Juliet Patterson, author of Sinkhole: A Legacy of Suicide
Memoir & Creative Nonfiction Category, sponsored by Bradshaw Celebration of Life Centers
Each week leading up to the 35th annual Minnesota Book Awards, we are featuring exclusive interviews with our finalists. You can also watch the authors in conversation with their fellow category finalists here.
Would you tell us one or two things about your finalist book that you are particularly proud of, and why?
Sinkhole was not an easy book to write. It took me more than ten years to research and compose. I’m proud of the simple fact of finishing, of completing the task. Beyond the psychological demands involved in this project, there were also a lot of demands on me as a writer. As a poet, I had to learn the mode of another genre and it was a difficult and sometimes formidable task. I’m also immensely proud to be published by Milkweed Editions: a local (and national) treasure in the world of literature.
What advice would you give to an aspiring writer with an interest in your category?
Make writing a practice and focus on the process, not the product. Memoir will ask a lot of you psychologically. Pay attention to your body and rest when you need to. Don’t be in a hurry and think of your work as contributing to a larger conversation. Bear in mind that ambition can destroy integrity. Your job in the words of Rebecca Makkai is “is to make the table bigger.”
Tell us about a favorite book. Why did you find it moving, influential, or otherwise memorable?
alphabet by Inger Christiansen is a book of poetry I return to again and again. It’s a book based on Fibonacci’s mathematical sequence, which gives the book a measured by explosive structure. It’s a startling and gorgeous mediation on the world and nature and the man-made threats to it that is philosophical, but also visionary. Every time I read this book I’m stunned.
Tell us something about yourself that is not widely known.
One of my most prized possessions on the bookshelf is my vintage copy of Guide to Birds of North America where I keep my birder’s life list.
The Minnesota Book Awards is a celebration of writers, readers – and libraries. We’d love if you would share thoughts about the role and value of libraries.
My connection to libraries started as a child, when my parents and I made weekly trips to the Highland Park library in St. Paul. I relished those visits and have strong memories of sitting on the floor between the shelves, paging through books that I carefully chose to take home. Back then, the library also had a collection of framed visual art available on loan. Every week, I selected a new painting and hung it in my bedroom. The whole process was magical to me and I often think about how invaluable a gift it was to experience art in such an intimate and personal way. I can’t imagine my life without libraries: the heart I hold in two hands.
Juliet Patterson is the author of Sinkhole, as well as two collections of poems, Threnody and The Truant Lover, a finalist for the Lambda Award. She has received fellowships from the Jerome Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and the Minneapolis-based Institute for Community Cultural Development.