I’ll try to answer a few more questions here.

Heather’s 3rd question: I very much marked my son’s milestones during those twenty-one years we were separated, but it made raw each time our separation and my longing for him. His birthdays were very tough. As I raised my two younger sons, I understood just how much I had missed–the “first” everything, all the significant moves in his development. His graduation year from high school was very hard, although I missed it by a year–he graduated at 17, not 18. Even finding out that i missed the year was difficult.

Erinn’s 1st question: This has a happy answer, one I am willing to share. We celebrate our 20th anniversary of meeting each other this fall. He is very much a daily part of the family. Hard, hard, hard work for both of us to move beyond the damage and the pain of those years being lost forever. But it worked.

Kate’s 3rd question about loneliness and keeping journals: No, I sometimes wrote but never kept journals. I destoyed them periodically as a way to deny memory, I think, and to make sure no one ever was able to enter my thoughts. I regret that need very much now. The loneliness: I remember it perfectly. It defined me.

Melonie’s 2nd question: I am finally moving back into the writing after a whirlwind spring and summer of travel and public events. I have been writing short stories, and will finally return to the novel I started in San Francisco last summer. I love the essay form, but I will give memoir a break for a while!

Thank you all so much. You can imagine how much I understand, at 58, of what we just did. A blog? A radio stream from that blog? A virtual book club? I am not certain of what we all just created, but I think it was terrific! Yes, smart, smart people. Thank you very much. Let me know if there is any other way I can help this conversation continue. Thank you!

Meredith, thanks so much for allowing us the opportunity to chat with you and ask questions. It was interesting and exciting to have more behind the scenes info from you. It’s not often readers get to ask the writer the questions that form as they read a work.

Felicia, thanks for this chance to be in the VBC. I’m excited about future opportunities, and hope that this first session was all you hoped for, not only with Meredith but also for working out a system that works for you, the authors, and the folks calling in.

Best wishes to all!
Melonie

Here are my questions:

1) Do you feel that the process of publishing the essays and book was cathartic in and of itself, or was it a process that combined with time overall to ease things a bit? Would you say that this step of sharing your story through a published memoir was closing a door and making it come to an end, or more of a way to move through things and keep living?

2) Any new projects in the works we should be watching for?

#1- It seems that the process of writing Without a Map, the living in your head, the reliving of the disconnection and trauma, may have felt psychologically similar to the banishing you experienced once your teen pregnancy was revealed… while writing, were you able to counterpoint this to find balance and peace in your life this time around, and if so, how?

#2- It’s a controversial aspect of writing to tell your own truth when it reveals the unflattering actions of others… how did you approach this dilemma in writing Without a Map?

#3- The line about the young soldiers that spend the night sitting with you, “I don’t know if these boys spent this long night threatening me or protecting me,” calls to mind all the other people (parents, community members, peers) in the story whose actions can be interpreted as both threats and protection (from different perspectives, of course). Was reconciling this dichotomy part of your journey to forgiveness?

1) I am interested in your use of present tense throughout the book (with the exception of the prologue chapter, “Shunned”). For me, this had the effect of stacking time and memory, which made a lot of sense to me because you constantly lived with these memories and the knowledge of what you had lost. As you say late in the book, “I carry the past each day,” and “I am memory.” Was this your intention in using present tense? Also, what kind of challenges did you face in writing the book in present tense?

2) Because so many of these chapters were previously published essays, I’m hoping you’ll discuss the process of putting them together and creating the book’s narrative line. In what ways was this challenging?

3) The loneliness is palpable in so many parts of this book. I’m wondering if you kept journals during your late teens and twenties and referenced these or whether much of this is recreated from memory.

Thanks!

1. A turning point for you when traveled through the Middle East was the young mother sharing her baby’s breastmilk with you. What was it about this event that “woke” you up and sent you home?

2. Your mother was a very strong woman but held her private life very close. Why do you think she didn’t want to share these things with you (i.e. her piano lessons and why she ended up quitting after you discovered her)?