Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
The Stair in the Wall is my first book out and my first writing for the children’s market. I have been published quite a bit in literary journals — poetry and adult short fiction, and have won a few prizes. I am also working on an adult book called, Edenvale. It’s about a young woman who has been banished from her family since she was eight years old and nurtures fond memories of her grandparents’ ranch called Edenvale in the beautiful Santa Clara Valley of California when it was so covered with orchards that in the spring the valley looked as white as if snow had fallen and the air was heady with the fragrance of the blossoms. But there is a dark secret in her family that now, with her gravely ill father’s disappearance, has come to the fore. She returns to the land of her childhood to solve the mystery of her family once and for all.
I have an MA and MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University, where I also taught creative writing. I live in Berkeley with my husband, the novelist Floyd Salas, and assorted cats.
My grandparents actually did own an orchard in the Santa Clara Valley and I did my undergraduate work at Santa Clara University.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
I think the reader of The Stair in the Wall, my latest book, will find some similarities to the rough plot sketch of my adult novel, Edenvale — not the plot itself, not at all, but the idea of the half-orphan. Sylvia in The Stair in the Wall has both her parents but her mother has left the family to find herself and her father, as a consequence, becomes so heart-broken that he is unable to care for Sylvia. Thus, though not technically an orphan, she feels like an orphan and, as such, must craft a new family for herself. This idea of the orphan is a common one in folklore and fairy tales, which I have studied fairly extensively, and, of course, is central to the Harry Potter books. The trope in Harry Potter — that of an exalted being living with and being mistreated by lesser beings until his true lineage is recognized– is a very old one. You could argue that the Christ story is a variation of such a story. It is very, very compelling because it feels pyschologically true to many people — all people are misunderstood and sometimes mistreated. And the adolescent often feels that he must be superior to the heathens among whom he is forced to live (family).
In The Stair in the Wall, Sylvia is introduced to a world with different rules than those of the self-protective, angry and fearful adult world that, in the early chapters, so lets her down. In Greenworld, each being is valued for what he or she brings to the community. Not to say that these intriguing characters don’t have their foibles, peculiarities and faults. But in this world (is it her own dreamworld? or a real world accessed through the stair in the wall?) Syliva gains the psychological strength to bring about a happy ending to her own problem of orphanhood.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Uh — the usual — tearing my hair, eating junk food, drinking caffeinated beverages.
Writing makes me highly nervous and highly excited. I sometimes write for long periods intensely, then I am exhausted.
I will say that writing down my dreams every night — telling myself I was not trying to “write well” or “write prettily” or edit what I remembered in any way — effectively got rid of writing block forever.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Well, back to the orphan theme — Jane Eyre and the update rewrite, Rebecca — these are pretty Oedipal books with a strong psychological pull. Speaking of a great book on analyzing fairy tales, Bruno Bettleheims’ The Uses of Enchantment is a must-read. Carl Jung has influenced me quite a bit — he is really the artist’s psychoanalyst — his analysis of symbolic acts in life changed the way I looked at life and fiction. Man and His Symbols is another must read for the writer, I think. I believe The Great Gatsby has perfect form..many great books do not have perfect form. Gatsby does. The short story by James Baldwin, Sonny’s Blues, is one of my favorites — it always brings me to tears, even after many re-readings — and also has great symbolism and form. You can’t get much better than the great Russian authors, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, especially Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Brothers Karamazov, The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Anna Karenina. I love Jane Austen and George Eliot and Thomas Hardy — I’ve read most of those authors’ books. I took a 5-unit course in Hemingway and I must say I am now influenced by his writing style — not at all what you would think at first — the short, declarative sentences he is known for. But if you read him deeply, he is also just as adept at the very long sentence (re-read the famous love-making scene in A Farewell to Arms.) But what I am most deeply influcenced by is how he is able to convey consciousness through often inarticulate characters — I read a number of his lesser known short stories about insomnia, etc. Very interesting.
Frances Hodgson Burnett’s children stories have that same kind of mythic pull of Jane Eyre — they are masterful. The Secret Garden. A Little Princess. I re-read The Wind and the Willows recently. What a beautifully written book! And, of course, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Wizard of Oz. You can see that I like the classics.
I could hardly help but be influenced by my husband and teacher, Floyd Salas. No one has captured consciousness better than he has in the first few pages of Tattoo the Wicked Cross, in which a young boy in reform school contemplates his cell.
What are you working on now?
See above regarding my adult novel, Edenvale. I am also putting together notes for a sequel for The Stair in the Wall, which will find Sylvia going in an entirely new direction as she solves yet another problem.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I am just learning how to promote my writing. I think my Facebook pages — both my “regular” one and my author page — are extremely helpful and also my own website: www.claireortalda.com
I am just getting to know fantastic sites like this one and beginning to feel like there is a real community out there on the internet. I love it.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Rudolph Schaeffer used to run an art school in San Francisco and he had this word of advice for all kinds of artists: “If it’s not joyful, why do it?”
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Both are from Floyd Salas:
“The only things precious in life are love and time, so you better spend your time doing what you love.”
“If you want idealism to live, then you live it.”
What are you reading now?
Right now, I happen to be reading a biography of the opera singer, Maria Callas.
What’s next for you as a writer?
Again, I am working on Edenvale, also a sequel to The Stair in the Wall, and also a mystery series called The Classic Book Club Mysteries. The first title is “Pride and Premeditation.” I love mysteries.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Man and His Symbols
The Bible
Collected Works of Shakespeare
A 1-volume encyclopedia
Author Websites and Profiles
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