One has to be a story whisperer, teasing into its good graces, finding commonalities and understandings, and earning trust before daring to write.

Malcolm Campbell – 19 July 2015

The Back Flap

Lena, a shamanistic cat, and her conjure woman Eulalie live in a small town near the Apalachicola River in Florida’s lightly populated Liberty County, where longleaf pines own the world. In Eulalie’s time, women of color look after white children in the homes of white families and are respected, even loved, but distrusted and kept separated as a group. A palpable gloss, sweeter than the state’s prized tupelo honey, holds their worlds firmly apart. When that gloss fails, the Klan restores its own brand of order. When some white boys rape and murder a black girl named Mattie near the sawmill, the police have no suspects and don’t intend to find any. Eulalie, who sees conjure as a way of helping the good Lord work His will, intends to set things right by “laying tricks.” But Eulalie has secrets of her own, and it’s hard not to look back on her own life and ponder how the decisions she made while drinking and singing at the local juke were, perhaps, the beginning of Mattie’s ending. Bonus glossary included for reference.

About the book

What is the book about?

Conjure Woman’s Cat is a 1950s-era story about a cat named Lena and her conjure woman named Eulalie fighting with common sense and folk magic against the injustices of a small, Florida Panhandle town strongly influenced by the KKK. The twin flames of hoodoo and the blues are major themes in a story in which the primary characters—when referring to the white world at large—can honestly say “nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen, nobody knows my sorrow.” But as that old song suggests, folks are up and folks are down and heaven lies both at the road’s end and in the close-held moments of family and friends in every day’s twilight.

When did you start writing the book?

I first put pen to pager, figuratively speaking, in the early spring of 2014. However, my writing always begins with no pens and no paper because I mull over the ideas for a book for months before finally daring to look at the blank page or blank page and begin.

How long did it take you to write it?

Three or four months, with random tinkering after the fact.

Where did you get the idea from?

My family moved from Oregon to Florida just in time for me to start the first grade. I was too young, I think, to suddenly become a fish out of water suddenly tasked with understanding the place of Negroes in my new world, the Jim Crow era of separate restrooms and water fountains, why my birth outside the South got me dismissively labeled as a Yankee and a “Nigger Lover” before I had a clue why everyone was at odds with each other, and how and why a gang of thugs called the Klan was so entangled with the powers that be that it was too pervasive a cancer to remove. In many ways, I grew up with the idea for this book, hoping that one day I could find just the right voice for telling the world about the troubles many people weren’t seeing.

Were there any parts of the book where you struggled?

As a pacifist, I always struggle with the violence. A young Black girl, who has a promising singing career, is raped and killed by white men near the railroad tracks leading into the sawmill. I knew this character like a friend. Putting her into a moment so senseless and cruel stopped me in my tracks for weeks.

What came easily?

The give and take of people in everyday conversation and work was easier to write, because I saw all this as a child and never forgot it. These scenes felt very natural and spontaneous as I wrote them.

Are your characters entirely fictitious or have you borrowed from real world people you know?

With one exception, all of the characters are entirely fictitious. My thoughts about Eulalie were heavily influenced by the strong, wise, wry-humored Black maid who ruled the roost at my best friend’s house during my grade school and junior high school years. I soaked up more learning from Flora than almost anyone else I knew. Eulalie clearly has Flora’s no-nonsense approach to life, lovingly tempered (or, perhaps, explained) by her praise church beliefs.

We all know how important it is for writers to read. Are there any particular authors that have influenced how you write and, if so, how have they influenced you?

While I’m biased in favor of Michael Shaara and his Pulitzer Prize winning The Killer Angels because he was a friend as well as my college creative writing instructor, this novel influenced me early on because it captures the soul of Gettysburg. Nothing is more important to a storyteller than finding the soul of the real or imaginary setting, the stories that naturally occur there, and the people who carry the tales from start to finish. The works of Annie Dillard, Mark Helprin, Isabel Allende, and Carlos Ruiz Zafón have—among others—been fine-tuning my understanding of how a writer conveys the essence of that multi-dimensional soul with a linear progression of symbols on a flat page or screen.

Do you have a target reader?

I hope not.

About Writing

Do you have a writing process? If so can you please describe it?

Before I speak my heresy, I’ll tell you the trouble I’ve seen, that when I was young, every process—from note cards to the conjugation of verbs—that I was fated to suffer in English classes came close to killing off my dreams of becoming a writer. So now I’ll say that while we all fall into your habits that look like process to others, we’re simply evolving into our natural ways of avoiding the brute force method of gentling stories and horses. One has to be a story whisperer, teasing into its good graces, finding commonalities and understandings, and earning trust before daring to write. In Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard wrote about stalking spirit. Spirits and stories cannot be confronted directly because they’re fragile and elusive and live outside the world of process.

