Author Profile: Carolyn Coman

Books by
Carolyn Coman

MANY STONES

Carolyn Coman

BIO

Born in Chicago, Illinois, Carolyn Coman was a member of the first graduating class of Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. Having worked as a hand bookbinder and as an editor at an educational publishing house for several years, Ms. Coman now writes full time. She lives in Newburyport, Massachusetts with her children --- 17-year-old Anna and 7-year-old David. In 1995, her book WHAT JAMIE SAW was a Newbery Honor Award recipient as well as a National Book Award finalist.

INTERVIEW

January 14, 2000

Carolyn Coman may not be as well known an author as say, Judy Blume or Lois Lowry, but her realistic and poignant stories are right up there with her notable contemporaries. TBB Editor Tammy Currier was able to catch Coman in between novels after her recent BEE + JACKY, a harrowing story about what happens when 14-year-old Bee has childhood flashbacks during a weekend alone with her older brother Jacky. Find out more about Coman's gritty but eloquent stories, what inspires her painful premises, a preview of her next novel, and more in this interview.

TBB: You've been working with books in one way or another for many years, first as a hand bookbinder and then as an editor at an educational publishing house, developing professional materials for children. What prompted you to begin writing your own books?

CC: All I ever really wanted to do was write my own books. I chose bookbinding because it kept me close to books and gave me a way of earning my living on more or less my own terms. I tried to believe that making books would somehow satisfy my desire to write them, but of course it didn't. Eventually I had to face up to the fact that nothing would do but writing, even though I was terribly afraid I would fail. I worked in publishing because I needed to support myself and my children, and I liked lots of things about it, but nothing --- nothing --- was the same as creating my own stories, in my own words, just the way I saw them. I don't try to run away from that knowledge, or cover it over, anymore. It's what I have to do. Now that I finally have that settled, I can do other things, too. I teach, and I love teaching --- I just don't kid myself that it's the same as writing. So, in answer to the question, what prompted me to write my own books was an absolute burning and unkillable need to do so!

TBB: Why books for children and teens? Did your experiences teaching writing on a volunteer basis in your daughter's elementary school have any influence on your decision? If so, how?

CC: I found out that I write for children and teens by accident, only after I'd written stories and a novel that were about (and from the point of view of) children. It was not a conscious decision on my part --- it's what came out of me naturally, and that's pretty trustworthy. Certainly working in my own children's classrooms over the years influenced and inspired me, but that experience did not make me decide to write for children --- it only confirmed my wonder and fascination with the ways in which children look at and make their way through the world.

TBB: Your third book, BEE + JACKY, recently came out in paperback, what inspired you to write it?

CC: BEE + JACKY came to me over a long period of time, like a deep, complicated dream that you just can't seem to wake up from. It was a slow, murky process figuring out what the story was and what exactly happened in it and what it all meant. My editor helped me enormously. I could not have done it alone. The story itself was its own inspiration: images and insights about it that kept appearing inside my head. It haunted me until I brought it out into the light.

TBB: In your books BEE + JACKY and WHAT JAMIE SAW, you zero in on some pretty sensitive issues, ranging from emotional and sexual to mental and physical abuse. Where do your ideas come from? Are your characters and their stories based on people and situations you've encountered, or are they issues you'd like to explore and possibly raise a dialogue about?

CC: My books definitely explore the dark side, but I never set out to tackle a particular issue or topic. For me it all starts with deeply imagined characters who become very real to me, living within very real situations that I can picture and wonder about and play with in my mind. I don't pick troubling material because it's troubling or because I want to make a political statement about it. But I am very interested in how people (especially young people) respond to and figure out the complications of their lives. I am interested in the emotional journeys that my characters make especially journeys that involve moving out of the darkness and into
the light. BEE + JACKIE is the story of falling and redemption through a mystical experience, not an investigation of incest. WHAT JAMIE SAW is the story of a boy moving from fear to a sense of safety, not a statement about domestic violence. The stories I create are not based on things that have actually happened to me. They are autobiographical only in the sense that I feel I have shared the same human emotions of fear and loss and despair and connection and even hints of enlightenment that my characters have!

