Billy Lombardo chat

Hi! Liz Taylor here. For my birthday Billy Lombardo is talking to fantastic Tribune readers!

Our chat will Billy Lombardo will start in about 10 minutes. Go ahead and start submitting questions.

Billy, Are you letting your students out of class for this?

I don’t have a class currently. We just got out of American Lit and The Great Gatsby.

Billy, Have you always been a writer? What drew you to writing, and when did you start writing stories?

not always. I had an experience with a poem in my pre-adolescence and at the time, I felt it was brilliant. it was a big enough occasion for me that it made me think of myself as a writer. I wrote a bit of what I thought was poetry through high school and college, but it wasn’t until I started going to a bar in Chicago called The Green Mill, the home of the poetry slam, that I started getting a bit more serious about writing.

During those days I met Stuart Dybek, author of The Coast of Chicago. I told him I was from Bridgeport, a Chicago neighborhood he writes about in that book. His familiarity with that neighborhood, and his familiarity with the bakery I grew up above, gave me a kind of permission to write some stories that were largely autobiographical. That¿s when I started writing the stories that came to be published in my first book, The Logic of a Rose: Chicago Stories.

And your next book was a NOVEL! “I loved The Man With Two Arms” — the ultimate baseball novel!

In many ways that’s the novel I learned to write on.

So, how did you get the idea for your story that won the Nelson Algren Award: CLOVER ?

it came in pieces. the first piece came when i was explaining to my class why my hair looked so crazy. once i started writing that…

a number of other classroom experiences came to me and i figured out a way to piece them together.

i didn’t know where the whole story was going, though, until i put graham on a bus and brought him to the hull house.

i guess he’s tormented by a story from his past that’s never quite made clear. he’s lonely, too. that’s a big part of it.

Liz: Graham was a teacher — I felt like i had him in a class once.

that’s a great question. i feel like it is. in many ways it’s a story about the power of words, about the difficulty of communicating.

Liz: does great literature always have to be redemptive in some way?

i do feel it’s sort of redemptive. graham’s epiphany in the end has to do with him coming to an understanding about the importance of human connection. he ends up forgiving himself, i suppose.

i don’t know if it HAS to be redemptive, but i feel like there’s often something redemptive in my own work.

i feel like i’m finally starting to figure out something about craft. i didn’t know much about writing when i started. i had a couple of things i brought to the table, and now i think i’ve got a few more tools in my toolbox.

i used to have just a hammer and a jeweler’s screwdriver.

i’m not sure who my influences have been. i wasn’t much of a reader growing up.

i find that i keep stealing from Gatsby, though.

and i can’t read cormac mccarthy while i’m writing. i start writing like him.

i like that, rachel.

i like the idea of knowledge coming from unlikely places.

Liz: Privilege is such a great idea to explore.

i actually really like that question, rachel. graham comes from a great school…

and goes to the hull house where one of the children doesn’t even speak…

and ryan is responsible for graham’s epiphany.

an example is this: in my first book i switched POV three times in a paragraph…

because i felt like i had to get inside another character’s head…

now, i can find other ways to do that.

Liz: Ryan is auitistic – how did you develop that character?

i went to a poetry reading and a woman read a piece about an autistic kid…

who blinked and squeezed fingers to communicate, and i stole that …

and ryan grew from that anecdote.

some of those students share characteristics of students i’ve taught. they’re smart, for the most part…

and lovely, and they continue to inform my teaching and my writing.

i coached tennis for girls for a long time and i learned a lot from them…

one of my original observations was that they had more opportunities…

for the expression of love for eachother, than we boys had growing up..

It’s so rare to find a writer like you who depicts both men and women so well.

ah. so nice to hear.

i had a good mom. still do.

oh, it changes all the time. it has so much to do with the individual student. I feel like i teach it differently to each student.

i’m the most helpful for students who really want to be better writers.

What do you do about students who are reluctant readers or writers?

oh, i’ve got some great stories in my bag of tricks.

i like to throw joe meno at them. or david schickler

Fellow Algren winner Joe Meno!

great stories that feel irreverent and fun.

i found that poem of dugan’s when i was student teaching.

and fell in love with it. it felt like the perfect poem to give graham.

it said something graham couldn’t say with his own words. subtext, baby.

What are the most important elements of successful storytelling?

I’m not sure i can be convinced that anything is more important than character, but stories don’t work withoug words…so language is way up there, too.

POV is critical, too. I’m just figuring that out.

i was teaching it to my great world novels class at the time.

and one of my favorite lines of all time comes from that novel.

“already lost in the mists of death, he moved the pieces without love.”

Did you decide which books were in great world novel class? Or was it foisted upon you?

i picked them.

i have a feature at the green mill every father’s day. i love that place. i learned how to write there, i think.

i love the audience.

nope. that teacher is more me than anyone else. but it’s not all me.

i haven’t read it yet. but i will soon. i’m reading with goldie goldblom at awp in a couple of weeks. she was a classmate of mine at warren wilson college for a bit.

Rachel, you’re a great reader. That’s an excellent novel, and it would be good for it to get more attention.

What are you doing for your sabbatical?

i have a number of writing projects planned. too many…

but i won’t forgive myself if i’m not productive.