Do you outline? If so, do you do so extensively or just chapter headings and a couple of sentences?

Never, for that would be like starting out on a magical, sky’s-the-limit, everything-is-possible journey with a crippling set of preconceived notions.

Do you edit as you go or wait until you’ve finished?

Both. I bounce all around in the story in progress making changes while working on the first draft. Those changes influence the remainder of the first draft and bring the story into focus so much faster than leaving broken things on the pages and cleaning them up months later. Then, of course, I go back through the manuscript multiple times and edit it again and again.

Did you hire a professional editor?

My publishers have brought their own editors into the mix.

Do you listen to music while you write? If yes, what gets the fingers tapping?

Not so much anymore because my hearing is failing. Traditionally, I listened to one album over and over while writing each novel, choosing music that resonated with the theme of the book. In time, the music supported and inspired the work. When I wrote The Sun Singer, I listened to “Nirvana Road” (Deuter), when I wrote Sarabande, I listened to “Beneath the Raven Moon” (Mary Youngblood) and while working on Conjure Woman’s Cat, I listened to a lot of blues and boogie woogie.

About Publishing

Did you submit your work to Agents?

No.

What made you decide to go Indie, whether self-publishing or with an indie publisher? Was it a particular event or a gradual process?

Early on, I tried the traditional route of submitting query letters and manuscripts to both agents and publishers. This was wholly unsatisfying, in part because many large publishers won’t touch a manuscript that won’t earn $50,000+ (or so we hear) and/or are tied into the system of publishing the champions out of MFA programs or people with various levels of fame that jump start their process into the publisher’s good graces.

Indie presses have standards that are just as high, but without all the dues-paying, who-do-you-know craziness stifling potential projects. I was slow to see the value of indie presses because I grew up in the old system (my father was an author) and somehow was brainwashed to think that’s the way it had to be. I think I’m cured of all that now.

Did you get your book cover professionally done or did you do it yourself?

I can’t even draw a stick figure that looks like a stick figure. Thank goodness, Thomas-Jacob Publishing found a wonderful artist to do the cover for Conjure Woman’s Cat.

Do you have a marketing plan for the book or are you just winging it?

Over the past few years as self-publishing and small presses have become more the norm for most authors, the advice about creating a platform and keeping up a meaningful presence for each new book has been shifting. Yesterday’s advice looks shaky today, possibly because once that advice wasn’t new, it didn’t work anymore. I guess that means I’m winging it while my publisher (thankfully) works a plan involving reviews, sales and newsletters that has been successful for her previous books.

Any advice that you would like to give to other newbies considering becoming Indie authors?

If I had any advice, I would have to preface it with a warning, “for Heaven’s sake, don’t listen to this.” My advice is always what works for me because I cannot separate myself from the stories I tell or the ways that I write them. That said, we have to be ourselves within whatever process or non-process resonates with us. When I read advice from other writers—whether in books or on blogs—I try to separate out the so-called “standards” and “time-tested methods” from the things that are personal to that writer. There is much to learn knowing what tends to work. But, it’s dangerous to copy the idiosyncrasies of a particular writer because those things don’t work across the board. I stalk stories, something I won’t advise anyone else to do unless doing that seems as natural to them as breathing.

About You

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in the Florida Panhandle, living there until I graduated from college. I later spent time in the Navy, and ended up living in Illinois and Indiana until moving to Georgia where I live now.

Where do you live now?

I live on a farm in northwest Georgia that has been in my wife’s family for five generations.

What would you like readers to know about you?

In our science and technology society, I see magic everywhere because I stalk it. While the news of the day often overshadows my sense of wonder for short periods of time, I read, listen to music, write, and take walks outside to recapture “myself in the natural world.” I date myself by saying this, but I still believe we’re each meant to discover how to be one with the universe.

What are you working on now?

I’ve returned to the Florida Panhandle for another story about Lena, Eulalie, a bad guy who’s causing them a lot of trouble, and nights when singing the blues is the best medicine.

End of Interview:

For more, visit the website for Conjure Woman’s Cat, like Malcolm’s Facebook page, or follow him on Twitter.

Get your copy of Conjure Woman’s Cat from Amazon US (paper or ebook), Amazon UK (paper or ebook), Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords.