Featured Interview With Stacey Hettes
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I grew up in the Pocono mountains of Pennsylvania. Your New York and New Jersey readers may have heard of Lake Wallenpaupack. If they ever got gas or had a cleaning at Mountain Bay Marina, I was likely the one filling their tank and polishing their boat. From there, I spent seven years in graduate school in southern California before making my way to Spartanburg, South Carolina, in 2003 to join the faculty of Wofford College, a Phi Beta Kappa liberal arts college established in 1854. If Wofford sounds familiar, it’s likely because alumnus Craig Melvin, class of ’01 and co-anchor of the TODAY show, often mentions us during the broadcast. Life in upstate SC has been good to me. The cost of living is low and the yards are big, which is good for both me and my pair of rescue pups, Chili and Pepper.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I wrote my first book in first grade. I remember having to ask my teacher, Mrs. Evins, how to spell ‘clerk.’ The characters, whose names I’ve forgotten, were going to the store, and there was some dialogue with the checkout woman. Do you remember those tablets of newsprint-quality paper with the red and blue guidelines? I wrote (and illustrated) it in pencil on that. Sadly, it did not stand the test of time, having literally disintegrated in my parents’ attic. During that year, fourth graders came to our class once a week to read us a book after recess. Somehow, I got it in my head that I would rather be the one reading than listening. Toward the end of the year, as the smell of fresh cut grass wafted through open windows, Mrs. Evins let me read. I chose a book about imagination starring Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street.
I let writing become a bit oppressive, as I did with so much of my formal education. School taught me there was a right way to do it, which did not come naturally, unlike other subjects and skills. I focused on approximating the right way until I discovered writing as narrative therapy. Writing for scientific literature is a chore for me. There is no room for wonder, awe, or self-reflection, all of which I hope readers will come to find in my memoir.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Once I began writing in earnest, I realized I needed to go back to class. Just because memoir offers room for expansive prose, or perhaps because it does, first-time authors need to learn as much about reigning it in as letting it flow. Flatiron Writers Room in Asheville, NC, and Hub City Writers Project in Spartanburg allowed me to connect with faculty who are exceptional writers in their own right, including Tessa Fontaine, Katey Schultz, Anna Sutton, and Latria Graham. Tessa suggested we read Melissa Febos, whose craft book, BODY WORK, particularly her essay, IN PRAISE OF NAVEL GAZING, is directly responsible for DISPATCHES making its way into the world. If you are open to audiobooks, get BODY WORK on audio. Melissa narrates this essay in such a way that it feels like she is speaking directly and only to you. She does more than permit us to write. She mandates that we do.
As a reader, I need the proper genres for my moods and energy levels. I am, for the most part, a serious and inquisitive person, so I’ve been a non-fiction fan for a long time. Books, fiction or non, by authors who speak to the human condition from a place of deep searching and deep reflection, such as Lori Gottlieb, Bonnie Garmus, Parker Palmer, and Joan Chittister, are the stories I find myself reaching for again and again.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
I wrote this book so others might feel less isolated and alone in facing whatever they’d walled themselves behind for whatever reason— shame, grief, pain, confusion, despair, burnout.
I am, in heart, soul, and mind, a teacher. Once I understood writing as a new type of teaching challenge, I couldn’t stop. I didn’t stop. When I commit to work in the service of my students, I see it through. The challenge became to identify who these new “students” might be. As soon as I posed the question, I knew who they were. They were me—mid-career women who barely managed to keep all the balls in the air before a major setback knocked the wind out of them.
Teachers often profess that they learn more from their students than their students learn from them. After twenty years in college classrooms, I can testify that this is often the case. However, writing as a new way of teaching was . . . is . . . different.
Like so many of us find ourselves at some point, I was hanging on by a thread. I was confused and desperate. One hour a week with my therapist wasn’t cutting it. Despite her offers for more time, I didn’t think I deserved it. This may be too much information or horribly cliché, but I began writing to spend more time with my therapist by proxy. To focus my attention on the voice she was becoming in my head.
Once I realized the potential these early efforts held, I interrogated the words, paragraphs, and chapters that were evolving to find their story arc. I knew this was an essential step to communicate the lessons writing was teaching me. Only then did I imagine that what was developing would become a book. A book that might help others like me to feel less alone.
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