54 min
Ep. 32: Kate Christensen - Welcome Home, Stranger Page One Podcast
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- Books
In Episode 32, we interview PEN/Faulkner award-winning author, Kate Christensen, about her tenth book, Welcome Home, Stranger, a razor sharp novel about love and loss published by HarperCollins. It is rare for me to blow off deadlines because I am so immersed in the work of another writer, but the galley copy is tea-stained—and tear-stained. I loved talking with Kate about the intricacies of making the first page work and setting up the entire book. The timing of this conversation was serendipitous, too, because Kate is currently teaching a class on beginnings at the prestigious Iowa Writers Workshop, where her wisdom comes to roost.
We had the chance to discuss everything from killing your darlings (as a writer), the evolution of a master storyteller, her mother’s influence on her mastery of human psychology, the joy of teaching and my favorite—”the upside of menopause.” I read a lot of Kate’s prior essays to prepare for this interview, and one that struck me as most poignant was how she describes liberating herself from the pressures of having to write like a man—which in her early years was not only encouraged but expected in the publishing industry. She summed up her dream in the 2011 article in Elle magazine, “I feel an urge to relinquish my inner d**k, at least for now, and fully inhabit a female narrator who is as free—as frank—and as fully herself as any man.” Kate Christensen has accomplished this and more with her memorable, hilarious, brilliant and broken-open heroine Rachel Calloway in Welcome Home, Stranger. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I loved co-creating it. You might feel you made a friend, too. Kate gets it.
In Episode 32, we interview PEN/Faulkner award-winning author, Kate Christensen, about her tenth book, Welcome Home, Stranger, a razor sharp novel about love and loss published by HarperCollins. It is rare for me to blow off deadlines because I am so immersed in the work of another writer, but the galley copy is tea-stained—and tear-stained. I loved talking with Kate about the intricacies of making the first page work and setting up the entire book. The timing of this conversation was serendipitous, too, because Kate is currently teaching a class on beginnings at the prestigious Iowa Writers Workshop, where her wisdom comes to roost.
We had the chance to discuss everything from killing your darlings (as a writer), the evolution of a master storyteller, her mother’s influence on her mastery of human psychology, the joy of teaching and my favorite—”the upside of menopause.” I read a lot of Kate’s prior essays to prepare for this interview, and one that struck me as most poignant was how she describes liberating herself from the pressures of having to write like a man—which in her early years was not only encouraged but expected in the publishing industry. She summed up her dream in the 2011 article in Elle magazine, “I feel an urge to relinquish my inner d**k, at least for now, and fully inhabit a female narrator who is as free—as frank—and as fully herself as any man.” Kate Christensen has accomplished this and more with her memorable, hilarious, brilliant and broken-open heroine Rachel Calloway in Welcome Home, Stranger. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I loved co-creating it. You might feel you made a friend, too. Kate gets it.
54 min