TBB: Oftentimes, children who are victims of abuse feel as if they're all alone in the world, unable to articulate their fear, grief, sadness, and anger. What kind of effect do you think your books have on kids being raised in emotionally bereft and dysfunctional environments? Do you think they have a normalizing effect? If so, how?

CC: When I write my stories, I come to love my characters and deeply appreciate how hard life is for them sometimes, and how they make their way through it anyway. I hope the kids who read my books see it that way, too, and maybe experience a little bit of that same respect for themselves and what they might be going through. It's amazing how tough life can be for kids, sometimes, through no fault of their own at all. I write my books in honor of those kids --- the ones in the stories, and the ones who read them.

TBB: Since children and their welfare seem to be issues very near and dear to your heart, are you active in any children's advocacy groups?

CC: I tend to keep quiet and stay local. One of my best friends is an elementary school teacher and we do what we can when we can for kids who need it. Any advocacy I do is through my writing, speaking, and teaching.

TBB: You have a daughter and a son, what do they think of your books?

CC: My son, who is ten, has not expressed any interest in reading my novels, yet. He may never, which would be fine. My daughter, who is 20, has been an important and valued reader of my work since she was twelve. She is a good listener and a tough critic.

TBB: As children, we all have dreams about what we'd like to be when we grow up. Did you dream of becoming a writer?

CC: Ever since I wrote my first story in fourth grade (about the Easter Bunny) and discovered how much it mattered to me to say just what I wanted to, I've dreamed of being a writer. It mattered so much to me that I tried to run away from it and find other things that weren't as scary, but eventually I surrendered to the dream!

TBB: If so, what writers inspired you? Did you have any particular favorite Young Adult writers?

CC: My favorite book as a girl was LITTLE WOMEN by Louisa May Alcott. My father gave me a copy of THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA by Ernest Hemingway when I was fairly young and I remember loving how simple the words and sentences sounded. I loved ETHAN FROME by Edith Wharton. I read a lot and found different things to respond to and like in all kinds of books. Mostly, I think I was inspired by teachers who made me think about what I was reading and writing.

TBB: Since you write for a teen audience, what current Young Adult writers would you recommend? Who are your favorites?

CC: Two of my favorite contemporary writers are Brock Cole and Adam Rapp. Cole's THE GOATS and CELINE are both wonderful, rich novels. Adam Rapp is a hot new writer whose way of using language is a little miracle.

TBB: Do you think teens read more now or less than in the past? What do you think makes teens want to read?

CC: Popular wisdom would have us believe that most of them can't read at all. Teenagers get a bum rap lots of the time. Teenage readers are like readers of any age --- they want to read stories that move them, that make them laugh, sigh in recognition, understand, surprise them, take them away, and take them just where they need to go.

TBB: For those out there dreaming of becoming writers someday, what advice would you offer them?

CC: Listen carefully to everything! --- watch closely, practice choosing the perfect words --- your own words, in your own voice --- for what you have seen and heard and imagined.

TBB: Your work has been very well received both by your readers and the critics --- WHAT JAMIE SAW has the distinction of being both a National Book Award Finalist and a Newbery Honor Book. Are you working on anything currently? If so, can you give us a preview?

CC: I am finishing a novel about a 16-year-old girl, Berry Morgan, and her father. The bulk of the story takes place during a two week trip to South Africa, where Berry and her father have gone to attend a memorial service in honor of Berry's older sister, Laura, who was murdered there several years prior. Berry and her father are estranged from one another, and each is still grieving over Laura's death. Their own hurting relationship comes into sharp relief as they make their way through a country where loss and reconciliation beats like a pulse all around them.

TBB: And finally, what are you currently reading?

CC: Here's the pile next to my bed (some of them already overdue at the library, some finished, some in the middle, some being reread, some not yet begun: Adam Rapp's new novel, COPPER ELEPHANT, Elizabeth Graver's THE HONEY THIEF, THE HALF LIFE OF HAPPINESS by John Casey, SUTREE by Cormac McCarthy, the journals DAYBOOK and TURN by Anne Truitt. THE COMPLETE BOOK OF HELL by Matt Groening (my son's contribution), POEMS by Rilke, old issues of The New Yorker.