Myla’s Comments (group member since Oct 12, 2010)

Myla’s comments from the Q&A with Myla Goldberg group.

Anita wrote: "Hi Myla:

My daughter gave me Wickett's Remedy as a Chanukah Gift a couple of years ago. Honestly, I had no idea what the book was about, I just read it because someone I loved gave it to me.

I wa..."

Thanks so much, Anita!

Lisa wrote: "Myla, I loved what you did with that, with Eliza's decision. It was an extremely powerful moment. That whole book had a huge emotional impact on me. It's outstanding."

Thanks, Lisa!

Karlin wrote: "Hi Myla,
I loved Bee Season, a book I continue to turn over and over in my mind. A friend with similar interests (family dynamics, spiritual mysticism, mental health) insisted I read the book and ..."

Hi Karlin - I always knew that Eliza would make the deliberate choice to lose the spelling bee, but to me that was an uplifting ending, as it showed her taking her first strong step toward personhood, in which she makes a decision based on who she was and not on what others expect of her. The fate of her family feels less certain to me, and will depend a lot upon how Saul interprets Eliza's action. If he sees it for what it is, then I think it would be the beginning of that family's ability to heal, but if he simply reacts to it selfishly, then the family would still have a hard time ahead of them.

Kristenyque wrote: "Hi again Myla,
How timely is the debut of your novel?! I have actually been interested in the increase of "bullying" and decrease of empathy in our society for awhile now. I think it is a hard t..."

Hi Kristenyque - I've honestly never thought about the possible linkage between less empathy and more bullying, and to be honest, I'm not sure there is more bullying, just more highly-publicized bullying, and bullying that can be broadcast farther than ever and to greater effect through modern technology. Bullying feels, to me, like one of those things that has been around for as long as people have, and always will be. I don't think there's any solution, just ways to mediate and lessen bullying's effects. Open lines of communication with children is a great first step, as well as an abundance of honesty, sensitivity, and awareness, as well as setting a good example through our own adult behavior.

Bxrlover wrote: "Hi again

As I mentioned in my introduction, I am a huge fan of Wickett's Remedy and "read" it as an audio book before reading Bee Season. Ironically, I read it during the H1N1 scare here in Toro..."

Hi Bxrlover - I'd love to take credit for the innovative way that the Wickett's audiobook was done, but that was all the work of its producer, who really went out of his way to adapt the unconventional textual format to audio. I was really happy with the result, and grateful for the time and creativity the producer put into it.

As for the expanded Wickett's paperback, that was one of those rare, weird things. Because of the unusual format of the book, the text had to be entirely reset for the paperback, so my paperback editor asked me (very innocently) if I wanted to make any changes. Little did she know that I'd been mulling that book over since its publication and there were some things I very much wanted to expand in the last portion of the book to give it a stronger story arc and to deepen the character of Lydia. The scale of the changes I came back to my publisher with were much larger than what they'd had in mind, but to their credit (and my eternal gratitude), they allowed me to make those changes. The feeling of wanting to change a book once it's out in the world is one I'd never had before (and hope never to have again), but I think the book is stronger for what I was able to do with the paperback, and whenever I think of it, it makes me smile.

Alison wrote: "Hi Myla,

Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions! I really loved Bee Season and I would be interested in hearing more about how you came up with the story. I'm just so amazed by the c..."

Hi Alison - Bee Season came from a whole bunch of places - an essay in Granta that talked about spelling bees in terms of all the kids who lose, rather than the one kid who wins; a friend who had been a spelling bee kid as a child; a college course I took on Jewish mysticism because I happened to have a spare elective; an interest in mental illness. I've got my backbrain to thank for linking up spelling bees and the teachings of the Jewish mystic Abraham Abulafia, who I'd somehow managed to remember all those years past the class. One morning after having visited a spelling bee for research purposes, I woke up with that linkage having been made, and that was when the writing of the book really took off.

stormhawk wrote: "Myla, I'm adding my thanks for your participation with the group! In reading your introduction, I have another question ... you mention your bedside table piled with books to be read. Are you able ..."

I'm always always reading, though I am careful about what I read. While I was writing Wickett's for example, I stayed away from all contemporary fiction because whatever I'm reading runs the risk of influencing my writing voice, and I really wanted the narrative voice of that book to feel more like something written in the early twentieth century and not at all modern. I also avoid books that touch on similar themes to whatever I'm working on at the time.

Jolene wrote: "Hi everyone! Thanks Myla for agreeing to participate in this discussion group. I, too, am a big fan. I went to Stuyvesant High School and Rebecca Sealfon was one of my classmates. It was cool to se..."

Hi Jolene - I never did meet Rebecca Sealfon in person, but she was a major source of inspiration.

Bxrlover wrote: "Hi Myla

I should admit right away that I am a little star struck. I first discovered your writing when I listened to Wickett's Remedy about a year ago and to this day it is my very favourite aud..."

Wow, Bxrlover, that's high praise indeed! I really enjoy doing my audiobooks, so it's really gratifying to hear from folks who like them. Wickett's was especially challenging, given the "extra" voices that chime in (which in the book run down the margins of the page). I was really pleased with the solution the producer came up with.

Jamie wrote: "I'm Jamie; I loved Bee Season, were you happy with the movie version?"

Hi Jaime - I was happy that the movie brought more people to the book, and happy with the way I was treated by everyone involved with the film. It was an awfully tricky adaptation to make, given the deeply internal nature of so much of the story, so I was never quite sure how they were going to manage to accomplish that, but their hearts were definitely in the right place, and I felt that they put their all into the effort.

Jamie wrote: "Congratulations on writing it! What sort of response have you gotten so far? I read your interview on the Diane Rehm show to get a sense of what it's about. At this point, have you collected more s..."

