Denver Literary Event

An Interview with Lorrie Moore

By Jenny Shank, 10-16-09

Lighthouse Writers Workshop is an independent creative writing program that has sponsored writing classes and literary events in Denver since 1997.  Many accomplished Colorado writers teach at Lighthouse, including novelists Nick Arvin, Eli Gottlieb, and Laura Pritchett, and several writers who have taken classes at Lighthouse can boast of significant achievements as well, notably Gary Schanbacher, whose story collection Migration Patterns was a finalist for last year’s Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, and David Wroblewski, whose debut novel, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, was a critically-acclaimed national bestseller and Oprah’s Book Club pick.  For the past seven years, Lighthouse has hosted the weekend-long ”Inside the Writers Studio,” bringing one outstanding writer to Denver to read and discuss his or her writing process.  Past participants include Tobias Wolff and Francine Prose, and this year the Writers Studio will feature Lorrie Moore, whose smart, witty fiction has earned her ardent fans and many honors, including the Rea Award for the Short Story and the O. Henry Award.

Moore will participate in an on-stage interview with Eli Gottlieb at the L2 Arts & Culture Events Center in Denver on Saturday, October 24 (4 p.m., $10-$15) followed by drinks and appetizers (6 p.m., $55-$70). On October 25, Moore will present “A Non-Crafty Look at Craft: Breaking Into the Writer’s Craft” at the Tattered Cover (LoDo, 10 a.m.-12 p.m., $50-$65).

This fall Lorrie Moore followed up her best-selling story collection, 1998’s Birds of America, with her first novel in fifteen years, A Gate at the Stairs.  Set in the fictional Midwestern college town of Troy, A Gate at the Stairs follows farm-raised 20-year-old narrator Tassie Keltjin as she navigates college, a babysitting job for an unusual couple who adopt a biracial toddler, and a new, mysterious boyfriend.  Moore recently responded to some questions via email.

New West: Did you research any aspects of A Gate at the Stairs?

Lorrie Moore: Yes, I drove around the countryside and visited a lot of farms.  But a little went a long way since my imagination in the end overwhelmed all.  I did more research than I ended up using.

NW: Near the end of the book, Tassie dresses up in a costume and runs through the lettuce fields ahead of her father, scaring mice so they won’t be chopped up by the thresher.  Is this an actual organic farming technique?

LM: Not that I know of.

NW: Several plot points toward the end of the novel consist of some the most terrible scenarios it’s possible for a parent to imagine. (It pained me to read certain sections of A Gate at the Stairs, particularly because the characters involved felt so real.) Stephen King once said that he wrote Pet Sematary by taking the worst possible thing he could think of—the death of a child—and imagining what the desperation over that would drive a parent to do.  Did you construct your plot in anything like the same way?

LM: Sure.  And John Irving I think has spoken of working similarly.  His inspiration, I believe, is Dickens.

NW: You’ve discussed how being a single working parent has slowed down your fiction output.  Has motherhood affected any other aspects of your writing besides its speed?  Your subject matter, perhaps?

LM: Motherhood expands your life and shrinks it simultaneously.  It certainly gives one much to think about, which is probably good for any life, including a literary one.

NW: What are you working on next?

LM: Getting on a plane without dread.

Tickets to all of Lorrie Moore’s events in Denver on October 24 and 25 are available from the Lighthouse website.

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