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Today it is my pleasure to share a special Mother’s Day interview with Katherine Center conducted by Nicki Richesin. Katherine has an essay titled “Things To Remember Not To Forget”  in a new mother-daughter anthology Because I Love Her: 34 Women Writers Reflect on the Mother-Daughter Bond, edited by Nicki Richesin.  A book that now has me running out to get it.  Nicki talks with Katherine about her children, writing, love, books, music, and more….

Nicki Richesin:  Congratulations on the success of your new novel EVERYONE IS BEAUTIFUL.  You must be excited to finally see this baby in print.  I want to talk a little about the heroines in your life and your work.  In your incredibly moving essay “Things To Remember Not To Forget” in BECAUSE I LOVE HER, you describe your mother’s influence and how you often feel like an impostor and she’s the “real” mom you hope will show up for spaghetti dinner to save you.  Why do you think, even as adults, we often feel like our mothers were the real deal?  Gen Xers were labeled as the slacker generation early on, but I get the sense that there’s something deeper than this at work.

Katherine Center: Oh, I’m definitely not a slacker!  Especially when it comes to mothering.  I’m trying as hard at mothering as at anything I’ve ever done.  It is possibly the only thing I’ve ever worked this hard at and not aced flat-out.  I mean: I think I’m doing a good job, but only time will tell.

I actually think young moms feel this way because we’re kind of like Velveteen Rabbits waiting to become Real.  You can’t wish it overnight.  You can’t take a seminar on it.  You can only become a real mom-a competent mom-by putting in the hours and evolving into that role.  My mom assures me that her generation had the exact same feeling about their mothers.

Nicki Richesin: The first time we spoke on the phone, your kids were screaming and begging for treats in the background.  Your life in that moment doesn’t seem that far removed from Lanie your heroine in EVERYONE IS BEAUTIFUL.  Did you draw on your own experience as a mother to create this character?

Katherine Center: Heck, yes!  I could never have written her character if I didn’t have kids and know inside and out what it feels like to be torn between what’s best for your kids-who you love so desperately-and what’s best for you.  Because sometimes those two things are in direct opposition.  Everyone Is Beautiful is kind of a “How Mama Got Her Groove Back” story, and it’s all about that struggle to take care of everybody-including yourself.

Nicki Richesin:  At your recent reading in Oakland, you explained how you found your agent through your friends urging you to talk to “the lady novelist” in your neighborhood. Could you share that story again?

Katherine Center: Well, I’d written The Bright Side of Disaster and I literally had on my To Do list: “Find agent!  Sell novel!”  And people kept telling me there was a novelist who lived just a few blocks over and saying I should call her.  And I was like, “I am NOT stalking the neighborhood novelist.”  So I never called her.  And then I had another baby and the novel wound up in a drawer.   I almost forgot all about it.  But then I ran into her at the park one day with my kids.  My friend told her about my novel in a drawer, and she offered to read it.  I sent her the first three chapters, and she liked them and offered to pass them along to her agent.  Her agent read them and offered to represent me, and before I knew it Random House had bought the book in an auction.  I owe all the writing I’m doing now to this woman’s kindness, and I feel grateful for that every day.  Her name is Vanessa Del Fabbro, and she’s a lovely writer.

Nicki Richesin:   In your essay from Because I Love Her, you beautifully express this yearning we all have to hold onto the moment and preserve the beauty of our children’s youth, but recognize this is impossible. You even wonder whether gadgets like camcorders and cameras prevent us from fully experiencing these shared moments. How have your reconciled this loss?

Katherine Center: I can’t reconcile it.  I think about it constantly-about how life slips through our fingers.  It’s a depressing thought, I know, but being around children and watching them grow and change forces you to notice time passing.  We cut off my daughter’s very long hair last weekend, and my eyes filled with tears.  Even though I knew it was time, and even though she looks like a completely adorable 1920s girl detective with her new bob, I want my long-haired girl back.  I want them both.  And while I’m at it, I want my babies back, too-those plump little muffins that I took for granted when I was so sleep deprived.  I’d give anything to pick up one of my 3-month-olds again and feel that peach-fuzz hair and those little thighs.  It’s the same reason I can’t get rid of some of the baby clothes.  I just have to keep them forever in the attic.  Even if I never take them out again.  I just need to know they’re still there.

Nicki Richesin: If Hollywood were to adapt THE BRIGHT SIDE OF DISASTER for the screen, who would you cast as the lead characters?

Katherine Center: It has been optioned! Varsity Pictures optioned it last fall, which was cool.  And I could see a lot of different people playing Jenny Harris.  But it would have to be somebody with sass-somebody who can banter and sort of crook her eyebrow.  This topic comes up a lot at book clubs.  People have suggested Rachel McAdams and Reese Witherspoon.  I’ve heard Ellen Page-if she were older-and Janeane Garofalo-if she were younger.  Ben Affleck always comes up as an option for either of the guys-since I met him once at a reading and have a photo of him carrying the book.  It would actually be fun to see Jennifer Garner as Jenny and Ben as Dean-the bad boyfriend.

