We were lucky to catch up with Amy Irvine recently and have shared our conversation below.

Amy, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

When I was starting out, a brilliant and seasoned author asked to see the story I was working on, a story about going to Central America, where I saw those beautiful, black, but increasingly rare leatherback sea turtles scoop sand with their flippers to make holes in which they laid their eggs. It was a dark, moonless night, and volunteers had set up camps to watch over the nests to ensure they wouldn’t be raided before they hatched. I wrote about the time, effort and care of these mother turtles, and also the time, effort and care of the volunteers. I was in my twenties. The turtle mothers made me wonder if I wanted to become a mother. I thought this was the story.

The brilliant seasoned author, bless her, met me for lunch and handed back my pages, lathered in red ink. She said, “This is good writing, but this isn’t the story.”

I was confused. I had constructed a compelling scene using strong clear prose. I’d dramatized what was at stake: the ensured survival of an amazing sea creature and the goodness of humans. I wove in my questions about motherhood in general, so that the larger story made contact with a more personal one. I noticed I felt a little defensive. I noticed a strong aversion to revision–it wasn’t laziness–I’m more of an ambitious, overachiever that wants to get things just right. So I just sat with the story, sat inside the story, and waited to see what else emerged.

What emerged was a greater sense of urgency. About the state of the oceans, the animals. And the state of my marriage. I was there with my then husband, who was a sales guy–he was all business and I was a conservationist and a writer. He wanted me to build a 401k. I wanted to tell stories. The essay, it turns out, was about the turtles’ survival, the good Costa Rican people who ensure the hatchlings get safely back to the water, but it was less about becoming a mother than it was about ending a marriage between two people who were going in very different directions, defined by very different values.

Diving back into the story was like diving back into the ocean with the turtles: it’s a different world down there, where our deepest fears and desires rule. The craft of writing can’t teach you how to go there, or what to do with that unwieldy material. The fathoms below are accessed through psychological curiosity and self-awareness and rigorous scrutiny of character–even when you’re writing about fictitious ones. You must have a strong sense of what swims in the unconscious depths of every person on the page, in the subtext of every story. Sometimes this means you’re holding your breath for a long time.

Amy, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I write and teach writing. I write about places I care about. I write about the ways we are both miraculous and dangerous as a species–to each other, to the planet. I have published three books of nonfiction, co-authored another, and I’m currently completing a second memoir to be published by Spiegel & Grau. My work appears regularly in Orion Magazine, though I publish elsewhere, too.

I taught in an MFA program for ten years, and just served as the William Kittredge Visiting Writer for the University of Montana’s Environmental Studies Program. I love to teach writing, both fiction and non, and I have developed a knack for helping students take their stories deeper than they thought possible. I sometimes work one-on-one with writers who need support in developing their stories.

I don’t always say the popular thing. I always say the visceral thing. But I try also to say the truest thing. I write and I teach to feel alive, to contribute to the conversation of how we rise to our best selves.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

Pay us a living wage! Vote for people who don’t ban books! Keep colleges and universities open and provide sustainable funding to arts and humanities programs!

Give to the arts and buy art. Read as though your life depends on it because it does. In particular, support organizations who support artists from marginalized communities–BIPOC and LGBTQ artists, low income artists, artists with disabilities.

Make time for art in your own life. Make your own art. Help kids make art. Make something ugly beautiful and vibrant again.

Art is not a luxury. Art is as essential as breathing.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Hearing from people whose lives were changed because of something you wrote or something you taught them about writing.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.amyirvine.com

Image Credits
Amy Irvine