Amanda Noble Q & A with Eastern Iowa Review
Chila: I was touched by your essay, "Three Ways I Keep You Alive." Why did you decide to write it?
Amanda: I've had a hard time coping with my husband's death and I wanted to express that without too much sentimentality. I know that when we lose a loved one, this is one of the ways we manage our sadness, by somehow keeping them alive. My husband's been gone nearly six years and I still wear his winter bathrobe. It's comforting somehow.
Chila: Creative writing wasn't your first profession. Tell us how you arrived at this place.
Amanda: I've always loved to write. In the eighth grade, my English teacher asked me to edit the school "paper." It was mimeographed and stapled. At that point in my life, I wrote a lot of poetry. At graduation, I won a writing award. When I graduated from high school in 1969, things were heating up socially and politically. In college, I got drawn into sociology, which was the most popular major at the time. Still, I took many English classes and thought about a double major, but I guess I was too eager to spread my wings. Later, I completed a Ph.D. in sociology, and I did a lot of writing, but science writing is so formulaic. I've always been a big reader. I started reading memoir, and found a Peace Corps Writers website that offered a memoir class online. That was my first foray into creative writing as an adult. I loved it.
Chila: You have a special interest in creative nonfiction. Do you have a favorite author or two who inspired you to pursue it?
Amanda: Some of my favorite non-fiction writers are Joan Didion, Mary Karr, David Sedaris, Leslie Jamison and Jo Ann Beard.
Chila: Do you have a special project or two in the works that you can tell us about?
Amanda: I have been working on a memoir of my Peace Corps experience for a few years. I was in the Philippines when Ferdinand Marcos was President, during the mid-1970s. The era was so wild to begin with, and the administration tried hard to control a large population of volunteers who, in general, chafed under an authority that they associated with the Vietnam War and Watergate. The Peace Corps and its volunteers were different in this period than they had been in the 1960s under Kennedy and Shriver. I've published a few chapters that I revised to stand alone.
Chila: What else would you like to tell us about yourself or your writing?
Amanda: Now that I'm retired I can't imagine how else I'd spend my days. I belong to a local writer's group, take online classes to help me with revision of my book and attend writer's conferences. I've immersed myself in a whole new world and enjoy every minute of it.
Chila: I was touched by your essay, "Three Ways I Keep You Alive." Why did you decide to write it?
Amanda: I've had a hard time coping with my husband's death and I wanted to express that without too much sentimentality. I know that when we lose a loved one, this is one of the ways we manage our sadness, by somehow keeping them alive. My husband's been gone nearly six years and I still wear his winter bathrobe. It's comforting somehow.
Chila: Creative writing wasn't your first profession. Tell us how you arrived at this place.
Amanda: I've always loved to write. In the eighth grade, my English teacher asked me to edit the school "paper." It was mimeographed and stapled. At that point in my life, I wrote a lot of poetry. At graduation, I won a writing award. When I graduated from high school in 1969, things were heating up socially and politically. In college, I got drawn into sociology, which was the most popular major at the time. Still, I took many English classes and thought about a double major, but I guess I was too eager to spread my wings. Later, I completed a Ph.D. in sociology, and I did a lot of writing, but science writing is so formulaic. I've always been a big reader. I started reading memoir, and found a Peace Corps Writers website that offered a memoir class online. That was my first foray into creative writing as an adult. I loved it.
Chila: You have a special interest in creative nonfiction. Do you have a favorite author or two who inspired you to pursue it?
Amanda: Some of my favorite non-fiction writers are Joan Didion, Mary Karr, David Sedaris, Leslie Jamison and Jo Ann Beard.
Chila: Do you have a special project or two in the works that you can tell us about?
Amanda: I have been working on a memoir of my Peace Corps experience for a few years. I was in the Philippines when Ferdinand Marcos was President, during the mid-1970s. The era was so wild to begin with, and the administration tried hard to control a large population of volunteers who, in general, chafed under an authority that they associated with the Vietnam War and Watergate. The Peace Corps and its volunteers were different in this period than they had been in the 1960s under Kennedy and Shriver. I've published a few chapters that I revised to stand alone.
Chila: What else would you like to tell us about yourself or your writing?
Amanda: Now that I'm retired I can't imagine how else I'd spend my days. I belong to a local writer's group, take online classes to help me with revision of my book and attend writer's conferences. I've immersed myself in a whole new world and enjoy every minute of it.
I appreciate the honesty and lyricism in Amanda's essay, and I think readers will too. Thank you, Amanda, for sharing. - Chila
Amanda Noble has a Ph.D. in sociology and has researched and published numerous academic articles, book chapters and reports. Frustrated by the constraints of scientific writing, she turned her attention to creative non-fiction writing, especially personal essay and memoir. Her work has appeared in Seven Hills Review and in Indiana Voices. She lives in Davis, California, with her cat, Lucy. She can be reached at noble.amanda@yahoo.com
Amanda Noble has a Ph.D. in sociology and has researched and published numerous academic articles, book chapters and reports. Frustrated by the constraints of scientific writing, she turned her attention to creative non-fiction writing, especially personal essay and memoir. Her work has appeared in Seven Hills Review and in Indiana Voices. She lives in Davis, California, with her cat, Lucy. She can be reached at noble.amanda@yahoo.com