Laurah Norton Raines Puts Her Own Spin On Life With Her Brand of Creative Non-Fiction

An Interview by Nikki D. Bosompem.

Atlanta native Laurah Norton Raines is pretty busy these days.  Having achieved such accomplishments as writer, teacher, as well founder/editor of her own on-line literary magazine to boot, it is a wonder that she has the time to write such compelling, award winning short stories, such as Old Scratch and Medicine.  Both of these stories won first place in the Creative Loafing fiction contest in 2008 and 2009 respectively.  Also speaking to her impressive skill is the fact that she has been published in magazines such as Fringe, Failbetter, Night Train, and the Post Road Journal.  Her work is also found in various anthologies.

Laurah was gracious enough to sit with me in her office at Georgia State University, where she teaches American Literature and Freshman Composition, to tell me about herself, her writing, and who she thinks is just great in the genre of magical realism.

TheRealAtlanta.com:  Tell me about Laurah.  Where are you from?

Laurah Norton Raines:  I’m not really from anywhere.  For most of my life I have lived equally in North Carolina and Georgia.  I went to high school in Georgia, though. I did my undergrad at Gilford College, which is a Quaker school that offered many programs focusing on creative writing.  I then returned to Georgia, was given the Paul Bowles Fellowship while at Georgia State University, received my MFA in creative writing and was hired on at Georgia State to teach.

TRA:  How did you get started with writing?

LNR:  Well, I’ve been writing all my life.  My dad is a writer, and before I could write myself, I would dictate stories to him. When I went to college, I majored in English and was originally going to be a screen writer, but I found that in writing dialogue, you can’t really paint the picture, so I switched to creative writing.  After my undergrad was completed I went to work at Bank of America and would have panic attacks in the bathroom from being confined to a cubby all day. That’s when I realized that I needed to go back to doing what I enjoy, which is writing.  I then went back to school to work on my MFA.

TRA:  I read the stories you gave me which helped acclimate me more to your writing style and I found that you write about the mundane in everyday life.  Would you say that is pretty accurate?

LNR:  People say I’m a hyper-realist, but for me, I can’t really pin-point what kind of writer I am.  I just write.  People tell me what kind of writer I am but I have yet to confirm those observations. However, what I do in my writing is draw from particular time frames within a period.  It may be a minute occurrence within an hour that I write about.  I never write about events that extend over a great period of time.

TRA:  Well, Slow Freeze seemed to be spot on regarding real life scenarios.  I could definitely place me and my husband within the story.

LNR:  Yeah, Slow Freeze is a good example of my position of my writing and it is one of my most important pieces.  Yes, my stories are influenced by real life and Slow Freeze has been technically deemed as Creative Non-Fiction but it is a little different.  With this piece, I have taken real life events and “fictionalized” them which, does not happen in true Creative Non-Fiction writing.  In Slow Freeze the basic events are true with a slight change in the details. Typically, Creative Non-Fiction writers do not change the details in their writing. They approach non-fiction using creative writing tools. With that said, my story Off Highway 75 would probably be the one most fitting the Creative Non-Fiction moniker.

TRA:  Tell me the way you come up with your ideas for stories, and do you have a specific writing method?

LNR:  Some people are everyday writers.  I am not.  I don’t even write every week.  I usually get an idea in my head or a mental picture of something and think about it for a long time; a couple of months at least.  Then I begin writing it down. I tend to write in “spurts.”  As far as a method toward writing, I don’t think I have one.  I feel that a person should write in the way that works best for them.  Like in my case, if I feel too much pressure to write, it begins to feel like an assignment and that will not work for me.

TRA:  Right…so does that mean you are no longer working on the novel you mentioned some time ago?

LNR:  No I am not. I was working on a novel at one time because you have to write a novel to get tenure.  You can write a book of short stories, though, so I’m doing that.  I’m just not a novelist.  Novels take a lot of time in which to develop plots and I am more into flash fiction.  I love writing in tight prose.  Now, that does not mean I write in the minimal sense, but that my plots occur within a short span of time.

TRA:  Laurah, who are the authors that pique your interest?

LNR:  Right now I have an interest in magical realism and slip stream in which the piece falls within genres. So I am reading Kelly Link.  Her book, Magic for Beginners is one of my favorites.  I also love St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell.  I find their stories fascinating!  I feel their writing styles force readers into metaphorical elements and cause them not to take things so literally.  I find that I have to pick images that posses a universal quality when I read these authors.  I also like the fact that there are a lot of women writers who are representing the magical realism and slip stream genres right now.

TRA: I know…that is great…

LNR: Yeah, so I hope to expand my writing into that genre some time soon…

TRA:  Laurah, congratulations on all of the things you have done to bring light to the literary world.  Thank you for taking the time to talk to me and I hope to see your book of short stories on the shelves in the near future.  Can you tell the readers where they can find out more about you?

LNR:  Sure, readers need to check out my magazine, which is called Sub-Lit.  The website is http://www.sub-lit.com/.  There you will not only find some of my writing but that of other writers who are a part of the Sub-Lit team.

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This article was published on Sunday, March 7th, 2010 and is filed under Artists, Atlanta Character, Beliefs, News, Philosophy. You can follow any comments to this article through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.