Interview With Author Valerie Nieman
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I began writing almost as soon as I could make letters, insisting that my name was in fact “Avig” and inscribing that in my board books. I wrote poems in college and began working on short stories and novels not long after. I worked as a journalist in West Virginia and North Carolina, where I returned to school to get an MFA at Queens University of Charlotte, then closed out my working life as a professor at NC A&T State University. I’ve written and published seven novels, with another on the way, a book of short fiction, a college history, and three collections of poetry. Other than one blessed “gap year” thanks to a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, I’ve always written while also being employed full time. Not complaining – journalism in particular taught me a lot about writing and about people, and enriched my life and my writing.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
Upon the Corner of the Moon: A Tale of the Macbeths
This is the first of two books telling the story of the historical King Macbeth and his queen. Maligned by chroniclers and Shakespeare to curry favor with later rulers, he was actually a good king who held the throne for 17 years. I always loved the play, but when I discovered the truth was far different, I was hooked.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Unusual? No, not really. I need coffee and quiet. Sometimes I stay in my robe til lunch, so that I write and don’t wander.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
I began with the books on the shelves at home – Poe, Hawthorne, Twain, Tennyson. Shakespeare, in the prose tales by Charles and Mary Lamb. I fell in love with science fiction as a young teen and read omnivorously, but favorites included Bradbury, Le Guin, Herbert, Ellison. Lots of poetry. Literary fiction of all stripes. Margaret Atwood. Fred Chappell. Thomas Hardy. Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose must have some influence on my current work.
What are you working on now?
Book Two, The Last Highland King. It takes the story from the marriage of Macbeth and Gruach through the years of his rule, a pilgrimage to Rome, the final battles and his death – but she escapes to a new life and purpose.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
As each of my books is quite different from the last – Upon the Corner of the Moon is my first historical fiction – I have to reinvent the wheel a bit each time. I’ve written Southern gothic mystery, Appalachian horror/ecofiction, small town crime, and more. Most of my contacts were in Appalachia and the upper South, so for this book I’ve reached out to Shakespeare companies, a medieval history conference, Osher Lifelong Learners groups.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Butt in chair. Do the best work you possibly can. Revise revise revise. Make sure you have good readers/editors/proofreaders to catch the inevitable errors.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
“Most writers are lost to attrition. Don’t attrish.” Fred Leebron, direction of the Queens MFA program
What are you reading now?
Duet for One by Martha Toll.
What’s next for you as a writer?
Finishing the second book, which comes out in 2027, then pulling together the dozens of poems into a new collection.
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?
Well, Shakespeare of course, because he is inexhaustible. Norton Anthology of World Literature. A fat anthology of 20th century poetry.
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