An interview with Victoria Rowan, the author's former writing group moderator, conducted by Andy Miles, November 22, 2004, New York, New York

AM   The story took place in 1998 and the publisher accepted it about a year ago, I believe. Within the five-year period there, when was it that she came to you? Was it just the 10-week course that she signed up for?

VR  No, she signed up for a few times. But honestly, it must have been 2001, 2002. So she might have been in two or three sessions of 10 weeks. You know, maybe a year.

AM   And so she arrived here with a work in progress.

VR  Yeah, she had done a good chunk of it, but she was definitely working on new sections per the critiques she was getting. And also, I don't think she had really done the ending at all. And things were changing as she was editing.

AM   And at that point it was obviously more than just the diary she had started. She had shaped this into something potentially publishable?

VR  Oh, yeah. I mean, she definitely had already put it in — she was waffling back and forth on how memoir and how fiction it should be. But yes, she had already started to write it down in a narrative form.

AM  And in terms of trying to sort that out, between memoir and fiction, what sort of input did you offer?

VR  Well, we discussed the pros and cons. There's always something about — the more extraordinary the story when it's memoir, the more power it has. You know, since it's your life and it's your family, you might have reason to do that. So I think she came up with basically, from what I understand, a good solution of hybridizing a couple of characters but basically having it follow actual chronological time and order and having it be herself.

AM  And what were your initial impressions of the project? Did you think this was a strong manuscript?

VR  I felt it was a very strong project. I felt that initially, to my recollection, it was much more a love story, and I was more interested in it being a love story with the exotic subcultures of the newsroom and Russia at the time to be exploited as choices. I love romantic stories like the next person, but it's so great when the love story offers some new content. I'm a big champion of exoticism, even if it's everyday [exoticism].

But just having that reportage and authenticity of a very well delineated environment, where you get something new from the reading of it and the interpretation of the author and how the specific setting echoes metaphors of the story — I felt that in her case the backdrop of Russia was perfect metaphorically, so why not use that more to illuminate and underscore what she's exploring on the narrative level.

AM   Was that just kind of a shift of emphasis — some of that was there but you thought it should be given more emphasis?

VR  I don't want to claim too much credit, but I definitely would have championed that.

AM   So it's not like that stuff just was absent but —

VR   No, but it was more sort of incidental. The initial drafts, as I recall them — I personally make a policy of working with what's current because so much changes, and I try, to the best of my ability, to erase my prior experience of an earlier version because I want to see if it stands on its own. I mean, I might say well, gosh, an earlier version was much stronger in one area — I'll mention that. But I try to work with the evolution of what the author wants for their project. And you know, I just felt that oh, my gosh, this is really fascinating; I want more of that as well. I mean, not to say that the personal story in the foreground wasn't appropriate; I thought that was appropriate. And I did think it was appropriate because it was so interesting and unusual and very contemporary. Issues of depression and romance against the odds and ambition being in the foreground was, I think, of contemporary interest to upper middle-class college-educated people, particularly women, exploring their options.

AM   And some of those elements of the narrative, especially in that it's a piece of memoir, non-fiction — how anxious was Jen in the process of writing this in terms of kind of exposing pieces of her own personal story that might be a little uncomfortable?

VR   It definitely was a consideration for her. But her family is very open and supportive, and I think that she comes across as someone who takes responsibility for herself and doesn't blame her family for choices she made. I think it's very different than the memoir where you're blaming an ex-husband or you're blaming your parents for a mess that you experienced. I think then you really cringe. And then you have the stories in the paper about families disowning authors and stuff. But that wasn't the case in her family.

AM   And in the process of developing the manuscript, was any of that in play? Her maybe speaking out loud, kind of expressing some of those anxieties? Or was it that she had already resolved and reconciled some of those things?

VR   I think that she had. And she definitely, from what I know of her — I mean, I only got to know her in the last few years from this experience, but she has been a lifelong artist. She did photography — artistic photography, not just photojournalism-type stuff. I mean, she's very ambitious and very accomplished and very talented. And I think that her confidence in those areas allow her to be vulnerable, which I think is a bold choice. I think that one of the powerful things about Jennifer's book is that she does portray herself as someone who made poor choices, or risky choices that didn't play out as she hoped, but that she survived them.

AM   So she came with a work in progress that at that point was fairly advanced. And you recognized from the beginning that it had the makings of publishable material?

VR   Yeah. She's a very good writer, I think, sentence by sentence, even if you don't connect with the material. I mean, I don't know how a man feels about reading this book because I think it's very much a book that touches on a lot of female issues. But yeah, she's a very good writer. Sentence by sentence, I think you can't dispute that she turns a beautiful line, and she has a good sense of humor.

