Indira was kind enough to take some time off her schedule and answer some questions for Suprose.
Why did you become a
writer?
As a child, both in India and when my family first moved to the
United States, I loved to listen to stories, and later to read them, especially
origin mythologies from other countries including India. I was interested as well in what
happened to the characters after the story was complete. I was lucky in that I had teachers
early on who encouraged me to write in school. I knew I wanted to major in literature in college, but I did
not think I could write novels, and never dreamed it was something to do as
work.
Does one need formal
training to become a fiction or non-fiction writer?
I think one needs to love to read and love words in order to write
fiction. A genuine curiosity about the world around you also helps. Formal training by practicing
writers and teachers of literature gives you guidance on your drafts, points
you to authors to read, and creates an expectation to hand in things by
deadline, all of which is constructive to writing. If one is moved to write, then one will.
I did my first year of college in Fine Arts at Stella Maris
College in Chennai, which helped open my visual eye, but made me realize I
loved English literature. I
transferred to Vassar where I wound up writing a creative thesis of poems and
stories. My college professors
suggested I apply to MFA programs in fiction. I thought of getting a PhD, but most rejected my
application, while nearly every MFA program I'd applied to accepted my
work. I chose Iowa because of the
financial aid package. It was as
different from my small cloistered college on the east coast as possible, but I
grew to love it. O brave new world: All these graduate students who wanted to
write! I found more in common with the poets at first because they were closer
to me in age, and started to read contemporary poetry, which helped me look at
the importance of the placement of words, space, and tone. I began both my first two novels in
college as short stories, but in Iowa, I believed it when one of my professors
told me I could turn one into a novel.
I did, and that became the start of The
Journey. After Iowa, I went to
the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA. The Work Center was like a craft
hall with nine other writers and ten visual artists, working away; it was an
apprenticeship.
What are your thoughts on writers who are published without formal
education as a writer?
More power to them! The world always needs good writers and good
stories. I do not think you need formal training, just a passion for words, for
books, and openness to revision.
What did you read
growing up, who were some of your favorite authors?
I loved reading
folktales from other countries, and I often used to take out D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths
from the library. I loved the stories of King Arthur and Robin
Hood, but I also read Nancy Drew and Enid Blyton, and the Marguerite Henry
series about wild horses. One of
my favorite writers was Elizabeth Enright who wrote The Saturdays and The
Four-Storey Mistake. Madeleine L’Engle, Ursula Le Guin, and Tolkien all
impressed me as a teenager, as did Vonnegut, Dee Brown, and Hesse. I was also
lucky to have had terrific public high school English teachers who introduced
me to Chaucer, Neruda, Flaubert, and Austen, not to mention Shakespeare.
What do you find most
challenging about writing fiction? And what do you love most about it?
I find it difficult to make
myself sit down and write. I can
idle away hours doing nothing but reading the newspaper, or now, the
Internet. As a novelist, one has
to have a novel to work on.
Virginia Woolf used to give herself exercises, like describe a mountain
in the distance, and she wrote hundreds of book reviews. There are many story ideas I have let
go of, becoming bored or despairing, but once I latch onto an idea --and mind,
I have only done it three times now-- I become completely engaged. The work really does start becoming
easy, because you inhabit the characters and world so completely, you start to
know them. The difficult part is
letting go of the book, saying goodbye to your characters and plot, because,
after all, it gave you something to look forward to every day.
What was the latest
book you read? What did you like/not like about it?
The latest book I read
was Sandra Cisneros’s small, lovely book on loss and recovery called Have You Seen Marie? On the surface it about a missing cat;
underneath, it is story written by a bereaved daughter, because, as Cisneros
herself puts it, “ it is essential to create when the spirit is dying. It doesn’t matter what. Sometimes it helps to draw. Sometimes to plant a garden…” Sandra Cisneros writes, and her spirit
infuses this book. I read it on a
sunny afternoon, after a trip to New York, in the fresh silence of a Sunday. I
felt deeply content after I read it, as if I took part in a creative act
myself.
What are you working on
next?

What is your dream as a
writer?
I would be lying if I say I do not want my books to be widely read
and loved. I used to want to be an “international” writer who writes about
world issues, not “domestic”, yet I find I write
about families in small neighborhoods. I hope after reading my book, the reader
will smile, and say "ah," that sound of understanding and contentment.
If there was one writer, from all of time, that you could sit down and
have conversation with, pick their
brains, who would it be and what would you ask them?
If I were to sit down with Virginia Woolf, I would ask her how she
kept up her tremendous output, in her novels, and with her diary, and
essays. I would ask her if she
snacked while she wrote, and if she did, what she ate. She liked to cook, I recently
learned. I hope we would share a
meal, after she has finished writing for the day.
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