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 The author of Journey From the Keep of Bones talks about the making of her first novel, her other work, how she balances her life as a writer, her characters and key themes, the importance of her playwriting degree and theatre courses for writers, chanelling, New Mexico, her next novel, and lots more.
Interview by pogo
Michelle Miller Allen received her B.A. in English from Loyola University, New Orleans in 1971 and was a Breadloaf Scholarship winner in 1970 under the sponsorship of poet Miller Williams. In 1995 Miller Allen received her M.A. in Theatre/Playwriting from University of New Mexico. Her work has been published in various literary and arts magazines in the US and Canada, including Prism International, Island, Center, Artspace, Women Artists & Writers of the Southwest. In 1992 her first collection fiction, Hunger in the First Person Singular (Amador Publishers) won the New Mexico Press Women’s ZIA Best Book Award. Her play ‘The Eden Vent" won the 1992 One Act Play Competition and production at NMSU in Mark Medoff’s playwriting program. In 2003 her first novel, Journey From the Keep of Bones won #1 RunnerUp in the Coalition of Visionary Resources Best Fiction. Miller Allen resides in the mountains of Northern New Mexico.
pogo: Michelle, do you mind giving a brief introduction by telling us something about yourself?
Michelle I'm a typical New Mexican writer: I live in a treehouse in the mountains of New Mexico with my dog; I drive a purple truck with the requisite horizontal crack in the windshield and smudge stick under the visor. I write visionary fiction, after dabbling in poetry and theatre for a couple decades. In 1992 my first collection of fiction, Hunger in the First Person Singular (Amador Publishers) won the New Mexico Press Women's ZIA Best Book Award. In 2003 my first novel, Journey From the Keep of Bones won #1 Runner Up in the Coalition of Visionary Resources Best Fiction.
pogo: How difficult is it for you to balance your life as a writer? Is comparable to the double life of kitchen-maid and board member executive?
Michelle I've slowly had to learn to slide the "I'm a writer" screen in front of all the other screens that distract and support my life. It's been a lifelong process, sorting out the balancing act. I like your comparison! I think the process of balancing will continue forever unless I find a rich watchdog to take care of me so I can just and only write. But I have a feeling that isn't bound to occur...even a rich watchdog would need feeding and bathing now and then, eh? There are always distractions and then you go back to the computer and write about the distractions. I guess the balancing act is to turn it all into fodder.
pogo: How did you find time to write Journey? Did you approach it systematically?
Michelle Not that he was rich nor a watch dog, but for 5 years I was married to the most supportive husband who believed in my work and helped me focus and make time and space to write the book. Unfortunately he died two months before it was published. I worked a 50-hour week, commuting 3 hours round trip 5 days a week from the country to the city, so I wrote all weekend, every weekend, for four years. Then, toward the end, I spent a week in retreat at a friend's house while she was in New York and worked round the clock and finished the book. That was one of the best weeks in my entire life. Sixteen-twenty hours a day writing writing writing with no phone, no visitors, no nothing else. As close to heaven as I think I'll ever be, again.
pogo: When I hop on a train to go somewhere, I usually pack a suitcase.. Tell me what did you pack in your novel for Journey?
MichelleWell, first of all, I packed it all into a Jeep Cherokee. Four passengers were on the trip, so we had all their stuff a legal briefcase for Maxine, a backpack for Conner, Travis had no luggage at all, and Adrianne had her medicine bag. Then of course there was the golden retriever, Seamus and his water bowl. In my bag I had a tape recorder with lots of blank cassettes, to tape their conversations as we went down the highway. I just basically took notes and listened and drank lots of espresso. We picked up a few odd hitchhikers along the way.
pogo: Can you introduce us to your companions, the protagonists of the novel?
Michelle I think I just did, if you can judge a traveler by their luggage! Maxine is a paralegal who becomes intrigued by the artful, free lifestyles of Conner, a maverick martial artist hiding in the woods of New Mexico, Adrianne, a recently divorced artist exploring her bisexuality, and Travis, a rather lost street artist. In every other chapter we have two jaguar shamans and their two women, living in ancient Mesoamerica, who are reincarnated in contemporary times into the four characters I just described. Reincarnated as the opposite sex.
pogo: The people in the book are vividly cast, nearly as much as those in Madwoman of Chaillot, were they based on real people?
Michelle: Maxine and Conner are in part based on myself and my late husband. The other characters are imaginary and/or composites of people I have observed.
pogo: Do you have a favorite character in this book? I am rather partial to Adrianne, myself. I like her spunky outlook on life.
Michelle: I would agree, I think I like Adrianne best, for the reasons you give. I also like the bad boy Travis, just because he was fun to get inside and write. It’s more interesting to write about the complicated, messed-up ones, to try to sort out how they see the world through their crooked, cracked lenses. But Adrianne has finally had it with her repressed life and is bursting out in so many ways. Her subconscious is taking over and she’s allowing it to do so and doesn't care who sees or what they think. That’s exciting to watch and explore, as a writer.
pogo: You have a Master's degree in playwriting, how has this helped your writing?
