interview with Marianne Sevachko

Marianne Sevachko is today’s guest. Marianne has suggested I introduce her as a recovering academic, who hails from the Rust Belt Midwest of the United States. Currently she lives in Edinburgh.


JANE: What sort of things do you write?

MARIANNE: At the moment, only small autobiographical vignettes. And long emails to friends. I am trying to get back into writing creatively, as the last time I did that properly was for my final undergraduate project in 2002!


JANE: What made you start writing?

MARIANNE: When I was about seven, my mother bought me my first US letter/A4 spiral bound notebook as a gift. I don’t remember how she figured out that I had an affinity for writing. I can’t remember which happened first: whether I started drawing (badly) and writing short stories on the reams of discarded dot matrix printer paper (the kind that had alternating white and mint green stripes with the tear-off strips of holes on either edge) that my dad brought home from his workplace, or I had begun writing as a result of being gifted the notebook. Either way, the rest is history.


JANE: What does writing mean to you?

MARIANNE: It is one of the things I do well, that comes naturally to me and that can—when I am in the flow—feel effortless. But it is also a daunting craft: very few people make a living from their writing, and when I tried to base my career on academic writing (an unfinished PhD), I failed miserably. It is both my passion and my nemesis, of sorts.


JANE: What situations/environments inspire you?

MARIANNE: This is going to sound so clichéd, but…a good café. A place that does good hot stimulants, and has open but cosy surroundings.

As for situations, probably those in which I am coming to a reckoning of sorts, or more accurately, trying to avoid a reckoning of sorts. To be honest, this is one of the reasons my writing has been so sparse in recent years: like Virginia Woolf, I admire people who can write fiction that is distanced from themselves, who can detach their own neuroses from the characters and story they are creating. At the moment, I am simply unable to do that.


JANE: What has been your highest moment writing-wise?

MARIANNE: When I wrote a sympathy card to my brother-in-law’s family on the loss of his grandmother. I got a text from my brother-in-law thanking me for the card that made both he and his mother cry. He is a sensitive but very private introvert, so for him to directly express something like this is pretty big. In addition to this, grief is one of the situations in life where words are so blasted inadequate. I suppose because I lost my entire immediate family from a young age, I have been able to articulate some words for grief.


JANE: What has been your lowest moment writing-wise?

MARIANNE: When I walked away from seven years of a PhD. Sadly, the degree did not deepen my love of literature and writing—it disconnected me from that love, and made me fear and second-guess my writing craft. I’m not sure why, but perhaps that is what I should be writing about.


JANE: What has been the most encouraging comment someone has made about your writing?

MARIANNE: I have been told that I have a real intensity in my writing. I do have A LOT of passion and energy that has never been channeled effectively, in writing or in any other aspect of life.


JANE: As a poet once said: the worst thing is to be admired through being misunderstood. What has been the least encouraging comment?

MARIANNE: My PhD supervisor always said that when I did write, it was top-quality stuff. She just could not understand why I couldn’t just sit down and write the thesis like any other full-time job or project. Man, how I wish it had been that simple.


JANE: Do you have a routine where your writing is concerned?

MARIANNE: Not yet. I shun routines, even though I desperately crave and need them. So, perhaps eventually.


JANE: What are the pitfalls of writing?

MARIANNE: The fact that you have to get into a certain mindset to begin the process on a daily basis—a mindset that blocks out distractions and all of the nagging worries at the back of your mind. At least with a typical office job, you get paid for showing up for eight hours, regardless of whether you were especially productive or not. With writing, you either did or did not write those 500 words you set as a goal for yourself. And the longer you take to finish, the more life can interfere and interrupt your process.


JANE: What are the good things about writing?

MARIANNE: Not that this should matter, but writing is still seen as an honourable creative endeavour. You may get a few eye rolls or jibes at dinner parties from workaholic professionals, but most people recognize the value of the written word.

Cheap(ish) therapy: you can use writing to keep yourself occupied between bouts of seasonal employment, or to work through a grief process.


