Winston-Salem Journal Reporter
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Writer finds fiction a good fit
Switching from nonfiction took a while, but the calling was clear
By Kim Underwood
While Kate Blackwell was busy writing about the civil-rights movement and the War on Poverty in the 1960s for the Raleigh News & Observer, she was dreaming about writing fiction.
The dream was still with her in the 1970s when she and Ralph Nader were co-writing such meaty nonfiction books as You and Your Pension and Whistle Blower.
“The things I was writing were very compelling,” she said. “But in my heart, I knew I wanted to write fiction.”
One day in the mid-1980s - not too long after her 40th birthday - she was driving by the vice president’s house in Washington when it came to her that the time had come to stop dreaming and start writing.
“It’s now or never,” she said to herself.
In retrospect, the milestone birthday no doubt had more than a little to do with that sense of urgency. In any case, she pulled over to the curb, grabbed a notebook and started writing, using what she saw before her - cars and blue sky - to get started.
No matter how potent a now-or-never impulse feels, more than one has come to naught. In this case, though, the desire and the willingness to work stayed with her. Blackwell began to hone short stories and to get them published in literary magazines.
Now her first collection of stories - you won’t remember this - has been published by Southern Methodist University Press. Blackwell, who lives in Washington, recently came back to Winston-Salem - she graduated from Reynolds High School in 1959 - to promote the book.
Her roots here are deep. One of her Moravian ancestors helped found Salem and became the town’s potter. Her grandfather, Tom Blackwell, became the chief buyer of domestic tobacco for Reynolds Tobacco Co. Her father, Winfield Blackwell, who died in 1999, was a prominent Winston-Salem lawyer who served in the state legislature in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Her mother, Polly Blackwell, who died in 1997, helped establish the N.C. School of the Arts.
Her sister, artist Mary Beth Blackwell-Chapman, still lives here.
Although Blackwell had years of experience writing nonfiction, in certain respects she had to learn how to write again when she started writing fiction. To write for a newspaper, she said, you amass facts and then distill the information in the most straightforward way possible. “In nonfiction, you’re striving for precision and clarity,” she said. “With (fiction) stories, it’s discovery…. You have to start in the dark.”
Imagination plays a key role.
Blackwell has found that a remembered thought or image can be an excellent catalyst for creativity. Often, we remember something because there was once an emotion attached to it, she said. We may have since forgotten the emotion. Writing about the memory can restore that to us.
“The process of discovery comes in the process of writing,” she said.
The first story in the collection, “My First Wedding,” grew out of the time her mother mentioned that a relative planned to spend the summer reading Proust. Blackwell set out to see where that took her. She discovered that the memory had something to do with the continuing clash between romance and reality for the women in her family.
Blackwell now teaches writing at such places as The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Md. For those just starting out, she suggests that they write on their own initially. That provides a safe environment in which to find a voice and to explore such story elements as point of view.
“The point of view is the single most important choice a writer makes,” she said.
She also tells people not to get bogged down in making the first page perfect. “Keep going and get the whole thing,” she said.
Once people are further along, it’s helpful to find others whose opinion they respect to provide thoughtful critiques. The final step of getting the work published is a tough one, she said. “Publishing can be very discouraging.”
Her primary tip is to be persistent. Although many publishers discourage people from submitting their work to many publishers simultaneously, she recommends doing just that if you don’t want to grow old waiting.
“Sending them out is huge,” she said. “You don’t have to wait until they are perfect.”
Although Blackwell grew up wanting to write fiction, she spent more time thinking about doing it than actually doing it.
“I think I was a bit intimidated by it,” she said.
She went off to Wellesley College in Massachusetts planning to major in English literature and ended up majoring in Biblical history, literature and philosophy after a class ignited a deep interest in the topic. Later, she returned to North Carolina to pick up a master’s in English literature at UNC Chapel Hill.
At loose ends, she ended up in the office of Sam Ragan, then the managing and executive editor at The News & Observer. He sent her to cover education, civil rights and the poverty program.
“It was a wonderful, wonderful time,” she said.
But after having reported and written all day, she didn’t do much writing at home.
“I was too exhausted,” she said.
Nor did she after she moved to Washington to work for Ralph Nader, and added a husband and children to her life. It doesn’t surprise people when she tells them that Nader is one of the brightest people she has ever met. But with his dour public demeanor, it does surprise them when she tells them he is also one of the funniest.
With the arrival of her third child, she stopped writing.
Then came the day when the car-stopping impulse arrived.
She’s now working on a novel. “It’s about a newly discovered 14th-century fresco in a little church in Italy,” she said.
Kim Underwood can be reached at 727-7389 or at kunderwood@wsjournal.com.
Journalist-turned-fiction-author Kate Blackwell offers some tips for would-be writers:
• Writing about a remembered thought or image can restore it to you.
• The process of discovery comes in the process of writing.
• Take notes about things that make an impression on you.
• Don't try to get it perfect at first. Just get it down.
• Write and rewrite. In some cases Blackwell works on a story off and on for several years, revising it many times.
• Write until you find your "voice" and point of view.
• As an exercise, imitate the styles of established writers to understand different ways of approaching a story.
• After you've been writing for a while, share your work. It's helpful to find others whose opinion you respect to provide thoughtful critiques.
• Getting published is difficult. Be persistent.