Gretchen Johnson interview

AUTHOR INTERVIEW

A little introduction:

Hi! I’m an Associate Professor of English at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. I love teaching students how to improve their writing and how to develop a love of literature. In my free time, I love to read, travel, snuggle on the couch with my cats, watch bad reality TV, and try new restaurants.

When did your love of books begin?

For as long as I can remember, I loved reading. As a very small child, my parents read to me frequently, and this is probably where the love of books began. As a kid in elementary school, I would sometimes get into trouble for reading a book when I was supposed to be working on a math assignment or playing with the other kids at recess. I was obsessed with Laura Ingalls Wilder books as a child and would read the same books over and over again, finding new details in them with each read.

When did you start to have the wish to become an author?

In middle-school, I read a book called Cleo (Jean Brody). I remember staring at the crisp white book cover with the little strawberry at the bottom and wondering if I would ever be able to stare at my own book cover someday. As a middle-school kid anything seemed possible, so I spent hours in my bedroom with the floral wallpaper working on stories in notebooks and dreaming of my future as an author. At sixteen, I spent all my free time over the summer writing my first novel (a book that would never see the light of day but helped me start to work on my fiction writing skills), and I remember jumping on the big trampoline in my backyard and imagining what it would feel like to win a book award on some future day.

How have you found the process for becoming an author?

It took about nine years of aggressively trying to get my first book published. I sent out that first manuscript to so many presses and contests, went through periods where I gave up and put it aside, and then I would revise it a little more and try sending it out again. I started trying to get published in my early twenties and saw my first book in print at age thirty-two. The other books were accepted a bit faster than that, but my journey to publication has never been particularly easy. I have the notebook pages filled with lists of rejections to prove it (one book was rejected over a hundred times before someone finally said yes). I feel incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to work with Lamar University Literary Press and Golden Antelope Press on my books. They are wonderful presses that have made so many writers’ dreams come true.

What would you say to those wanting to become an author?

The thing I always tell my creative writing students is that rejection is just part of the process. When I’m submitting a manuscript over and over again, and the rejections are starting to pile up, I try to tell myself that every “no” is just one step closer to that eventual “yes.” As a writer, there is always hope that something truly incredible could happen. I also tell students that they shouldn’t be afraid to put their own lives in their writing. So many of my favorite books are inspired by an author’s actual life in some way.

Tell us about your book/books:

My novel, Single in Southeast Texas, was the winner of the Summerlee Book Prize. The book is fiction, but it closely resembles my own experiences with being recently divorced and trying to date in Beaumont, Texas. As a Minnesota native who had recently moved to Southeast Texas, the culture shock of being in a region so different from my own definitely made dating challenging. The book is funny but also makes some bold statements about what it means to be single and starting over.

My latest novel, Young Again, deals with four characters who are in the middle of their lives and feeling a bit stuck. They are college professors who have agreed to move into the dorms to live among the students (an experiment the administration comes up with to try to help more students graduate). Living back in a dorm room creates big changes in the lives of the characters. One fifty-something woman has an affair with a nineteen-year-old student, and a forty-something math professor uses the opportunity as a way to escape his dull marriage back home. I really like exploring characters who are feeling trapped in some way, and this book shows the hilarious and sad realities that a midlife crisis can cause.

What do you love about the writing/reading community?

My favorite thing about this community is the feeling of being connected to so many people (even if I’ll never meet them in person). To read someone’s work is to see so many intimate parts of the writer – their fears, passions, questions, wisdoms, dreams, etc. I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to read my work to an audience many times, and the feedback I get from readers is always so inspiring.

If you could say anything to your readers what would it be?

The main thing I would say to my readers is “thank you.” Just knowing that someone is reading my work makes all the late nights of writing and editing totally worth it. Being a human being is hard, and I hope that something in my writing can connect to readers in such a way that they feel less alone in life.

Where can people connect with you?

You can find me on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.