It took Augusta Scattergood almost ten years to write
her first novel, Glory Be, a coming-of-age story which has received glowing
reviews from such publications as School Library Journal (“Glory
is an appealing, authentic character whose unflinching convictions, missteps,
and reflections will captivate readers.") and Publishers Weekly ("Scattergood's
effective snapshot of the fight against segregation, one town at a time, makes
personal the tumultuous atmosphere of the times.").
The middle-grade novel started, says Scattergood, as a short
story for adults, then “tried to be a novel for kids titled Junk Poker. Pretty
soon, fortunately, that title got tossed out the window! I submitted it way too
soon. I tucked it into the proverbial bottom drawer. But I loved the story a
lot, so I never gave up.”
In
the mysterious way that writing works, Scattergood thought about the story for
a long time. “I actually started the version that’s closest to my finished
novel after hearing Ruby Bridges speak at the New Jersey school where I was
working,” says Scattergood.
But
that wasn’t the true start of the story, she admits. “I need to go back a bit
to tell you that this story really started in 1964 when I worked for my state’s
Library Commission as a summer college intern,” explains Scattergood, who worked
in Sunflower County, Mississippi, in the heart of her native Mississippi Delta.
“It was Freedom Summer, 1964. History unfolded while I shelved books and ran story
hours. “
As
a library intern, Scattergood says, she worked with a director who stood up to
a library trustee who wanted to close down the library, or at least remove all
the chairs, rather than allow it to be integrated. “By the end of that summer,
Story Hour had turned into a remedial reading class attended by children who’d
never been inside a library. That same summer, I briefly met a young, white
civil rights worker from Ohio. In town to register voters and teach in the new
Freedom School, she spent her off hours hanging out in the library. It’s not a
reach to say I learned a lot that college summer.”
Over the years, as Scattergood worked on the manuscript,
she would tuck it into a drawer while taking classes on writing at the New
School in New York. She joined an SCBWI writing critique group, and turned to craft
books on writing to help her continue to revise her manuscript.
“Then
I struggled some more,” she says. “Thought a lot. Worried, revised, rewrote. In
the end, I decided to give Glory a lot more of what my grandmother called
gumption than we all had ourselves.”
It was a grandmother who had helped inspire her love of
reading. A fourth-grade teacher, her grandmother gave Scattergood a book for
her birthday every year. By seventh grade, she was bragging to all her friends
about reading Gone With The Wind, all 1,048 pages.
And it was her grandmother who may have transmitted
something of the Southern storyteller’s gene to her. “I was a fill-in Canasta
player for her group,” says Scattergood, “and oh could they talk! I was a good
listener.”
Now,
Scattergood says, she does her best work at a local community college that
shares space with a public library. “I get
there early and try to grab a study room. I reward myself with a walk on the
trail afterwards where I think about what I just wrote, revised, messed up, and
put back together. Working at home has way too many distractions.”
Scattergood, who lives with her husband most of the year in
St. Petersburg, FL, returns during the summer months to New Jersey, where she
used to work as a librarian. Recently, she was kind enough to take a break from her
work-in-progress to share thoughts on writing with wordswimmer.
Wordswimmer:
If writing is like swimming...how do you get into the water each day?
AS:
I'm a morning person. I usually spend a few minutes looking at my email and
Facebook, then I dive right in.
Wordswimmer:
What keeps you afloat...for short work? For longer work?
AS:
My shorter work is mostly book reviewing. I stay afloat by reading some really
great things. Books written by Mississippians or about the South, for Delta
Magazine. Mostly middle-grade fiction, with the occasional Young Adult novel
thrown in, for the Christian Science Monitor. And anything that strikes my
blogging fancy. It's easy to kick back and enjoy this part of my writing.
But
the novels? The more than 800-word-count challenges? I have to love the
characters and really wake up each morning channeling the voice of the
narrator. What's that kid trying to tell me today?
When
that's not working--when I'm sinking fast--I'll do almost anything. Write
letters to my characters, ponder their closets and refrigerators, all those
tricks I refuse to start with. And later, when I'm barely treading water,
sometimes wish I had!
Wordswimmer:
How do you keep swimming through dry spells?
AS:
I'm new enough at writing that I haven't had a true dry spell. I find I have too much to say. Ask anyone who knows
me.
Wordswimmer:
What's the hardest part of swimming?
AS:
Figuring out the "What ifs" of plot. I can write myself into a
situation that just doesn't have an answer. That usually comes when I jump in
without first surveying the landscape, the lilies in the pond and the stuff
lurking beneath the surface of the lake.
If
I do enough prep work, maybe that won't happen. But I'm anxious to dive right
in. Oddly, I'm much more cautious when it comes to swimming in real lakes and
oceans with scary stuff.
Wordswimmer:
How do you overcome obstacles, problems, when swimming alone?
AS:
I get by with a little help from my
friends! No, really.
I
don't like early drafts, but I have one writer friend who'll read almost
anything I email her at the drop of a hat. (Thanks, Janet!) Another who seems
to be waiting for my phone call when I most need her. (Leslie's great at
brainstorming.) And
of course, my critique groups.
I
may be swimming alone for long hours, holed up in my quiet spot at the public
library, but I'm never really alone. Must be all those years of synchronized
swimming when I was a kid.
Wordswimmer:
What's the part of swimming that you love the most?
AS:
I actually love the editing, perfecting my strokes, so to speak. Finding just the
right colors for the sunset or the sounds of a swimming pool in July.
In
addition to being a lifeguard and teaching swimming classes when I was younger,
I edited my high school newspaper, typed friends' term papers, worked on a
monthly magazine.
Water
and red pencils—I can't seem to escape either.
For more information about Scattergood, visit her website:
And to read more interviews with her, visit:
Posts
2 comments:
Thanks, Bruce! Always fun reading your interviews so I'm quite proud to now BE one of them!
Lovely to spend some time in the water with you. Thanks so much for sharing your insights.
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