Wednesday Thread: Who Are the People who Stuck?
Hi friends.
The only time I’ve ever written a direct fictionalization of a real person’s life was with my fifth book, Saint Mazie. (You can read a little bit about the real person here or here, in the original piece Joseph Mitchell wrote about her in The New Yorker.) At the time, there was just enough information about her out in the universe for me to get inspired by her story, her complexities as a person and a woman and a member of her community, but also the beauty of her spirit and her generosity toward others. She occupied space in my mind immediately—and then she was stuck there forever.
Soon enough, I took off with the little I could discover about her and imagined a whole life. After the fact of publication, I learned even more about her from people who knew her in her past, decades ago, when they were children. She remains a role model for me and a creative inspiration even though I’ve long since stopped writing about her. I even pass by a picture of her every day. I situated it in a central place in my home because she maintains a central place in my mind.
Certainly there are other people I’ve met or learned about in my life who have inspired bits and pieces of my writing, though no one so directly as her. And I guess I am wondering today if there’s anyone who has stimulated your writing, someone who you still think about or remember as an influence?
I am contemplating all this because the world is moving and shifting so quickly, and we receive and dispense with information about people and their lives and move onto the next story without thinking too hard about any of it. These stories simply disappear from our timeline.
What I think is wonderful about writing is that we are able to fix a place and a time and people—fictional or otherwise, depending on what you’re writing—permanently on the page. Writing (and reading, of course!) books is a way to make the world stop spinning for a second. I am clinging to that every day lately.
I’m leaving this thread open to everyone. I’d love to hear all your stories of people who have fascinated you with their wisdom or their complexities or wildness or energy or humor. Who are the people who have influenced or inspired your work along the way? Who are the people who stuck?
Jami
You are reading Craft Talk, the home of #1000wordsofsummer and also a weekly newsletter about writing from Jami Attenberg. I’m also on twitter and instagram.
Good morning Jami, in my research for my novel that takes place in the jazz age and burlesque, I found a fascinating dancer who has been with me for the years I’ve been writing. Sally Rand was a creative burlesque dancer in real life who invented and reinvented herself for 50 years. She financially saved the 1933 Chicago worlds fair with her risqué feather dance. I’ve read biographies and followed her legacy on the internet. All this for a secondary character! But what an amazing artist I’m happy to moralize in my story.
Mary Magdalene. The seven demons. The disciple to the disciples. The woman fascinates me. Not the divine feminine that others have embodied her with, but the woman who had seven demons cast out of her and watched her hopes and salvation die horribly. Like, her dark night of the soul. Also, Eleanor of Aquitaine and Elizabeth I and Jane Gray raised in Katherine Parr’s household and Lady Idina Gordon … I might have hyperfixations and easy access to research materials. And all for different reasons. There are so many more, honestly.