We are so thrilled to chat with Hollis Giammatteo, author of The Shelf Life of Ashes. Here, Hollis shares a few facts about herself and the five books that have inspired her writing most!
On my nightstand are scattered the landmarks of my aging – thyroid medication, ear plugs, a flask of water, the night guard protecting me from grinding my teeth down to nubs, a lamp that always needs to be dusted, a tube of arthritis medication. Rarely does a book or an issue of “The New Yorker” make it to the stand. There’s simply no room. I may have to get a bigger nightstand, but that might only encourage the additional equipage of my aging to further colonize.
Verbosity, right?
Seriously, choosing one flaw – my “greatest” – inspires me toward myriad others. I would say, delusion – such a solid stepping stone from which one can then arrive at grandiosity and narcissism. Fun.
What work? Writing – on the sofa, early in the morning, long-hand, lap desk straddling knees. Everything is work and that is meant in the best way – effort spent in the mindful doing of tasks, herculean or miniscule. The best place for that is where you are with whatever is before you.
Patricia Hampl’s Romantic Education. Why? I imagine hers to be a slow writing process; that she takes time to find the accurate adjective, the maximally pleasing phrase. She is a writer not afraid to be meticulous.
Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones. Why? I shall always appreciate the connection she made and deepened between Buddhist practice and writing. Bones remains, to this day, an inspiring guide to personal exploration through writing.
Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Why? Godot was a rite of passage. I was cast as Estragon in 1968! Yes, my breasts had to be taped and flattened, and my hair, cropped. Decades of athletic bras, short hair and a taste for the absurd followed, as would the conviction that careful attention to language and the perspicacious were joined.
Kenneth Graham’s Wind in the Willows. Why? I wonder about the long reach of those books read, often out loud, in childhood. I absorbed this charming book, because of many and various readings out loud. My parents had gotten me four beautiful LP’s, which I listened to frequently and faithfully as if liturgy. To this day, I can channel Mr. Toad, Ratty and Mole. This lovely book sparked my hope that whimsy and tenderness, however heaven-forbid brutal the circumstances we find ourselves in, will offer balm, and awaken us to the world’s beauty.
T.H. White’s The Once and Future King, for the same reasons as those, above, I think – for the grief in loss and the balm of tenderness, and this then leads me to Helen McDonald’s astonishing H is for Hawk, and now someone stop me, please!
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