CNFC: An Interview with Lucy E.M. Black
CREATIVE NONFICTION COLLECTIVE
September 25, 2024
Author Lucy E.M. Black was a corporate trainer before becoming a career educator. She is the author of The Marzipan Fruit Basket, Eleanor Courtown, Stella’s Carpet, and The Brickworks. Her short stories have been published in Britain, Ireland, USA and Canada in literary journals and magazines. She lives with her partner in Port Perry, Ontario, the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island, First Nations.
Lucy E.M. Black’s most recent publication, Class Lessons: Stories of Vulnerable Youth (Demeter Press, 2024) is her second short story collection and straddles a fascinating divide between fiction and nonfiction. Based on her experiences as a high school principal, the stories have been fictionalized to protect the identity of the students, yet Lucy’s writing is also imbued with the undeniable immediacy of journalism.
As it stands, the stories in Lucy’s moving collection bridge a gap between literature and academic resource, helping educators explore difficult situations they may encounter and offering perspective and solidarity, while also giving the general public a compassionate look at the lives of vulnerable youth and the educators who try to help them.
In this interview, award-winning multi-genre author Hollay Ghadery asks Lucy about why and how she wrote Class Lessons as she did: a collection of stories that takes risks as it remains cautious, protects as it reveals, and provides hope at the same time it lays bare the darkness.
HG: What inspired you to tell these stories? And why now?
LB: Writing for me is a bit of a compulsion and these stories insisted upon being written. I’ve now been retired for seven years and I still wonder about the kinds of young people that these pieces make reference to. Even though I tried to be helpful within my small sphere of influence, I am saddened by the knowledge that there were so many such students whom I could not help.
I am constantly outraged by political decisions that are politically-driven and designed to provide photo-opportunities for elected officials. Individuals at the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services, and the Ministry of Health have an opportunity to address the needs of vulnerable youth through stable funding for children’s mental health, student success programmes, and enhanced staffing practices in social services, schools and hospitals, yet many policies and funding decisions are uninformed and short-sighted. I began to hope that a collection such as this might provoke important dialogue about the needs of vulnerable youth.
The other purpose for the collection is the desire to be helpful to other administrators and service providers. Those who work in schools need to be reminded that their work matters and is important, even if the general public doesn’t understand what they do. It is my hope that these stories might serve as case studies for new educators and service providers in order to assist them in preparing for the types of situations they will encounter. I hope that the sharing of my experiences does some small amount of good.
HG: There is an autofictional quality to these pieces. They read as journalism, almost, but with an undeniable literary bent. How did you achieve this balance? Was it a deliberate or an unconscious result of trying to protect the identities of the students you encountered with the film of fiction?
LB: I intentionally used autofiction as a way of telling the stories themselves, meaning that each of these pieces comes from my personal lived experience, as filtered through the story-telling tools that fiction provides, as a way to highlight observations about my experiences as well as the social and cultural dilemmas I witnessed.
It was really important to me to protect the identities of the students and school communities that were a part of my experience. Obviously, this has to do with respect for their privacy, but also in deference to what I understand to be the universality of the situations I was describing. These cases are not particularly unique – many of my former colleagues could detail equally challenging stories.
HG: How did you ensure there were no legal issues with telling these stories?
LB: In order to ensure there were no privacy issues, I very carefully changed names, physical characteristics and all identifying details. I also consulted with a contact at the Ontario Principal’s Council, sought independent legal advice, and received a go-ahead from my former employer. I exercised what I hope is an over-abundance of caution out of a deep respect for the communities I worked in and the individuals whose lives I had the privilege of intersecting with, however briefly.
HG: What advice do you have for writers who may be unsure whether or not they should fictionalize a
real-life story?
LB: Writers need to ask themselves whether or not they have the right to tell a particular story; as well as whether or not they feel they can do the story justice. Quite often, real-life stories include difficult material, and we need to reflect deeply about how best to honour the individuals involved, including their history. Navigating real-life stories can be difficult, and it is therefore also important to determine whether we are equipped to do the emotional work of giving voice to something that may be painful. Perhaps most importantly, I would want to know whether the telling of such stories will do harm or good. There are so many narratives unfolding around us every day, and I believe that we need to be selective about those we choose to share, embarking upon our creative work with trust and respect for both the content and the reader. Balancing these thoughts against a sense of purpose in our writing is essential.
Writing the pieces in Class Lessons was difficult. I wept while writing many of them. I’m aware that there was an emotional component of healing in the process. Maya Angelou is purported to have said, (T)here is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. And I think her words apply particularly to those stories we feel compelled to share but know may be triggering or upsetting to others. So, the challenge for writers is to find ways of addressing difficult topics without traumatizing readers or hurting themselves in the process. I hoped that Class Lessons might provoke important dialogue about the needs of vulnerable youth.
HG: I know you’ve been working on novels, but is there any nonfiction in your future?
LB: I have a number of writing projects that I am eager to begin work on, but at this point in time, they’re predominantly historical fiction. I’m drawn to the end of the nineteenth-century/beginning of twentieth century as a particularly interesting period in our history. The Victorian and Edwardian periods seem to me to be rich with story. Having said that, I have been gifted with a young woman’s Diary from 1868. A local historian has tasked me to “do something” with it. The young woman in question had a very interesting social life and met some prominent political figures. I am unsure what this will look like but am excited by the challenge.
Many thanks for your interest in my work and for this interview opportunity!
About Hollay Ghadery:
Hollay Ghadery is a multi-genre writer living in Ontario on Anishinaabe land. She has her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Fuse, her memoir of mixed-race identity and mental health, was released by Guernica Editions in 2021 and won the 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award for Nonfiction/Memoir. Her collection of poetry, Rebellion Box was released by Radiant Press in 2023, and her collection of short fiction, Widow Fantasies, is scheduled for release with Gordon Hill Press in fall 2024. Her debut novel, The Unraveling of Ou, is due out with Palimpsest Press in 2026, and her children’s book, Being with the Birds, with Guernica Editions in 2027. Hollay is the host of the Neighbourhood Bookclub on 105.5 FM, as well as a co-host of HOWL on CIUT 89.5 FM. She is also a book publicist and the Poet Laureate of Scugog Township. Learn more about Hollay at www.hollayghadery.com.
Interview with Lucy E.M. Black
September 25, 2024