Miss Lee. Last summer I wrote to you asking you for a memoir about how you came to write the When Nan books. What you sent me ten months later is a highly readable and very beautiful portrait of a summer place that you know well. I love it and admire it deeply.
What it is not is a book about how you came to write the When Nan series. There is nothing in these pages that answers that question, except by an oblique inference, which I can’t count on most readers who are curious about you to make. You do depict small girls who have great freedom and large ambitions, and you were an unusually self-aware feminist in spite of being close to your father. But how and why and when you became more than a child diarist is nowhere shown. That leap is what is interesting. It’s what the majority of letters you receive ask you about. Who is Nan? Was she a real little girl, or did you make her up? Why did you decide she should have so many adventures? And many more.
This isn’t an official editorial letter, because I think the manuscript is in early stages. You can do a lot more with this, and I hope you will.
What do you think? Or—tell me something. When did you write your first story?
Warmly,
Maud
Dear Ms. Silver,
As you did, I have taken some time to mull your letter over. It was hard to read, of course. No one wants to have her work so easily dismissed, or to be sent back to the drawing board by a few strokes of the keyboard. I have veered between incredulity and rage. I am calm now. Which you might like no better.
I spent the entire winter writing that book. I agree, it is beautiful. I put in exactly what I want put in. The manuscript explains why I wrote the When Nan books, and if the explanation is too subtle for most readers, as you seem to believe, then I’d say the fault lies in an educational system outside of my responsibility. Anyone with a jot of sense of direction will be able to go from Point A to Point B, between my past and my books. Answering your blunt-force questions will drag the pages down. Drown them.
Dear Miss Lee,
It’s always disheartening to have to do something over, especially before you figure how to go about it.
You will figure this out, I have no doubt about it.
Shall we discuss possibilities?
Dear Ms. Silver,
If I remember correctly, and I do, David isn’t on the hook to publish this book—no one is. Nor are you doing me any favors. You are hoping it will advance your own career. So you are being awfully choosy for a beggar.
I sent you a perfectly good book.
If you don’t want it, I’m sure there are others who will.
Dear Miss Lee,
It may be true that there are other publishers who’d print this book as is. Your name and brand would sell a certain number of copies before the word got out about the gorgeous yet slim pickings inside. I wonder, however, if you want to use up this chance without making the most of it? The book I suggested you write is meant to be a companion to, or an elucidation of, the When Nan series. I am not sure it would work the same way if you took it somewhere else, or how it would be marketed. I was hoping to time it to a major redesign of the whole series, and hoping that David will make the connection when the time comes to another imprint here that we could work with. Or maybe he’ll do it!
Apparently Laura Bush is going to focus on literacy as her First Lady project.
Dear Ms. Silver,
I realize you are young, so rather than rise to your bait I’m going to view your recent letter as a mentoring opportunity. Your tone is threatening. You mean it to be. Your fantasy is that I will read your letter, suddenly come to my senses, and do things your way… because you threatened to link my compliance with the reissuance of Nan. This, my dear, is not a good tactic. I am eighty-one years old. I am interested in the continuation of the series, but will I be here to see it or promote it? That isn’t as clear to me as it would have been thirty years ago.
I am still invested, however, and if you came up with a way to convince me that doing the work you are suggesting on the manuscript would be a good way to spend the remaining days of my life—that might be effective. Be a little smart, why don’t you?
Call me Agnes.
Dear Agnes,
Point taken. Let’s both draw down our arms. I’ll start over.
I don’t think I told you I did my senior capstone project on feminist portrayals in the When Nan series. I realize I do have a very particular agenda in asking you to write this book. I myself am curious as to how you think about your work from that angle.
However, even if you don’t want to address feminism, I still want you to write more about how you came to create these books. And how you create them, for that matter. That question is at the center of the memoir. The 200-page description of your childhood summers in Maine encapsulates your inspiration to you. Not to a reader. And, it isn’t a question of your portrayal being too subtle. It’s a matter of fulfilling the premise of the book.
Why do you write? When did you start? What does it mean to you to be a writer? How did you think up the character of Nan? Did she come to you all at once, or did you work at imagining her? Why did you decide to write about her for children? Did you always draw? How do you choose the professions and activities she engages in for each book? Which one is your favorite so far? How do you understand children so well, when you don’t have any? When did you realize you are a feminist? （I’m hoping that one just slips in…！）
You get the gist. Interview yourself on these matters and see what you come up with.
Dear Maud,
Are these the kinds of things you want to know?
I never realized I was a feminist. I realized I was a person, a human being, with desires and needs and talents and abilities—the same as everyone else.
I understand children because I remember what it was like to be one.
My favorite is When Nan Never Ate Animals Again. It is moldering in my drawer—unpublished.
I choose Nan’s occupations by whim. Whatever I happen to be reading about or thinking about is apt to become a book. I aim to choose active pursuits that involve movement.
As you know from the manuscript you find wanting, we had our habits on Fellowship Point. We kept extensive notebooks at our house, and my father encouraged each of us to contribute to them. I often drew what I saw outside. Trees, birds, flowers, people. I had no knack for it but I enjoyed it.
Nan is based on a child I once knew. That is all I want to say on the subject, now and forever.
What does it mean to me to be a writer? That I have found a method of thinking that reliably moves me forward. That I have developed a system of logic that resembles reason while containing my emotions which are by nature unreasonable. That I know I can express myself clearly if and when I need to. Above all, that I have a private space where I can wander and play and dream, where I can be scathing and cruel and reprehensible, where I can love and expose myself completely, without any interference from anyone other than my private projections. Writing is how I live even when I am not writing.
I write because I am a human being, and to make art is to be fully a human as distinct from the other animals. Art is human. So am I.
You see? I have answered all your questions in a few pages. This has all the excitement of an interview. How do any of these answers explain me better than my descriptions of the Point, or of trees and eagles? What is there to be gained by adding this material to the manuscript I gave you? I don’t see the point.