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A
Reading by Writer Lynne Tillman Kicks Off the Books Etc. Series,
September 30
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Lynne
Tillman
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New York,
NY—Lynne Tillman, a visiting writing professor this fall
at Barnard and author of four novels, including the 1998 New
York Times Notable Book No Lease on Life, was once
so self-conscious about her writing that she didn't want her
name in print. So she and a friend created and self-published
a journal in 1976 called Paranoids Anonymous Newsletter
in which all material was published anonymously. With a circulation
of roughly 1,000, Paranoids featured established writers
next to novices, and gave Tillman the confidence she needed
to publish under her own name.
"On the one hand, I had the idea that I could be a writer,
and on the other hand I was terrified of what people would
think of my writing," she said. "I think insecurity
is something most writers feel. Because if you really value
writing, you're intimidated by it. If you value books, you're
intimidated by them."
Paranoids only lasted three issues, but according to
Tillman, it was "just enough to get my feet wet. People
would say that they liked a story and I would know that I
wrote it." Over the next six years, while also working
on a film, she wrote her first novel, Haunted Houses,
published in 1987, about three young women growing up in the
suburbs and New York City.
The book was well received, but publishing a first book presented
a new set of psychological hurdles for Tillman. "After
Haunted Houses, it took me a while to adjust to having
a book out," she said. "It does change things. Suddenly
this thing that has been your private world that matters to
you more than anything is out in the world, an object that
others can scrutinize. One sense of becoming has become."
Tillman followed Haunted Houses with Motion Sickness
in 1991, Cast in Doubt in 1992, and in 1998, No
Lease on Life, which became a finalist for the National
Book Critics Circle Award. The Los Angeles Reader described
her work as "so striking and original it transforms the
way you see the world, the way you think about and interact
with your surroundings." In addition to her four novels,
Tillman has published three collections of short stories,
one collection of essays and two other nonfiction books.
Tillman
is among a group of noted writers, including Pulitzer Prize
winners Jhumpa Lahiri, Anna Quindlen and Alice Walker, who
are part of Barnard's Books Etc. literary
series this fall. Tillman will read on Tuesday, Sept.
30 at 7p.m. in Barnard Altschul Atrium. She will read from
from This Is Not It, her latest short story collection,
as well as from No Lease on Life.
Tillman has collaborated often with artists and writes regularly
on culture. She sees the intersection of art and writing as
one that informs her writing process. "I'm interested
in how artists construct what they're doing as opposed to
how I construct what I'm doing. They think about space on
a canvas, or in a room, and I bring that idea into the way
I construct a novel."
This semester, Tillman brings her writing talents and processes,
along with the lessons she's learned along the way, to her
fiction writing workshop at Barnard. "I want [my students]
to think about language as something that is not transparent.
To think about the materials they're using. Think about narrative
structure and how complex it is," she says. Her advice
to them and other beginning writers is to expect and cope
with rejection. "You have to learn to live with it and
persist anyway."
Tillman herself persists, devoting herself to her novels and
trying new things with her writing. "After I finish a
novel, I don't want to start writing the same book. I want
to keep shaking myself up."
— Elissa Matsueda
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