Author Interview: Carolyn Agee
JC – In your bio, it says you are an actress and that you enjoy baking, knitting, and traveling. What draws you to those hobbies? Are there other hobbies you enjoy?
CA - Acting and writing are both about telling stories-- telling the truth in deep and challenging ways that may not be 'allowed' by polite society in other forms, which I have always found fascinating; we are, in essence, court jesters. My other hobbies I owe to a deep love for my maternal grandmother, who emigrated from Iceland in 1954. She expressed her love in two ways: baking and creating beautiful clothing (in essence, she was fattening us up, and then altering or designing new clothes for us when we could no long fit into our old ones!) This is definitely where my propensity for stress baking comes from, and although I can barely sew on a button, I am good at knitting and I see each piece I knit, in some small way, as an homage to her.
JC – How did you discover your love for writing?
CA - One of my earliest memories is of writing a picture book with a sharpie on brightly colored paper. It was illustrated with Polaroids of my stuffed animals taken by my mother. I also think that it had to do with being read the King James Bible and The Lord of the Rings (which owe a lot to the Icelandic Sagas) from a very young age. There was never a question of reading comprehension in our house.
JC – Tell me about your writing process. Do you have a routine? Do you start with a title, an idea, an outline, or just write and see where the words lead you?
CA - In acting, I use the techniques of Michael Chekhov and Augusto Boal, which are based of finding subconscious images and archetypes for the stories and emotions you wish to express, even if there is no definitive logic behind them at the beginning. My writing often starts in much the same way, as a series of images which at first are in no way connected, but eventually flow together as I work with them. I usually don't begin to outline or put pen to paper until they have taken shape almost in their entirety and are demanding to be let out. Otherwise, it aborts the process.
JC – What books, stories, and authors inspire you?
CA - Shakespeare, fairy tale, and myth inspire me a great deal, as well as, for example, the way Arthur Miller used the Salem Witch Trials to criticize McCarthyism-- he could have destroyed his career.
JC – Your story, “The Rustle of the Wind,” is very introspective of the human condition. Do you find that writing is cathartic?
CA - This one certainly was! But I don't sit down with the goal of having a catharsis (then it would become self-indulgent and masturbatory which gives you a mess to clean up with tissues, but rarely the progeny called great art). I sit down to explore the world, the human condition, what I think of it-- and whether what I think is true. Hopefully, creating something beautiful in the process.
JC – Do you have any advice for writers wanting to get published?
CA - I spend as much time researching the right publications for my pieces as I do writing them (which probably means I should get an agent), but I think it's an important element. Writers can often feel that their rejection rate is due to a flaw in their work, but it may just have to do with blind submitting. You wouldn't cast Sir Ian McKellen in "Before Sunrise", as brilliant as he is, it just isn't the right fit. So, that's important. That and ruthless editing.
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Carolyn Agee is an actress and author in the Pacific Northwest who enjoys baking, knitting, and travel. Her credits include works in Petrichor Machine, Niteblade and Mystic Signals. Visit her at her website: http://www.carolynagee.com
