Phyllis Barber

This week we feature Phyllis Barber, author of Raw Edges: A Memoir (University of Nevada Press 978-0-87417-807-4).

When did you start reading, and what did you like to read as a kid?

My father lived from pillar to post when he was growing up in the Great Basin (Idaho, Utah, Nevada), and his family never lived long in one place. He always told me that the first thing he did when he moved to a new town was to go to the public library and make friends with the librarian. So, when we were young children, we went weekly to the library and checked out books to read.

When you were growing up did you have books in your home?

We had some books, but as I said above, my father had developed the habit of borrowing books from the library, and that was good for all of us.

When did you think about becoming a writer? Was there someone who got you interested in writing?

My father had a deep influence on me regarding writing. He always wanted to be a writer, and even though he had a few pieces published in such places as Sunset Magazine, he was too busy being a breadwinner and a lay leader in our Latter-day Saint (LDS) Church. I always loved to write newspapers for the neighborhood (by hand on lined paper) and deliver them on the block. I wrote creatively in both high school and college, but when I decided to be a music major with a piano emphasis, I put my attention on piano performance and teaching. When I was 32, however after the birth of my fourth son, I decided that it was time to turn to writing, which had always been pulling on me. Maybe I was trying to fulfill something for my father, but writing seemed to be the discipline I wanted to follow most of all.

How do you write? Do you have a daily routine? What’s good about it? What do you hate about it?

When I’m “in the groove,” I write every morning except for Sunday for about four hours. I love it when I’m “in the groove” and working steadily on a project. What I don’t like is when I become obsessed about having to finish something because I feel obligated to get it out in the world on the printed page. I like having a literary goal when it doesn’t take over and run the show. I write best and most creatively when I’m not in a big hurry or don’t feel a huge obligation to perform. This, however, is a very delicate balance, as all writers understand.

Do you have any particular story to tell concerning the writing of this book?

This book took twelve years to come to fruition. It began as a novel about two women bicycling across the country with the hopes that it would be another Thelma and Louise, but this time on bicycles instead of a car. However, I had something more pressing inside of me that needed to be explored, and that was what I call my “falling apart” after I was divorced from a thirty-three marriage. The task to figure out what had happened to me and to be authentic and true to myself became my utmost desire. I felt this fierce necessity to write about those things which revealed my flaws, my shame, my embarrassment. I wanted to stand up to my idealistic self and say, “This is me. No masks. No costumes.” The process was similar to removing the “barnacles from my personal ship” so that I could sail through water without so much friction.

What is some good advice that you’ve received concerning writing? What’s some advice that you could offer young writers?

I’ve heard much good advice through the years and don’t always know who told me or where I read it. But the best advice is to trust yourself and your own story. It’s easy to want to write like someone else or be hip and in the know, but ultimately, I think all we have to tell is our own unique story. For instance, I didn’t want to write about Nevada or being Mormon because I didn’t think anyone would care. But, truth was, that was my setting, my place from which I could tell story. When I finally embraced the fact that I wasn’t a sophisticated New Yorker but an average girl from southern Nevada who was deeply entrenched in the Mormon lifestyle and culture, I found that those were the stories that I told most naturally and convincingly. That was the discovery of my voice—my willingness to accept who I was and whence I came.

How did you find the publisher for this book? What has your experience as a publisher been like?

I tried one agent for this book, and she tried about twelve houses and decided she couldn’t sell the book. The problem was in the first sixty pages of the manuscript, but I’d rewritten it so many times with too many people’s suggestions that I couldn’t face another rewrite unless someone was absolutely serious about publishing it. I ran into the editor of the University of Nevada Press (whom I’d met before at a literary event in Reno, Nevada) at an AWP Conference in New York City, and she asked me what had happened to the book on which I’d been working. I told her it was in a drawer and that I was tired of rewriting it. She said she wanted to see it, and when Nevada decided they wanted to publish the book, she was very helpful in offering suggestions (from herself and two readers) to make those first sixty pages work more effectively.

My experience with publishers has been generally good, though things seem to have changed since I started publishing in the late eighties. Agents and editors seem more interested in a pitch-perfect manuscript these days (maybe with all of the MFA programs and writing groups), and that was different when I first began submitting manuscripts to publishers.

What are you working on at the moment?

I’ve finished a collection of essays titled Searching for Spirit, which is about my twenty-year hiatus from Mormonism when I traveled to Peru and Ecuador to study with shamans, to India and Tibet to become more familiar with Tibetan Buddhism, to the Yucatan with “goddess worshipers,” and to various locales in the United States where I attended church services at such as the Calvary Baptist, Second Baptist, AME, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist, Pentecostal, and mega-churches to see how these worshipers connected to Spirit. I am currently looking for a publishing home for these essays, though everything can always be tweaked.

Two of the essays have received special mention: “Sweetgrass,” which was published in upstreet five, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2010, and “At the Cannery,” which was published in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, received the Eugene England Memorial Award for the Best in Dialogue 2009.

What are you reading?

I’ve just finished a terrific novel by Paula Fox titled Desperate Characters, beautiful poetry by Mary Ruefle in Tristamania, and have been reading memoirs to get an idea of the range of writing and stories being told in the memoir format.

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