Nicki Rishesin:: Have you ever read a book, and thought oh man, I wish I had written this or it seemed to be a story you wanted to tell?

Katherine Center: When that happens, it’s really exciting.  I recently read a screenplay by Jane O’Brien (Conan’s sister) that had me pacing around the house in the wee hours of the night because I was so thrilled about how good it was that I couldn’t sleep.  There are all different kinds of great writing out there, but the kind that can keep me awake at night is usually writing that’s funny and authentic and sad all at the same time-which of course is exactly the kind I try to do.  David Sedaris, Tina Fey, Catherine Newman, and Marisa de los Santos all do this-make you laugh and break your heart at the same time.  It’s not an easy thing to do, and when I see it done well, I just want to stand up and cheer.

Nicki Rishesin:  Publishers Weekly praised BRIGHT SIDE for its “sharp dialogue and a narrative that’s heavier on the sass than the diaper rash.”  I couldn’t agree more!  How did you create such a rich vibrant and spunky character in Jenny Harris?  Have you ever felt similarly abandoned and been forced to keep calm and carry on?  I know your devoted hubby teaches at your childhood alma mater. Not exactly Jenny’s background?

Katherine Center: No-not Jenny’s background.  I am very lucky that my sweet husband has stuck by me.  But I have had my heart broken a couple of significant and horrible times.  And I’ve certainly faced all kinds of sadnesses and challenges that I feared I wasn’t up to.  And then I surprised myself.  Those moments of rising up beyond my capabilities have often been the ones that stuck with me or changed me or taught me the most.  Those are my favorite stories-about people surprising themselves.  But those moments of surprise don’t come easy.

And as for how I created Jenny: I don’t know.  It’s a good question, and I just don’t know.  It’s magic.  (Or possibly lunacy.)  I’ll just be going about my day and suddenly hear someone talking in my head.  And so I just write down what they’re saying.  I actually can’t imagine writing a book in the 3^rd person, because the main character is usually talking to me, and I’m just writing it down.  It’s not a conscious process.  Characters talk in my head, and then they start doing things, and then other characters come in and say things.  Mostly, I’m just watching them, and listening.  I get to know them slowly-the way you do with friends.

Nicki Rishesin:  Could you explain how you work- your practice, discipline?   How do you carve out the time to churn out so many novels with two little rug rats running around?  Do you have a favorite place to work or a writing retreat?

Katherine Center: Here’s how things would look if I were in charge:  I’d get up at the crack of dawn, take a brisk walk, come home, shower, have a cup of coffee with a tasty and nutritious breakfast, and sit down to write for several uninterrupted hours.

Here’s how things actually are:  I get up, and get the kids up, and scramble around looking for missing shoes and library books.  I think about the coffee, but rarely get to it.  I think about breakfast, too, but usually don’t get that either.  I send one kid off to carpool and then drop the other one at pre-school.  Some days I get a walk after that, some days not.  Some days I can arrange a good block of uninterrupted time, some days not.  Lots of times I’m just getting into a groove when it’s time to go to the grocery or pick up carpool.  That’s why I do a lot of my writing with crayons or in the carpool line.

But the kids are also endless sources of inspiration and laughs.  I didn’t know what I wanted to write about until I had them.  And I truly believe that the tension between your real life and your creative life-on a good day-is really great for both.

Nicki Rishesin:  Could you share some of your favorite childhood books and reading memories?

Katherine Center: My parents read to us all the time when we were little, and I remember Go, Dog, Go, Eloise, How Droofus the Dragon Lost His Head, and all the Dr. Seuss books as particular favorites.  As we got older, my dad read chapter books to us-Alice in Wonderland, The Jungle Book, Tom Sawyer-and made up stories, too.  My dad is a terrific reader.  When he reads, it sounds like he’s just talking.  He also loves words and language-the feel and the sound of them-and I got that from him.  As I got older, I remember loving Fantastic Mr. Fox, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, The Secret Garden, and A Little Princess-as well as Deenie, by Judy Blume and The Pistachio Prescription, by Paula Danziger.

One great thing about becoming a mom is getting to revisit all those books and stories.

Nicki Rishesin: You’ve been a big supporter of Writers in the Schools. How have you supported them within your community?

Katherine Center: I used to teach for them, so I know about the organization from the inside out.  And I love what they do: teach children about the “pleasure and power of reading and writing” through positive interactions with working writers who come to their schools.  I loved being a WITS writer, because there was no grading and no criticism.  Just finding the things each kid was doing well and praising the heck out of them.  Now, I talk about WITS at every opportunity.  I keep in touch with them and taught at a recent writer training and spoke at their Young Writers Reading series.  I also did a TV commercial for them where I got to read a beautiful poem by a child in the program.

