Pageonelit.com: Where did you grow up and
was reading and writing a part of your life? Who were your earliest
influences and why?
Ibby Greer: I grew up in central Illinois,
spending summers in northern Michigan, and winters in southern
Florida, hence three sets of friends, two schools each year,
and lots of exposure to different regions in the USA. Reading
was a part of my life as far back as I have memories. My dad
used to read the [original editions] of the Beatrix Potter tales
to us when we were little children, and I especially liked the
personalities of the animal characters in "Mrs.
Tiggywinkle," "The Pie and the Patty Pan," "The
Tailor of Gloucester," "The Tale of Samuel Whiskers,"
and "The Tale of Two Bad Mice,"
These stories were full of rich vocabulary, intricate details
of place and activity, and full of charm. As I became able to
read on my own I read everything in sight. I rode my bike to
the libraries (wherever we were) and checked out many books each
visit (back when you could do that!), read them in a few days
and returned for more. I treasured libraries (still do!). Writing
did not become a part of my life until I was away at boarding
school in New England, and writing poetry was a way I had of
"taking notes" about an environment that was
pretty strict, very demanding, and not always very friendly.
Poetry helped me put the thoughts onto paper in a concise, creative
way.
I have always wanted to be a writer. As I grew
older (high school, college) I was very influenced by French
poetry and novels, having studied French for 13 years, and being
able to read it well. I especially liked Balzac, Zola, Verlaine,
Camus, and Sartre. In English-language writings, I was influenced
most by Emily Dickinson, William Butler Yeats, Joseph Conrad,
Thomas Hardy, Shakespeare's sonnets, John Donne, and a book I
had called "The Faber Book of Modern Verse," which
I still own and love. My favorite (older era) novelist is Sinclair
Lewis, and my favorite contemporary novelist is Anne Tyler. By
studying the narrative techniques and sheer love of language
in these two writers, one could never get bored! Two writers
whom I heard read in the 1960s were great writers: Richard Wilbur,
in Connecticut, and W.H. Auden (who recited his work from memory),
in Virginia. Such influences are unforgettable.
Pageonelit.com: Why did you write Moving Day: A Season of Letters? Tell us
about this book --- How long did it take to write?
Ibby Greer: I wrote this novel for several reasons: to
emulate epistolary style, which I had studied under Professor
Kay Howe at the University of Colorado for my Master's Degree
at Boulder in the early 1970s. I also had several favorite epistolary
novels. I like the French 
novel
"Les Liasons Dangereuses,"
and the more recent "A Woman of Independent
Means" by [fellow Hollins College graduate] Elizabeth
Forsythe Hailey, and wanted to try to write a novel of all letters.
It is also a good way to begin writing a novel, as it has what
I call "limited first person narrative," and allows
the writer many freedoms within strict rules. Letter writing
came easily to me, and this genre was a natural match. I have
lived all over the USA but now live in the South, in an area
quite well known for Southern writers, in fact (many of them
fellow alumnae of my own college---Annie Dillard, Amanda Cockrell,
Margaret Wise Brown ["Good Night, Moon" and others],
Lee Smith, Tama Janowitz, Katie Letcher Lyle, Jill McCorkle,
and the list goes on). When I was a student at Hollins we had
famous writers around: George Garrett, Louise Bogan, William
Jay Smith, Richard Dillard, Louis Rubin, and many more. It was
such a creative atmosphere and writers were truly revered! My
college, and this area, are known for their "Southern"
writers, so I decided to try something else, for a start. I did
not want immediately to be "typed" as a "Southern
Writer" or an "Appalachian Writer," although I
admire both genres very much. So I set my story out West, in
an area I had lived for about 7 years in the 1970s. After all,
I am first a Mid-Westerner.
I began the book in 1997 and finished it in 2000.
I could not work on it all the time, of course, being a full-time
mom to a student in high school, and a wife, etc., juggling many
other duties and civic responsibilities at the same time (serving
on many boards, being a board trainer). The book was blocked
out on a huge piece of poster board which I hung above my word
processor and drew on. I drew the characters, their relationships
with each other, the main "events" I would have occur
in the story, the dates of the letters, and everything that would
happen in the book. That way I never mixed up dates, correspondence,
or other details. I also kept lists of special vocabulary words
I wanted to include, words from other languages, culinary and
art vocabulary, books and authors (I made most of them up), civic
activities for Ann Bow, Native American Indian tribes (a theme
in the story), conflicts with family and friends, foods I wanted
her to eat or mention, fabrics, smells and textures and sounds.
