Interview with Author Michaelene McElroy‏

Today, I welcome author Michaelene McElroy to the Realm. Michaelene's first novel THE LAST SUPPER CATERING COMPANY was released in July, and has received several five-star reviews. Welcome Michaelene!

When did you start writing?

I started writing in my sophomore year of high school – heavily burdened poetry and prose motivated by the turbulence of the‘60’s – you know, snowflakes covered in blood, injustice, lost innocence – all written, I might, add from the comfort of my middle class bedroom. When I moved to the Pacific Northwest a few years ago, I came across these original scraps of emotion written on worn blue lined pages by a fountain pen held with the resolve for perfect cursive execution, if not flawless rhyme or meter. It was then I noticed the edges of the poems and prose were tinted with hope. That same hope from my youth became the foundation for my writing as an adult.

What is your favorite writing style?

Right now, I’m immersed in a style I refer to as elastic reality. I take great delight in pulling back the veil between this world and the next, finding their commonality, and then blurring the edges for my readers.

Where do you get your ideas?

Really, I’d like to tell you there was some entranced method to my process, but it’s really quite simple. Perhaps it can best be described by a passage from The Last Supper Catering Company. B. Thankful is asked what it was like to have her Big G’s spirit inhabit her to help prepare a last supper for her dying Little G, to which she responds, “When Big G’s spirit settled inside me, my heart took a beat, then Big G’s heart took a beat, then mine, then hers, and between the beat of our hearts, by a means I cannot give name to, we became one and the same.” Before I begin writing, I simply grow very quiet and wait for the other heartbeat to arrive.

What’s the best thing about writing?

It presents an avenue for me to express in words the world as experienced through my five senses; allows me to put on paper what is known in my body and soul long before it reaches the keyboard. And I can travel all the planes of existence without ever leaving the comfort of my home in the woods.

What’s the worst thing about writing?

For me, there is no worst thing about writing because I only write when the words feel true. If I sit down to write and my words start to feel contrived or forced, I immediately stop writing. Since I’m not motivated by success or how many books I publish, I have the freedom to simply write for the utter joy it brings my life.

What do you do when you’re not writing?

I try to take a walk on the beach or visit the old guys down at the local coffee shop. I love listening to them tell tall fish tales or argue politics. And I take great delight in their mother hen watchfulness over me – the city girl who decided it would be fun to spend the last trimester of her life on a small island caretaking four park like acres of land, all by herself. When I’m not writing, I spend most of my time taking care of my property, and not at the level of a Smith and Hawken catalog. This is big boots, leather gloves, goggles in place kind of work - hacking back blackberry bushes, hand sawing limbs from downed trees, dragging winter debris to the burn pile, and running behind the mower up and down the slopes and through the back field. It’s hard work, but because I’m “out of my head” so to speak, and completely in my body, answers to questions I haven’t even asked make their way through the ether. Physical movement is a very important component of my writing.

Do you like reading?

I do like reading. My ideal reading day is one where I turn off the phone, grab all the comforters in the house; climb back into bed and read until I fall asleep. Wake up. Read. Fall asleep. Wake up. Read. I spent a winter weekend along the Sonoma Coast doing just that when I read Barbara Kingsolver’s brilliant novel, The Poisonwood Bible. Pure bliss.

What are you reading right now?

I’m reading Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine. It’s one of those stellar books I wish I had written.

 

Thank you so much for stopping by the Realm today, Michaelene! I've enjoyed chatting with you and introducing you to my readers. Come back anytime!

 

For more information on Michalene, visit her website.

 

 

 

Nick Bantock, Renowned Author/Artist - Griffin and Sabine Trilogy says, "The Last Supper Catering Company is beautifully crafted, a throwback to a style half-forgotten yet sorely missed." The Last Supper Catering Company is the heartwarming and humorous story of B. Thankful. Turned out with red corkscrew hair, one eye brown, the other green, and gifted with the power to hear the voices of the departed, B. Thankful is cast aside by the town as the devil's child and lives an isolated upbringing in the woods. Tragedy, followed by the discovery of a long-forgotten paint-by-number picture of the Last Supper, thrusts B. Thankful from the safety of everything she has ever known. Beyond the boundary of her sheltered life, B. Thankful discovers the world’s hard edges as well as its beauty. More importantly, with the help of a cast of tenderhearted souls (earthly and heavenly), she discovers why the world needs her special gift.

 

Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble