We Were Strangers Once

Author Q&A with Betsy Carter

What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
Write every day, even if it’s a Dear Diary entry or a note to your mom, your partner, or your friend. Always have a notebook nearby to jot down words, thoughts, or observations that pop into your head. Eavesdrop on every cell phone conversation you hear, and then write down the good parts. Read. Read. Read.

What do you like about writing? What do you not like?
The thing I love most about writing is saying things on paper that I could never voice on my own. Writing, when unfiltered by ego, brings up words, thoughts, and insights that you never knew you had. When that happens, it can be surprising and even miraculous. What I like least about writing is the isolation. For years, I worked at magazines. Every now and then I look around and ask myself, “Where is everybody?”

What were your favorite books growing up? Which books influenced your writing?
The first book that made me see what a visceral punch books could pack was James Agee’s A Death in the Family. After that, it was To Kill a Mockingbird. I had a professor in college who read Ulysses aloud to us every day, which made me hear the music in the language. What a gift.

Who are writers you like?
My favorite current writers are Mary Karr, Pete Dexter, Colin McCann, and Colm Toibin. I would love to say they’ve influenced my writing, but what they’ve really shown me is how brave and high-flying writers can be and that nothing is too risky to stick on a page.

Do you have a designated writing space? What is your writing process?
I usually do something physical, like swimming, in the morning. Then I tuck myself into a seat in the writer’s room at the New York Society Library, which is across town for me. I’ll put in at least four hours a day and hope for two or three good pages, which I’ll inevitably tear up or rewrite the next day.

How do you come up with ideas for projects?
It depends. Some books have been hanging around in my head for years, like the one I just wrote. When I wrote, Swim to Me, about mermaids at Weeki Wachee springs, I was provoked by a newspaper article about the oldest tourist sight in Florida, where, incidentally, I grew up.

What are you working on now?
A love story/mystery about a straight woman and a gay man.

What interested you about writing (subject matter of the book)?
I wrote We Were Strangers Once because I am the daughter of immigrants, German Jews. For so long, I denied their foreignness and wanted more than anything, to be an American girl. Growing up in Miami, I watched the Cubans struggle with assimilation and started to think about how hard it must have been for my parents. They are gone now, and I wrote this book because it is the closest way I could think of immigrating with them and experiencing their humiliations, hardships, and triumphs.

We Were Strangers Once by Betsy Carter

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