March 1st, 2007
Mary Akers kicks off The Writer Profile Project
Mary Akers
Mary Akers is a graduate of the Queens University of Charlotte MFA program in Creative Writing and co-founder of the Institute for Tropical Marine Ecology located on the island of Dominica. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Primavera, Ars Medica, Brevity, Pindeldyboz, RE:AL, Wisconsin Review, Xavier Review and other journals. “Wild, Wild Horses,” originally published in Literary Mama, earned her a spot in storySouth’s Notable Stories of 2004. Mary is also the recipient of a Bread Loaf Waitership, and two Bread Loaf work-study scholarships. Visit her blog.
You write both fiction and non-fiction, and are currently completing books in both genres. Tell us about each project, and where you are in the process.
The nonfiction book is tentatively titled “Beyond Self-Help: Lessons from Siberia” and it’s a collaborative project. The life story that frames the book is my co-author’s, Andrew Bienkowski. On Stalin’s orders, his prominent family was banished from Poland and sent to Siberia with nothing. At the age of five, Andy watched his grandfather deliberately starve to death so that the children would have enough food. That sacrifice led Andy to a life of giving back. He was a therapist for 40-plus years, a hospice volunteer, and this book is another way he hopes to give back. The text alternates between a narrative retelling of the Siberia experience and corresponding lessons in helping others. It is currently being shopped around to publishing houses in the US, UK, and Australia. I’ve had interest from a NY publisher that I would be thrilled to work with, but it’s still just in the “discussion” stage, not yet an offer. Keep your fingers crossed!
My short story collection is tentatively titled “What the Sea Hath Bound Together,” and each story has the ocean as a backdrop. So far they all involve relationships, too. I am about two-thirds done.
My novel is in its final editing and is titled “In A Common Sea,” taken from the Anne Morrow Lindbergh quote, “I believe we are all islands…in a common sea.” It’s set on the island of South Caicos in the British West Indies and some of the themes are race, freedom, survival, nature and belonging.
*
How did you meet Andrew Bienkowski and become involved in “Beyond Self-Help: Lessons from Siberia”?
Joy Herrick, a fellow writer and friend introduced us. She knew Andy was looking for someone to help him write a book on helping others and she thought we would work well together. She was right; within five minutes, it was like we’d known each other all our lives.
Andy is very modest and had no intention of including his personal story in the book, but the more he told me about Siberia, the more I knew it had to be in there. I helped convince him that his experience was important and inspiring and belonged in the book. Even so, I couldn’t get to the real heart of it until I told the Siberia sections as stories–each one like a parable, which is how his family retold them through the years. That’s when the book really developed a heartbeat.
His story is amazing. After Andy’s grandfather died, the family buried him as best they could in the frozen ground. It was a shallow grave. When they returned, they found that wolves had unearthed and eaten his grandfather’s remains. Then the grandfather began to appear to Andy’s grandmother in dreams, telling her where to find food. One dream led them directly to a slain calf, its throat torn out by wolves but otherwise unscathed. His grandmother also told fortunes in exchange for potato peelings and other scraps of food. His three-year-old brother sneaked a piece of bread home every day from what he was given at the Communist school. Occasionally they ate pig slops or wild mushrooms. Their mud hut was heated with burning cow dung. It was a hand-to-mouth existence that has made him very thankful for the life he has today and very empathetic toward the suffering of others.
*
In your short story collection, you’ve included a piece about a dolphin rescuer whose wife is in a persistent vegetative state. I remember reading this story about a year after the death of Terri Schiavo, the woman who spent fifteen years in a vegetative state before the state of Florida allowed her life support to be removed. Was your story at all inspired by her case?
Yes, it was. I’m drawn to current events that fascinate me, but I often try to look at them from a different perspective than what the media shows. I wanted my character (Walt) to be experiencing PVS from the inside out, not from the outside in as the rest of us were. Also, about a year before that I read an article in Smithsonian Magazine titled “Dolphin Wars” with a 50-something dolphin rescuer who often rubbed people the wrong way. His jaded idealism intrigued me and he became the perfect character to face a wife with PVS.