Nicki Rishesin:  Who were your early influences? Did they inform your first story you won for the Vassar College Fiction Prize?

Katherine Center: When I was first learning to write, I loved the minimalists: Raymond Carver and Amy Hempel and Lorrie Moore.  I loved how they stripped everything down to the essentials.  And, of course, Lorrie Moore is so wickedly funny.  I loved her story, “How to Become a Writer” (”First, try to be something-anything-else.”) because it was so funny and heartbreaking at the same time.  I also loved poetry early on: Edward Hirsch and Anne Sexton and Sharon Olds, in particular.  I kept a blank book that I copied poems I loved into. And song lyrics-I still love the sweet melancholy of many of Paul Simon’s lyrics:  “She comes back to tell me she’s gone.  As if I didn’t know that–as if I didn’t know my own bed.  As if I’d never noticed the way she brushed her hair from her forehead.”  I also absorbed so much from funny women writers-Texas political columnist Molly Ivins was absolutely hilarious, and I think I have memorized every single line from Nora Ephron’s When Harry Met Sally.  One time my friend Nicole and I watched it and just talked along with the actors.

Nicki Rishesin: You just finished your third novel GET LUCKY about a woman who offers to have a baby for her sister. How did the idea for this novel first come to you?

Katherine Center: I had this thought once-many years ago-about my sisters.  That if either of them ever wanted a baby and couldn’t have one, I’d act as a surrogate for them.  It seemed like a no-brainer.  But then I actually got pregnant-twice-and re-thought my idea.  I mused on it a lot while I was pregnant, actually-about how pregnancy doesn’t seem like a big deal until you are actually doing it.  And then it’s a huge, all-encompassing deal.  I loved the idea of a character getting herself into something like that-so life-changing and irreversible–with such high stakes.  It seemed like a situation rich for both comedy and heartbreak.  My two favorite things.

Nicki Rishesin:  I know you, like thousands of little girls in the eighties (including me!), had a not-so-secret crush on Duran Duran. Fantasy date night with Simon Le Bon or Nick Rhodes? Candlelit dinner followed by moonlit serenade to “Hungry like the Wolf” or “Rio”?

Katherine Center: This cracks me up!  What was it about Duran Duran?  I honestly can’t tell you.  I go back and look at those videos now and they seem so completely ridiculous.  Women crawling around like animals and all that.  Simon LeBon was my favorite by far, even though John Taylor was technically the handsomest.  That said, in all our defense, they were not nearly as cheesy as many of the boy-bands to follow.  But the idea of me, as a sixth-grader, singing along with my entire soul to lyrics like, “Some people call it a one night stand, but we can call it paradise,” that’s just hilarious.  And so sad.  Just the way I like it.

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Katherine Center is the author of two novels, Everyone Is Beautiful and The Bright Side of Disaster, and she has two more forthcoming.  Everyone Is Beautiful was featured recently in People, Redbook, and USA Today.  Katherine started writing fiction in the 6^th grade, when she wrote a novel about how all five members of Duran Duran fell in love with her and she was forced to pick one.  Later, she graduated from Vassar College, where she won the Vassar College Fiction Prize, and earned a Master’s in fiction from the University of Houston’s Creative Writing Program.  She now lives in her home state of Texas with her husband and her two feisty little kids-a daughter and a son.  For more about Katherine, or to find out which member of Duran Duran was the lucky winner, please see her website: www.katherinecenter.com.

Nicki Richesin is the editor of four anthologies, Because I Love Her: 34 Women Writers Reflect on the Mother-Daughter Bond; What I Would Tell Her: 30 Male Writers on the Father-Daughter Relationship (May 2010); the forthcoming Crush: Real-life Tales of First Love Gone Wrong by our Best Young Adult Novelists; and The May Queen: Women on Life, Work, and Pulling it all Together in your Thirties. Her anthologies have been excerpted and praised in The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Redbook, Parenting, Cosmopolitan, Bust, Daily Candy, and Babble. She lives with her husband and daughter in northern California. Visit www.nickirichesin.com for more information.

Natasha here. Check out my book reviews of Everyone is Beautiful, The Bright Side of Disaster, my interview and a guest post with Katherine.  As if that’s not enough, make sure you go make her favorite soup (I wonder if I can ever talk about Katherine without mentioning that soup!).  I loved this interview!  Because I Love Her would make a perfect mothers day gift for the mother or daughter in your life!  It sounds great and I’m convinced that I need to read this book.

Two video trailers that feature excerpts from Katherine Center’s essay Things to Remember Not to Forget:

Book trailer for Because I Love Her:

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