We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Janet Constantino a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Janet thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your business sooner or later?

When I was a senior in high school, at 16, a beloved English teacher, Mr. Bloom, encouraged me to hone my observations into cohesive scenes, telling me I had the makings of a writer. His encouragement helped me to see a potential within myself that I hadn’t yet recognized, igniting a passion for writing that would ultimately–decades later–shape the creation of my novel, Becoming Mariella.

Professionally, I became a licensed psychotherapist, and have been since 1983, although now I work very part-time. I wrote when I could, and longed for the “someday” when I could write everyday. When I finally went for an MFA in creative writing I learned more than I realized I didn’t know. In retrospect I wish I had pursued both the writing and psychotherapy alongside each other.

Janet, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

As I said in the previous question, a favorite high school teacher helped me to realize I had the makings of a writer, and so quickened the longing and passion for writing, and reading, which was already in place.

When a writer friend asked me, “If you could write about anything you wanted, what would that be?” I immediately thought of Sicily, where half my family was born, where my father partially grew up, and where traditions rooted deeply in family and culture and family have shaped lives, especically the lives of women. From this question sprang the idea of Becoming Mariella, a story about a young Sicilian woman striving to break free from her mother’s control and the societal expectations that cast women primarily as homemakers, mothers, and silent figures.

Having choice, and being able to carve one’s path is paramount, a deeply held value, for me, both as an individual woman, and as a psychotherapist. The courage of some of my clients, women and men, who have dared to follow their own paths along with my challenge to steer my own path were also inspirations. But also when I was 22, (the same age as Mariella in the novel) I stayed with my Sicilian relatives, one of whom was a slightly younger cousin named Mariella. And, also like Mariella, she was smail in stature, had short, curly dark hair, and delicate features.
My own mother, who was Irish/American, never lived out her potential, and she was somewhat the model for Mamma in the book. Envious, loving as best she could be, overbearing, and definitely dramatic.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Having choice, the right to know and become oneself, drives my work both as a psychotherapist and a writer. I suppose I consider holding that intention for my clients is something I have always done, even with silent encouragement.

And I find that again and again in my writing, whether in a poem, short story, or my novel, that same desire becomes the heartbeat of the story or poem. Not only to become oneself but to live out, authentically, as one can of one’s life.

In writing, truth telling is paramount, but relative to the nature of the character. One wants the character to be true to her or himself.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

A real turning point for me in my writing was going for my MFA in Creative Writing at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon. What I learned there was invaluable–there really is a craft of writing! And I learned from some of the best. I’ll never know how my writing would have been if I’d gone for that degree or training earlier in my life.

Knowing one’s craft more deeply helps with confidence to face the blank page, even though I think all good fiction writing involves delving into the unknown and uncertainty.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://janetconstantino.com
• Instagram: janetconstantino2
• Facebook: [email protected]

Image Credits

Larry Leonard