Marilyn Hope Lake, Ph.D., is a Columbia, MO author whose latest book is “Our Mothers’ Ghosts and Other Stories.” The book is a collection of 13 connected short stories that reveal the shared hopes and dreams, struggles and successes of women in one midwestern family throughout the 20th century. Lake is a former Mizzou faculty member in English and Business who has won many awards for her writing over the years. She was kind enough to take the time to be interviewed via email.
Daniel Boone Regional Library: Could you tell us how this book came together? From what I understand, you started writing a first draft of this book back in the 1990s?
Marilyn Hope Lake: I’ve written prose and poetry since I was 10 years old, but I began these stories after attending two separate writers’ conferences in the late 1980s: one conference with critic and author Fred Pfeil, sponsored by the MU School of Libraries and Information Sciences in Columbia, MO, and a second conference a year or so later at Avila College (now known as Avila University) in Independence, MO.
Fred Pfeil said he wrote to answer questions he had, and I found that intriguing. My mother died when I was 24, she was 52, and I had many questions about her life and our relationship. All of the stories were written as stand-alone stories using different character names than they have now. Most were written in response to my questions or anecdotes I heard about my family or in response to something that happened to me or someone close to me.
I began my course work toward a Master of Arts and Ph.D. at MU in Creative Writing in 1990. Most of the stories in this book were written as course work during fiction writing workshops. They were put together as a collection in 1998, when MU professor Trudy Lewis, my Ph.D. advisor, directed her workshop class to attempt to compile a collection of stories. After a couple of failed attempts, I realized that the stories were all loosely based on four generations of women in my family in the 20th Century. The matriarch, two sisters, two cousins, and a mother/daughter, the fourth generation. I decided to make my collection into a series of stories that all have the same characters, but a chapter order had to be chosen.
Did I put the best story first, and the next best last? Which stories fit where? I chose a chronological configuration so that when put together the stories comprise a longer piece that read from first to last, similar to a novel. Each story also can stand alone.
DBRL: How much have you revised the stories in this book since the 1990s?
Lake: A lot. “Solitaire” is much shorter than the original, the first of these that I wrote, and the first one published.
“Letter to Ted,” started out as an experiment in style in which I depicted letters with dates, and I would write a line and literally cross it out. That story has several iterations.
The story “A Special Family Sunday,” and “Her Mother’s Daughter” were written after the original collection was published as my Ph.D. dissertation. I wrote and rewrote “A Special Family Sunday” many times, using different narrators in close third person: the mother, the child, and the Sis character. Also, I wrote several revisions with scenes removed, replaced again, taken out etc. This was an extremely difficult story to get right because of the possibility of the voice being too sentimental.
Each of the stories have been edited several times, if only to change a word or two. A story is never really finished until it’s published. And even then, you can publish a revised version.
DBRL: Each short story in the book represents a kernel of truth — an incident that’s been highly fictionalized. Do you think it was easier to write around a true incident, or did that make it harder to write about?
Lake: I find it easier to use real places and incidents as nuggets for a story. My imagination and art are in making up motives for actions, scenes that never happened, dialogue that was never spoken. I know my characters and settings well, which gives me a head start on creativity. I often find that while I’m writing, the story takes over, adding a new character, or an unexpected scene.
Also, I find that readers enjoy stories written about real places they know.
DBRL: Your book brings to life many tough choices and situations that women had to face during the 20th century. Are you more optimistic about the lives of women in today’s world?
Lake: I’ll have to give you a yes and no answer to that. As the saying goes, “We’ve come a long way, baby; but we still have a long way to go.” We still don’t have the Equal Rights for Women Amendment (ERA) in the constitution. We still have casting couches, and an ex-president who admits to having groped and kissed any women he was attracted to because he was a celebrity and could get away with it. I am a part of the #MeToo movement of women who have been sexually harassed in the work place, in the community, or raped.
One of the reasons I feel my book is important is to show today’s young women that their problems aren’t just unique to them; their mothers and grandmothers faced many of the same issues. Also, I hope it shines a light on subliminal or systemic racism that I believe is inherent in our whole society and makes a plea for overcoming white male privilege/supremacy.
DBRL: What led you to include a ghost into the eponymous chapter of this book?
Lake: Great question! I took a course with Trudy Lewis on literary ghost stories. She asked each of us to write one.
I had been struggling to write a story that was inclusive of all the characters in the book that covered a lifetime in one story, in the way that Alice Munro and Virginia Woolf were able to do.
I wanted to tell my mother’s story from her point of view, but it always came out maudlin, too sentimental. When I discovered that I could use a ghost that would be omniscient and tell the whole story, covering everything I wanted to cover, it just came pouring out. The ghost’s omniscient perspective is perfect. This was a breakthrough for my writing.
The first time I read that story as an English grad student in the beautiful upstairs lounge of the old MU Student Union, I saw tears in an audience member’s eyes. I was deeply moved that my story had touched her heart.
DBRL: It seems you have entered many writing contests over the years. (In fact, a couple of the chapters in this book won awards through writing contests!) What motivates you to enter writing contests? Would you suggest that other writers use them?
Lake: Definitely! Winning contests, whether it’s first, second, third, or honorable mention gets your name out in the public arena. Also, some contests publish the winners, or even some stories or poems that aren’t winners.
However, if the cost of a contest is exorbitant, pass on it. Anything over $20 to $25 dollars is probably too much. I have paid up to $75 to $100 to enter contests, but these were usually national contests with hundreds/thousands of entrants and a minimal chance of winning. However, my book, “Buddy and The Grandcats,” was a quarter-finalist in one of those expensive contests.
Many of these contests are free if you are a member of the writers organization, or at least, minimal cost. A good place to find contests and venues that may publish your work is www.submittable.com. Joining state and local writers groups is really important, too.
DBRL: Read anything good lately you’d like to recommend?
Lake: Yes, I recently read “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, translated from the Spanish by Gregory Rabassa. It’s a beautifully lyrical love and death story that takes the reader into the life of a Spanish community, its characters, its foibles, and its lifestyle. Also, Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God.” These two books are ones that you can’t put down. Their characters are so real, so compelling. And the Hurston book definitely shows the effects of being a person of color in our country.
I’m also reading some classics, “Far From the Madding Crowd,” and “Tess of the d’Urbervilles” by Thomas Hardy and Agatha Christie’s “Death on the Nile.” I love mysteries; especially Christie’s but almost any British mystery writer, or mysteries like Tony Hillerman’s that take place on a Navajo Reservation. I also enjoy biographies, but haven’t read any recently.
I have been both reading and also writing personal essays/nonfiction essays for 105 Meadowlark Reader. I’m published in three of their editions, and will be in a fourth this coming fall. These anthologies, and others such as the Columbia Chapter of the Missouri Writers Guild’s anthology Well-Versed have many good reads in them.
Finally, I’m rereading Janet Burroway’s “Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft” (fourth edition), in preparation for an author’s talk in September.
DBRL: Where can readers get a copy of your book?
Lake: Here in Columbia, MO at Yellow Dog Bookshop, 8 South Ninth Street. Also, the Daniel Boone Regional Library has a copy. It is on all the dot com book sales venues such as Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, etc. And, you can get it directly from the publisher at Meadowlark Press. If folks aren’t from Columbia, they could ask their favorite bookstore to carry it and their local library. I need to get the word out.
Also, I will be selling and signing books on September 6, 2024 at an author’s talk through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at MU Extension. It will be at the Moss Building on Hillcrest Dr. from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m.
