Nalini Jones Online Chat Log September 18, :00 p.m.

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1 Nalini Jones Online Chat Log September 18, :00 p.m. AaronPerkus(C) mcwhite(q) AaronPerkus(C) kb(q) Welcome to the Nalini Jones' chat session as part of the MFA Distinguished Author's Series. Fairfield University's low residency MFA in Creative Writing is a two-year program leading to a Master of Fine Arts with concentrations in fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. Our first winter residency begins this December at Ender's Island. There are only a few spots still available, but we are also accepting for the summer 09 residency as well! Hi everyone--aaron Perkus here. I will be moderating this discussion. Hello all, This is Michael White, the MFA program director. I want to thank Nalini for her wonderful reading and interview. What a great beginning to our MFA program. Thanks for being here, Nalini. Thanks very much for having me. I'm honored. We will be starting with an interview between Michael White, director of the MFA program, and Nalini Jones, our author and a faculty member in the MFA program. Please feel free to send questions to me, and I will do my best to bring them all to Nalini (or Mike) in a timely fashion. hello hi, KB. Thanks for joining us. keri.harrison10 joined. Cristina70 joined. mcwhite(q) Nalini, let me begin with a rather large question that is often asked of writers whose work is categorized as Asian-American (or any other hyphenated group of writers--native-american, Polish-American, Italian-American, etc.). Do you see yourself as an Asian-American writer? And if so, what does that imply for your work and what does that assume about your readers? I think that's a bit like wondering if I see myself as a middle class writer, or a woman writer. I am a woman, I am middle class, I am not white, and I certainly have a strong familial and cultural connection to India. But when I am writing, I Page 1 of 7

2 Cristina70(Q) keri.harrison10(c) am far more concerned with the characters' identities than with my own. My upbringing and heritage contribute to the sorts of questions I ask myself about the world, questions that lead me to fiction. But I think a writer is first and foremost a writer, and I'm not sure the categories that might later be attached to the work are productive during the writing process. Writing fiction is as much about the imagination as experience, knowledge or research - and I'd be too restricted if I tried to write only to my particular experience. So I try not to make too many assumptions about my readers - I don't even assume I'll have them! I just do my work and hope for the best. When do you find is the best time to write? I used to like to write at the end of the day, late at night, when the rest of the world was sleeping and I felt as if I'd finished all my other obligations. But now I have a baby and that's turned my schedule upside down. Now, when I can, I like to write early in the morning. I think the crucial thing is to write when you're not likely to be disturbed, when you can take time just for yourself and the work. Hi Nalini. First, I want to say that I greatly enjoyed your reading tonight. I found it very interesting how all the short stories worked so well together. I wanted to know if you sat down to write about the Indian culture which has been a huge part of your life or if you found the culture unconsciously creep into your stories? katein2008 joined. I think I sat down to write about certain characters, for whom migration and home were central issues - and they happened to be from India. I was thinking about them not so much as Indians, but as people - who have lots of the same concerns and hopes that all people have - and of course the whole culture is a part of their experience. The culture was a part of the characters, so they couldn't be separated in my mind. But they were the people through whom I could explore certain questions I had. katein2008 left. Cristina70(C) Thanks so much for your response. Another question: With your writing focusing on the experiences of persons from India, do you feel it's necessary to be more delicate when presenting taboo or "delicate" subjects such as pre-marital sex, homosexuality, or mental illness? Tina joined. katein2008 joined. jeralynrose joined. Page 2 of 7

3 Tina(C) Cristina70(C) That's a great question. I don't think I needed to be more careful or delicate because the stories are set in India, but I did need to be mindful of how the characters would approach such issues, and keep their sense of the world very much a part of how I dealt with those questions. Thanks for all your questions so far... I am happy to receive some more as Nalini is pounding away on the current ones! Some of the characters feel very differently about homosexuality than I do, and particularly about the morality of it, and it was difficult to write through the filter of their perceptions and their morality. But it was even more important to keep the characters authentic... Hi everyone, I just logged in - came to the reading and left very inspired. Thank you for your honesty Nalini and Michael. Thanks very much for coming - I had a terrific time meeting all the MFA students-to-be. So sometimes creating an authentic character without letting your own personal feelings "water down" the character is something to be conscious of. I think it's crucial. There are ways, perhaps, that the author's beliefs can come through in larger strokes - what happens to characters in the end, for example - but I can't put words into their mouths that they wouldn't say, or make them do things they wouldn't do, or impose ideas that they wouldn't believe. They have to be real people, people with whom I might disagree. What are the difficulties of writing about a people and place (Catholic Indians) that most Western readers are not familiar with? What are the advantages of such a choice? I'm writing about a Catholic suburb of Mumbai (formerly Bombay), and the idea of Catholic Indians seems to surprise some western readers. It's not new territory, of course; Salman Rushdie's The Moor's Last Sigh comes to mind as an incredibly vibrant portrait of an Indian Catholic family. But I think the exciting work that faces any writer is to create a new world, a world that comes to life in the pages of a book. This is true of all fiction - whether it's about a recognizable place or one entirely conjured by the author. In my case, I ended up creating an imaginary neighborhood, based on a real place but with distinct differences that permitted me to move about more freely as a writer. I sometimes encountered little technical difficulties when I began to think in terms of a western audience - having to explain why Indians had saints' names, for example, or why some wear western clothes. All that would be understood within the culture I was writing about, and I didn't want to step too far outside that mindset to explain to readers what would have been obvious to the characters. So it became a question of balance, and of finding creative ways, organic to the Page 3 of 7

