduced to a single goal to reach my mother. That experience taught me about love and need. As an adult, I still haven\u2019t fully overcome this tendency to catastrophize the temporary absence of a loved one. When my fianc\u00e9 travels, I would imagine his sudden disappearance, his not returning. My mother left in the night. It wasn\u2019t her fault, but for many years she couldn\u2019t come back. I learn a lot about loving her from a distance, loving absences. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When did you come to the United States? What was your experience or impression of U.S.\/New York as an immigrant and young adult living in NYC?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve moved around a lot. My first landing spot in the U.S was actually Houston when I was thirteen. Two years later, we moved to San Diego. I made a few miraculous friendships in Houston, friends who despite the geographical distance today, are close to my heart. Such was the blessing of being a teenager and I adapted quickly. I fell in love with the English language immediately. I\u2019d gone to an all-French school in Singapore, but French never had that effect on me, whereas English punctured my veins and saturated my blood. American schools had its own ridiculous hierarchies, but it was mild compared to the Lyc\u00e9e Francais I\u2019d gone to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nfirst friends I made were immigrants themselves. Or they were first generation\nwith parents who were immigrants. That came about naturally, I think, because\nwe all had an unspoken understanding that we didn\u2019t quite belong there, or\nanywhere else. I didn\u2019t know then that this feeling would continue to haunt me\nand become a crucial part of my identity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It can often feel like both a blessing and a burden to be an immigrant, part of two worlds and cultures but also owning a distinct identity from both. What was it like forming your identity in New York? Did you feel like you had to reconcile your immigrant selves?   <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think you said it perfectly, a blessing and a burden. A blessing for many reasons, one of which is having an outsider\u2019s perspective and clarity. A burden for many reasons as well, one always has to explain, for example, why one wasn\u2019t familiar with certain TV shows, music, other cultural references that American children who grew up here would know. I know that seems minor, but frustration builds on minor misunderstandings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a writer, there is a privilege and burden of representation. I cannot\njust be an author because my society will insist on classifying me as an Asian\nAmerican author. What comes next is the question of what an Asian American\nauthor should be writing about. The job of an artist is in many ways to defy\ncategories, generalizations. Apples as depicted by Vincent van Gogh isn\u2019t\nspecial because they belong to a group of fruit, but because they have been\nregarded by the artist. I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ve reconciled my several selves, or\nif I ever will. But lately, I\u2019ve been feeling more free to correct people\u2019s\nassumptions. A simple reminder, I don\u2019t\nknow it, I didn\u2019t grow up here <\/em>is a telling and powerful claim. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Congratulations on publishing your debut novel, If I Had Two Lives<\/em>. Please tell us more about the book!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you so much. If I Had Two\nLives<\/em> is a tale of friendships, the haunting of memories, the gift of\nisolation, and namelessness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When did you first have the idea for the book and what was the process like writing\/revising the novel and getting it published?  <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t think I had ideas as much as I was possessed. I was at a point when I was finally ready to use words as a means to construct emotional truths, difficult truths. The novel, as challenging as it was to write, is to me like a wish: a coherent, metaphorically consistent, emotionally logical narrative with a beginning, middle, and ending. A wish because life isn\u2019t so neatly packaged and perhaps more metaphorically messy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\nis difficult to pinpoint exactly when I attempted to write this book. For a\nlong time, I was telling people that I began the first chapter it in my last\nyear of graduate school, but recently I found a piece I wrote in 2011, in which\nfragments of the same story were already manifesting. So technically I finished\nthe first draft in one year, but I\u2019d been trying to write it for much longer,\nalmost a decade. I never really come up with ideas the way, I believe, ideas\noccur to people, instead I chase a feeling. Sometimes it takes only a word or\ntwo to get there, other times it takes dissolutions of relationships, friendships,\ncrisis of faith, multiple failures to utter the unutterable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I imagine parts of the book must have been painful to write, but many positive things came out of it. How did writing the book help to heal your complicated relationship with your mother? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a little hard to admit, but as a writer, I thrive on pain. It is the source of my creativity, the lifeline to all of my writing. I don\u2019t think I would have written if I\u2019d not been hurt. I\u2019ve heard of writers finding certain experiences too difficult to approach, to fictionalize and draw from, but that has never been the case for me. Because I don\u2019t express myself often outside of writing, it is a joy to sit down and confront myself and to realize I\u2019d felt pain or anything at all is wonderful, because the opposite is numbness, indifference. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My\nrelationship with my mother will always be painful. Part of the healing process\nis accepting this truth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was it like earning an MFA from Columbia? What did you enjoy most about the experience and what did you find most challenging? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was an immense gift. There was so much talent among my professors and my peers. I grew more in my two years in the program than all the time I\u2019ve previously tried to write. The most challenging thing was probably having to read four to five books each week, while also being expected to submit a ten to twenty-page story to workshop, etc. I never was able to complete my reading assignments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What advice would you give someone who is thinking about getting an MFA? How can someone who has already been accepted into an MFA program make the most of it? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My advice would be to not try to impress anyone with your writing, but\ntry to grow, experiment. Because I was afraid of judgment, I would try to\nsubmit stories that are as polished as possible. It would have been better to\nmake a mess of things, toss words around on the page, write from the\nperspective of a vagina or a bonsai. Play. <\/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

Write\nfor yourself. The rest will come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Right now, I\u2019m reading Dracula by Bram Stoker. The structure is amazing. I don\u2019t think contemporary publishers would have the courage to publish such a book now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So\nmany books have influenced me, but one of the first was Wuthering Heights. I\u2019m\nalways seeking that degree of passion, darkness, despair, and attempting it in my own work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s next for you on the horizon? Anything else you\u2019d like to share?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My second novel Constellations of Eve <\/em>will be going on submission to publishers in the new year. I\u2019m excited to see what the world will make of her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Abbigail N. Rosewood discusses her debut novel, If I Had Two Lives, immigrating to the U.S. from Vietnam, and earning an MFA from Columbia University.<\/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-4067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/87bedford.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4067"}],"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=4067"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/87bedford.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5238,"href":"https:\/\/87bedford.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4067\/revisions\/5238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/87bedford.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/87bedford.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/87bedford.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}