I used different colors of magic markers to keep the many "items"
separate so I could tell at a glance if I had, for instance,
already had any character eat tofu or a felafel! I kept track
of "weather" and her clothes, candles and meals in
this fashion. It worked well for me. By the end of the book,
the big page was scrawled all over with lines and deletions and
marks! But I got everything in that I had wanted to. I also used
a book-like calendar with each day marked for whom she wrote,
so I would not have her write the same person too often! In the
calendar I also kept track of all the details from the poster:
the meals, candles, music, trips, memories, friends, clothes,
her cat's activities, her prayers and her own writings.
The main reason I wrote this particular story,
though, is that I wanted to create a mature consciousness who
could handle anything Life threw her, in a mature, upbeat, and
spiritual way. That is very important, I think, especially with
the way the world has lowered its standards, in my own lifetime,
concerning use of language, cultural sophistication, knowledge
of history and geography, and the ability to converse on many
subjects. I wanted to create a character who could carry on,
so to speak, with some of these ways of living life! I wanted
her to embody the kind of person who has the desire to have a
spiritual dimension to life, the willingness to share ideas,
and the strength of character to handle crises. I even made a
(French) pun with the character's name (might as well get some
use out of all my years of French): her name, Ann C. Bow, when
said in a slightly different way, sounds like an si beau, which
means, in French, "such a beautiful year." This visual
and aural pun appears at the end of her Holiday Letter, when
she signs her name, after having just written a thank you to
God, in French, for cet an si beau. Appropriate for her "season
of letters," I thought.
Pageonelit.com: Where did the title come from?
Ibby Greer: Greer: I came up with
the title when I considered how many different meanings "moving
day" can have, and how they all fit the story. 1) a
day full of moving moments; 2) the possibilty of a move (to another
home); 3) that every day is, for her, necessarily concerned with
moving on, even if only in age or in spiritual growth.
Pageonelit.com: "You said (in another
interview), "For the thoughtful person, letter-writing
will never be dead. Writing is more precise, more creative, and
more spiritual. A written communication can allude to the past,
make literary references, and develop ideas in a way few conversations
can." --- Please explain and how this relates to your
main character Ann Bow in Moving Day: A Season
of Letters."
Ibby Greer: I think the act of writing requires
more care and precision, and thought, than a phone call (or e-mail)
even though e-mail comes close, when well done! I personally
write letters, e-mail, and phone people. But I prefer letters.
Letters can be crafted, as art can be crafted. Each detail (the
stationery, the choice of stamp, enclosures, ink, and message)
can be thoughtfully planned for just that person whom you are
writing. Each person requires a different kind of letter. I like
that! My character, if she were on stage in a play instead of
in a novel, could speak most of the thoughts she puts into her
letters and notes in the book. But it is not (yet) a play, and
I limited her for the most part to letters and notes. Occasionally,
she did allude (in letters) to phone calls, messages on her phone
machine, and the like. Since she was the only "voice"
or "narrator" in this kind of novel, all thoughts and
communications must come directly from HER. I think I succeeded
in that. There are other epistolary novels with more than one
character 
"speaking,"
like Hailey's "A Woman of Independent Means," in which
Bess Steed both writes AND receives letters. I deliberately chose
to limit the "flow" FROM Ann to her world, and not
FROM them to her. The bottom line, is simply that a letter is
written, the way a story is. Letters make good vehicles to carry
ideas.
Pageonelit.com: What has been your feedback
from readers? What do they say to you about their interpretations
of your book? What do they like about the book?
Ibby Greer: The feedback has been positive,
and mostly from women, although a few men have given me very
good, detailed analyses of the book, too. My son, for example,
spent several hours as a Mother's Day gift to me last year, discussing
the book in wonderful and acute detail. Everyone, without exception,
comments on how well I did creating someone from an older generation
(than my own) and how well I handled grief, loss, pain, and anxiety.
