The Next Big Thing Blog Chain: Self-Interview

I was recently invited by writer Colleen O’Brien for The Next Big Thing blog chain "self-interview." I liked the Mailer-esque quality to the idea. Here's Colleen's post. And here's mine:

What is your working title of your book?  

Girl Through Glass.

Where did the idea come from for the book? 

Years ago, I sat down and wrote a long scene of a group of young ballet dancers getting ready for class—putting on their tights, then leotards, then wrapping their hair, and it went on an on, it was like they were soldiers getting ready for battle. It was like my own childhood as a dancer coming back to me in a burst. I held onto it for years until it grew slowly as I added to it and grew still more, and then it became fictionalized, until it now has two storylines and spanned years. At some point I realized it wanted to be a book.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? 

One book I really admire that is both a literary and commercial success is my good friend Jean Kwok’s novel Girl in Translation. It’s so well structured and compelling and also lyrical and surprising. I value the structure of good plot, maybe because it’s been so hard to me to find that piece. I also love Jennifer Egan’s Look at Me as an example of a compelling read that flirts with elements of genre and has a lyrical, imagistic heart. Something in that space. I also love Haruki Murakami’s blend of the fantastic and the mundane and tried to bring some of that into the writing of it.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Thinking back on my childhood as a dancer and watching my friends’ kids start to enter into these rites too. Like so many girls, I was trained as a ballet dancer for some key years of my girlhood (ages 8-15). I was obsessed for a time with the ballet world and mastering ballet steps. Thinking back on that period in my life, I began to wonder what it is about the ballet world that still draws girls to it in this modern age? I mean, why do we care about an old aristocratic tradition of movement? What atavistic memory or desire speaks to us through ballet? 

What else about your book might pique the reader's interest? 

There’s a Lolita-esque aspect to the narrative. And also, a mystery. Involving a letter.

And: Next up on The Next Big Thing:

Sarah Dohrmann: has received a New York Foundation for the Arts Award in Nonfiction Literature, a Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant, and a Fulbright Fellowship of the Arts for Creative Writing. With photographer Tiana Markova-Gold, Sarah won the 2010 Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor Prize from the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University for, "If You Smoke Cigarettes in Public, You Are a Prostitute," about female prostitution in Morocco. She has written feature work, travel writing, cultural commentary, short stories, and essays for Glamour, Poets & Writers, Teachers & Writers Magazine, Bad Idea (England), and The Iowa Review.

Zoe Zolbrod: Zoe's excellent CURRENCY came out from Other Voices Books in 2010. It won a Nobbie Award and was selected as an honorable mention by Friends of American Writers. Zoe's currently working on a memoir exploring the lens through which she viewed her childhood sexual assault. She often posts on The Nervous Breakdown on topics often relating to sexuality, parenting, and gender.