Jane Harrington Q & A with Eastern Iowa Review
Q: Jane, Port Yonder Press has published two of your short works, “Ossein Pith” and “The Elf Lord.” These pieces are very different from each other, one a work of creative nonfiction and one a fictional tale. Is it common for you to move between genres in this way?
A: It has become common, I guess. My MFA was in fiction, and most of the books and short works I’ve published are fictions, but I’ve been drawn to lyric prose in recent years. I use it for memoir, to carve around and into a difficult reverie until there is just a cutout left. The crafting is satisfying, calming, like making a paper snowflake. The enjoyment of writing lyric prose was a discovery to me, as I’d taken it up for practical reasons: to hide actual events in the folds of imagery in order to protect the privacy of my subjects—often the young women I brought into this world, my three daughters. “Ossein Pith” is drawn from my feelings of helplessness, and complicity, as I watched happy, vibrant girls eaten up by a culture seemingly set on destroying them, their bodies, their senses of self-worth. A standard prose approach to writing about that time in my family’s life would have quickly stretched the bounds of my comfort with giving away what is not all mine.
Q: Do you view your fiction writing as a less complicated endeavor?
A: Fiction has always been an act of escapism for me, and often, yes, simple. Even joyful. The middle grade novels I used to write were like that, the crafting of them a high that would have me laughing out loud at my writing desk. The making of literary fiction, while more complicated thematically, is just as easy to fall into. My most recent short stories, a trio of retellings of fairy tales, were like an enchantment to write. We had a tragedy in our family last year, a lost child, and finding the right words to say about it, let alone write about it, was and is quite impossible. The stories, all allegories, became realms where I could console the unconsolable, awake the unwakeable. “The Elf Lord” is one, a reimagining of Goethe’s “The Erlkönig.” My version has a happy ending. Sort of.
Q: Do you have a “day job” or are you able to devote yourself to writing full-time?
A: I spend about half the year in college classrooms, presently as a visiting professor at Washington & Lee University, where I’ve taught fiction writing and literature (the fairy tale). The rest of the year I try to concentrate on craft, working at my home in the Appalachians or away at a residency program such as the Fairhope Center for the Writing Arts, where I will do a turn as writer-in-residence in 2018.
Q: Jane, Port Yonder Press has published two of your short works, “Ossein Pith” and “The Elf Lord.” These pieces are very different from each other, one a work of creative nonfiction and one a fictional tale. Is it common for you to move between genres in this way?
A: It has become common, I guess. My MFA was in fiction, and most of the books and short works I’ve published are fictions, but I’ve been drawn to lyric prose in recent years. I use it for memoir, to carve around and into a difficult reverie until there is just a cutout left. The crafting is satisfying, calming, like making a paper snowflake. The enjoyment of writing lyric prose was a discovery to me, as I’d taken it up for practical reasons: to hide actual events in the folds of imagery in order to protect the privacy of my subjects—often the young women I brought into this world, my three daughters. “Ossein Pith” is drawn from my feelings of helplessness, and complicity, as I watched happy, vibrant girls eaten up by a culture seemingly set on destroying them, their bodies, their senses of self-worth. A standard prose approach to writing about that time in my family’s life would have quickly stretched the bounds of my comfort with giving away what is not all mine.
Q: Do you view your fiction writing as a less complicated endeavor?
A: Fiction has always been an act of escapism for me, and often, yes, simple. Even joyful. The middle grade novels I used to write were like that, the crafting of them a high that would have me laughing out loud at my writing desk. The making of literary fiction, while more complicated thematically, is just as easy to fall into. My most recent short stories, a trio of retellings of fairy tales, were like an enchantment to write. We had a tragedy in our family last year, a lost child, and finding the right words to say about it, let alone write about it, was and is quite impossible. The stories, all allegories, became realms where I could console the unconsolable, awake the unwakeable. “The Elf Lord” is one, a reimagining of Goethe’s “The Erlkönig.” My version has a happy ending. Sort of.
Q: Do you have a “day job” or are you able to devote yourself to writing full-time?
A: I spend about half the year in college classrooms, presently as a visiting professor at Washington & Lee University, where I’ve taught fiction writing and literature (the fairy tale). The rest of the year I try to concentrate on craft, working at my home in the Appalachians or away at a residency program such as the Fairhope Center for the Writing Arts, where I will do a turn as writer-in-residence in 2018.
JANE HARRINGTON has written best-selling books for young adults (Scholastic, Lerner), and her literary fiction, creative nonfiction and lyric prose have been published widely, including in Chautauqua, Eastern Iowa Review, Circa, Claudius Speaks, Irish America, Feminine Collective, and Where the Sweet Waters Flow: Contemporary Appalachian Nature Writing(upcoming, West Virginia UP). Jane is a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Washington & Lee University and a fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA). Her website: www.janeharrington.com