Mary lou’s Story: “The Queen of Fun”
Weeding, what writers call revising, makes for an improved flowerbed and story. Early in my writing career, I wrote a lifestyle column for a business publication. If I turned in more than four pages, my editor ordered me to: “Pull the weeds!” Good advice for the writing life.
When I studied with Ernest Gaines at Sewanee, he advised me to use the emotional heft of my life in my work. While betting on horses at Churchill Downs, Pat Conroy told me his writing celebrated people he loved. In a workshop, Silas House taught me the balance between mystery and information and that stories must be about love. The words I write – novels, short stories, plays – come from people I meet and places I visit along the way. I don't remember a time I wasn't writing or working.
Working as a soda jerk, cement counter, and tuna checker, I learned character. With my neighbors, I fought an x-way expansion and airport noise. I learned place. As chairman of our transit board, I learned conflict. I kept writing and my words were published and produced. My youngest child started college. I cleared my desk for writing. Then our newly-elected mayor called, three times.
Our citizens voted to merge our city and county governments, moving Louisville from 65th in city rankings to 28th. On the mayor’s last call, I committed to joining his staff for two years. He charged me to oversee parks, library, zoo, neighborhoods, and arts. A wag called me “the Queen of Fun.” I stayed ten years. I helped add over 5,000 acres of new park and forest land to our urban landscape, set up a public art commission, and guided the development of a 100-mile trail. Writing proved a valuable work tool. But, I had become distant from my writing, and so I went back to school. I wrote on lunch breaks, at night, and on weekends. Six months before the end of the mayor’s second term, I earned my MFA from Spalding University.
I began to trust myself as a writer of fiction, but then a mosquito infected me with West Nile Virus. During five months in care facilities, I realized I had not pushed myself as a writer. I had not trusted my work. Now, I do. I have revised a novel and a short story collection and work on getting them published. After much research, I’m on chapter six of the next novel. A monologue is set for a 2022 production. Now, I write to make my stories about “great distances, and starlight” and to give the reader “deep delight,” advice to all writers from Robert Penn Warren in his poem, Tell Me A Story.