“[W]riting without a detailed plan is like using a Ouija board. Magic happens.” —Nan Cuba
On Saturday, September 13, Nan Cuba is teaching a class for the WLT called “The Truth Told Slant: Personal Experience Turned into Fiction.” In this class, students will learn how to free themselves from the burdens of fact and transform their memories into meaningful art.
Nan Cuba is the author of Body and Bread, winner of the PEN Southwest Award and the Texas Institute of Letters Steven Turner Award; it was listed as one of “Ten Titles to Pick Up Now” in O, Oprah’s Magazine. Other work has appeared in Antioch Review, Harvard Review, Columbia, Quarterly West, and Chicago Tribune’s Printer’s Row. She is a featured journalist in the 2020 Netflix docuseries, The Confession Killer, which tells a factual story that inspired her forthcoming novel. Cuba was included in Texas Monthly’s “Ten to Watch (and Read)” and has received a Dobie Paisano Fellowship and a residency at Fundación Valparaiso in Spain. She is founder and executive director emeritus of a nonprofit literary center, Gemini Ink, and was writer-in-residence at Our Lady of the Lake University.
Here’s what Nan had to share with us:
Who are your earliest influences? What people and books made you a writer?
Nan Cuba: Dad told my favorite of his stories throughout my childhood to me, my brothers, and other children, then later, to my own. He’d usually be sitting at his place at the end of our oak kitchen table, a picture window to the backyard on his left, a small bookshelf above on the blue wall. He’d raise his eyebrows and say, “Have you ever heard the tale of Red Turtle Medicine?”
What child could resist a name like that? The word “tale” suggested spirits and someone overcoming evil. We’d stop fidgeting and look. “No, sir,” we’d say, wondering what would come next, certain it would involve buffalo and magic.
“Red Turtle Medicine was a great Indian chief,” Dad would say, then cross his legs and light his pipe, the smoke making us see campfires deep in a limestone canyon. A chief would wear a long headdress of eagle feathers. Maybe he was in danger and signaling for help. We pictured his face streaked with red and white paint. We’d found arrowheads at the farm and imagined him using strips of deer hide to tie one to a shaft, making a spear.
“I can tell,” Dad would say, turning sideways in his chair, not looking at us, “you’re not interested in this.” He puffed his pipe. In the backyard, tree limbs waved, flickering sunlight through the window, across our polished table, climbing the blue wall.
“Yes, sir, we are,” we’d plead. “Aw, Dad, please keep going, PLEASE.” We’d nod at each other, determined to convince him. We were certain the chief’s story was scary and included hatchets and blood. Why else would Dad hesitate? Maybe Red Turtle Medicine spoke to his gods.
Dad lowered his pipe and faced us. “Okay then,” he said. “Red Turtle Medicine was a brave Indian chief.”
So, we were right, we thought; there was fighting. We pictured Jim Bowie with his long knife at the Alamo and then the Lone Ranger. The sidekick, Tonto, was a lot smarter than that fancy pants cowboy. We liked the Indian’s silence while he tracked the villain, the fact that he didn’t wear a mask, his ramrod back when he sat in the saddle on his pinto-spotted Paint. Our mouths hung open, our eyes and ears hungry for what would come next.
Dad would sit back, look at his watch and shake his head, sighing. Then he’d make up an excuse: either we were expected someplace, or he had to do something, but whatever the reason, he’d add, “I’ll have to finish this another time,” and we’d moan and plead again. “That’s the way it goes,” he’d say and shrug. “But you’re going to want to hear it because Red Turtle Medicine, well, he was a brave Indian chief.”
He never told the story, of course, which was the point. Instead, he ignited our imaginations. We each created our own version, which was far better than anything someone else might tell. Mine involved the chief showing his daughter how his fingernail could carve a design into the side of a soft clay bowl.
What writing challenges have you faced? What have these challenges taught you about your process?
NC: In early drafts, I overwrite trying to impress with language and don’t see deeply enough into my characters and settings. As a result, I rely on generous friends who are close readers to help me find the gaps and flaws in reasoning. Then I revise over, and over, and over again. I have learned I need friends to give feedback, and the story’s most significant development happens during revision.
From your perspective, what’s the most rewarding part about being a writer?
NC: Those self-discoveries. I tell students that writing without a detailed plan is like using a Ouija board. Magic happens. I move from tackling one craft detail to the next—from character motivation, to setting detail, to pacing—much like moving the Ouija hand plate from one board letter to the next, and when I sit back, my subconscious has revealed an unexpected message.
Who do you write for?
NC: I write for myself and my readers. For myself, I want to discover what I’m thinking and care about. For instance, when I look back and see what I’ve published, one idea keeps reappearing. Apparently, I worry about not knowing when I’m doing harm to someone. This thought repeatedly bubbles up from my subconscious into my fiction, revealing to me who I am. What joy to discover this about myself.
Instead of standing on a soapbox in town square and preaching what I believe and value, I share my ideas through my stories, always working to keep the reader’s interest through a combination of meticulous crafting and surprise.
What do you hope writers will learn from your course?
NC: My hope is that writers will learn to trust their imaginations while they veer from facts so they can discover an emotional truth that might surprise them.
—
Thanks, Nan!
Click here to learn more about Nan’s upcoming class.
