Interview With Author David R. Yale
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’ve written two humor books, “Pun Enchanted Evenings” and “HomesPun Humor,” as well as more than four novels. Why do I say “more than four”? Well, I have a very long history of starting novels and not finishing them! Or finishing them and not being happy with them.
But in 2017, when I finished “Becoming JiJi,” the first novel in my Shingle Creek Sagas series, I knew I had finally gotten it right. People said the characters were vivid, real, and seemed like old friends. And it won First Place in the 2018 “Writer’s Digest” Self-Published eBook Awards, Contemporary Fiction category. Then it was a quarter-finalist in the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Competition. And a short story excerpted from “Becoming JiJi” was long-listed for the Lascaux Prize in Short Fiction.
So I knew that I had finally figured out how to write dramatic, compelling, and uplifting fiction about people who work for a living with their hands and minds.
My next novel in the Shingle Creek Sagas, “No Free Soup for Millionaires,” just will come out in January, 2024. Even before it was finished, it was a finalist in the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society Novel-in-Progress contest. A short story excerpted from it appeared in the Spring/Summer 2020 issue of “Newtown Literary.”
Two more novels in the Shingle Creek Sagas are just about finished. “They Break the Laws We Must Obey,” and “Getting Back Our Stolen Bootstraps,” will come out in the spring of 2024.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My latest novel is No Free Soup for Millionaires, about a blue-collar, working class community’s campaign for workers’ rights. It’s the second book in my Shingle Creek Sagas, but it can be easily read on its own.
From 1971 to 1974 I was the Recreation Director for Shingle Creek Park in North Minneapolis. It had a 20 x 30 foot ice-skater’s warming room in which I was challenged to run recreation programs for the neighborhood’s huge number of kids and teens.
A small Black enclave in this community, founded around World War I, was later surrounded by White families. Everyone in the community was working class. Many of the homes were poorly-built on concrete slabs, with no basements and small rooms. Families with as many as eight kids were not uncommon.
Since the Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board expected me to organize the community to support funding for a large recreation center, I got to know and become friends with a lot of neighborhood residents.
What struck me then was the hopelessness, fury, and fear shared by almost everyone over the age of twelve. The future looked utterly grim to them. I could not figure out why. I thought about that question for long afterward.
About eight years ago, I read more about American labor history. Suddenly, I realized the implications of the stagnant wages and steadily increasing inflation in the seventies. Only a few factories had yet to ship their machinery south, or to Mexico, leaving American workers stranded. But the handwriting was on the wall. Everyone in that blue-collar community saw it and felt it.
No wonder the people of Shingle Creek were angry then. They were terrified! Unions had lost their power. Their legacy was largely forgotten. There was no obvious escape from what seemed like unavoidable disaster. Radio commentators were predicting bread would soon be a buck a loaf, when the minimum wage was only $1.63.
My novelist’s mind went round and round. Were Shingle Creekers doomed to utter poverty? Would racism further divide Black and White neighbors? Were the angry, scared White residents destined to become right wingers?
At that point, my imagination was off and running. What if a park director wiser than me had asked the teens who hung out at the Park, “What do you want to see here?” And they told him, “Open night gym at the junior high school. A running team for teens. Crafts classes. Storytelling for little kids.”
So he organized a Teen Council. Gave the teens responsibility for running park programs. And paid them for their time, in a neighborhood where jobs for teens were non-existent.
What if one of the White teens found out that Black kids in the community didn’t feel safe at their park? And convinced her life-long pals to invite Black kids to be friends, and join the Teen Council? And these Black and White friends became inseparable?
And what if this new park director had gotten the teens to ask adults, “What do you want to see here?” Used counseling techniques to help the teens and adults work together? And they took the first small steps toward empowering the community?
That’s what happened in my imaginary Shingle Creek right before at the beginning of this book. So please join me, as I spin the tale about teens in a blue-collar neighborhood continue building a community that works for “ordinary” people, that uncovers and reconstructs their union heritage, and begins a long, hard campaign for an increased minimum wage indexed to inflation and a whole bunch of policies like no forced overtime and full salary for workers injured on the job, until they can work again. It’s a heart-warming story that’s the perfect remedy for dystopian depression
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I write very detailed scenes because I think that helps readers visualize and understand unfamiliar people and places. In “No Free Soup for Millionaires,” when Paul and Karen sand scratched paint off the fender of his car, I describe the blue blotch of paint on the wall left when someone wasn’t ready for the kick of a paint gun. How the red shop cloths slowly turned pink as Paul and Karen wiped up white paint dust after sanding. And the old car seat they relax on, listening to the radio while waiting for the first coat to dry.