4 stories, to introduce information without cumbersome exposition. Lisa left. ScottBrian(C) Do you have any screenwriting aspirations? mcwhite left. mcwhite joined. AaronPerkus(C) I have a dream that I will someday write a novel that has a Big. Movie. Plot. and that Mira Nair will swoop down from screenwriting heaven and take it on. But I don't think I could write in the screenwriting form myself yet. I'm too involved in the prose outside of dialogue still. Other than describing a party, what is the most difficult "thing" to write about. My guess is that it is the moment when people fall in love. Absolutely. It's lunacy to write about falling in love. I've had to do it, once or twice, but it's alaways humbling. What about Fairfield's MFA program, are you looking forward to it? How does your teaching affect your writing? In negative or positive ways? EHilts joined. keri.harrison10 left. I have room for a few more questions before we call it a night--so ask away! I'm looking forward to working with students of all ages, with all sorts of different backgrounds and interests - which doesn't always happen in an undergraduate classroom. I think the dialogue and discussion that grows out of such a community is so exciting and so energizing - that's the best part of teaching. I hope teaching makes me a better writer. We're all students of our own writing, in a way - we all have to become better with each new piece we write, and teaching helps me focus on what I have to do better, and gives me so many good examples of other people also hard at work. Do you feel that you now have to write about territory that you've carved out for yourself. Definitely not - I'd hate to think that a first book confines its writer to a narrow range of material. One of my favorite authors is Jim Shepard, and his recent collection moves from the nuclear accident in Chernobyl to Revolutionary France Page 4 of 7

5 to a rainy day in Bridgeport, Connecticut. What I love about writing is that it can take us anywhere in history, anywhere in the world - and that's as exciting for the writer, who can always find new territory to explore - as it can be for the reader. At the moment, I'm still intrigued by questions of migration, home, and distance, so those ideas will probably figure in my future work for awhile. But the questions are changing for me, becoming more complicated, and I hope that will be reflected in whatever I write next. lisa joined. kb(c) I keep reading and hearing writers say how hard writing is. I try to convince myself that they're not just saying that to keep newbies like me going, that it really is as hard as I think it is. Truthfully, do you think writing is hard, and if so, what is the hardest thing about it for you? I have to be honest. I think writing is godawful hard. I think it's so demanding that sometimes it makes me crazy. Also, often, I fail. The story that felt most central to me in the collection was one I never got quite right, and therefore isn't IN this collection. That is hard. But I also think it's exhilerating - and that I'm so fortunate to be able to spend my days trying to do this. I try to remind myself that I'm lucky just to be in the pursuit of good writing. It's a great way to spend a work day (and night, and the night after that...) What are your future projects? Is a novel in the works? Do you see yourself as a short story writer or would you like to be a novelist? EHilts left. Tina(C) lisa(c) I'm working on a novel, set in part at least in Santa Clara. But I'm not sure yet if the story will take me other places, or just to new worlds within this community. I'm excited to find out. But I like the short story form and I'd like to go back to it. I've also been working on some creative nonfiction, including a piece about HIV positive villagers in India, and I've loved the chance to write nonfiction. What helps you stay connected to your writing process when you are in the midst of other things that might not have anything to do with writing or with the community of writing? We have three more questions waiting to be answered, so at this point I will be wrapping up this chat --thus, LAST CHANCE for a question. This is a great question. Mostly reading does it for me. I try to read as much as I can, even when I can't write, and it always keeps me connected with a writing world beause I'm always thinking about how writers accomplish what they do in work I admire. Nalini, was What You Call Winter in you before your MFA, or did it emerge during or after your education? How long has it been brewing inside for you? Page 5 of 7

6 EHilts joined. Cristina70(C) I wrote the first story during my last semester of the MFA, then I put it aside and wrote part of a thwarted novel that thankfully, died an early death. It was enough to turn in as a thesis, and when I'd finished entirely, I returned to stories. This collection emerged slowly, as I realized I was circling around so many similar issues - it seemed to make sense to write from a single point, a community in Santa Clara, and to deal with a handful of families that interconnect. Have you thought about writing a historical fiction novel taking place in Colonial India? Sometimes. Sometimes I'm daunted by the thought of so much research. But mostly I think so much of that material has been amply and beautifully covered by other writers. Midnight's Children is one of my favorite books of all time, and I can't imagine trying to cover that colonial terrain without Rushdie's colossal shadow over me. Also, I think my concerns as a writer -(not as a person, or a voter) - are smaller, more personal, more to do with families. That's so often where the fiction goes. But larger political and colonial concerns will be a part of what I do next - just perhaps not the focus of it. The people, I think, will be the focus. Moderation stops. ScottBrian AaronPerkus Cristina70 EHilts kb Tina Nalini jeralynrose Cristina70 mcwhite Thanks for those great points. Thank you so much, Nalini, for agreeing to hang with us after your great reading. And thank you to everyone who showed up tonight. Yes, thank you. Since I asked no questions, I'll simply say "thank you," as well. Thank you so much for your insight and assistance. thanks so much - I appreciate your kindness and truly authentic voice! Thanks very much for all your questions. I really appreciate hearing from you. Thank You! Goodnight everyone! Thanks all for coming! Stay tuned for the next MFA Inspired Writers author series, with Baron Wormser, author of nine books of poetry, fiction and nonfiction and former poet laureate of Maine. Page 6 of 7

7 AaronPerkus Tina Please remember that our blog is now live--so we can follow up this event with more discussions and feedback about how we might improve this chat venue in the future. 'night, all Page 7 of 7