Maw Books

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I’m delighted to have Katherine Center, author of her newly released book Everyone is Beautiful and The Bright Side of Disaster guest posting today. The more I get to know Katherine, the more I wish she lived next door.  And I’m pretty positive you’d feel the same way.  So lets give Katherine a very warm welcome . . .

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It’s not as easy to write a chatty book as it sounds.

I have always been drawn to them:  From Jane Eyre to Richard Ford’s Independence Day to Curtis Sittenfeld’s American Wife—I love novels that just talk to you.

But I’m a tough audience.  Because I want books to feel chatty but to actually be much more than that.  I want poetry hidden in the plainness.

That’s what I’m going for when I write a story, too.  I want the ease and intimacy of conversation, but the power of tight, streamlined prose.

For a long time, as I was studying writing, I wanted to write important things.  And so I wrote about unhappiness.  And ennui.  And disappointment.  I wrote stories that had a basic framework of despair with funny moments sprinkled in. I wanted to be a real writer, and I thought that’s what real writers had to do.

So it’s funny that I didn’t become a published writer until I stopped trying to do that.

I wrote my first novel, The Bright Side of Disaster, on a dare from my sister.  “Write a novel about being a mom,” she said to me on the phone one night.  “How hard can that be?”

I had just become a mom, myself, about 18 months earlier. And throughout that entire, life-altering experience, I had not written one word.  Not even a grocery list.

I was ready to write again.  I was missing writing (which I’d been doing non-stop since about the age of 12) terribly.  Plus motherhood had just redefined every important thing in my life, and, maybe for the first time ever, I really had something to say.

But I didn’t want to write something heavy.  Motherhood is so close-to-the-bone as it is—you’re walking around all day with your heart in your diaper bag.  I wanted to write something hopeful.  And funny.  And entertaining.  And real.  I wanted to write something, you know—bright.

When I started writing, the words just tumbled out.  The story came so fast there were times I truly couldn’t keep up, and I had never once had an experience like that.  And it happened, I think now—in part at least—because I was writing in my own voice.   After all those years of practicing and trying out other writers’ voices (The Hemingway period!  The Raymond Carver period!  The David Sedaris period!), I finally stumbled on my own.

And it was through that process of writing in my own voice, about the things that mattered to me and about “being a mom,” that I figured something out.  These were the important things I’d been thinking I should write about all along:  The heartbreak and hilarity of getting through the day.  The life-saving properties of laughter.  The way joy and sadness work in tandem.  The way all we ever have is each other.  And the way that each moment—no matter what we do—inevitably gives way to the next.

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Everyone is Beautiful is available now! Visit Katherine’s website and blog, my book review of Everyone is Beautiful, my book review of The Bright Side of Disaster and my interview with Katherine.  And because I found this little bit of random trivia interesting, go check out the meaning behind the Everyone is Beautiful book cover.  Another great guest post appears at The Printed Page and this guest post at Reading Group Guides makes Katherine Cry.  (And don’t forget the soup.)

Would you like a copy of Everyone is Beautiful?  I’m giving away a copy! Details here. And last but not least, don’t forget to leave Katherine a comment!

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