In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors—A. K. Herman

Your story, “Love,” which appears in Volume 26 of Water~Stone, is a chapter of a longer work. What inspired this piece? Where does this chapter fall in the story? What made you choose this section to share with us?

“Love” is inspired by the generations of powerful matriarchs in my family, women from Tobago, Trinidad, Africa, India, who presided over people, places, and things. I grew up with women like this and heard stories about my grandmothers and great grandmother all my life. In “Love” I focus on rural Tobago in the post WWII period. There is a prevailing idea that people in rural settings, black and brown women, people without large sums of money are without power. Power is everywhere, even among those thought to be on the periphery. In much of my writing I show that power operates in ways people don’t expect.

I’m working on a historical novel told from three different points of view across three generations. As I write this, “Love” is the first chapter in the last section, where we visit the past, and meet Beatrice, who started it all.

What made me choose to share? I was workshopping a novel chapter and the workshop lead suggested I publish it as a novel excerpt, as it was able to stand on its own. I was also encouraged because other writers in the workshop liked the piece and were curious about my characters.

It wouldn’t have occurred to me to publish the excerpt, as the novel was in early stages. The leader of the workshop shared published novel excerpts by prominent authors and basically said—You can do this too. You’re just as good. I want to stress here the importance of having a community. I submitted the chapter excerpt with the support of a community.

There are complicated relationships in this piece—between Betty and Ann; Betty and Leo; and even between Betty and the women she works with. What draws you to write about these tense relationships?

“Love” is written from Betty’s point of view, and because of who she is—beautiful, grand, bold, superstitious, pretentious—she’ll have what many might describe as a ‘tense” relationship with many people. On the other hand, from Betty’s point of view, these relationships are not tense at all. This is how she is in the world. It’s natural, normal for her to interact with the other washerwomen this way. Except for a few fleeting moments, Betty is hardly concerned about how her actions affect others.  

In most societies, women especially, are raised to be likable. This cultural value is so powerful that in writing workshops, other writers, no matter their demographic, have an immediate, viscerally negative response to female characters who don’t seek to be liked. This makes me want to laugh and cry. I laugh as not even writers, those charged with holding a mirror up our society so we may see it more clearly, can escape biased cultural values. I cry for the same reason. 

I write about these kinds of relationships because I’ve witnessed really complex relationships between people, where the truth is stranger than any fiction I’ve read. I think that most relationships are complex, once you get beyond the surface. Two people love each other, but there is a seed of jealousy growing between them. Two people loathe each other, yet have much in common. There is inherent conflict in complexity, necessary for good storytelling.

Your characters are distinct and true to themselves. What is your goal when crafting and developing characters? What made you choose first person point of view over third?

Since I was writing a novel, I created a character profile for Betty, so I could begin to understand her. I did the usual stuff about her appearance, age, what she does for a living, key relationships etc. I also added details about her beliefs and her negative traits, as this is the source of conflict, the driving force of narrative. Notice that I said ‘begin to understand,’ because I understand characters as I write the story. For most of my short stories there is no advance character profile. It is through writing that I get to understand a character, so much so, that sometimes they surprise me.

I chose first person because I want to get to the core of the characters, see them in the raw. My characters (spoiler) have tons of secrets and do some outrageous stuff—adultery, lies, threatening to put curses on others—to get what they want, so they must entrust the reader with their innermost thoughts, without judgment. First person was also important as I sought to understand what motivates my characters to do the things they do. Third person was too distant from the characters’ inner selves. In “Love,” the challenge was to write in first person and craft a tale, where the reader can imagine, with some certainty, the world beyond the main character’s point of view. Betty gives her version of events, but there are hints in conversation, setting, pauses, that suggest the world isn’t quite as Betty sees it.

This story is set in 1926. How much research went into this piece?

