Sharon Millar: from Caribbean to Commonwealth

“Out the window, the tide is changing, the sea frothing and roiling into the tight channel. But beyond, in the harbor, it expands in relieved swells, glad to be past the slick mountain walls. Four months ago, Laura had gone to see Dr. Harnaysingh. She’d made an appointment because at forty-six, her body was suddenly an unknown entity. Once calm and predictable, a source of surety and absolutes, it was now dense, fleshy, prone to thickened skin and odd middle-aged lust… pregnancy was not something she’d considered… When she’d told Mark, he’d lifted her nightie, rested his dark head between her ribs and hipbones, and traced gentle circles around the hard space above her pubic bone. She’d imagined a light swooping and fluttering deep inside of her as Mark murmured to the quicksilver heartbeat, that mere conspiracy of cells. A baby.”

– from “The Whale House” 

by Sharon Millar

 2013 Commonwealth Short Story Prize co-winner

Sharon Millar – Photo credit: Mark Lyndersay / lyndersaydigital.com

Sharon Millar, a Trinidadian writer, shares her insights about writing in terms of language, landscape, cultural identity, and literary influences. Her lyrical stories are informed by the Caribbean and address issues central to life there. For instance, how life repeats itself in traditions and behaviors laden with love, sexuality, and violence. That we shared a writing mentor—Wayne Brown, the late Trinidadian writer who wrote from his home in Kingston, Jamaica—is an honor. Wayne had high expectations, which Sharon fulfills in her writing, her prose remarkable in its risk-taking, compelling narrative voice, and lush language.

Trumpet flower

Forest foliage

The language of your writing is rich and detailed and saturated in landscape and sense of place. Would you speak about the Caribbean, as well as your inspiration and your process?

It’s interesting to try and see where inspiration comes from. How do we choose to tell the stories that we do? It’s taken me a long time to pin down my process.

I’ve been writing seriously since 2009. I’d always dabbled before, but it was only when I began writing with Wayne Brown again (I’d done workshops with him in the early 1990s) that I began to really write. Sadly, I kept almost none of this early work. This was before the days of the internet, and to take part in his class I had to rent a typewriter. That’s one of my biggest regrets. I’d love to look at the work now.

I write from landscape, which is to say I often have no idea what I want to write. Random things are triggers. Right now it is July in Trinidad. We have moved from dry season to rainy season. It’s almost like a different island. The light changes, the humidity in the air increases, little ferns appear on telephone poles.

Trinidad's tropical waters

All of these are subtle cues. I tend to latch onto a feeling in the air or a certain heaviness of the light through the humidity and this will propel me in a certain direction.

The Caribbean islands have complicated histories of oppression and violence. Like the American South, slavery is an inescapable and tragic blot on the region. We are a young country. Just barely 50 years old with a very multi-ethnic population. Daily the population struggles with issues of identity and belonging. That’s the negative side. The positive side is that there are so many stories to be told. I really believe in the power of the story to help us see ourselves.

My biggest challenge is to write against all the stereotypes of the Caribbean. The rest of the world sees the Caribbean region as having one culture, one people, one collective history. I think it’s up to the fiction writers to show the world that each island is different and that we are much more than the tropical stereotype.

I’ve been told that I write in a very specific manner. I do this deliberately because I want the reader to see and hear and taste and smell what it is I am trying to convey. So I pay close attention to the small things. The plate of food on the table, the way the chair feels under the protagonist. What’s gratifying is when people say – oh, I felt this story had to be addressed to me because only I could feel this way – that’s very rewarding. I think that the specificity enables the work to be both very personal and very global.

Sharon and her parents

Family relationships, including the passing of happiness as well as grief from generation to generation, are prevalent in your writing. Would you share a bit about your family and your background?

We are white Creole and have lived here for as long as my family can remember. My mother’s paternal family goes back to the 1600’s (out of Barbados), her maternal family are more recent, coming to Trinidad in the mid-1800’s from Lisbon. On my father’s side, it’s a mix of English and French. The white Creole narrative in the Caribbean is one that is difficult to reconcile with my day-to-day life. But I am moving slowly towards mining the stories, both the good and the bad. And there are so many stories.

