Writing From In-Between Places, by Michael Braswell

My grandmother was born in the late 1800s. She believed in the Spirit world which she introduced me to during my childhood summer stays with her. Evenings spent in rocking chairs on the front porch of her small farmhouse lasted well into the night while I listened to her life as she spoke it. She showed me how to become aware of what was present though unseen, how the hidden influenced what seemed apparent. I came to think of this moving mosaic as in-between places where surprises emerge from a variety of experiences and sources which nourish and encourage my writing. From a laughing child throwing tinsel on a Christmas tree, to seeing fear in the expectations of others, to hearing the hushed sounds of twilight’s last breath as night falls, or feeling the wind on my nine-year-old face while riding the top of a yellow pine—these and countless other flashes feed the good, bad, and in-between of life as I have lived and tried to write about it.

Much of my nonfiction and academic writing on justice issues was informed by growing up in the Deep South during the 1950s when racial injustice was commonplace, as well as time spent working with young brain-damaged boys at Central State Hospital, and as a prison psychologist in Georgia. Writing fiction and poetry has been less restrictive and more liberating, often allowing the story or poem to write me.

One of my writing quirks in that I like to have different projects going on at the same time in various stages of completion. Although I do follow a daily routine of sorts, I seem to write in spurts rather than at a set time each day. It is not uncommon for the ending of a story to come to me not far from its beginning, or the idea for phrasing a poem or piece of dialogue to come in a dream or between sleep and wakefulness. At some point in my writing, a kind of internal prompt occurs which spurs me on until a rough draft is finished.

In the end, I always ponder this question. Do I create a story or simply serve as a conduit for a story to be told through me? I suppose I believe imagination and creativity grow in the dark and in-between places, and what emerges is a kind of compassionate cooperation between story and author.