Creative Couples: An interview with Lucy E.M. Black and Michael J.B. Black

Lucy and Michael are very talented artists and giving artists, each in their own right. As a couple, they are truly dynamic. They complement each other, as well as the world they live in. Lucy E.M. Black is an accomplished author with several published books, including The Brickworks, with a new release coming this fall, Class Lessons: Stories of Vulnerable Youth, published by Demeter Press, both reviewed by TMR. Michael J.B. Black is a successful artist with a recent show at the Niagra Pumphouse Arts Centre, who describes his art as “informed by a late Modern interpretation of abstraction”. It has been a pleasure to meet up with this powerful, creative, and inviting couple. This glimpse inside their world is nothing short of inspiring.

Hi Lucy and Michael! It’s wonderful to spend some time with you. Thank you both for this interview. Lucy, can we start with you, please? You have five books, four and one new release, Class Lessons, ready for release this fall. Can you tell us about Class Lessons: Stories of Vulnerable Youth? What are you planning for the release? Did this book surprise you?

Thanks so much for your interest, Carrie! You are always very supportive and we are happy to “chat”.

Class Lessons is a collection of auto-fiction stories: tales that explore my working life utilizing the devices of fiction to protect the situations I reference. As an educator for more than thirty years, I encountered a number of vulnerable young people and I felt that some of those narratives needed to be told.

I’m honoured that Shelley MacBeth of Blue Heron Books has included the book in the Book Drunkard Literary Festival. The launch will be on October 22nd at the library in Port Perry. In conjunction with the launch, a good friend of mine is organizing a discussion panel that will discuss vulnerable young people and what we can do to better support them. The reception to the book thus far has surprised me – I find that people are really responding well to these stories and are eager to discuss them.

Class Lessons and your short story collection The Marzipan Fruit Basket have a similarity in that they are ‘stories that hurt’. Can you tell me more about that term and what it means to your stories?

The stories in The Marzipan Fruit Basket were stories of dislocation – all of them referenced change and disturbance in women’s lives. Class Lessons is different in that these stories reference the vulnerability of youth, particularly when they are lacking the ability to self-advocate.

‘Stories that hurt’ is a term I have been using to describe the new collection. I know that we often shy away from those things that are painful and are attracted, instead, to those things which leave us feeling satisfied and happy. But I believe that amplifying the entire human experience is an obligation for story-tellers. While these stories hurt to read (and indeed write), they are based on real situations and I felt there might be some value in sharing them.

When do you start thinking about writing a new book? How much space is there usually between books?

Writing is a compulsion for me. I have written stories since I was a child. I never stop thinking about stories and new writing projects. Even when I was working full-time with a demanding career, characters were walking around in my head asking to be written. They often had to wait for summer or winter break when I had the leisure to work on my creative pursuits. Admittedly, it took me far longer to complete something during those years.

My writing projects often overlap. I typically have two manuscripts in progress at the same time. Currently, I’m still attending book-clubs and events to discuss The Brickworks while I also have to finalize the galleys for Class Lessons. I have just placed a new historical fiction manuscript with a publisher and need to begin work on a final edit of that work. And at the same time, I am writing and researching first draft of a new manuscript. So, the answer really is – no time between books! There are just so many stories to tell…

Image description: Lucy’s writing room, with a large triptych by Michael called Nebula (birth of a star).

I can’t help but mention dialogue: The Brickworks has brilliant exchanges of Scottish dialogue. How important is dialogue in your books?

Thank you for that compliment. I hope that my use of dialogue in The Brickworks helps to bring the characters to life.

Using so much colloquial vernacular in that book was very ambitious. I created individual lexicons for each of the speaking characters, drawing words and expressions from period diaries and letters. As characters, such as Brodie, matured and became educated it was important to demonstrate that through more polished language. When Brodie and Alistair, two Scots, are alone speaking to one another, they revert to using more Scottish expressions to demonstrate intimacy.

The language edits for that book were quite time-consuming. As the characters took shape, I began to hear them speaking and I believed that an attempt to capture their voices was important. I can still hear Kyran yelling, ‘Jaysus, Mary and Joseph!’

Lucy E.M. Black with The Brickworks.

Your historical fictions are sweeping stories, have you another up your sleeve? Perhaps one that is living in your head right now?

I have just placed A Quilting of Scars with Now or Never Publishing. It is the story of a farmer at the end of his life in 1909. The entire narrative takes place during one long night while he recounts his youth. I’ll include part of my pitch below:

A Quilting of Scars brings to life a story of forbidden love, abuse and murder. Pulsing with repressed sexuality and guilt, Larkin Beattie reveals the many secrets he has kept hidden throughout his lonely life. The character-driven narrative is a meditation on the long-lasting effects of trauma, grief, boyhood, aging and remorse. The novel highlights the confines of a community where strict moral codes are imposed upon its members and fear of exposure terrifies queer youth. Larkin’s recollections also turn to his visit with a prostitute to make sure ‘his parts are in working order,’ his anger at the hypocrisy of the church, and the deep grief and loneliness that have marked his path.

