DIY MFA Radio 132: Capturing Diverse Experiences on the Page - Interview with Shanthi Sekaran
Hey there word nerds!
Today I have the pleasure of interviewing Shanthi Sekaran, author of the new novel Lucky Boy, a book that has been getting a lot of pre-publication buzz and is an Indie Next Great Read pick for January 2017.
In this episode Shanthi and I discuss:
- The importance of fiction in humanizing different groups of people by bringing them and their experiences to life on the page.
- Using both research and imagination to create a vivid experience for your readers, and in particular how she crafted the dramatic immigration scenes in her book.
- Connection to the point of view of the characters and how to capture their experiences and emotions with authenticity.
- Crafting her book around the theme of motherhood, and how “mother” can mean very different things to different people.
- The universality of the “immigrant experience” in America, and how there are many common threads between immigrants from wildly different experiences.
- How there are also stark differences between immigrants with different levels of privilege, and how it’s important for us to understand these varied experiences.
- Why it’s important that writers live their lives and be present in the world.
Shathi teaches creative writing at California College of the Arts, and is a member of the Portuguese Artists’ Colony and the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto. Her work has appeared in Best New American Voices and Canteen, and online at Zyzzyva and Mutha Magazine. A California native, she lives in Berkeley with her husband and two children.
Lucky BoyLucky Boy is a moving story about two unforgettable women in California: an undocumented Mexican woman and an Indian-American wife. Both love the same child but can’t have him. The novel beautifully weaves together the themes of motherhood, immigration, infertility, adoption and minority life in America (and tackles immigrant detention centers) and is a must-read in our current political environment.
For more info and show notes: DIYMFA.com/132