AM   Now that the book has been published, what would you say about the finished product?

VR   I must perhaps give credit here to her agent. I definitely felt it was sharper.

I tell all my students this: It's only when you get to the end of the first draft that you know what you have, and then you can go through and have that knowledge of the ending to inform the beginning.

I felt that there was less extraneous detail and everything felt more relevant and that that had been worked out. And I think that she had done a better job of both positioning her vulnerability but also portraying herself in a light that was appealing. Because it's hard, especially when you are wanting to scream at the screen as if it was a movie — "don't, don't" — to, in a way, sort of be party to so many bad decisions for a long period of time. And I think that she did a better job of just sort of giving background of where she was coming from at that point in her life.

AM   Now that you know her at this point in her life, and you've only known her after the story that she tells has occurred — in terms of comparing who she is at that time and in the pages of the book and who the person she is who you've known, how do you interpret those choices that she made? Is it the kind of thing that anybody could possibly fall into? Do you think that she may have been especially prone to that sort of thing? What sense of that do you have now?

VR   My sense is that she remains an optimistic and gutsy girl who will do untraditional things — in a great sense. I mean, she fell in love with a guy and had to move to D.C. for his career, but she made it all work with CBS. You know, she's game. And I think that's really awesome. And I like that she's flexible and that she's found she even likes her life better there.

I think I met an older and wiser woman than the period — I mean, when something really awful like the romance she described and the professional things she described happen to you, it's a painfully maturing experience. And I knew a woman who was — at the exact moment I met her she was looking for a different job, and she was at a place of transition, but she definitely had an incredible work ethic and was very focused that she'd get back in the game at a high level.

In terms of then and now, I think that the kind of woman that she was then in the book, as I remember it, was a woman who was willing to believe in the benefit of the doubt and she was willing to prize intellect over some obvious signs of security. And I think she had loyalty and empathy, and I think she still retains those. I think that's great. I think so many people go through a tough experience and then come out the other side very cynical, and she didn't. I think she got maybe wiser about holding off on trust and more discerning about who she dated. The man she married is wonderful. But to her credit, the core things that I experienced of her as a friend and as a reader of that book, the good things are still there.

AM   There might be a tendency among some readers to think that some of the story was sensationalized or exaggerated in some way. And obviously you didn't live the story, but in the writing of it and her process of bringing it to the group and that sort of thing, as a literary project, would you say that the choices she made were very honest and very much faithful to herself and what happened?

VR   I think it was a crazy time. (Laughs.) I think that's one reason why I made a stand for it being memoir versus fiction. I mean, you don't want people to be doubting that this stuff actually happened. And I think that Jennifer really is, first and foremost, a good journalist. And I wasn't there, but I totally trust the way she described the situations unraveling.

AM   And what were the reactions of other people in the group, as you remember them?

VR   People were enthusiastic. People were really interested. You know, very few people had been to Russia and [they] found that exotic and interesting. Definitely wanted to see the next installment. That's what's fun about a workshop. It can become like a soap opera.

AM   Anything else you'd like to add?

VR   I guess one thing that I was really impressed with — you know, I started the workshop five years ago in 2000 and she was the first person to actually finish a whole manuscript, get representation by a good agency and then get it published. And it really drove home for me something that I had been aware of and heard, but it really drove home how much to be a successful author is just to be absolutely committed to your story and to be absolutely persistent and dedicated. I think that so many people think that oh, you know, you can only be a novelist or a non-fiction writer if it comes out perfectly in some first draft. And most people aren't good writers because they don't have the fortitude for it and they don't have stories that they care enough about. And I see all those elements as being absolutely critical.

She was absolutely committed to this as a story that she needed to get out and wanted to get out and felt had value, and she was absolutely disciplined and committed about it. I mean, she made more classes than other people who were doing less things in their life. She just was really dedicated. And I think that the people who treat writing as a job rather than just some sort of muse, divinely inspired, that only works at certain times, like when the moon is full or whatever, are the people who are never going to be professional writers. And no matter what you think about this book, I'm very confident that she's going to be a professional writer. She just has the chops and the dedication, and I know she has tons of other ideas.

So it's exciting to have been in proximity, new in my career as a writing instructor, to really understand that. And it really has informed the way I teach in some ways in that I am very practical; I really try to minimize people's drama about their writing, and I think it's a great service to them. I think we've all seen way too many movies about existential angst in writing, and here is a woman who's writing about a lot of angst, but yet she had a businesslike approach to it in producing pages, in producing revises, in bringing creative energy to her revises, which is absolutely essential — not letting it get flat. And that was both inspiring to me and also instructive to me.