Roselee Blooston speaks about her vision behind, The Chocolate Jar & Other Stories, and her life as an author of three books.
- What themes does The Chocolate Jar and Other Stories deal with and what ties the stories together?
The Chocolate Jar and Other Stories is a collection of 8 humorous, incisive, and poignant tales, which explore transgressions large and small, and the lingering power of past conflicts. Whether an intra-office escalation over candy in the award-winning title story; a couple nursing their marriage through a sick plant; a first job leading to first love; boundaries crossed between neighbors; a spa weekend reconciliation between sisters; a daughter resisting her mother’s intervention; a high school rivalry exploding into adulthood; or the struggle between a single mom and her teenage son, longing for his father––I hope all will resonate with readers who relish short fiction that gets to the heart of everyday tensions and extraordinary ones.
- When were the individual stories written, and how did you choose them for this collection?
This collection spans writing from 2000 to the present. Two of the stories had been previously published in literary journals (“The Marriage Plant” and “Wind Chill”) and the title story was recognized as a Notable Story in the 2001 New York Short Stories Contest. I chose the other stories because they dealt with similar or complimentary themes. I also gave a good deal of thought to the sequence in which the stories are placed, though the reader can read them in any order; I wanted the collection to build and take the reader through an experience of interpersonal conflict and resolution.
- This is your 3rd book. How is this one similar or different from your previous books?
Both of my previous books were published by Apprentice House: the first came out in 2016, Dying in Dubai–a memoir of marriage, mourning, and the Middle East; the second came out in 2019, the novel Trial by Family. The memoir was, of course, nonfiction, unlike the stories. One of the stories in the collection, “Spa Days,” was the precursor for the novel, dealing with sibling estrangement and inheritances of all kinds.
- Please describe your writing process. Do you write daily? How do you approach revising and editing your own work?
I don’t write daily, but when I’m working on a project, I do write 5-6 days a week in 2-hour bursts. When I’m revising, which I enjoy, I can work 10 days straight, 3 or 4 hours at a stretch, before I need to recharge. Revising allows me to stand back and look at the piece as if someone else wrote it––very helpful. But I find that when I’m in promotional mode, during a book tour, for instance, I can’t write much, though I’m always jotting down notes for future works.
- Your characters are often in difficult relationships with each other. What is the challenge in writing about troubling behavior?
The biggest challenge in dealing with a character’s troubling behavior is the same as in life: maintaining empathy for that person, even while exposing their flaws. I love the challenge of seeing all sides of a conflict, and although I may have a bias towards one character’s position, I try to be fair to the other point of view.
- Have you always been a writer? Tell us about your writing history.
I have indeed always been a writer, starting with haiku in middle school, but I didn’t always put writing first. For many years, I wrote plays to showcase my work as an actress. When I finally left the theater, I founded a non-profit for writers of all genres, Tunnel Vision Writers’ Project, and discovered while directing that organization that I could write in other genres. So began my foray into short stories, personal essays, magazine articles, and eventually a memoir and a novel. At each stage of my development, a publication in a journal or an award built my confidence and propelled me forward. Now I fully embrace my identity as a writer and author.
- What is the role of humor in your work?
I often use humor to humanize my characters and to create perspective on them and empathy for them. If you can laugh, or at least smile, at what they say or do, you can also identify with them.
- Tell us more about one of the stories in the collection.
“Elephants in the Room” puts front and center the internal and external conflicts facing two estranged friends over body image, and how the way society sees them and how they see themselves impacts their relationship.
- What advice would you give to young writers?
First: all writers read, a lot and widely. Read outside your interests. If you are a poet, read prose. If you write fiction, read poetry. Know what is going on in the world and what has happened in the past. Read history, drama, works by authors from other countries.
Second: Write a few minutes a day. You don’t have to show what you write to anyone, but like physical exercise, you need to use your writing muscles regularly. It’s amazing what can come out of random musings––a story, a poem, a play, a novel.
Third: Nurture relationships with other writers/readers, so that when you are ready to show your work to others, you have trusted people to turn to for input.
- What’s next for you? Do you have another book in the works?
I’m working on another memoir, Almost: My Life in the Theater, for potential publication in the fall of 2022. In it, I wrestle with ambition, failure, the drive to create, and the decades-long struggle to fulfill my early promise by becoming a professional actress, taking me to far-flung locales from Europe to Texas to New York City. Along the way, I encounter several Oscar winners, each of whom had a profound effect on my self-image, though no one had more influence than my mother, a visual artist, whose life served as a beacon.