*
The story, titled “Strandings,” is superbly executed. Written from the husband’s perspective, a man who is brusque and sexy and wishes to be neither, a man who sees himself as “a squat man, really, taking after his shovel-handed father who worked his life away in the coalmines of Norton, Virginia,” the piece moves beyond the human element, allowing the reader to step outside of himself and his preconceived ideas about life, if even for a tiny moment. I’ve often thought that fiction helps us see new perspectives where reality cannot. Do you find this to be true?
Thank you. Yes, I definitely agree. Sometimes fiction seems like the only way to “get there.” In the writing process, I’m trying to reach an understanding for myself as much as for my readers.
*
You were originally trained as a potter, and have a deep interest in marine biology. When did you start writing?
Like most writers, I’ve never not written. I received several awards for my writing in high school, was a reader for the William and Mary Review in college, but didn’t begin to pursue writing professionally until my 30th birthday loomed. I don’t know if there was a mid-life catalyst involved or not, but that’s when I first took a writing course–from a matchbox cover! In 1995 I had several humorous essays on parenting accepted at ParentLife Magazine. Then I was hooked.
*
What was your first job?
I worked in the kitchen of a nursing home the summer I turned 16–the breakfast shift, so I had to be at work at 4:30 in the morning. I helped the cook with breakfast (sausage and gravy biscuits was the hands-down happy-day favorite), then served the residents, helped the ones with the shakiest hands eat, cleared and washed the dishes and then started over with lunch. By 2:00 pm I was home, lying in the sun. I was a teenager, after all.
*
What is the biggest challenge you face in your writing?
Seeing the big picture. I’m good at the tiny nits, but the big stuff eludes me. I really have to focus on what I’m trying to achieve with the whole of the story, and not obsess at the sentence level. I think it’s because I’m nearsighted.
*
You’ve been widely published. Do you have any tips for aspiring writers on how to break into the business?
Widely published…it’s funny you say that, because I think publication credits are like a distant horizon that’s forever receding. Three years ago I would have agreed that someone with my credits was “widely published,” but now I keep looking at where I haven’t been and seeing the glass as half-full. I’m guessing every writer keeps looking ahead to the bigger and better prize.
As for tips? Persistence is the only suggestion I have. Be a bulldog. Don’t give up. Have I told you my motto? R.I.P. Rejection Isn’t Personal. It isn’t. And one or ten or fifty rejections don’t mean that a piece will never find a home. I’ve had something accepted after sending it out 88 times. But I’m a Taurus–stubborn, you know.
*
You’ve attended Bread Loaf three times. What was the experience like?
I can’t say enough wonderful things about Bread Loaf. Every writer should go. There is nothing like spending two weeks in the beautiful Vermont mountains surrounded by like-minded writers who are happy to discuss craft 24-7. It’s all about the writing there–except when it’s about having fun. That’s important, too. The people are wonderful. I’ve made some amazing lifetime friendships through Bread Loaf and I am forever indebted to them for allowing me to attend on scholarship.
*
Over the past several years, interest in MFA programs has skyrocketed, with low residency curriculums starting up all over the country. These programs have received a fair share of praise as well as criticism. Did you find the instruction rewarding? Do you think receiving an MFA is critical to gaining recognition and success as a writer?
No, an MFA isn’t critical to gaining recognition as a writer. I thought it was when I signed up for my MFA program, but I’ve since figured out that it isn’t. In fact, most of the emerging writers I know who came out with books last year or have a book slated for release this year do not have MFAs and are not planning on getting them. You hear it everywhere, but it really is all about the writing. My MFA introduced me to a network of struggling writers much like myself, it gave me the chance to work closely with some great professional writers, and it certified me to teach at the college level. Oh, and put me in debt to the tune of about $23,000. The first three are valuable things for a writer, but none are critical to gaining recognition and success.
