Author Kristen Tsetsi describes the motivation behind her debut novel, Homefront
Kristen Tsetsi
American author Kristen Tsetsi began her writing life producing short stories, one of which, They Three at Once Were One, went on to win the 2006 Storyglossia Fiction Prize. She has taught expressive writing, play writing, and screen writing at Trollwood Performing Arts School. She also spent a year as a reporter for the Journal Inquirer newspaper in Connecticut and is a former Women’s eNews correspondent. In 2007, Kristen published her debut novel, Homefront.
What inspired you to become a writer?
I suppose what might have made me take it seriously, or at least made me sure it was what I wanted to do, was reading Kate Chopin’s Story of an Hour as a college freshman.
I wanted to make others feel, with my writing, the way she made me feel with hers. I wanted to write about the truths most of us aren’t comfortable admitting.
What was your first short story about?
At eleven or twelve years old, I was reading Star Magazine. Star used to have a one-page romance on its last page. After reading several of them, I was pretty sure I could write one just as well as those other people did.
I think the story for Star was the first one I wrote. All I remember about it now is that there was a man, a woman, and red wine in a restaurant.
Did you face much rejection initially?
The story I sent to Star wasn’t accepted, but I was more upset by the lack of response than I was that it was, apparently, rejected. And when I started submitting stories regularly to literary journals, I faced tons of rejection, sure.
I dealt with it by sending out a number of submissions, expecting rejection (because it really is the more likely outcome), and then not thinking about those submissions floating around out there.
If one was accepted, great. If not, I’d send it somewhere else. I’d taken enough workshops and done enough writing to be at least mildly confident that my writing was all right, so the rejections didn’t leave me believing I was producing awful material.
I just knew certain journals had certain editors with specific preferences, and they didn’t always prefer my stories.
Did you find an agent or a publisher first?
I found a publisher first. Homefront is self-published. However, that the method of publishing hasn’t prevented the book from being a topic on NPR’s Faith Middleton Show or NPR-affiliate WKMS’s Front Page, or from receiving critical acclaim, or from being the subject of other radio shows and news articles.
I tell you this because I’m hoping to - at the very least - remind anyone reading this that while many poor books are self-published, many good ones are, too. And that to automatically reject a book because - and only because - it was self-published is a mistake.
I and a number of other self-published authors whose work has passed the most rigorous, important, and telling test - that offered by readers and reviewers - have formed a collective, of sorts, called Backword Books to showcase and promote the work of quality self-published authors.
One of the other Backword Books
That said, I did query a number of agents before deciding to self-publish Homefront, and I now have an agent. It’s very difficult (unless you’re one of the lucky ones) to get a publisher without having an agent.
How did it feel to discover you’d won the 2006 Storyglossia Fiction Prize?
When I was in high school, I really wanted a writing award. I don’t know why, but I did. I wanted to know I was good enough at it to have the writing recognized. One of my greatest fears, aside from death, was that I’d love writing as much as I did, want to do it was much as I did, but that I’d someday learn I was just terrible at it.
Winning the Storyglossia Fiction Prize was one of the most exciting days of my life, truly. I was thrilled.
What do you find the most challenging aspects of writing?
Moving forward. The “What next? What do my characters do now?”
What do you enjoy most about the process?
Revising. I can sit for hours and never feel a minute pass when I’m sitting in a chair with the printed manuscript and going through it with a pen, putting an “x” through paragraphs I don’t need, cutting words and sentences. I love cutting and rewording.
Whose writing do you admire?
Most of the minimalist writers, for their less-is-more approach, and other writers - like Joyce Carol Oates and Margaret Atwood and Kate Chopin - for their bravery, for writing characters with deep, horrible flaws, but who we recognise, because we have similar flaws and thoughts and feelings we would never, ever, admit out loud.
What inspired the story of Homefront?
My husband’s deployment to Iraq and my desire to write about the experience in a way that would appeal to all readers - readers who like literary fiction, and readers who are married to someone in the military and who will be able to read it and say, “It is EXACTLY like that.”
There were, and are, many books that guide spouses through the process (”how to deal with a deployment”), or that contain a number of anecdotes about how life changes when someone is deployed, but until Homefront there wasn’t anything that put readers inside the experience in such a raw and personal way.
Homefront, with the use of a varied cast of characters, also touches on the different ways people react to war, to one another, and to circumstances beyond their control. It’s like the difference between Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried and something that might be called What to Expect When You Go to War.
How would you describe your writing style?
Minimalist, dense (or as dense as I can get it), and uncomfortably honest (I hope. Is “honest” even a style?).
Where do you carry out the majority of your writing?
I move around a lot. It’s always at my laptop, but I’ll have to switch spots once I’ve been in one place for too long. For Homefront, I moved from my home office to the kitchen island to the living room. The Year of Dan Palace, the book I’m writing now, has been written, so far, at my desk and in my reading chair.
What has been the highlight of your writing career so far?
The reviews and press Homefront continually receives. I worked harder on that novel than I’ve ever worked on anything. Ever. And the fact that people, reviewers and readers alike, say “I loved it,” or “I didn’t want to put it down,” has me so immensely gratified that “gratified” isn’t a strong enough word.
What advice would you offer an aspiring novelist?
To write something so honest it makes you feel vulnerable, to put as much thought into editing and revising as you do into creating the initial story, and to expect (again, unless you’re lucky) to have to work almost as hard to get published. Query letters will be rejected and rejected and rejected. And rejected.
What are you working on at the moment?
The Year of Dan Palace is essentially about a man who believes he’ll die soon, so he decides to live the rest of his life to the fullest before it’s over. That is, he’s incredibly hedonistic. His continued quest for his own happiness destroys those around him, but that destruction leaves an opportunity for new beginnings. For everyone - even Dan.
For further information on Kristen, please visit www.kristentsetsi.com
Homefront
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