Sharon as a young child

Sharon and her sister Jennifer

My younger sister and only sibling, Jennifer, lives in Miami. She is about five years younger than I am. We had a good childhood with many pets, vacations near the sea, friends.

Sharon's mother as a child

But there were defining tragedies that shaped us.

When my grandfather was in his early sixties, he died suddenly. He had a heart attack in his study and died at his desk. It was the day after my birthday. I had just turned five, and my sister was only nine months old. My grandfather was an independent senator, and so his picture was posted on the front page of the newspaper. I remember my mother crying. She was an only child and very close to him, so this was a loss from which she never fully recovered.

At 54, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and succumbed to the disease ten years later. Her death is the hardest thing I’ve faced. And, Karin, you have put it so eloquently – the passing of grief from generation to generation. And it’s strange that I’ve honed in on this area of my life. I feel as if I’m the keeper of all the stories now.

Sharon and her daughter Hayley

I’m married with one daughter. I’ve been lucky in many ways, but no one escapes grief.

Dusk at the Waterloo Temple cremation site

Literary influences?

I am influenced by what I read. I went to university in Canada and read lots of early Margaret Atwood, Margaret Lawrence, Alice Munro. Also Doris Lessing, Nadine Gordimer, and I love Bessie Head and Ben Okri. I always liked reading the women. I loved Russian literature for the sheer magnitude of the landscape. I don’t consider myself a feminist because the very label carries its own level of patriarchy, but the women appear in my writing. I’m still reading and learning the Caribbean canon, an intimidating and essential one. Sir Vidia Naipaul, Earl Lovelace, C. L. R. James, Sam Selvon, Derek Walcott, and too many others to list here, have set a very high bar. I recently heard Jamaican poet, Edward Baugh, read in Miami, along with Edwidge Danticat and Earl Lovelace. When you hear the work and it resonates so deeply, you think, okay, that’s it. These are the ties that bind; this is what we share. This is what it means to be Caribbean in 2013.

The Caribbean canon is young and is naturally, very politically charged with issues of ethnicity and identity. Migration and displacement are constant themes as are oppression, power, and authenticity. For a long time I couldn’t write because I couldn’t see how I could bring anything to the canon. I simply couldn’t find a voice within that context. Now that I am older, I can see my way in, which is empowering. I can only write the story I know.

Trinidadian writer Wayne Brown

There’s something about the Antillean landscape that infects our writers. I see it in the works of Derek Walcott, V.S. Naipaul, and Wayne Brown. There is a lushness that marks us all. I wonder if one hundred years from now if it will be obvious. The current generation has poets like Tanya Shirley, Kei Miller (Jamaica); Loretta Collins Klobah (Puerto Rico); Vladimir Lucien, Kendel Hippolyte (St. Lucia); Danielle Boodoo-Fortune, Vahni Capildeo, Andre Bagoo (Trinidad), Sonia Farmer (Bahamas), and many more that I haven’t had the opportunity to read. Even though I write fiction, I read poetry when I need an entry point and the texture of the words. Then I move to fiction to carry me along. I’m experimenting right now, and perhaps those most influencing my work are fiction writers, Alistair Macleod and Andrea Barrett. But that’s today.

White Witch Moth on a coconut tree

Blue-crowned Motmot - Tobago

You’ve been writing a story collection, and a few of the stories have won awards. Is there a project you look forward to working on once the collection is finished?

I want to move on to a novel. One of my short stories declared itself a novel very early in the process. I’m enjoying the research and also looking forward to discovering how the form is different to that of the short story.

Divali lights

Favorite line, and why you are drawn to it.

“Soon the harbor was a scatter of lanterns floating above the water, face level, shoulder level.” – from The Bird Artist by Howard Norman

I’ve read thousands of sentences since I read this line and I still remember how I felt when I encountered it. There was something about the idea of the lanterns floating above the water. By using the face and shoulder references, my mind made a leap and I imagined not just light floating disembodied, but also faces. It captured that odd ghostly mood with such a deft touch.

Trinidadian architectural detail

Novel, story, or vignette? And why?

Novel.

This was a hard choice. I very nearly chose short story. But the novel is a world to me, the short story a moment. While I have been transformed and charged and shocked by a short story, I still look to the novel to really remove me from my reality. The world building in the best novels leave you homesick for worlds that only exist on the page. That’s magic.

