Lindsay Zier-Vogel, author of Letters to Amelia. Photo by Phillipa Croft.
I always love having the chance to get inside the head of another writer — and when that writer is a debut novelist, well, I have to say I find it all the more thrilling. I understand what’s involved in getting a non-fiction book out of your head and into the world, but imagining a novel into being? That seems like sheer magic to me.
I recently had the opportunity to chat with Lindsay Zier-Vogel about her own novel-writing process. I approached her after reading (and loving) her debut novel, Letters to Amelia, a few weeks ago. The novel is warm, kind, and entertaining. I sat down to read it one evening and realized, a couple of hours later, that I’d devoured most of the book in a single sitting and stayed up way past my bedtime. That’s how much I loved this book and I’m pretty sure you’ll love it, too.
Now on with my conversation with Lindsay….
ANN DOUGLAS: I love it when novelists allow themselves to go down research rabbits that transport their characters and their readers to a uniquely interesting place. Letters to Amelia invites the reader to tag along on a journey into the world of Amelia Earhart and the world of rare books. I don’t think I’ve ever read a novel that tackled one of these subjects, let alone both. Could you talk a bit about how these two things found their way into your novel? Were either or both long-standing interests of yours? (I kind of got the sense that they might have be.) By the way: I attended U of T, and I loved having a chance to revisit the Thomas Booker Rare Fish Library (the nickname the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library had circa 1985 — a nickname that apparently lives on today) via your book!
LINDSAY ZIER-VOGEL: I fell in love with Amelia Earhart’s story many, many years ago after reading a terrible biography about her. I was so taken by the parts of her story that aren’t just her disappearance—that she was a social worker in Boston in the ’20s, that she spent years in Toronto (where she fell in love with flying!), that she started a clothing line. Fast forward a few years and I was travelling by myself for the first time. I was lonely in a way I had never experienced before and didn’t speak much Spanish, so I couldn’t have a meaningful conversation with anyone about it. I didn’t feel like these restless feelings I was having were appropriate for postcards home, so I started writing letters to Amelia Earhart. It was safe—she was clearly never going to write back—and I could explore these new feelings I was having without feeling guilty about them. And then every few years, whenever I was experiencing feelings I didn’t quite understand, I’d write another batch of letters to her. A lot of them were published, and though none of them made it into the book proper, this idea of writing letters to Amelia was something I’d been playing around with since 2005.
I fell in love with the Fisher during grad school, where I’d spend hours researching Dora Mavor Moore for my MA thesis. When the idea of a book began to form, I knew I wanted Grace to be surrounded by boxes of documents and photographs and letters. Selfishly, I wanted to spend more time there, and see the inner workings of the library. I got an incredible backstage tour from the incredibly generous John Shoesmith, and it was even better than I could’ve imagined! There were a lot nerdy rare book scenes about book conservation that ended up on the cutting room floor.
ANN DOUGLAS: This is your debut novel. Could you talk about what writing this novel taught you about the novel-writing process and/or yourself? What did you learn as a result of writing this book?
LINDSAY ZIER-VOGEL: I took a bunch of running starts at novel writing before Letters to Amelia, and though it was hard to shelve these projects I spent so many years on, they were crucial for me to learn how to write a novel. Not a particularly efficient learning curve, but also, it turns out, critical. I’ve realized that my process involves writing really, really terrible drafts—I overwrite like no one’s business—and then I spend a lot of time editing, and finding the story in the scads of Word docs I’ve created. I also started working with a writing group—the Semi-Retired Hens—in the early stages of the novel, and both having their insight and feedback, and also reading and offering feedback on their works-in-progress, has made me such a stronger writer. I don’t know what I’d do without them!
ANN DOUGLAS: You are clearly someone who loves both writing and receiving letters. And you’re also an author who is very gifted when it comes to writing dialogue. Do you think there’s a connection between the two? Do letter writing and dialogue have something in common?
LINDSAY ZIER-VOGEL: What a compliment! Thank you! Letter writing is so internal and private, thoughts made concrete on the page, where dialogue is the opposite—external, and voiced—so I’m not sure they’re directly related for me. Letters are one-sided, where dialogue requires an immediate back-and-forth. But for me, letter writing and writing dialogue share a deep commitment to voice—mine, as the letter writer, or the characters in the case of dialogue. When I receive a letter, I can instantly hear the writer’s voice, and I hope, I can achieve the same thing for readers with my dialogue.
Ann Douglas is the author of numerous books about parenting including, most recently, Happy Parents, Happy Kids and Parenting Through the Storm. These days, she is hard at work on a book for and about women at midlife.