A Typical Writing Day: Anne Leigh Parrish

I come into my office each morning with one goal—to calm the chaos in my head. I don’t sleep well these days, probably my body telling me I need fewer hours in the sack—and what I’m working on tends to make its way into my dreams and woozy waking moments.

I always have several projects going at once. This lets me jump off a stalled page into one that might be more active and responsive to my persistent nudge.

There’s a novel. The current one is set in the late 1940’s in Cambridge, MA. The husband is pursuing his doctorate at Harvard; the wife is deciding if she wants to stay married. I’ll be honest. This draws from the story of my parents, in that same time and place. They’re both gone now, and I’m free to render them as I like, without fear of offense or condemnation.

There’s a story. The new one is about an older woman who decides to cut her hair, after wearing it long all her life. Of course, there’s a lot more to it than that. You’ll have to wait until I finish it and find a publisher to know the rest.

There’s an essay—this one, in fact. Its immediate predecessor was a piece I wrote about the television show Perry Mason. Did you know its executive producer was a woman? I found that fascinating. You can read the piece here.

There’s poetry. This is a relatively new passion for me. I’ve published twenty poems in the last two years, and am really thinking about putting a chapbook together. I’m having trouble arranging the poems, though. While I’m used to arranging stories in a collection, poems feel a little different, as if their sequence needs more care. I’m willing to admit that I might be overthinking this. All the poems have to do is talk to each other in a way that makes sense. I’ll keep working on it.

If I’m not writing, I’m promoting. And let me be honest—I don’t like it much. I know it’s necessary. My last novel just came out on October 1st, and I’m still tweeting about it. My publisher is running a sale on Smashwords, and I’m tweeting about that, too. I try to stay on top of my newsletter, and get it out once a month. I’m in the process of redesigning it, or my graphic design person is, or will be, after the first of the year.

Every writing day will have one or more of these elements, in some combination. When it all stalls, which it does more often than I like to admit, there’s always computer solitaire. Really, I’m a whiz with those cards.

Lastly, I listen to the rain. I live in Western Washington, surrounded by huge evergreen trees. There’s something about another two inches of rain falling through their branches that I have come to love, probably out of necessity. Contemplating nature frees the mind, and pretty soon I feel creative again.

Then, I get back at it.

Thank you so much for spending time with me today. You can visit me on my website, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Also Facebook, if you’re still into Facebook these days.

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Anne Leigh Parrish’s fifth novel, A Winter Night, will be published in April 2021 by Unsolicited Press.  Previous titles are: Maggie’s Ruse, a novel, (Unsolicited Press, 2019); The Amendment, a novel, (Unsolicited Press, 2018); Women Within, a novel (Black Rose Writing, 2017); By the Wayside, stories (Unsolicited Press, 2017); What Is Found, What Is Lost, a novel, (She Writes Press, 2014); Our Love Could Light The World, stories (She Writes Press, 2013); and All The Roads That Lead From Home, stories, (Press 53, 2011). Her short fiction has recently appeared in New Pop Lit, The Slag Review, and O:JA&L. Recent poems have appeared in Mocking Heart Review, Crow Literary Review, S/tick,  Wilde Boy, Feminine Collective, 34^thParallel Magazine, and Q/A Poetry. She lives among the evergreen trees in the South Sound region of Washington State.

MAGGIE’S RUSE, Anne Leigh Parrish

Maggie and Marta Dugan, twenty-seven-year-old identical twins, live the good life in New York City on their stepfather’s money. Each has a glamorous calling. Maggie paints; Marta appears onstage. Success, though, eludes them. Marta’s roles are few and far between. Maggie’s endorsements are infrequent at best.

When gallery after gallery passes on her work, she begins to doubt her talent. Home alone one afternoon, fueled by frustration, she is seized by a sudden, wild impulse to masquerade as Marta when a friend of hers drops by. The ruse is quickly discovered when Marta returns from another shopping spree, a rift between the sisters ensues, and they go their separate ways.

But living apart proves harder than either thought at first. Each carries the other firmly within her, making any true independence nearly impossible. As the weeks pass, the weight of absence sometimes becomes difficult to bear. Both find a surprising degree of success in their respective efforts, due perhaps to their newfound freedom, yet the bond between them remains firm.

Can they come back together, and under what circumstances would a reunion be viable? Has the time come for an open discussion of their issues with each other? Unable to fully answer these questions, each knows only that she needs the other to feel whole.

“In a world of full of glittering descriptions and minimal consequences, a pair of twins engagingly explore questions involving love, career, and family.” – Kirkus Reviews

“Anne Leigh Parrish has worked delightful magic, creating a fresh, twenty-first-century pair of spirited heroines with echoes of Becky Sharp and Scarlett O’Hara.” – Sublime Book Review

“Parrish write fluidly, skillfully presenting descriptive pictures of the twins and their circle of friends as beneficiaries of privilege and entitlement.” – Blue Ink Review

“In the novel, Maggie’s Ruse, identical twins pursue separate paths in the contemporary art and theater worlds, but discover that some bonds are too strong to break.” – Foreword Clarion Review

“Overall, this book was a sweet story about love, sisterhood, and difficult relationships: a great read!” – San Francisco Book Review

BUY THE BOOK HERE

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing