Ask the Author: Jean Hegland
Answered Questions (7)
Jean Hegland
Thanks for asking! To be honest, I hadn’t thought of that specific scene in the context of our current situation, but now that you mention it, I can certainly see the resemblance. Between the effects of global warming, all the political unrest (both at home and abroad), the wildly fluctuating stock markets, and COVID-19, it certainly does feel like a very precarious time. Here’s hoping we humans can find a wise way to navigate all our new challenges. Remembering that we live on planet Earth--and trying to rethink what that means--might be a great place to start.
Jean Hegland
I love it whenever anyone asks this question, since it implies that, like me, they, too, continue to wonder what happened after INTO THE FOREST ended! For many years, I was happy to leave it at that, but lately I've found myself wondering--and even writing--about what those characters are doing now, so maybe there will be some kind of sequel, after all. Wish me luck!
Jean Hegland
Thanks for your question, Meira!
What inspired me to write INTO THE FOREST turned out to be a lucky conjunction of a number of the questions I'd been thinking a lot about at that particular point in my life. For example, I was living in an actual forest for the first time ever, so I was curious about both forests in general, and also about the particular forest in which I was living. In addition, although neither my mother, my maternal grandmother, nor I had a sister, I had one- and three-year-old daughters, so I was very curious about the potential challenges and blessings of sisterhood. And finally, I was very concerned about the future. It was clear to me that those of us who live in consumer societies would not be able to continue our current lifestyles indefinitely. The Earth is a big and benevolent planet, but its resources are not infinite, and I found myself fascinated by what one version of that disruption might look like, and what it might be possible to learn from it.
What inspired me to write INTO THE FOREST turned out to be a lucky conjunction of a number of the questions I'd been thinking a lot about at that particular point in my life. For example, I was living in an actual forest for the first time ever, so I was curious about both forests in general, and also about the particular forest in which I was living. In addition, although neither my mother, my maternal grandmother, nor I had a sister, I had one- and three-year-old daughters, so I was very curious about the potential challenges and blessings of sisterhood. And finally, I was very concerned about the future. It was clear to me that those of us who live in consumer societies would not be able to continue our current lifestyles indefinitely. The Earth is a big and benevolent planet, but its resources are not infinite, and I found myself fascinated by what one version of that disruption might look like, and what it might be possible to learn from it.
Jean Hegland
That’s a really interesting observation, Meira! There were certainly boundaries I was thinking of as I was writing (such as the ring of tulips, and the boundaries between the sisters), though I wouldn’t be surprised if an astute reader were to discover even more examples of boundaries that I wasn’t consciously aware of. Nell and Eva have to change a lot before they reach the end of their story, and change often implies both moving through some boundaries and discovering new boundaries.
In one way, I’d say that everything in that story is there on purpose, and because I believed it was meaningful. But in another way (as is always the case when human beings communicate through words and art), I’d like to think that each reader will make her own meaningful discoveries as she reads Into the Forest.
In one way, I’d say that everything in that story is there on purpose, and because I believed it was meaningful. But in another way (as is always the case when human beings communicate through words and art), I’d like to think that each reader will make her own meaningful discoveries as she reads Into the Forest.
Jean Hegland
Nice question, Douglas! Of course there are lots of metaphors in that book, and it's also important that it works as a story first, but to me (and hopefully to other readers like you), the arc of Nell and Eva's experience also suggests something I think is important about how human beings should relate to--and treat--the natural world. The story is not a recipe--I'm not saying we should all do what the girls end up doing in the novel--but maybe we and the Earth would be better off if we all learned to think in some of the ways that Nell and Eva learn to think.
Jean Hegland
Write for the love of writing and for your story, and not for fame or glory. Write ardently and urgently, and revise fearlessly and obsessively. Write every chance you get, and when you can’t write, pay close attention to what’s happening around—and inside—you. Read widely, and learn from everything you read.
Jean Hegland
The spark that started my novel STILL TIME occurred ten summers ago in a campground outside of Ashland, Oregon. Every summer for the past thirty years or so, a large group of my family and friends have gathered there to spend a week hanging out and attending plays at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Late one night about a decade ago, I had finally retreated to my tent to try to catch a little sleep after another full day of swimming, conversation, games, and theater-going. But phrases, lines, and speeches from the performances I had just seen kept weaving through my thoughts. Tossing and turning in my sleeping bag, I became fascinated by the patterns of sound, feeling, and meaning those collages of Shakespeare’s plays were creating in my mind. I began to wonder what it might be like for someone to have the work of William Shakespeare as the only lens left which to try to make sense of the world. How would it be to have those plays as a guide, even as other facts and memories were slipping away?
It was in that moment that John Wilson, a Shakespearean scholar struggling with dementia, was conceived. I spent the next decade learning all I needed to know about John and his world in order to do justice to his story. I read and reread the plays. I immersed myself in 20th century criticism. I sought out productions in local parks as well as in London and Stratford-upon-Avon. I led a weekly poetry reading and writing group at a memory care home. I learned about computer games, I practiced beekeeping, and slowly I was able to conjure John, his beloved fourth wife, Sally, and the gamer daughter, Miranda, from whom he’s long been estranged into being.
It was in that moment that John Wilson, a Shakespearean scholar struggling with dementia, was conceived. I spent the next decade learning all I needed to know about John and his world in order to do justice to his story. I read and reread the plays. I immersed myself in 20th century criticism. I sought out productions in local parks as well as in London and Stratford-upon-Avon. I led a weekly poetry reading and writing group at a memory care home. I learned about computer games, I practiced beekeeping, and slowly I was able to conjure John, his beloved fourth wife, Sally, and the gamer daughter, Miranda, from whom he’s long been estranged into being.
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