Thanks, Jaime! I have collected quite a few bullying stories, from both sides of the equation. People seem to be relating very strongly to the subject and the way the book covers it, which is gratifying, but they're also catching on to the many other themes and ideas the book engages with, which is even more gratifying, since some of those are less obvious and sometimes require some pretty careful reading.

stormhawk wrote: "I'm sure that other folks have a lot more weighty questions to ask, but since reading Bee Season (the only of your books that I've read so far, but I intend to correct that deficit), the question t..."

Hi Stormhawk - The setting of Bee Season was actually kind of random. I couldn't set in my hometown, because I grew up in a Maryland suburb and I wanted Eliza's trip to D.C. to be something exciting and exotic. One of my best friends grew up in the Philly suburbs, so I asked her a few questions about the area, did some Internet research, and made that my setting. Ultimately, though, I was aiming for a location that felt sort of universally suburban, that anyone who grew up in a suburb could relate to.

Kristenyque wrote: "Hello Myla,
I want to thank you for one of my favorite books "Bee Season". My undergrad degree was in English Literature and I have read many books but "Bee Season" remains vivid in my mind. I ..."

Hi Kristen - I'm a very visual thinker, with a huge appetite for visual art, film, and comics. I've never studied psychology, but I've been fascinated by it since I was a child and didn't yet know what the word for it was. I've always sought to understand why people act as they do, and to explore that through writing by placing myself in other people's heads and trying to see the world through their eyes.

The character of Miriam stemmed, in part, from my interest in mental illness, and the marginal position that people deemed mentally ill inhabit. Artists must also inhabit a margin to give them perspective on the world they're trying to depict, often coming up with an unconventional take on things along the way.

Julie wrote: "Hello, Myla

Last year I read WICKETT'S REMEDY and enjoyed it very much! I was listening to it as an audio book, but I made a point of finding it in a bookstore/library in order to see what the for..."

Thanks, Julie! I record all my own audio books, but the unusual structure of Wickett's Remedy meant bringing in guest voices for the "ghosts" in the margins. I think the audio producer did a pretty good job of adapting the book's unconventional layout, but I'm glad you sought out the book to see how it worked on the page.

Eric wrote: "Hi Myla,

How cool that this discussion came up now--I was just talking about my experience with BEE SEASON recently with some friends. We were talking about the expectations of the market for fema..."

Hi Eric - What you've said here about different expectations and marketing schemes for male and female literary writers has a lot of truth to it, and is something that I've been grappling with for a long time. The tricky thing for me as a writer is that for me to give primacy to my work, it's important for me not to follow what happens to books in the marketplace, in terms of how they're marketed or who they're promoted to, or else risk turning bitter and cynical about the whole process. Instead, I try to focus on writing the best books I can, books that I'm passionate about, and that present the most accurate portrait of myself as a writer.

The irony for me is that writing a book is my inner (and outer) control-freak's ultimate dream, but then once the book is finished, I have extremely little control over what becomes of it, or how it is presented to the world. What I tell myself is that my job is to write the best damn books that I can, and trust that if I've done my job right, there will be people out there who will react to them in the spirit in which they were written.

Kim wrote: "I loved Bee Season and look forward to reading your other novels. What are your writing habits like—do you write at a certain time of day, for a certain amount of time a day? Long-hand or computer..."

Hi Kim - A highly structured work life is pretty much the only way to get a novel written, and because there's no time cards or bosses to report to, it's all got to be self-imposed. I start writing at 9 or 10 in the morning, and go until 3 or 5 in the afternoon, with a small break for lunch, and nothing else to interrupt the time. Like anything else, it takes practice to be able to write for such long stretches. Just as a runner can't immediately run a marathon, a writer has to first build up their writing muscles so that writing for long periods, day after day, is a realistic proposition.

I write on a word processor, but brainstorm and take notes longhand in a notebook. As for inspiration, everything is fair game and I never know where it will come from next. I read compulsively, visit a lot of art museums, watch a lot of movies, listen to and perform music, and eavesdrop on strangers all the time. The False Friend actually started out as song lyrics for my band, The Walking Hellos, and then grew from there into a novel (though the seeds for it had been in my head far previous to that).

Hi Everybody! It's always so great to hear from people who enjoyed Bee Season, and I'm looking forward to chatting with you over the next few weeks. My own to-read shelf is my bedside table, which more often than not houses a pretty perilous stack of books I'm making my way through.

Hi Jme - I'm glad you liked Bee Season! While I think it's generally true that female writers tend to produce a different flavor of literature than their male counterparts (due to what I suspect is a combination of enculturation and plain old biology), I think the role of the literary author is the same, regardless of gender or even time period: We use narrative to explore what it is to be human.

As for what drives me, I've always always wanted to be a writer. Like, when I was in elementary school, I'd sit at an electric typewriter (explain that to your students) and pretend I was writing a novel. There's nothing better than a good writing day, when I forget what day it is, where I am, or even who I am because I'm so completely caught up in the story I'm writing that everything else has fallen away. It's a feeling that's completely addictive.

Want to talk about Bee Season, Wickett's Remedy, Time's Magpie, or Catching the Moon? Then you've come to the right place! Here is also where we can discuss writing in general.

Hi everybody, and welcome to the discussion group! I'm excited to have to chance to talk about The False Friend, as well as generally-related writing and book stuff. As you can see, there are three discussion threads to choose from (Here, I picture a big room, with us all rushing from one corner to another). This thread is a place where we can all introduce ourselves, maybe say what sort of books we like to read, what we do when we're not reading, and whether or not we're new to this whole online discussion thing (I'm rather a newbie myself. I look forward to meeting you!