The Needs of Other Souls — Sheila Deeth Interview

Sometimes a story comes along that immediately connects with us in a secret place. Some way or other, this author, a stranger, has found out your inner workings and put them on a printed page. Even better, when a story makes you aware that those experiences we work so hard to hide or deny, are universal. You’ll find yourself calling a friend or turning to a spouse or chatting online, because a door has been opened. It’s like we’ve been given permission to explore, to speculate, to share and to cherish that which, of course, turns out not to be so hidden or secret after all.

Author Sheila Deeth’s latest novel, FLOWER CHILD, is one of those stories; a brave exploration of the “curious relationship between a grieving mother and an unborn child who’s not quite ghost or angel.” The novel begs many questions. In the midst of such loss, do emotions distort reality? Could you let yourself believe the impossible if it could restore the one you loved? You’ll lie awake contemplating to what lengths you might go to preserve your own life, and whether you’ve known love great enough to lay down that life for someone else? Deceptively simple and poignantly effervescent, this gentle novel speculates over the limits of memory, the fine line between faith and fantasy, and that place where intellect fails us, revealed only in dreams.

Recently, Sheila said something to me in an email that I believe will represent the wisdom and unique perspectives found in this beautiful piece of fiction.

“Sometimes I think reading is a window into the needs of other souls.”

I couldn’t agree more, Sheila. I’m so glad you’re here today for this interview. Welcome!

What is your favorite quality in a person?   Trust probably. I admire people who are trustworthy, and admire them more if they’re also willing to trust.

What is your least?  Always expecting the worst is probably my least favorite quality–in others and in me.

As a child, did you dream of becoming a writer? Once I got over dreaming of being a trapeze artist (it was never going to happen) I decided to be a writer. Somehow I became a mathematician instead, but I still had dreams, and stories.

Who/what influenced you to pursue your dreams? My Mum influenced me a lot–she’s always been my greatest fan. My oldest son insisted that if I was going to tell bedtime stories they had to be in a book, so I guess he influenced me to believe it was worth writing something–not that he’d dream of reading my writing now. And the author Jane Kirkpatrick influenced me–oddly enough, I “won” an hour of her time a few years ago and she told me I was a writer. Her encouragement helped me keep going when the rejection slips stacked up.

What is your greatest love?  My faith I think. With a Catholic Dad and Methodist Mum it was something I always had to think about, and it always seemed to reward the time I spent thinking. I love reading the Bible. I love science and math and history. I love words. I love telling stories. Oh, and I love dogs!

What is your greatest fear?  Rejection–that’s a crazy fear to have as a writer–those rejection slips do pile up. But rejection’s always been my greatest fear. Of course, I’m also scared of spiders, moths, wasps and other such things.

What is your favorite place? Anywhere I can curl up with a book? My Mum’s favorite place is that path in Yellowstone where you stand right on top of the waterfall–not a good location for reading, but it’s probably one of my favorite spots too. And the glaciers in Alaska–I saw them for the first time last month. And the Grand Canyon… How many answers do you want? The advantage of curling up with a book is it can take me anywhere.

If you could give a bit of sage advice to novice writers, what would it be? Keep writing. Keep reading. And never be afraid to delete something.

Where to find Flower Child:
Her website
Amazon
Smashwords

About the author:Sheila Deeth grew up in the UK and has a Bachelors and Masters in mathematics from Cambridge University, England. Now living in the States with her husband and son, she enjoys reading, writing, drawing, telling stories, running a local writers’ group, and meeting her neighbors’ dogs on the green.
Sheila describes herself as a Mongrel Christian Mathematician. Her short stories, book reviews and articles can be found in

VoiceCatcher 4, Murder on the Wind, Poetic Monthly, Nights and Weekends, the Shine Journal and Joyful Online. Besides her Gypsy Shadow ebooks, Sheila has several self-published works available from Amazon and Lulu, and a full-length novel under contract to come out next year.

Find her on her website: http://www.sheiladeeth.com

or find her books at: http://sheiladeeth.weebly.com

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Hemingway Would’ve Bought Her a Drink

I’d been trying for weeks to write this blog post. On a recent trip to Paris, I was lucky to visit the Hemingway Bar and was charmed all round. But my memory of the place felt like a troubling dream. The details of the bar itself were clear in my mind, but I kept trying to recall something more visceral – a feeling, something out of joint with the rest of my experience. It remained just out of reach. I stared and stared at the photographs, trying to rediscover what troubled me.

“Why do you look like that?” my husband asked while I scowled at the photo. He was annoyed that I was obsessing. “It was just a bar. A good drink. Expensive,” he said. He didn’t remember anything out of the ordinary. “What do you think? It was haunted?” he teased.

And that’s when I realized, I hadn’t been looking for a detail in the photograph. I’d been looking for a person.

She was sitting at a table in front of the bar, smack in the center of the room, the first thing you’d see when you walked in the door. But I didn’t see her, not at first. I was too busy looking at the memorabilia, the bust of Hemingway, the old typewriters in alcoves, the framed postcards from his world travels, caught up in the nostalgia and half expecting to hear Papa himself whisper a dirty joke in my ear.

It was dark and so was she, her hair, her clothes, her skin, all black. She was thin, with long arms and long legs, impossibly languorous. She must have been there when we came in but we’d been sitting at our table – and I was facing her, mind you – long enough to order our drinks and take in the atmosphere, before she uncrossed her legs. That small movement drew my eye and it seemed like she appeared out of nothing. I swear, she was like one of those pictures you look at once and see an old man and then blink and see the hidden image of a horse and cart.

I waited on my drink, but I wasn’t talking to my husband or imagining Paris being liberated. I was watching the woman, how still she could be, how she occupied space without disturbing it. Except for the occasional sip from her drink or a nod of her sleek head, she never moved. An older gentleman approached her table, asked if he could take a seat. She was gracious, but not interested. She was young. She was not anxious.

But I was. I started straightening my clothes, worrying about my jet-lagged complexion and my fuzzy hair. I took a drink from my gorgeous, rose-adorned glass and swallowed wrong, coughed. I smiled for a couple of silly photographs with my husband and then we paid the bill. And all the while I kept watching the other woman. I was an American tourist, out of place, giddy and too friendly. She could have been anyone. Or no one. If I blinked, she could disappear altogether. How did she do that?

It was a secret she wasn’t sharing. Still isn’t.

Look. Right there she is, in the photograph I took of the bar. I hadn’t even noticed her yet, and maybe that’s why I’d forgotten her when I went back to look at these images. Do you see her? A dark outline? Will you wonder about her the way I do? Is she a ghost? Is she waiting for someone? Is she lonely?Most probably at some point in her life, she will be all of those things. But for me, every time I look at this photograph, I search her out. Mesmerized by never knowing.

Wouldn’t Hemingway love that? He’d have bought her a drink, I bet. He’d have given her a thousand names.