I have also finished a sequel to Eleanor Courtown and am hoping to find a publisher for it. It reads as a standalone historical fiction but many of the characters from Eleanor Courtown reappear in starring roles. Eleanor’s daughter, Kathleen is about to turn sixteen and Eleanor takes her to Ireland to meet her extended family. Think Anne Shirley meets Catherine Morland as Kathleen is introduced to Dublin society and the men who would marry her for family connections and inherited wealth. While the manuscript is lighter than A Quilting of Scars, it does take a serious look at class and privilege in the period, as well as at the role of women.

And currently, I am struggling with a new writing project – an exploration of the treatment of women during the American Civil War. I’m researching and writing at the same time and it’s a very slow process. The main character is quite real to me already, however, and she is one tough young woman. It’s not a period of history I know very much about and so I still have much to learn.

Thank you for the exciting peek into your upcoming stories, Lucy! The Brickworks, Eleanor Courtown, and Stella’s Carpet are historical fiction. What draws you to writing in this genre? How do you decide in which era to write?

Each writing project begins with the seed of an idea. For Eleanor Courtown, it was the true story of a poisoning that took place on a farm near our own. I wrote Stella’s Carpet when I was off work on a medical leave and decided to document and explore some of my father’s WWII stories. And The Brickworks began with a visit to the ruins of an old brickworks and evolved into a tale of progressivist ideology.

I love history, particularly local history, and it seems to me that there are so many rich stories to be told that can enhance our understanding of where we are at this point of time and place. The era reveals itself as I do the research and I typically just “listen” to the characters as they take me to that moment in history.

There is a distinct difference between your historical fiction and your creative nonfiction collections, auto-fiction, and, stories that are hard to write because of the subjects they tackle. How do you prepare for each style? Do you need to create a mental space specific to each style?

Short stories generally, but not always, take less time to write than a full novel. I have often found that a short story comes to me fully formed and that I just need to transcribe it. First drafts of my short stories can frequently be bashed out in as little as a few hours but then may take a couple of years to edit.

The stories in Class Lessons were hard to write. I wept while writing many of them. Some of them, I still can’t read without weeping. So yes – mental space is important. I am privileged to have a lovely office of my own – my writing room – that is entirely private and filled with things to facilitate both my writing and my creativity. When I enter that room, I leave everything else aside and focus only on my work. It’s a dedicated space that affords me the opportunity of working without distractions or interruptions. I know how privileged I am to have such a luxury.

Class Lessons: Stories of Vulnerable Youth is a collection that is very necessary, as well as timely. It goes into detail about the troubled lives of teens. Did your encounters and experiences as an educator help with these stories? How did your career as an educator prepare you for your career as a writer?

Class Lessons came out of my experience as an educator. I would not have had those interactions and experiences had I not been an educator. But my experiences are not particularly unique. I know that many of my colleagues have similar heart-breaking stories to share.

I think that everything we do in life contributes to who we are and what we value. It’s hard to separate out the strands of a life and to say, ‘yes, this led to this’ and ‘no, this had no bearing on that.’ As a high school administrator, I typically had five weeks of vacation each summer. That time allowed me to attend Sage Hill, for instance, and to work on my writing. Would another career have facilitated such opportunities? It’s hard to know.

What I do know is that I am grateful to have had a meaningful and fulfilling career, with a rich life, and to have met so many wonderful people. I think all of those life experiences contribute to who I am as an individual and to what I have to say as a writer.

Thank you for sharing some of what we can look forward to from author Lucy E.M. Black. What else keeps you busy, in conjunction with your life as a writer?

Along with a small group of friends, I co-ordinate an author’s speaker series called Heart of the Story here in Port Perry. This fall we’re hosting Susanna Kearsley, Robert Rotenberg, Desmond Ryan and Terry Fallis on three separate events. We have already confirmed Bianca Marais, Randy Boyagoda, Adelle Purdham, and Angie Littlefield for our January session and are awaiting confirmation for one other author. These free community events take place at our library and draw a nice crowd. We focus on the creative process that goes into writing books, and the things that the authors identify as being important to their work. I believe in the importance of literary citizenship and am thrilled to be helping to lead this program.

Let’s meet your husband, artist Michael J. B. Black, an accomplished painter. Welcome Michael. What made you decide to become an artist? Can you tell us about your style, and if it has changed since you first began your work as an artist?

I’m not sure that I ever decided to become an artist when I was young so much as I grew into wanting to draw and make things as a primary way of understanding the world, and my place in it. I began to take painting seriously when I was about 14 or 15 and I’m 66 now, so it is probably easier to say what has remained consistent over that time, beyond schooling and life experience. I have always loved abstraction’s ability to allow for a broad range of interpretations and connections to the viewer. I have always been drawn to biomorphic/anthropomorphic forms, and their (what we used to call) archetypal power. Variations in texture has also long been a part of the mix in what I do.

You recently had a successful show at the Niagara Pumphouse, Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON. How was that for you, Michael?

It was great fun to show pieces from my current body of work as a thematic whole in such a beautiful space, and very rewarding to see and hear how people interacted with it. This is the third or fourth time I’ve been able to show pieces from the Garden Stories work together, each in a different community, and the similarities and differences in responses are very interesting to me.