That pleases me! Several people have "gotten" the ideas,
beneath the surface of the story, one being how I use fabrics
again and again as metaphors for our lives, another being about
"mobility" in American culture, the whole issue of
"moving" all the time and what that can do to identity
(including the Indian tribes, whom I mention again and again
as a sort of "reminder" of their being the first ones
on this continent to move and then to HAVE to move). Several
people have been most pleased with the poetry. And, funny as
this sounds to me, they almost always ask me if I wrote it...or
if Ann did! Well, since Ann is all made up, I did! But I am flattered
that some readers are confused, for that means I suceeded in
creating a character so realistic that she may have written
poetry! Quite a few readers have told me that they have made
copies of the poems and hung them where they can see them during
their day. I love that. Also, without exception, people ask me
what happens to Carson! (As if I know!). I just smile. I don't
know what happens to her. The book ends where it ends. The suspense,
and the "loose ends" are very deliberate on my part,
as I want to emphasize that life is not over, that everything
impacts everything else.
Pageonelit.com: Are you working on a follow
up? Or something totally different?
Ibby Greer: I have been asked to write a
sequel, by most people, but not by all. I do not know if I will.
But I could. However, I have another book almost ready to appear
on the bookshelves: a poetry project using Free verse and my
own life: "Paper Faces, Babyboomer Memoir"
should be out by September or October. It traces my
own life, as a fairly typical baby boomer, from the early 1950s
to 2000. It is not that I think my own life is particularly "special,"
but that it is very typical of a generation, in a comfortable
life style, educated, traveled, whose whole world literally turned
upside-down in the 1960s and beyond as political and cultural
changes and movements hit us like a tidal wave. I include photos
and drawings, making it feel like a photo album as much as like
a book. I call the poems "bio-poems" as I have never
seen an autobiography like it. I have seen one biography done
in poems (on the life of George Washington Carver), but I did
not see it until last month, and I have been working on "Paper
Faces" for several years. It also includes some poems I
wrote in the 1970s and on. I assembled a lot of material and
a lot of memories to make this babyboomer memoir, and I am hoping
it will strike a chord in people everywhere. My next project
will be a regular third-person novel, in the pattern of Carol
Shields and Anne Tyler. I also am at work on a more experimental
novel, whose "quirk" has to do with how it is seen
on the page. I think we take for granted the written page, words
in paragraphs, etc. I wanted to play around with the whole issue,
especially in the face of technology claiming (forget it!) that
the printed book will be replaced by books on screen/laptop,
etc. Handling a book, picking it up, feeling its heft, taking
care of the book---these are treasured activities from my earliest
days as a reader. I think they are for most readers. I love looking
over at my bookcase and seeing my Yeats in its worn red cover,
my pocket-sized Emily Dickinson in between other poetry books,
my blue and orange "Victory" paperback by Joseph Conrad.
Books live, for me. To such an extent that I opened a tiny independent
bookstore on our property in February, The Blue Lady Bookshop.
And the most fun part of it all is sharing the excitement of
reading with the people who come through the door.
Pageonelit.com: What was the last book you
read?
Ibby Greer: I am one of those who read about
5 books at the same time. The last "cluster" includes:
the "quilting" series by Jennifer Chiaverini, "A Match to the Heart" by Gretel
Ehrlich, "Prodigal Summer" By
Kingsolver, and "Sapphira and the Slave
Girl" by Willa Cather. I am currently reading
all the "History Mysteries"
for girls, part of the American Girl series and reminsiscent
of the Nancy Drew books I loved as a kid. And I am always reading
and re-reading Mary Oliver's poetry, and one (out of my collection
of translations) of my Bibles.
Pageonelit.com: Do you have any hobbies?
What are they? How do they enhance your writing.
Ibby Greer: I travel, "collect"
State Libraries [with my college age son, where we do genealogy],
oil paint [have a one-woman show in September in VA], design
needlepoint and make vivid quilt-pattern needlepoint pillows
for friends, and collect children's Christmas books. Every trip,
every tiny excursion where I hear dialogue and see people and
how they look and act, helps me create characters. The painting
and needlepoint demand discipline and great attention to detail:
both good habits for a writer. The book collecting gives me ideas
about happy, loving projects and times in people's lives. I always
carry some kind of writing pad (usually a legal size yellow one,
out of habit) in my car, and jot things down wherever I am, even
if it is at a mall, a stoplight, or a motel. I also keep a small
pad and pen by my bed, for those "inspirations" in
the middle of the night! My husband, a retired lawyer, has written
a huge history on a historic Virginia case dealing with
moonshining, and my son is writing a book about 20th century
industrialists. We are a writing family. We have piles of books
everywhere and make no apologies for it. We give books as gifts.
We each, also, have a collection of rare or important old books.
Some people prefer jewlery or cars...we like a first edition!
Such preferences help my writing by reminding me of the beauty
of books and how they enrich lives.
