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An Interview with Dana Kinstler, First Place Winner of the Mary C. Mohr Short Fiction Award
Dana Kinstler's short stories have been published in a number of literary
journals and magazines. Recently her essays have appeared in My Father
Married Your Mother: Writers Talk about Stepparents, Stepchildren, and Everyone
in Between (Norton, 2006); Mr. Wrong (Ballantine, 2007); Stella
Magazine; and the London Telegraph. She has her MFA from Bennington
College Writing Seminars and lives in the Hudson River Valley, New York,
with her husband and two daughters, where she is working on a novel.
From “Decadence”
He could have carried me if he'd wanted, I'd have held on,
buried my face in his neck, pressed my lips into that place always longed
for, a tender piece of skin at the crossroads of shoulder, clavicle and
neck, a soft place, a passive home, a locale sweet as twice-dipped strawberries,
once in chocolate, later in cream. I might have gleaned something from that
softness, nurtured a similar pliancy within myself, an unseen, unspoken
spot from girlhood, buried down beneath years of temping and Thai restaurant
recipes. I might have murmured anything to Harry, anything at all.
***
Chris Dickens: First of all, congratulations on winning the Mary C. Mohr Short Fiction Award!
Dana Kinstler: Thank you, it's an honor to have won that prize.
CD: What first inspired "Decadence?"
DK: I began the story "Decadence"—twelve years before completing it—as an angry rant: a catharsis, a letter you don't send. I brought it to a workshop at Columbia University, where it was trashed. But I never stopped thinking about it—a reoccurring mosquito bite. When I picked it up again, ten years later, I viewed my fit of anger through a telescope, and I saw un-reported sorrow. As I wrote, I listened to music I'd never liked, such as Miles Davis, and the changes in the jazz music influenced me, as did the sadness—my own, the song’s—and then morphed into other forms. It was a great lesson in both not abandoning a piece of work, and also, in letting time have its influence. I wrote phrases down, and at the wise suggestion of a poet friend, built a piece on small prose poems.
“Decadence”
was originally called “Palimpsest,” which is a parchment that
has been erased partially or completely, and then written over again, sometimes
leaving faint traces of visible text beneath new words. An earlier story
version contained a scene on the beach where Harry and Rose put together
a will, while she buried his body in the sand. The words dissolved in the
air, just as the ocean washes away sand—words, also the surf and Long
Island Sound overpower human voices. I was drawn to the way a relationship
can feel so eternal; I wanted to capture how you think back to childhood
and forward to your own demise when you are growing closer to someone. And
how you want to know if it, anything, lasts “forever.”
Re-writing taught me so much about loving a fractured document enough to keep repairing it, replacing words with new words until it became uncertain which reflections or ideas must dominate. The random quality of art fascinates me. How sometimes an inadvertent edit can turn your whole story around.
CD: Documentary filmmaking plays a big role in the story. Does filmmaking hold a special interest for you other than as a motif?
DK: I love to watch film; as a girl, I was raised on films—silent films, like Charlie Chaplin's, and especially movies of the 30's and 40's—my father's era. He insisted we know these films: comedies, musicals, dramas, and kept us up, against my mother's bedtime wishes, to watch them. (This was before videos.) Our apartment had shelves of film books, which I devoured. Especially, I liked to know individual actors, their birthplaces, filmographies, their romances, and birthdays. I go to the movies a lot. Film shifts perception, and in a very deep way teaches me about storytelling.
CD: What are some of your favorite films?
DK: Some of my favorite films are: Wuthering Heights (early version with Laurence
Olivier and Merle
Oberon), Bertolucci's 1900, The English Patient, School
of Rock, and Annie Hall.
CD: I particularly love the way “Decadence” works like a film montage of a relationship, with short scenes that appear in flashes and begin to form a narrative. What other art forms does your writing make use of?
DK: I am fascinated with history, myth, and music, am drawn to paintings from historic periods—eighteenth and nineteenth century art and literature, in particular. Amazing how something painted or written so long ago can be so fresh. I have a piece coming out in another anthology, Feed Me, where I use Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker ballet as an organizing principle—the ballet score and also the sets, costumes, and ballet movements. During college I dropped out, returned to New York City, and worked for the New York Philharmonic. I studied classical music and dance, in an obsessive way. I love how all forms, at some point, feed each other.
