Tayari Jones wants you to tell your story, and she’d like to help.
Jones — whose best-selling novel, “An American Marriage,” was an Oprah’s Book Club selection in 2018 and Women’s Prize for Fiction winner in 2019 — is a featured keynote speaker in the San Diego Writers Festival, where she’s set for two events on July 31. (The festival will also be held on July 17.)
For her first seminar, titled “The Craft of Writing,” Jones says she is “interested in helping and talking to people about how our lived experiences — our voices — are subjects of art.”
She adds: “There’re so many people who still want to write and who want to make art, but they don’t believe that their own experiences are substantive enough for art. That’s what I want to talk to about — finding your story and having the confidence that your story will resonate with others.”
In Jones’ second seminar, she’ll discuss her award-winning book “An American Marriage,” which portrays the effects of a wrongful conviction on a young couple’s relationship and the destruction of their American dream. It’s published in more than 20 countries, with more than 1 million books in print.
Q: What’s the hardest part about writing a novel?
A: I would say that writing a novel is the opposite of a love affair. You know how with a love affair, the best part is the beginning, because it’s full of wonder? For a novel, for me, the beginning is the hardest part because I’m writing about people I don’t yet know. I often tell people, if you can survive the beginning, you will survive the novel.
Q: What does a typical writing day look like?
A: I’ll tell you what I prefer. I prefer to write in the mornings because it’s early, and I’m not as distracted by the events of the day. But if I’m working and I don’t have the morning, I have to write in the afternoon. The key is to remember that art requires flexibility.
Q: Regarding “An American Marriage,” what do your three main characters — Roy, Celestial and Andre — represent?
A: I don’t know that they represent anything. I like to think they are just like the real people you have in your life. They each pose different questions. I think the heart of “An American Marriage” and this idea of a love triangle brings the question: What is it that we expect from other people? When people start to represent things to one another, I think that’s the point in the relationship when it’s no longer about the individuals because the people have become symbolic. When whenever you become symbolic, then you are dehumanized because human beings don’t work well as symbols.
Q: How did the title come about?
A: The title of the book came about in a rather uninteresting way. It wasn’t my choice of a title, and yet I came up with it in a brainstorming session. I didn’t care for it, and I think it’s because I, as an individual, had never been referred to as American without another word in front of it. I’ve been called Black American. I’ve been called African American, but I’ve never been called American. So when the book was being called American without another word, I thought it wasn’t about me anymore, and I really resisted it. The journey to the title hasn’t been quite as interesting as the journey past the title.
Q: Why do your character’s write letters to each other and not emails?
A: Well, there are three reasons. One, I think letters are so much more poetic; they are built better for a novel. You’re going to get more plot work out of a letter. A letter to a person in prison, they want news, obviously. Secondly, it’s a meaningful to that person as a gesture that you took time to write a letter. And thirdly, the letter itself serves as a souvenir of the relationship — a tangible souvenir that you can put under your pillow or put in your pocket. Prison is really the last plot device in a modern story where you can write an epistolary novel, and I’ve always wanted to write an epistolary novel.
Q: Anything you’d like to add?
A: I’d like readers to know that our stories bring us together and that the novel isn’t going anywhere. Sometimes people tell me the novel is dying. The way we can come together to talk about people who don’t even exist in real life, the way that we can come together to discuss imaginary people — it’s fundamentally an optimistic act that we can be so invested in a product of imagination. It means that we can imagine a better future for ourselves.
“The Craft of Writing”
When: 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. July 31
Where: San Diego Writers Festival is presented in partnership with the Coronado Public Library and Warwick’s virtually on Facebook Live
Tickets: Free
Phone: (619) 955-8286
Online: sandiegowritersfestival.com
Conversation with Tayari Jones: “An American Marriage”
When: 4:15 p.m. to 5:15 p.m. July 31
Where: San Diego Writers Festival is presented in partnership with the Coronado Public Library and Warwick’s virtually on Facebook Live
Tickets: Free
Phone: (619) 955-8286
Online: sandiegowritersfestival.com
The San Diego Writers Festival will be held on July 17 and July 31. Events are free on Facebook Live.
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For author Tayari Jones, everyone's story is worth telling - The San Diego Union-Tribune
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