I attended Queens College (now Queens University of Charlotte) as part of the inaugural class in their newly founded low-residency MFA program. The work is done at home, then twice a year there are one-week residencies to attend, packed with classes, workshops, and readings. Those weeks are intense but so rewarding and inspiring. Fred Leebron and Michael Kobre started the Queens program and were able to attract fantastic instructors from the beginning. I was fortunate to work with Elizabeth Strout, Jonathan Dee, Naeem Murr, and Susan Perabo.
*
In one word, describe Mary Akers.
Curious.
*
Contact Mary
Read:
On Receiving Notice of My Step-Daughter’s Pregnancy, essay
published by Brevity
Wild, Wild Horses, fiction
published by Literary Mama
Lake Effect, fiction
published by Pindeldyboz
Ice, fiction
published by Pindeldyboz
Medusa Song, fiction
published by RE:AL
Filed Under: The Writer Profile Project |
Mary Akers is a graduate of the Queens University of Charlotte MFA program in Creative Writing and co-founder of the Institute for Tropical Marine Ecology located on the island of Dominica. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Primavera, Ars Medica, Brevity, Pindeldyboz, RE:AL, Wisconsin Review, Xavier Review and other journals. “Wild, Wild Horses,” originally published in Literary Mama, earned her a spot in storySouth’s Notable Stories of 2004. Mary is also the recipient of a Bread Loaf Waitership, and two Bread Loaf work-study scholarships. Visit her blog.You write both fiction and non-fiction, and are currently completing books in both genres. Tell us about each project, and where you are in the process.
The nonfiction book is tentatively titled “Beyond Self-Help: Lessons from Siberia” and it’s a collaborative project. The life story that frames the book is my co-author’s, Andrew Bienkowski. On Stalin’s orders, his prominent family was banished from Poland and sent to Siberia with nothing. At the age of five, Andy watched his grandfather deliberately starve to death so that the children would have enough food. That sacrifice led Andy to a life of giving back. He was a therapist for 40-plus years, a hospice volunteer, and this book is another way he hopes to give back. The text alternates between a narrative retelling of the Siberia experience and corresponding lessons in helping others. It is currently being shopped around to publishing houses in the US, UK, and Australia. I’ve had interest from a NY publisher that I would be thrilled to work with, but it’s still just in the “discussion” stage, not yet an offer. Keep your fingers crossed!
My short story collection is tentatively titled “What the Sea Hath Bound Together,” and each story has the ocean as a backdrop. So far they all involve relationships, too. I am about two-thirds done.
My novel is in its final editing and is titled “In A Common Sea,” taken from the Anne Morrow Lindbergh quote, “I believe we are all islands…in a common sea.” It’s set on the island of South Caicos in the British West Indies and some of the themes are race, freedom, survival, nature and belonging.
How did you meet Andrew Bienkowski and become involved in “Beyond Self-Help: Lessons from Siberia”?
Joy Herrick, a fellow writer and friend introduced us. She knew Andy was looking for someone to help him write a book on helping others and she thought we would work well together. She was right; within five minutes, it was like we’d known each other all our lives.
Andy is very modest and had no intention of including his personal story in the book, but the more he told me about Siberia, the more I knew it had to be in there. I helped convince him that his experience was important and inspiring and belonged in the book. Even so, I couldn’t get to the real heart of it until I told the Siberia sections as stories–each one like a parable, which is how his family retold them through the years. That’s when the book really developed a heartbeat.