CD: What did you do for the Philharmonic?
DK: I was an usher at night, receptionist by day.
CD: It can be tough to write in more than one genre, but you've recently contributed to two nonfiction collections that have similar titles and themes: My Father Married Your Mother: Writers Talk about Stepparents, Stepchildren, and Everyone in Between, and Mr. Wrong: Real-Life Stories About the Men We Used to Love. Tell us a little about how you came to write the essays that appear in these.
DK: A writer friend asked if I’d contribute to an anthology on stepparents—My Father Married Your Mother. At first, I wasn’t sure I wanted to print anything about my family; then, I tried it as a writing exercise—how to take a true experience, express ambivalence, and do so with love. Then, the Mr. Wrong editor, Harriet Brown, liked that piece and asked me to write a piece for her. Here, I tried to tell a dark story with a different challenge—using the Hades story from Greek mythology. I love reading anthologies—after reading an entire book written from a variety of writers, my perspective broadened immeasurably. I felt a new compassion for any stepmother after reading these pieces.
CD: Which genre most interests you?
DK: Fiction. But I’ve always kept a diary and have noticed—as I had babies, as my family grew, and as old friends passed away—an urgency to write down histories. My fiction, however, sometimes starts from a memory or a dream fragment; I attempt to capture the strangeness or finish what is left undone—that broken essence of the dream caused by an image shift or just by waking up.
CD: When writing about real people in one’s life there are always some unflattering observations and criticisms. How did you manage to balance these essays in a way that left you comfortable with the published products?
DK: I found writing memoir natural, and a creative challenge. Yet, in the process, I grew closer to each of the people depicted; the writing helped me honor difficult relationships—a stepmother, an ex-boyfriend—and just as knowing those people stretched my spirit, so writing about them was invigorating—as I wrote, I felt appreciation for each of their influences on me. I saw the essays as writing exercises and then worried, afterwards, if anyone would be mad; I'm not sure I’m entirely comfortable with their reading them, but it's out of my control. I aimed to be as fair as possible—which, since I'm only one side of the story, is impossible. But I am painfully aware of my flaws and what I bring to a relationship, and that made me think, these must have been hard times for these people, too.
CD: Liam Rector read at the University of Southern Indiana a couple months ago for our Ropewalk Reading Series. He founded and directs the Bennington College Writing Seminars where you received your MFA. Can you tell us a little about how that program has shaped your writing?
DK: When I drove to visit Bennington College during the
low-residency MFA, it was a sub-zero night in January. I walked into a reading
and felt a physical jolt, as if someone had literally plugged me in, at
the hipbones. Electrifying. I still haven’t found another term. The
Bennington MFA lived up to that, and I still visit for the occasional lecture,
just to get that dangerous intellectual charge.
And my graduate school mentors re-shaped my writing and vision. The written correspondence with each instructor was demanding, but inspiring. I loved the letters. I still keep in touch with my thesis advisor, Alice Mattison, who midwifed my collection of connected stories (one of which is “Decadence”). As director, Liam Rector passed on both his wise and sharp philosophies, as well as precise directives, particularly, his insistence that we become committed readers—this influenced me profoundly. I wasn’t reading poetry before Bennington. Now, I always keep a volume of poetry on my nightstand, along with a book of essays or fiction.
CD: In the age of Googling, it's easy to get wildly incorrect information about a person. According to the results of my own Google search, your father painted the official portraits of Presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. Does this sound familiar?
DK: My father’s portraits—true.
CD: Have you met any presidents as a result of your father’s paintings?
DK: I met President Ford when one of my father's portraits was presented.
CD: Do you paint also?
DK: No. I dye clothes, my hair, other people’s socks, inadvertently. My daughter’s paintings wallpaper our house. I have been knitting for twenty years. I visit museums a lot. They are church for me.
CD: What's next for you?
DK: Finish my novel! Start the one waiting in the wings. Keep writing memoir-essays; I have two forthcoming in The Face (Seal Press) and Feed Me (Ballantine). As I age, I want to hold onto everything. If I could just document it all...