Michael, I noticed when looking at your collection, Garden Stories, the series reminds me of stories in a book. Each painting spoke as if it could be a part of a greater whole, or stand on its own as a solo piece. How did this series come together? Is it a coincidence that you ‘authored’ your own book – so to speak- with your spectacular Garden Stories collection?

That is a lovely way to put it – thank you. The Garden Stories pieces began to coalesce as a series about five or six years ago, as a set of simple, pictorial analogies for the ways in which the built environment and the natural environment run headlong into each other in our current moment, with all of the complexities of ideological and historical baggage that such an uneasy union entails. In that sense, it is an ongoing response – ‘individual pages in an unfinished volume’ if you like – to an examination, in many parts, of our relationship to the natural world

How is it for you, Lucy, and Michael, living in a busy, two-artist home? How involved are you in each other’s work? Maybe Lucy can speak to this, and then Michael can weigh in from his perspective.

Lucy – We have gradually learned how to support one another over the course of our lives together. I couldn’t do the work that I do without Michael’s support. Not only does he take on the lion’s share of domestic duties but he is my biggest fan and cheerleader. He always makes time to listen to early drafts of my work and has learned how to provide gentle and helpful commentary and feedback. He’s also a wicked editor and helps me to proof-read and edit my work.

Michael – As people who have lived together for nearly forty years, although learning how to support the other creatively has been an ongoing process, it is also based on a deep and abiding belief that the other person actually has something worthwhile to say, that is grounded in genuine human experience. And, quite frankly, that they’re good at it, and have the skills required to get that message across to others. I am also someone who feels like my partner is my greatest supporter, and consider myself very privileged as a result. In all of this, I think respect for the other is a key factor.

Motivation is a big factor when creating. What keeps you motivated and inspired? Lucy, first please, then Michael.

Lucy – As I’ve said earlier, writing is a compulsion. I can’t not write… There are so many interesting people and every one I meet has at least one fascinating story to tell, if not more, and the world around us is so rich with history and story that it’s hard not to want to document everything. I’m one of those writers who doesn’t understand writer’s block… my difficulty is always in leaving the writing alone long enough to do some of the other things that need to be done…

Michael – And I’m very much the same, in that my head is always full of pieces to try or be worked on, and there never seems to be enough hours in the day to do so. At this point in my life, having found a way to make whatever small contribution I can make that seems real to me, motivation is never an issue.

What keeps you busy, Michael? What’s next for artist Michael J. B. Black?

I have a couple of group shows and a solo show in a small, intimate space coming up in the early fall, as well as new work that I’m preparing for the galleries that are kind enough to carry what I do on a regular basis. In addition, like most creatives, I’m always looking for other opportunities for people to see the work.

Creating, whether it be a book or a painting, can be quite a solitary adventure. How do you, Lucy and Michael, come together as a couple, after spending long hours separated, captured within your own individual creations?

Lucy – We each have our own dedicated work spaces and I think that’s tremendously important. Michael has the carriage house as his studio and I have my writing room. Michael is far more disciplined than am I. He paints every morning from five am to about ten or eleven am. I may write during the day, if I’m not busy with other things, but my preferred writing time is late at night and into the early morning (ten pm to two am). So then, I sleep in and we get together for an early lunch and decide what to do with the rest of the day. We typically spend our afternoons and evenings together.

Michael – I think that what Lucy has said is an accurate assessment of how the day-to-day usually unfolds for us. Both of us tend to like to ‘work to a stopping place’ whenever possible before resuming the other aspects of life which, whenever possible, gives us both a sense of satisfaction as we reconvene together for whatever else the day might hold.

Michael’s studio.

What advice would you give to first-time authors and first-time artists? Especially, if they are together as a couple?

Lucy – My advice to first-time authors is two-fold: read books and be disciplined about practicing your craft. In my opinion, the best writers are voracious readers who read widely and learn from the books they read. And, also in my opinion, the most successful writers are those people who have a work ethic and work on their writing consistently and with discipline. No one ever won at Wimbledon merely by buying a cute tennis outfit and a nice racquet. Professional athletes exercise and practice their craft regularly and with discipline, they push themselves, they watch tapes, they take courses, they consult with pros. I believe that successful writers do those same things.

Michael – And I would have very little to add here that is different from what Lucy has already said. I am fairly consumed by what I do, which involves not only my own making but also a conscious effort to keep up with what others are doing around me, in addition to changes in the market, etc. etc. With regard to the “together as a couple” – part of your question, I would only reiterate the absolute need for mutual respect and support, so that both are able to do as much as they can and as life allows.

Thank you, Lucy and Michael, it is such a pleasure to spend time with you both!

Thank you so much for your interest and for this opportunity to “chat” with you.

Carrie Stanton

Managing Editor

TMR’s Managing Editor Carrie Stanton has a BA in Political Science from the University of Calgary. She is the author of The Jewel and Beast Bot, and picture books, Emmie and the Fierce Dragon and The Gardener. Carrie loves to write stories that grow wings and transport readers everywhere. She reads and enjoys stories from every genre.