How do you juggle writing and teaching?

i turn 50 next year, so one thing i’d like to do is write an essay a week.

i have an idea for a novel, too. and a collection of short fiction.

but there are 52 weeks in a year.

i’m counting on taking two weeks off.

which book, stephani?

minimal research. but a lot of interviews

i didn’t do any research for Clover.

it was mostly just from my own life, and from how i thought graham…

might respond if these things happened to him.

i don’t really get writers block…

mostly because i’m always thinking about writing while i’m walking or at the gym…

and i’m swimming in ideas.

mostly i just need the time to write.

i find stories easier to write….

the man with two arms was a beast to write…

the organization of it was extremely difficult…

i thnk i love the novella form most of all, though.

Gatsby, 180 pages…perfect.

i think so. that day i wrote Penis on the whiteboard instead of Penelope. That’s pretty funny, i think.

and there’s something funny about graham putting his last name on Ellery’s, too. although it’s also horrifying.

Sometimes I think it’s more confident writers who use humor the best.

i feel my favorite writing is when the tone shifts…

it goes back to the question about humor…

humor only works, for me at least, when there’s something important that’s being wrestled with.

i’m just building up my knowledge of African american writers.

i’m now reading z.z. packer’s collection. drinking coffee elsewhere. and i love it.

brownies is an amazing story.

i’m just re-reading Zora Neale’s THeir eyes were watching god, which i adore.

I’m crazy about Edward P. Jones, in addition to the classics, or course — Toni Morrison….

Why does the world need writers?

because we need more beautiful things in the world…

we need to be reminded of the things that are already beautiful, too…

we need to think more about others…

and though one of our tendencies as readers is to look for ourselves in books…

the best writers remind us of others as well.

Will you write something else set in a school?

i think so. i love what happens when you put that many people in a room together…

i’m thinking of Kevn Brockmeier’s story, Apples (a nelson algren finalist)…

and charles baxter’s Gryphon…

great stories with great characters. endless possibility.

some of them do. one of my current students has read nearly everything i’ve written…

they’re usually kids who want to be writers…

or kids who are just crazy about reading.

i’m usually the first person they know who is an author, too…

there’s something interesting about that.

some kids can’t handle it, though…

they can’t separate the author from the narrator.

And what about the high school literary magazine?

thank you thank you. that’s Polyphony H.S. the most important literary magazine in the world.

i think it’s amazing…and so important. did i already say that?

i have 100 editors from around the country.

and they’re amazing.

kids from 17 countries sent us submissions last year.

Hey, what’s the website? How do people submit work? and you train editors?

www.polyphonyhs.com

we train editors with editorial training workshops…

and also by providing constant feedback to them on their editorial work.

we also have a pretty involved editors handbook.

read, read read. read as writers. listen to the feedback you get from people…

who care about craft, but don’t make the changes they suggest…

attend to their rationale, don’t take their words. use your own…

carry a pen with you and something to write on. always.

be that kid with the pen.

i think i just write for adults. but the thing is…

if you have a book with an adolescent narrator…

publishers automatically call it YA (young adult)

i think it’s a good idea. kids should have an audience. but its also important…

that they have an outlet like Polyphony H.S., so they have other kids responding to it thoughtfully…

and with an eye toward its betterment.

I agree with you — it’s not publishing just to see their names in print. It’s to be better…
Was it tough to find an agent etc?

it was impossible. i had three books out before an agent would take me…

i finally got one on the strength of “the day of the palindrome,” my YA novel.

i still got lucky though…

i had someone who really likes my work that sent it to a bunch of her agent friends.

it’s always nice to have people who are crazy about you around

ah, thanks.

ooh, tough one…

i love my first book. it was ridiculously important to me…

some moments in that book bring me back to the early days of my writing…

and that feeling you get from time to time…

when you really feel like you put the perfect words to the thing within…

fortunately, it still happens from time to time…

that’s what keeps me going.

And do you have a follow-up to your first YA novel? You have a great publisher.

i think i do have an idea for it.

one of my students gave me the title for it…

the day of a thousand chairs…

i don’t know what it means, but i like it.

ah. thanks. i hope it’s not over.

Our chat wraps up in a few minutes, make sure to get your questions in now

Titles. How do you decide?

sometimes i think i’m terrible at titles…

sometimes brilliant.

i’m still not sure about the man with two arms.

I always understand your titles after i read your books/stories.

i hope they’re not a deal breaker for readers, though.

Cubs or Sox?

ooh. sox for sure.

sox are my guys.

i’m from bridgeport.

The first story i read of yours – “The Playlot” was set in Bridgeport.

oh. i love that story.

love it too. we’re ending. how do you manage your time?

i’m terrible at it. thank goodness for weekends, summers, breaks, snow days.

i’ll have no excuse if i’m not productive on my sabbatical.

Thank so much for attending our first chat. Billy Lombardo is a great writer, teacher and generous friend.
Has everyone seen “Clover” — the pull-out story in our first Printers Row Journal?
If not, let us know: printersrow@tribune.com or moi at etaylor@tribune.com

thank you, everyone. great fun. see you at printers row. and IN printers row.

We plan to have more of these chats in the future so look out for announcements. And feel free to answer our weekly question: What is the best biography you have ever read and why? http://bancodeprofissionais.com/entertainment/books/ct-books-question-biography,0,4730687.emailform

And now onto the LIT FEST in June!

It will look for it on bancodeprofissionais.com/printersrow

Thank you!