I’ve been tagged by Jenn Monroe to do the Next Big Thing chain-blog. What follows is a self-interview entitled “The Next Big Thing” that is making its way through the blogosphere. Every Wednesday, writers who have a recent or forthcoming book answer the following questions, post them on a blog somewhere, and tag five more writers to do the same the following Wednesday.
What is the working title of the book?
Where did the idea come from for the book?
My father suggested I research a distant ancestor, Matilda Fletcher, who he said “She spoke at Chautauquas while her stepchildren sang and danced.”
What genre does your book fall under?
poetry
What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
Poetry collections are often made into movies, though locally Wesleyan University is producing the play of Edgar Lee Master’s Spoon River Anthology this semester.
Unclose the Door
Hillary Swank as Matilda Fletcher
Nathan Fillion as John A. Fletcher or as Albert Wiseman Fletcher
Jodie Foster as Susan B. Anthony
Sigourney Weaver as Victoria Woodhull
Susan Sarandon as Amelia Bloomer
What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?
Unclose the Door are poems based on the life of the nineteenth century lecturer, suffragist, and poet, Matilda Fletcher (1842-1909), who spoke on stage with other suffragists of her time such as Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Frances Willard, who invented and patented a design for traveling trunks for women, who wrote bills that were passed into law, and who published several books.
How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
In January 2009, I started writing the poems. This was 100 years after Matilda had died. She died in January 1909. This research and writing became my dissertation. The dissertation was the first draft. I graduated with the Ph.D. in May 2011. I continued to revise and work on the series. Unclose the Door was published in late December 2012. It took three years to finalize Unclose the Door.
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
Matilda Fletcher, my great-great-great-grandmother
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
The fifth of fourteen children from abolitionist parents, who had fled the South, Matilda (Felts) Fletcher Wiseman was born in Winnebago County, Illinois, and raised on a farm in Durand. Like her seven brothers who served in the Civil War, Matilda chose the public sphere. After the death of her one and only child, Matilda joined the lecture circuit. She spoke to support herself and her first husband, John A. Fletcher, until his death. He died of tuberculosis, a disease he contracted during his service to the Union. Eleven years later, she remarried the Methodist minister and widower, William Albert Wiseman, and became the stepmother to his three children, all under the age of ten. On the stage she spoke among other suffragists of her time, such as Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Frances Willard. During her forty year career, she also invented and patented a design for traveling trunks, wrote bills that were passed into law, and published several books. Surrounded by her family, she died in Rockford, Illinois on January 12, 1909.
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
Unclose the Door is published by the Gold Quoin Press, a letterpress based in Illinois.