Michelle Mostly it has helped me with character development, and helped me focus and simplify so that there is hopefully nothing extraneous, so that every "scene" builds the novel and keeps it moving in a focused direction to its conclusion. It also helped in another odd way: I wanted so much the instant satisfaction of audience reaction and feedback in workshops, to have real actors read my words for me. But, over the years of working with theatre and getting the degree, I finally pulled away from that world because I found theatre people, although delightful and fascinating, to be necessarily ego-driven and I had trouble in that environment. I realized I was happiest and functioned best at home, behind closed doors, just me and the words. I turned to novel-writing almost in reaction to my work in theatre and it is much more fulfulling in a deeper sense, for me.
pogo: Would you recommend enrolling in theater courses for aspiring writers?
Michelle: I really would, especially if you can find a university or college that has a good playwriting class, which, at the time I was there, UNM did. It's a good boot-camp thing to do, and the exposure to other people's reactions to what you are writing is invaluable. It's not for the faint-hearted, all that critiquing and confusion of reactions, but you will learn and grow stronger in that environment. However, more than recommending theatre classes, I would recommend any writing class or mentor situation which will expose you to a lot of criticism, the harder the better. You have to get a thick skin, you have to learn who to listen to and who to not listen to. You have to find out if what you are doing is fresh or redundant. Working in a vacuum is a waste of precious time, both yours and your readers.
pogo: Can you describe how you used theatrical applications for putting the stage inside a novel?
Michelle: I've always been very visually-oriented. I started out as a child to be a visual artist, in fact, but switched to words early on. So when I set a scene, the props and physical environment are like additional characters, even the light and weather are characters. When you set a stage you leave off the ex traneous, everything is there to create a mood or fill a function. That sense spilled over into my picturing the scenes in my novel. And I could almost see it as a revolving stage, as every other chapter is set in a different geography and time.
pogo: Considering Journey, did you mean it to be a feminist manifesto or is there much more to the novel than this?
Michelle: No, that is not my intention, although my roots are feminist. I always strive toward and would rather see a power that is balanced with both sexes equally acting together, a partnership and total respect for the values of both sexes. My characters reincarnate in the opposite sex, to explore what is different and what is the same in our humanity. I value what is male, I relish in the differences, the dialogue. We need truly strong male figures and truly strong female figures, both. I'm not saying that feminism denies the value of maleness, but my personal experiences with most "isms" has not been very positive or helpful to my life. If I'm political it's almost by accident; I am just fascinated by the male/female dialogue and what we both bring to that, the exchange.
pogo: In reflection, when I consider Journey, I am reminded of Shakespeare's comedies, of the constant mix-up of lovers in Tempest or in Love Labour's Lost?
Michelle: The gender swapping motif, of course, and the "into the forest motif. In both motifs we are dealing in contrasting and comparing "modes" of being and how they impact the essential self. Also, there is an element of playfulness, of compassionate irony, in my book and how I feel about and present my characters that is, if I may say, rather Shakespearian of me!
pogo: The protagonists are advised by Light, the channeler. Can you explain what a channeler is? or describe the experience of channeling?
Michelle: I always qualify my answer to this question by saying that I can only give you my own understanding and definition of channeling, but it is not necessarily anyone else's. I believe that there are levels of reality going on around us that we are not all able or willing to "tune into". We are like radios with too many stations, too much static. If you just think about the human ear and realize there are many frequencies we cannot hear but animals and insects can hear, then apply that to the "sounds" of other experiences going on around us. In studying classic Freud an example is given of seeing a friend and subconsciously noting he looks pale, then having a dream that he is sick and the dream turns out to be "premonitory", he does indeed end up diagnosed with a disease. It all seems mysterious and as if you have special powers but it was just that you noticed something but not consciously. Channelers train and focus on that "unseen" but real reality, they develop the skill, and have a gift the way some have a gift for music or art or science. To seek out the assistance of a channeler is not for everyone, but for me it's just a tool like a flashlight or hearing aid!
pogo: The characters in Journey seem to be the artsey, brainy type that hang on the fringe of the cultural revolution. Is New Mexico the place to be for a young artist or writer? Is there a lot of support there that might not be found elsewhere?
Michelle: New Mexico is a good place to do your creative work. It's a place that encourages and supports the maverick, the entrepreneur, and is very much aware of the arts. D.H. Lawrence and Georgia O'Keeffe came here and many followed. You can create yourself here (like the America song says, "I came to the desert on a horse with no name...in the desert you can't remember your name cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain.") and lose your ego in all the space out there. You can find kindred artist spirits both human and otherwise. The lifestyle is casual and a bit slowed down. The light here is like nowhere else, many artists come here for the light. I always felt a bit of an oddball in other places I lived (many) but here there are so many like me, I can relax. Coming here in 1979 was the first best decision of my life.
pogo: Can you tell us a little about your next project? We're fishing for bait here to catch the next whopper of a story.
Michelle: My agent is looking for a publisher for my first paranormal murder mystery. I am currently writing the second in that series, using the same poet sleuths, which takes place mostly in Ireland and involves bog sacrifice. The other book I am working on is a small nonfiction book about death, dying, grief, creativity and synchronicity. And most recently I have begun an autobiographical novel, when I realized my life was beginning to sound like a novel. Might as well use the material.
About the Interviewer: pogo, alternatively known as Mary C. Legg, or ardela dimwit, grew up in the beautiful San Juans of Washington State with the luxury of nature and literature. She acquired a degree in Classics, English Literature and Creative Writing, followed by a Masters of Library and Info Science; thus completely deranged, she left the States to study solo soprano literature in Vienna and has had the misfortunate experience of teaching English in Prague where she is currently turning over a new leaf for the pen. She can be contacted at: pogomcl@compulsivereader.com
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