Caribbean bloom

Caribbean breakfast

Best breakfast ever!

A big slice of fresh avocado and buljol (salted fish, lime, onions, olive oil, and tomatoes mixed together).

Sharon Millar - Photo credit: Michele Jorsling

Sharon Millar is a graduate of the Lesley University MFA program and is a past student of fellow Trinidadian writer, the late Wayne Brown. She is the winner of the Small Axe 2012 short fiction competition and the co-winner of the 2013 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Prior to this, her work has appeared on several shortlists. She has been published in a wide range of Caribbean publications as well as Granta Online. Her fiction is strongly rooted in landscape and she draws her stories from both place and history. Cemeteries, the rain forest, and old buildings are all sources of inspiration. She lives in Port of Spain, Trinidad with her husband and daughter.

To read Sharon’s stories, “The Whale House” and “Earl Grey,” follow these links:

 ”The Whale House” - at Granta – “New Writing”

 ”Earl Grey” - at ArtzPub – Issue 20

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Color artist photo – with permission of Mark Lyndersay.

Black-&-white artist photo – with permission of Sharon Millar – Photo credit: Michele Jorsling 

All other photos – with permission of Sharon Millar

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The Poppy: An Interview Series

Four to six questions begin as pods, then burst open with answers, bright lapis, 

black-stamened, conspicuous—ornament, remembrance, opiate.

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This interview first posted at Hothouse Magazine.

Matthew Draughter: Vision and Voice

The reason for our departure will be

splashed across newspapers, it will be investigated.

Known by all, known to everyone as the day

of our separation—noted by a day and time,

noted by a heat index. A temperature so hot

that the blue balloons of your birthday party

burst, and the helium dispersed into the air.

A time when we retreated because we confused

the popping of the balloons with gunshots. A date

remembered by few. We are absent from the body,

no longer tied, but free.

 - from the poem, “The 1200 Block of Simon Bolivar” – For Brianna Allen

by Matthew Draughter

I first met Matthew Draughter at his Certificate of Artistry reading at Lusher Charter High School in New Orleans. Lusher focuses on the arts and academics, giving students interested in creative writing, fine arts, music, and arts media a conservatory-style education. Matthew’s voice stood out to me, and I was included in his senior thesis defense. His bright, wise way of answering questions during the defense is also reflected in his writing. When I read his words, I hear strains of Carl Sandburg and E.E. Cummings in his poetry, and threads of Virginia Woolf and Flannery O’Connor in his prose. But these are only my impressions. His literary influences surprised me, arriving not only out of his creative writing classes, but from his interest in gender and the female voice. I love his responses and am very happy to share them here.

Matthew Draughter

 Photo credit: Lila Molina

Matthew, you are a native of New Orleans, and your writing is infused with a sense of place, a love of place, which in a way becomes an allegiance to the city. Can you speak a little about how your stories and poetry are influenced by the city and community? For example, in your poems, “X – a city,” about how the city was marked and marred in the aftermath of Katrina’s flooding, and “The 1200 Block of Simon Bolivar Avenue,” a tribute and a cry out for Brianna Allen, the little girl at a birthday party killed in the crossfire of a drive-by shooting in May 2012.

To be honest, when I first started writing, I thought New Orleans was boring, and I hated writing about the city. But in the past year I began to realize there was a voice here, and that voice began to speak to me. Until I put it on the page, I didn’t realize how lyrical and full of imagery that native voice was. When I started writing more and more about the city, I was able to grasp what the voice of New Orleans was trying to tell me, and that’s when the real writing came. The city began to influence many parts of my writing, and it was never so much about being aware of the setting or having a sense of place—to me it was just writing about where I’m from as it relates to where I am in my life now. It’s funny, you never know how beautiful your home is until you stop, stand back, and look at where you came from.

As it relates to my work, like “X- a city” and “The 1200 Block of Simon Bolivar,” there is a sense of tribute, but also a sense of what I’ve learned from events in the city. This past year I felt driven to find out things about myself, including the connection to my home. I love my city, and there is so much I’ve taken from all of the areas of New Orleans. Each section of the city has spoken to me, and that is where my connection comes from. These particular pieces act as homage to events that have caused tremendous loss. For “X” it was Katrina, and for “The 1200 Block” it was a murder. Both events are ones that hit the city hard, but most importantly these events touched me and made me think more about where I am really from and how much the city means to me.