His story is amazing. After Andy’s grandfather died, the family buried him as best they could in the frozen ground. It was a shallow grave. When they returned, they found that wolves had unearthed and eaten his grandfather’s remains. Then the grandfather began to appear to Andy’s grandmother in dreams, telling her where to find food. One dream led them directly to a slain calf, its throat torn out by wolves but otherwise unscathed. His grandmother also told fortunes in exchange for potato peelings and other scraps of food. His three-year-old brother sneaked a piece of bread home every day from what he was given at the Communist school. Occasionally they ate pig slops or wild mushrooms. Their mud hut was heated with burning cow dung. It was a hand-to-mouth existence that has made him very thankful for the life he has today and very empathetic toward the suffering of others.
In your short story collection, you’ve included a piece about a dolphin rescuer whose wife is in a persistent vegetative state. I remember reading this story about a year after the death of Terri Schiavo, the woman who spent fifteen years in a vegetative state before the state of Florida allowed her life support to be removed. Was your story at all inspired by her case?
Yes, it was. I’m drawn to current events that fascinate me, but I often try to look at them from a different perspective than what the media shows. I wanted my character (Walt) to be experiencing PVS from the inside out, not from the outside in as the rest of us were. Also, about a year before that I read an article in Smithsonian Magazine titled “Dolphin Wars” with a 50-something dolphin rescuer who often rubbed people the wrong way. His jaded idealism intrigued me and he became the perfect character to face a wife with PVS.
The story, titled “Strandings,” is superbly executed. Written from the husband’s perspective, a man who is brusque and sexy and wishes to be neither, a man who sees himself as “a squat man, really, taking after his shovel-handed father who worked his life away in the coalmines of Norton, Virginia,” the piece moves beyond the human element, allowing the reader to step outside of himself and his preconceived ideas about life, if even for a tiny moment. I’ve often thought that fiction helps us see new perspectives where reality cannot. Do you find this to be true?
Thank you. Yes, I definitely agree. Sometimes fiction seems like the only way to “get there.” In the writing process, I’m trying to reach an understanding for myself as much as for my readers.
You were originally trained as a potter, and have a deep interest in marine biology. When did you start writing?
Like most writers, I’ve never not written. I received several awards for my writing in high school, was a reader for the William and Mary Review in college, but didn’t begin to pursue writing professionally until my 30th birthday loomed. I don’t know if there was a mid-life catalyst involved or not, but that’s when I first took a writing course–from a matchbox cover! In 1995 I had several humorous essays on parenting accepted at ParentLife Magazine. Then I was hooked.
What was your first job?
I worked in the kitchen of a nursing home the summer I turned 16–the breakfast shift, so I had to be at work at 4:30 in the morning. I helped the cook with breakfast (sausage and gravy biscuits was the hands-down happy-day favorite), then served the residents, helped the ones with the shakiest hands eat, cleared and washed the dishes and then started over with lunch. By 2:00 pm I was home, lying in the sun. I was a teenager, after all.
What is the biggest challenge you face in your writing?
Seeing the big picture. I’m good at the tiny nits, but the big stuff eludes me. I really have to focus on what I’m trying to achieve with the whole of the story, and not obsess at the sentence level. I think it’s because I’m nearsighted.
You’ve been widely published. Do you have any tips for aspiring writers on how to break into the business?
Widely published…it’s funny you say that, because I think publication credits are like a distant horizon that’s forever receding. Three years ago I would have agreed that someone with my credits was “widely published,” but now I keep looking at where I haven’t been and seeing the glass as half-full. I’m guessing every writer keeps looking ahead to the bigger and better prize.
As for tips? Persistence is the only suggestion I have. Be a bulldog. Don’t give up. Have I told you my motto? R.I.P. Rejection Isn’t Personal. It isn’t. And one or ten or fifty rejections don’t mean that a piece will never find a home. I’ve had something accepted after sending it out 88 times. But I’m a Taurus–stubborn, you know.
You’ve attended Bread Loaf three times. What was the experience like?
