We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Nevada McPherson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Nevada below.
Nevada, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
The Eucalyptus Lane series of novels is the most meaningful project I’ve worked on so far. While spending time in Palo Alto many years ago, I got the idea for it on an evening walk in the neighborhood that would later become the Eucalyptus Lane of the stories. It started with a single image, and from that grew a cast of characters that I’ve come to know intimately, both the good and the bad. They evolve along with their relationships and discoveries about each other, and that keeps things interesting. I learn things about myself through writing about them.
Nevada, 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?
I’ve always loved writing and making up stories, ever since I was a child. I majored in creative writing at Louisiana State University with a concentration in fiction, then got into writing screenplays. After directing a short film and storyboarding the script for that, I started creating graphic novels as well. I mainly write character-driven stories that have strong elements of romance and crime fiction. I’m a fan of noir novels and film noir, and those strongly influence my own writing. Much of my work falls into the category of transgressive fiction, wherein characters deal with the constraints of society in unusual, illicit, eccentric, or illegal ways, and many noir stories come under that heading.
I’ve been teaching writing, literature and film studies since the mid-1990’s, and am in the process of creating a course about film noir that I plan to offer through my web site, with courses on other literary and cinematic topics to follow. I’m in the process of relaunching my video series called Bedtime Noir, where I share my own work and that of other writers who work in the noir/ transgressive genres, especially those published by small and independent presses. These appear on the Backstage Blog at my web site, where I also post book and film reviews, interviews, and personal essays.
As for my creative output, I’m most proud of my Eucalyptus Lane novels, Poser and Cracker, books 1 and 2 of a neonoir series set in Palo Alto and San Francisco. Book 3 in the series, Baller, will be out later this summer. These novels feature characters that I care deeply about, and it’s been an interesting journey delving into every aspect of their lives and evolving relationships. Another project that I’m proud for having done, is founding the Pelican d’Or Film Festival, a short film fest that I directed for ten years in Chalmette, LA, outside New Orleans. We had many local first-time and emerging filmmakers who inspired me in own creative efforts. Some of those participants went on to work in the film industry, and to success at larger festivals, including a win for best short documentary at Tribeca Film Festival (Matt Faust’s short film “Home” can be found on YouTube). We screened many excellent short films–funny, sad, and everything in between.
My own books, screenplays, graphic novels, and short stories tend to blend comedy and tragedy, laced with romance and spiked with crime. Many have referred to my work as ‘quirky,’ which it is (as am I!) and I embrace that wholeheartedly. For readers who are looking for something different, enjoy steamy romance, gritty, in-your-face dialog, and unconventional, unpredictable storylines: those are my specialty. I write transgressive neo-noir, that has a tender heart.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
One of the reasons I’m relaunching some of my endeavors, including my video series and regular blog posts after having been away for a while, is that within less than two years, I’ve experienced the loss of my mother, my father, one of my closest friends, and my dad’s beloved dog. Any one of these would be difficult, but since they all happened so close together, I found it harder to focus, to be consistent with my writing and posting, and to get enough rest. Combine that with an especially hectic year of teaching, including two new preps for courses I’d never taught before, learning new procedures, and spending a good deal of time on the road, and I’ve found myself struggling to keep up,
Sometimes I’ve felt guilty about how much I’ve had to turn inward, being so reclusive when all the outside chatter and conventional wisdom says that to be successful, you have to put yourself out there consistently–which is true–but there were periods when I just wasn’t able to do that, feeling like a rock in the middle of a stream as the water flowed swiftly aroud me. It felt like everyone else was moving forward while I was stuck.
In the past, however, I’ve used difficult circumstances I’ve gone through to inspire my writing, channeling hard times to add depth, emotion and empathy to my work. I have more compassion for my characters because I can understand better what they’re going through, in a way that I wouldn’t have otherwise.
Grieving is a long process that requires time and space, and is different for everyone. Some days are still hard for me, but other days I feel like sharing, posting, and catching up with what’s happening in my wonderful writing community. More often than not, the sun breaks through the clouds, and I know there are brighter days ahead. For anyone out there who’s going through the grieving process, I feel for you, and I wish you well. I know this is a phrase that one hears a lot, but it has helped me, and it’s worth remembering at times like these: Be gentle with yourself.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
A lesson I’ve had to unlearn is that I can’t please everyone. Women, especially, are often raised to be people-pleasers, and it’s taken me years to realize how destructive that is to happiness, leading to exhaustion and frustration at best and resentment or anger at worst, If I’m happy, I can be better, do more, and show up effectively for others, which is better than tamping myself down just to please others.
Creatively, I learned a lesson about this while writing Poser, the first book of my Eucalyptus Lane series. These novels contain adult content, some of which I thought might be too much when I started looking up publishers or agents, and what they might want. There are sex scenes, raw dialog and situations I could tell might make it extra difficult to find a home for this project, so I decided to try and tone it down, which was a misguided decision on my part.
Afterwards, I re-read it, and found it to be lacking. Not because I wanted it to to be titillating, gratuitous or purely sensational, but because without the parts I’d deleted, it was no longer honest, nor true to the story. As Walt Whitman says in one of my favorite quotes: “The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book.”
I went back to my unexpurgated draft and never looked back. I’m happy to say that all my novels are unexpurgated, and I’m lucky to have found an independent publisher, Outcast Press, that specializes in transgressive fiction, and champions authors who write it
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Www.nevada-mcpherson.com
- Instagram: @nevadawrites
- Twitter: @NevadaMcPherso3
Image Credits
Book covers: Cody Sexton
Photos and “Baller” promo pic: Nevada McPherson