I was fortunate to attend your Certificate of Artistry thesis defense at Lusher High School this past May. Your senior thesis, titled “Ways of Women,” is a very thoughtful and beautifully sequenced collection of stories and poetry, in which the female narrative voice is predominant. Tell us about how you decided to focus on this perspective, and about your purposeful use of gender in writing.

Gender roles have always been something I’ve been interested in. Whether it’s the unstoppable femme fatale, or a strong female figure. The truth is, women have always come across as more interesting characters to me. I am a male, and I know what it’s like to be one. That’s why I like writing about women. I feel that as a writer you should never be in your comfort zone, and you should always find a way to challenge yourself. I do that through gender roles. My thesis, “Ways of Women,” is a compilation of works inspired by women in my life. Through these works I’ve recognized the importance of gender roles in literature, but I’ve also discovered what has captivated me most about women. In each of my pieces there is a mystery behind the woman—that idea of secrecy is what has inspired me to focus on women, especially in stories like “Hive” and “Bonnie.” What is unknown about women intrigues me—that’s what makes me dig deeper. As it relates to my characters, I think that there are some secrets they can have, even from me. I want my literary women to be just as mysterious to me as they are for my readers. This allows me to dig and discover, but it also gives me the chance to realize when to step back.

Gender roles allow me to think more about the big picture of the work, and ultimately, what everything means as a whole. A female character can give the narrative a sense of depth that not all male characters can. It’s just more interesting that way.

In your story, “Hive,” the use of metaphorical language reveals a woman trapped in a hive of memory. Virginia Woolf inspired this piece, yes? Would you speak about the use of metaphor and the very close viewpoint of this story?

“Hive” was inspired by Virginia Woolf—specifically, Mrs. Dalloway. I was drawn to the fact that Woolf was so intimate with her characters’ points of view. The focus on her characters allows readers to enter their perspectives, their minds, even when the narrator isn’t in first person. That’s the effect I wanted in “Hive.” Through details, I gained a precision that entrapped my main character. The entrapment she feels is a product of the events from her past, and I decided to expound on that. For the point of view I didn’t want to have a first person narrator because the entrapment Charlotte feels could be extremely overbearing to readers. Third person limited gave me the chance to explore her world. Through metaphor I was able to extend the senses and the idea of how Charlotte’s memory works in the narrative. This gave me a sense of control and allowed me to find her character. I became Charlotte while I was writing this story. I had to be able to think like her; that was the only way I could create her. I also had to step away and realize there were certain aspects I didn’t want to know. This is where the idea of the “hive” came from. I wanted her to have secrets that not even I knew. When I created her memory of the bees, the metaphor came on its own. She’s a very intriguing character, and there’s a side to her that I still don’t know. As a writer, of course, you need to know your characters. But, to me, I don’t want to know them as well as some other writers know theirs. That’s why my fiction is mostly character-driven. It gives me a chance to explore and understand how far the exploration will go. In that way, the metaphor of “Hive” came to be.

Some of your stories include details such as texture and fabric.  And so: raw silk, chiffon, or taffeta? 

Chiffon. I like the way it layers. It just flows a way certain fabrics don’t.

Influences? Writers, artists, designers.

In fiction, Flannery O’Connor and John Cheever and Ralph Ellison, as well as Virginia Woolf. I love how their range is so different, how they have different methods of characterization. I’ve learned so much from each of these writers.

In poetry, I’m a huge fan of Anne Sexton. She’s always inspired and influenced my thoughts about structure and diction, and how they work together for a poem. And ever since I started writing, I’ve loved William Butler Yeats. Recently, my work has been inspired by contemporary poets, like Ntozake Shange, Terrance Hayes, Kevin Young, and Langston Hughes. I’ve studied and drawn from them as I’ve began to find my own voice. “X – a city” was actually inspired by Terrance Hayes. The rhythm was a response from “Blue Seuss.” I was flattered when you mentioned E. E. Cummings because I think he’s brilliant. “The 1200 Block of Simon Bolivar Avenue” wasn’t influenced by another poet; it was just me and everything I’ve ever wanted in a poem. It wasn’t a response, rather a creation of something that had been on my mind for a very long time, and I finally had the chance to write it. Something triggered that poem’s creation.

