Today we’d like to introduce you to Karen Novak.
Hi Karen, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
I’ve been writing from early childhood. When five, I’d take my twenty-five-cent allowance and purchase small rainbow-paper pads along with penny pencils. These I stockpiled for reasons that were beyond me at that age. In tenth grade, my future in novels became clear when I wrote, in response to a five-page, handwritten assignment, a story that came in at seventy pages, single-spaced, typed.
Jump ahead to my early thirties when my husband, our two young daughters, and I were living in Upstate New York. My best friend showed my early attempts to a professor at a nearby university. He happened to be one of the literary lights of the 1990s. He mentored me and eventually introduced me to my agent. She found a home for that first book, Five Mile House. Mine qualifies as a definite Cinderella story. At least, for a little while.
A battle with cancer derailed my writing for several years–but I beat the illness and remain cured to this day. Part of that cure was my first involvement with Women Writing for (a) Change in 2008. WWfaC is a writing school and outreach program established for women in 1991 here in Cincinnati. The school is evolving into a diverse, all-gender culture. I’ve been facilitating writing and craft classes with them since 2013. In the meantime, I study and practice my craft with devotion and rigor.
Occasionally, I have the opportunity to attend writing residencies where I may focus solely on my work. My favorite is in the hills outside Bloomington, IN, an artists’ residency called The Hundredth Hill.
Now in my sixties, I’m living with a disability, still writing, still teaching–thanks to virtual classrooms. My life has been an abundance of hard work, luck, and grace. My gratitude to my family, friends, and writing community is beyond what words can convey. I’ve recently finished a new novel that, fingers crossed, will find a home out in the world. All we can do is write to the best of our ability and then toss our creation off the edge to learn if the wings we gave it can catch an updraft.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The greatest struggle that has beset me is now ancient history. Like most wounds, mine healed leaving scars. But scars are stories, and stories can be revised. My challenge has been to accept the painful version I lived while slowly re-visioning those years with compassion for everyone involved. As this process has unfolded, so have new depths sounded in my writing. If you want to improve your writing at light-speed, work on forgiving the people you can and want to forgive. Even if it’s only a little bit.
Physically, I’m contending with a severe scoliosis and attendant chronic pain. I am between my canes and a wheelchair. This reminds me that all of us are struggling with challenges on some level, and that, I hope, reflects in my approach to writing.
I salvage everything from life that more deeply roots my stories in fully-human human beings. The power of empathy cannot be overstated. The search for empathy brings hope and meaning to events that make no sense on the surface. I don’t always find those elusive qualities of hope and meaning, but that’s the goal.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
As a novelist, I am fascinated by ghost stories, not for the paranormal involved but for the people who find themselves enmeshed with what they cannot explain. For me, ghosts provide a way to bring the characters’ inner lives into the outer world. Three of my four published novels revolved around the struggles of a haunted Private Detective, named Leslie Stone. In the first of the series, the narrator is the ghost at the heart of the story. My recently completed novel is haunted by a shapeshifting entity. If I’m known for anything, it’s that, and I hope, a few of my sentences.
I’m most proud of this new novel. I pushed myself hard to elevate both my writing and truth-telling to a new plane. Not sure how close I came to realizing my ambition. Preparations are nearly complete to begin shopping it toward agent representation.
When not writing, I explore collage and working with air-drying clay to make figures of various sorts.
Who can be anywhere near knowing what sets them apart? Maybe it’s my interest in the metaphysical strangeness of healing from long-term trauma. I am at work on my next project, a speculative science fiction novel. As of yet, no ghosts have emerged, but I wouldn’t bet against them.
How can people work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
The classes I’m facilitating can be found at https://www.womenwriting.org. This winter I am looking forward to a class called Voice Unlimited. I’m facilitating the three-week program on a virtual platform in collaboration with the Art Beyond Boundaries Gallery in downtown Cincinnati.
I’m also available for basic consultations, larger developmental work, or other writing concerns. My style is more of a manuscript therapist than an editor. The best way to reach me is via my website https://www,karennovakwrites.com. There, you will find a couple ways to contact me, along with my weekly essays (fancy term for blogs) about different aspects of writing. My philosophy is not “how to write” as much as “why to write.” If we’re going to make art, we have to commit to a practice of years with no guarantees of anything. It’s essential to find joy in writing for its own sake. My focus is on the pleasure of the growth, risk, and victory in finishing.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.karennovakwrites.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/karen.novak.3958
- Other: https://www.womenwriting.org
Image Credits
Tanya Bartlett
Sandy Lingo
Karen Novak
Elena Estella Green