I collect oral histories from my family about how people lived in the recent and distant past, especially the way people spoke, dressed, cooked, and religious and medicinal practices. At the Heritage Library in Scarborough, Tobago, I researched maps, word use, and cultural practices in Tobago. Thanks to the librarians there, who were knowledgeable, kind and thoughtful. I have visited the National Archives in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, to read newspapers from the early 20th century to get a feel for everyday life. Also a great experience with the amazing team there. I’m reading books on Tobago, watching videos on linguistics and ethnomusicology. Lots of research. The real work was knowing tons of details then becoming Betty, a woman living in 1926, who knows and understands the world she’s in but doesn’t need to explain it.

You’ve been published in Shenandoah, Doek!, and other magazines. What have been some challenges—whether exciting or difficult—that you have had while working on a novel, and how does that differ from writing shorter stories?

There are characters or events that occur in the novel’s world that don’t form part of the main story. It’s exciting to explore these characters or parallel stories from the novel through short stories or poetry. These literary escapades, as I call them, keep me prickly with anticipation to understand new characters, new settings. They’re short enough for me to explore an idea or feeling. But, they can be distracting too. I sometimes write short stories from various points of view to explore voice and polish and polish before I think it’s ready for other eyes. I can’t do this with a novel, so it’s a change in writing practice for me. My friend and fellow writer, Mubanga Kalimamukwento, who has published novels and poetry collections, said something that has helped to chasten this tendency. I wrote it on a Post-it and put it above my writing desk: The first draft is garbage. Utter garbage.

What themes do you find that you return to when you write?

Love. I believe all acts are born of love. Love of self. Love of a person. Money. Power.

Interpersonal relationships. I want to understand the nature of people and why we are the way we are to each other, to ourselves.

Spiritual and religious beliefs. How do our beliefs shape us?

Caribbean people, their beliefs and customs.

The unseen. The unheard. The unimaginable. 

The periphery. There’s a singer on stage, bathed in a perfect round spotlight that shows the contours of her face and makes her dress glitter like a starry sky over a forest. I want to understand the person who aims the spotlight at the singer.

You write fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. How does writing in one genre inform the others?

I like telling stories, so no matter what I write, there’s narrative there. My poems are often prose poems or some…work that I can’t really name. Imagery in my prose is vivid, strong, like poetry. I describe my imagery as “indigenous” to the characters and the setting in a story or poem. This makes for interesting, inventive imagery that isn’t created by me, but by the story I’m telling. At times, I’m surprised by the imagery and literally end up having to agree with it after it’s written, as in… “yeah, I could see how character X might describe a sunset that way.”

What authors inspire you? What texts do you return to?

How much space do we have? Lol!

I’ve read, re-read, and I’m inspired by V. S. Naipaul, Jeet Thayil, Chinua Achebe, Homer (The Odyssey), Octavia Butler, Derek Walcott, Anthony Doerr, Ursula Le Guin, I Ching, J. R. R. Tolkein, Ryszard Kapuściński, Zadie Smith, The Bible. Salman Rushdie, and more. All for different reasons. The prose. Format. Style. Characters. World building. Imagery. Audacity. 

I admire Narcopolis, a novel written by poet, Jeet Thayil. Anything written by Ryszard Kapuściński. The spareness, you know. Things Fall Apart still commands my attention. Walcott’s imagery is indigenous to the Caribbean and I admire it greatly. I own most of his collections and read them when I’m unable to write. The Silmarillion is excellent world building. 

This is what I’m feeling right now. At this time and place. Ask me next month and the list will likely be different.

What else are you working on now?

I’m working on a group of poems, based on the world of my novel (it’s an illness with no cure, apparently). I am also in the midst of the novel, from which “Love” is a chapter. I’m making progress ‘cause the draft is quite rubbish. Ha!

A. K. HERMAN is a Caribbean poet and fiction writer, born in Scarborough, Tobago. She has been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, and her writing has appeared in Doek! Literary Journal, Lolwe, The Water~Stone Review, Shenandoah Literary Journal, and others. A. K.’s debut story collection, The Believers: Stories, will be published in Fall 2024. A. K. lives in New York.