I also dramatize Paul’s counseling scenes, so readers get a solid understanding of the painful reasons Paul is terrified of making a romantic commitment to Karen. And create scenes that show how Paul, himself a budding community leader, patiently and lovingly teaches Karen and their friends how to lead.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
In high school, I read everything John Steinbeck wrote. I was impressed, and wanted to write just the way he did. In college, I devoured all of Charles Dickens’ novels. I wanted to write exactly as he did. Later on, I was similarly influenced by Jo Sinclair (an award winning writer in the 1950s), and Barbara Kingsolver. It took me quite a while to figure out how to take what I learned from them and synthesize my own voice.
What are you working on now?
After a long pause in writing to spend time marketing my three books coming out in 2024, I’ll turn my attention to “Shirley, Victorious!” Thirty-nine-year-old Shirley Frisk, mother of two daughters, and mother-figure to a son and another daughter, longs for a loving relationship. But after being abused by her ex-husband, can she ever trust a man again? And how would she combine a romance with her unexpected new career as co-leader of the Shingle Creek community?
Right now, “Shirley, Victorious!” is just 60+ pages of notes and ideas, plus a list of research to be done. But once my marketing push for “No Free Soup for Millionaires,” “They Break the Laws We Must Obey,” and “Getting Back Our Stolen Bootstraps” is finished, I’ll develop a detailed plan and start writing!
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
Getting people talking about my books. I’m still figuring out how to do that.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
1. Read lots of novels from all over the world, by people from cultures very different from yours.
2. Ask yourself: What do I have to say that is new, different, and unusual?
3. Study your craft. Learn about character arcs, plotting, creating scenes, novel structure, dialog, character development.
4. Study the business side of creative writing. It has become a huge, difficult challenge, but it can be done. Join online discussion groups for writers. Read “Writers Digest” which will give you a good overview of the business and the craft.
5. Keep a notebook of interesting things you see, hear, feel, imagine, and read about.
6. When you start writing, show it to other writers. Think long and hard about what they say.
7. Don’t be afraid to rewrite. But always keep your earlier drafts. You can learn a lot from how your writing changes from draft to draft.
8. When you’ve gotten to the point where you have a full novel manuscript and you think it’s pretty good, that’s when you hire professional editors. What? More than one? You bet! The first one looks at the big picture: are there any problems with your plot or how your characters develop? The second one looks at the nitty gritty: problems with unclear language, grammar and spelling. Want to know a secret? I use a great editor who sometimes even seems to have a magic wand. Contact me at my website, https://www.DavidRYale.Com, if you’d like me to put you in touch with her.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
When I told my brother-in-law, Tom, that I was really nervous right before my wedding, he said, “Relax! Enjoy! Everyone there will be rooting for you. It’s probably the biggest party you’ll ever throw.”
I did. It was. I enjoyed it.
Strange but true, I’d tell you the same thing about writing fiction. Relax! Enjoy! It’s probably the most creative you’ve been since kindergarten. Take pleasure in that.
I have to confess, it took me a long time to apply that advice to writing. But now I often smile and sometimes even laugh when I write. I really enjoy the way I’m solving creative challenges, and the ideas I come up with.
What are you reading now?
* “The Widow’s War,” a novel by Mary Mackey.
* “Love Is Not Enough,” a classic non-fiction book about parenting by Bruno Bettleheim.
* “Sing At My Wake,” a 1950s novel by Jo Sinclair.
* “Working Class New York,” a history by Joshua Freeman.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I want to learn how to do YouTube and Book Tok videos featuring some of the original songs I wrote for “They Break the Laws We Must Obey” and “Getting Back Our Stolen Bootstraps.”
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?
1. A book about survival strategies for desert island castaways.
2. Another book about survival strategies for desert island castaways.
3. “David Copperfield” by Charles Dickens. I read it and loved it, but that was long enough ago so I would enjoy getting re-acquainted with it. And at 358,000 words, it would keep me occupied for quite awhile.
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