I can’t say enough wonderful things about Bread Loaf. Every writer should go. There is nothing like spending two weeks in the beautiful Vermont mountains surrounded by like-minded writers who are happy to discuss craft 24-7. It’s all about the writing there–except when it’s about having fun. That’s important, too. The people are wonderful. I’ve made some amazing lifetime friendships through Bread Loaf and I am forever indebted to them for allowing me to attend on scholarship.
Over the past several years, interest in MFA programs has skyrocketed, with low residency curriculums starting up all over the country. These programs have received a fair share of praise as well as criticism. Did you find the instruction rewarding? Do you think receiving an MFA is critical to gaining recognition and success as a writer?
No, an MFA isn’t critical to gaining recognition as a writer. I thought it was when I signed up for my MFA program, but I’ve since figured out that it isn’t. In fact, most of the emerging writers I know who came out with books last year or have a book slated for release this year do not have MFAs and are not planning on getting them. You hear it everywhere, but it really is all about the writing. My MFA introduced me to a network of struggling writers much like myself, it gave me the chance to work closely with some great professional writers, and it certified me to teach at the college level. Oh, and put me in debt to the tune of about $23,000. The first three are valuable things for a writer, but none are critical to gaining recognition and success.
I attended Queens College (now Queens University of Charlotte) as part of the inaugural class in their newly founded low-residency MFA program. The work is done at home, then twice a year there are one-week residencies to attend, packed with classes, workshops, and readings. Those weeks are intense but so rewarding and inspiring. Fred Leebron and Michael Kobre started the Queens program and were able to attract fantastic instructors from the beginning. I was fortunate to work with Elizabeth Strout, Jonathan Dee, Naeem Murr, and Susan Perabo.
In one word, describe Mary Akers.
Curious.
Contact Mary
Read:
On Receiving Notice of My Step-Daughter’s Pregnancy, essay
published by Brevity
Wild, Wild Horses, fiction
published by Literary Mama
Lake Effect, fiction
published by Pindeldyboz
Ice, fiction
published by Pindeldyboz
Medusa Song, fiction
published by RE:AL
Filed Under: The Writer Profile Project |
March 1st, 2007 at 9:57 am Such a good interview!
March 1st, 2007 at 10:02 am Hi, Linera. Thank you for stopping in, and for the link as well! Mary is brilliant, isn’t she?!
March 1st, 2007 at 10:09 am Kelly,
I’ve added you to my blogroll.
-L
March 1st, 2007 at 11:14 am Loved this. I don’t know Mary very well, but now I feel like I know her a little better. Thanks, Kelly!
March 1st, 2007 at 12:21 pm Thank you very much, Linera!
March 1st, 2007 at 12:23 pm Thanks for coming by, Dave. I’m glad you got to know Mary a little better! That was the plan!
March 1st, 2007 at 1:23 pm Wow. A fabulous human being and a wonderful writer! Thanks for this Kelly.
J
March 1st, 2007 at 3:50 pm You’re welcome, Jordan, and yes she is!
March 2nd, 2007 at 11:05 am I’ve never stopped by this site. Found the link you left on LitPark… I love reading interviews… I love what the author says about her glass only being half full. Keep the dream alive!
March 2nd, 2007 at 2:18 pm Thanks for coming by, n.l.! Mary’s is the first in a long series of profiles, so I hope you’ll visit again!
March 5th, 2007 at 4:58 am Wonderful interview! Mary’s the best! I’ll be back to read more of your interviews! Great idea, Kelly and congrats on
your lovely prose poem (flashquake).
March 5th, 2007 at 7:56 am Thanks, Beverly!
March 23rd, 2007 at 1:57 pm You work with fascinating material, Mary, in both your nonfiction and your fiction. All power to you. Wow, I never knew my nearsightedness was the reason I struggle for that big picture! Glad to finally know! Thanks for the interview, Kelly.
June 22nd, 2007 at 3:02 pm Great Interview by Mary. Thanks for sharing Kelly. My reading list is getting full for the next few weeks after coming across your blog.