Ask the Author: Shelley Mickle
Answered Questions (9)
Shelley Mickle
I wrote BORROWING LIFE because my husband trained under the Nobel Prize awarded surgeon who performed the first successful organ transplant. The main "players" in the history wrote memoirs, but they were medical rather than narrative for the lay public to readily understand the complex science as well as the complications of WWII. When I realized no one had written this extraordinary story that touches almost everyone's lives at some time in their life's journey, I was committed but terrified. How to do it? How not to mess up such an important, glorious story? I decided to apply to Yale which has the most successful creative nonfiction dept. in the nation. When I did, the professor said I could not join the class because I would intimidate the other students. I thought he meant my age and was insulted. Then he added, "I've heard you on NPR." Then I was flattered. After three N.Y. publishers turned BORROWING LIFE down, I realized I'd have to teach myself to write good narrative nonfiction using the work of the writers I admire.
Shelley Mickle
The story drives me. It becomes a search for the design that will best release the voices in the story. The process is glorious! I believe a book should be organic, living and moving on each page. So I let each chapter tell me what the next should be. I've been writing for over 50 years, so the process is intuitive for me now. I listen for the voice of the story to tell me what it needs and what it needs to discard.
Shelley Mickle
I just sent a proposal to my agent for OH, ALICE! Molded by Grief, Driven by Rejection, Alice Roosevelt Was the White House Wild Child. It's a delicious project to be working on, especially during Covid Days when going out is not on my activity list. I'm hoping the sales of BORROWING LIFE will become vigorous enough that publishing houses will allow OH, ALICE! to see the light of day. There is no use for a book that readers won't buy. Publishing is costly. I know. I ran a publishing house for 8 years, Wild Onion Press. Took lots of capitol.
Shelley Mickle
Read. Letting your own mind spend time with other writers is a great inspiration. When I have a problem to solve in my own work, I always get a book or sample from a writer I admire to guide me in solving the problem. Writing is an art but also a craft. Its problems can be solved similar to a working a math problem.
Shelley Mickle
Every book I write changes me. To delve into a world and the lives of accomplished, fascinating people is a privilege. My mind is my best friend.
Shelley Mickle
I've rarely had writer's block. I get ideas for my next book from the one I am writing at the time. I got the idea to write Oh, Alice! my current project from writing BORROWING LIFE the story of the first successful organ transplant. Alice Roosevelt's mother died of Bright's disease, a fatal kidney failure. My most "blockage" has been in the publishing industry. It is not easy to get your work published, especially today with the competition of screen obsessions with the solitude of reading!
Shelley Mickle
A woman woke up to find all the animals gone from the world. There was only a ransom note that said...
Shelley Mickle
I'd love to spend a week with Abraham Lincoln. I'd love to try to keep up with him in telling humorous stories!
Shelley Mickle
Since I am writing a narrative nonfiction on Alice Roosevelt, I am reading all things Roosevelt! I'm obsessed with the culture of the late 1800s and early 1900s when Theodore Roosevelt took on public service to make our republic more equal for workers and the "have nots." Being born into wealth and privilege, his life is a fascinating account of the beat in America. His mother and wife died on the same day, leaving his daughter Alice an orphan from his grief and her mother's death in childbirth.
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