In terms of designers, I admire Chanel and Alexander McQueen. These two have changed the face of the fashion industry. I love Givenchy and Marchesa because of the construction of their designs. I love when designers take fashion risks, as that parallels the risks I take in writing. That’s why I love fashion as much as I love writing. The risks are endless, and when you mess up, you can just start over. They both seem to go hand in hand, and it’s all art—and that’s the most important thing for me.

Matthew Draughter

Photo credit: Cassidy Driskel

Congratulations! You’ve graduated from Lusher and will be attending Loyola University in the fall. What are your academic plans?  What are your hopes and dreams?

I plan on majoring in International Business. I feel as though college is where you find yourself, so anything can happen between now and the time I graduate. I also want to continue to pursue my writing. Loyola has great literary magazines, and I would love to have the opportunity to have my work published in one of them. After college, I would really like to work for a fashion company to see how design, writing, art, and business come together. I want to go to school for design and eventually work toward an MBA. I’ve always seen life as a book—you can decide to make it as big as Moby Dick or as tiny as a pamphlet. I see myself taking more risks, because that’s the only way I’ll ever know what works and what doesn’t.

In terms of my writing career, I won’t ever stop. It’s what I have to do. After graduation, I hit a point in time when I thought, “Now what?” I started reading like I used to, and reading always sparks my imagination. Reading and writing are counterparts: you can’t have one without the other. As long as you’re reading, your imagination for writing is stimulated. I’ll keep writing about what intrigues me, about the things I love. Eventually, I’d love to be a published writer. I’d love to have three books by the time I’m thirty-three. But for now I just want to be able to finish the story I’m currently working on. I’m going to take it a day at a time, so I’m always enjoying life and can always experience something new.

And because we love a little lagniappe in New Orleans: your favorite music?

This question makes me smile. Honestly, I appreciate all types of music. I love listening to R&B, and I like some Rap. Sometimes I just like to sit and listen to Tchaikovsky and meditate on parts of Swan Lake. Other times I like to blast Kanye West. Then there are those moments when I feel like listening to music from my childhood: Destiny’s Child, The Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears. No matter what, I love music that tells a story. For me, there needs to be a beginning, middle, and end. That’s why I respect artists who still create albums. Singers like Alicia Keys and Adele have songs that have layers. That’s what I feel writing should have. That’s why, for me, music and writing are synonymous.

My favorite artist of all time is Mariah Carey. All of her songs do things lyrically that other artists can’t achieve. Her albums work as units, and there’s an element that drives each song from start to finish. This is why I love all of her music. Whether she’s singing about an enduring love story, or about missing an ex, there’s a narrative. She also has an amazing voice, which makes me happy no matter what. The element that Mariah uses in her albums—the thing that drives them—that’s what I look for when I write. My favorite Mariah album, Daydream, has a summery haze that coats every song. I feel that when you write, there should be an element—a summery haze—that coats each and every piece you write in its own way. Strangely enough, that’s the album that I listened to when I wrote “Hive.”

Most recently, one of my favorite albums is Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience, which I love for its cohesive body of work. From start to finish, it flows. That’s how every poem, short story, and novel should be. Each song in an album should speak to the others, just as every line of every literary work should, in turn revealing what is versatile and unique about the whole piece.

Matthew Draughter is a writer from New Orleans. He attended the Kenyon Young Writers Workshop in 2011 and received Gold Key Awards in the 2011 and 2013 Southeast Louisiana Regional Scholastic Young Art and Writing Competition in Fiction, Poetry, and the Senior Portfolio categories. He recently graduated from Lusher Charter High School, where he competed in Track and Cross Country and completed his Certificate of Artistry in Creative Writing, and will attend Loyola University in the fall.

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The Poppy: An Interview Series

Four to six questions begin as pods, then burst open with answers, bright lapis, 

black-stamened, conspicuous—ornament, remembrance, opiate.

*

This interview first posted at Hothouse Magazine.