JANE: What advice would you give someone wanting to become a writer?

MARIANNE: Honestly, I would not offer them any advice, but pass them on to friends (like yourself) who actually have experience in dealing with agents and publishers. There is nothing worse than a wannabe making assumptions about an industry they have never worked with!

Also, to be frank, I do not consider myself a true writer because I have never managed the discipline to produce any significant work. I think anyone wanting to write needs to speak to those who are currently practising it, not those who are trying to get back into practice.


JANE: Which published/unpublished writers have inspired you most and why?

MARIANNE: Virginia Woolf, Ali Smith, Alisdair Gray, J.M. Coetze, George Orwell, but I’ll focus on two:

Woolf was the Shakespeare of her age—I know it sounds pretentious and ludicrous, but there you have it. She was a neurotic insular snob, but her imagination and her breadth of seeing was universal in its reach and in its ambitions. And yet, she celebrated and elevated our human fragility, the mundaneness of daily life. Her words are like lanterns in my darkness.

When I say Alisdair Gray, I really mean 1982 Janine. Some of the most truthful observations about Scottish life in the 20th Century seem to be crammed in this book. Also, I love the fact that one of the quotes carved into the side of the Scottish Parliament building at Holyrood comes from this very novel, which essentially outlines the thoughts and flashbacks of a middle-aged man whilst masturbating on a hotel bed. I wonder if Alex Salmond or Annabelle Goldie are even aware of this.


JANE: Re the saying, ‘people ask for criticism but they only want praise’, is this true for you?

MARIANNE: No. I actually do want honest criticism, but I want it to be constructive. There is a massive difference between ‘This character is flat and uninteresting—why bother placing him in the text?’ and ‘This character, given his centrality to the plot and to the reactions of the other characters, seems a bit one-dimensional. Could you possibly add in a scene or two that would give the reader some insight into his personality/motives?’ Saying the same thing, but acknowledging that the author can solve the problem, and maybe even offering a few solutions.


JANE: What are the drawbacks of asking someone to read your work?

MARIANNE: I have discussed this with you before, and I agree with you—the biggest drawback is that the reader will not want to hurt your feelings and hold back on the more serious criticisms they may have of your work. But again, if you approach critique from an empathic, solution-centred angle—and be specific about what does work and what does not—then you can be as truthful as you need to be. The truth can be hard to hear, but when it is delivered with compassion, the hearer will retain the courage to keep chipping away at their work.


JANE: With the ever-advancing internet access, how do you see the publishing business developing in the future?

MARIANNE: I don’t think we’ll ever see the end of printed books, but I do think epublishing will increase in years to come. Other than that, sadly, I have few insights on this one.


JANE: How did/do you teach yourself to write?

MARIANNE: I honestly never remember teaching myself. I have always written, and my writing has simply evolved in the wake of exposure to other writers.


JANE: What aspect of the craft do you think is most difficult to learn?

MARIANNE: Discipline, discipline, discipline.


JANE: What changes in how you write have you been aware of over the years?

MARIANNE: My prose is far less ‘purple’ than it used to be. I am more economizing, and more compact in my word choice. My prose has a more direct feeling to it, and the little poetry I have written is quite angry, searing, indignant.


JANE: Have you ever suffered from writers’ block and if so, how did you get over it?

MARIANNE: Yes—for basically all seven years of my PhD, on and off. I would be interested in the responses from other interviewees on this one, as I still haven’t cracked it yet.


JANE: Have you needed to make any sacrifices to allow you to write, and if so, what?

MARIANNE: Yes—seven years given over to a full-time PhD, and thus seven years of lost wages and a potentially easier career path. But I’ve made no sacrifices yet for my creative writing, because the creative writing was what I sacrificed for the PhD. I suppose I’m not ready to make those sacrifices yet, because I allowed the PhD to demand so much from me, and I simply do not have the energy to go ‘whole hog’ on it.


Thanks, Marianne. Here's hoping your vignettes soon extend to longer pieces of writing.