Sarah Stonich: On Writing

In my RayAnne trilogy, Fishing! meets up with RayAnne Dahl after she’s fled the misogynistic pro sport-fishing circuit to land out of her league in the rarified realm of public television, which poses its own set of challenges. Reeling is the follow up, wherein RayAnne takes the show abroad to New Zealand.

When this character came to me, I was in a boat fishing with my niece, doing what women do, talking. We wondered why there weren’t any women’s fishing talk shows. The people on those we grew up watching were ALL men, ALL the time. They talked about bait and methods of catching fish. Boring. When you throw a few women together anywhere, they tend to talk about the important stuff: life, love, loss. When I first envisioned RayAnne, I saw her as though through a viewfinder, since the setting is a television show.

To me, a boat seems like a safe place for women to unload and talk about whatever. Of course, for RayAnne to be able to effectively tease her guests’ inner selves to the surface, she has to be trustworthy, non-intimidating and above all curious, she practically needs to know what really matters to these interesting women, and how, like her, they wound up together in a boat, on television.

When RayAnne and Cassi first meet on the crew of Fishin’ Chicks both know the show is destined to fail with its dopey premise of B-list celebrities “fishing and dishing” with producers going for a sort of Oprah in a boat. When the temperamental host walks off set, RayAnne is shunted (temporarily) into the host’s seat and far out of her comfort zone. She and Cassi daydream about the show becoming a platform for change, and since they’ve got nothing to lose, decide to go for it,.

I grew up fishing. I have few opportunities to these days but can at least fish vicariously through RayAnne and her guests, who clearly catch more than I ever could! Having the show take place in boats was almost a selfish choice, since water is my happy place. Also, in my mind, folks are more aware of their own mortality in choppy water and maybe quicker to get to the heart of the matter during an interview. There is something disarming about being far from shore; cell service, reality. Also, so many of us have fond memories of lakes, summers at the beach and fishing with our families, I wanted to set these stories in a season that drums up nostalgia.

In bookseller parlance I’d categorize these novels as feminist chick-lit, a genre that is just now growing legs. Walk into any bookstore and see most fiction titles aimed at younger women have cartoon covers with champagne flutes, shopping bags and high heels. Lots of fluff, romance and escapism. After the 2016 election, I realized that an entire generation of women just had the rug pulled out from under them in regard to equality and safety in the workplace, not to mention reproductive rights.

Nearly all the safeguards so hard-won by previous generations were suddenly compromised if not out-right endangered. But how to write about these issues without sounding soap-boxy? Let characters take the reins. Once RayAnne and assistant Cassi realize that they could slip fringe-y guest choices past the distracted producers and management, they dive in, because who wouldn’t want to hear from an Olympic weightlifter who worked her way up to clean and jerk the exact weight of an abusive partner; a nun who bungee jumps wearing her full habit to raise funds, or a bounty hunter of dead-beat dads.

It was important that RayAnne be average. She is in fact such a bad dresser the wardrobe mistress bemoans with a mouth full of pins, “I can’t thave you from yoursthelf.” In the eyes of producers, their ‘temp’ is unpolished, overweight by five pounds and a bit too spontaneous for public television – exactly why audiences relate. I had so much fun creating this character and those around her – RayAnne’s mom Bernadette is a life-changes doula and tour guide to the menopausal rich, hashtag #blood_tide_quest. Her beloved Gran was a Sinatra-era chef on the swanky supper club circuit who pulls no punches and is such a presence that even death her opinions are heard loud and clear.

I wrote FISHING! first as a television series treatment and an hour-long pilot, thinking it would be snapped up by some production company or fab actress – certain they’d all jump at the chance to produce a show set on a lake in Minnesota! Even though I’m back to novel form, there’s a lot in RayAnne’s story that feels episodic – watching her in action as I type, my role as writer feels almost like some hybrid of show-runner. I’ll soon be at work on the third and final book, which will either be called “Angling”, or “Landing” And while these three novels are very different than my other work, the characters of RayAnne, Cassi, Bernadette – and especially Dot – are definitely closest to my writer’s heart.

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Sarah Stonich is the author of laugh-out-loud novels “Fishing!” and “Reeling”, following intrepid RayAnne Dahl from her uneasy perch in male dominated world of pro-sport fishing to her not-so soft landing in the drivers seat of an all-womens fishing-talk show on public television.
Sarah’s internationally acclaimed “Vacationland” was a bestseller, as is its follow-up, “Laurentian Divide”. Earlier novels include “These Granite Islands”, and “The Ice Chorus”, which have left their marks on readers around the world. Her memoir “Shelter” won the NEMBA award.

For more about Sarah or to request events or book group appearances visit sarahstonich.com

REELING

From acclaimed author Sarah Stonich comes a poignant, laugh-out-loud novel about fate, fishing, and second chances

What stage of grief is it when your grandmother’s ghost keeps popping up on your electronic devices? Denial? For RayAnne that seems to be the stage for launching the second season of Fishing!—in New Zealand. Ready or not, she is taking public television’s first all-women fishing talk show on the road, putting the cold Minnesota winter in the rearview mirror—which, it turns out, Gran is haunting, too.

RayAnne and her indefatigable producer Cassi set out across New Zealand in search of noteworthy women who fish, including a skipjack boat captain navigating sexist harbors; a writer of historical suffragette fiction (which is, apparently, a thing); and a reclusive Māori octogenarian who ties fishing flies for dignitaries. Their stories, and a good dose of the country’s history, are almost enough to take the edge off RayAnne’s homesickness and grief, to say nothing of jetlag. Meanwhile, the romantic and family entanglements she left behind at home haven’t exactly come untangled in her absence.

You’ll come to love Rayanne, our accidental talk-show host, in this tale with a lighthearted surface and surprising depths.

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FISHING!

A hilarious saga of fishing, family, and three generations of tough, independent women—the first in a trilogy 

Having fled the testosterone-soaked world of professional sport fishing, thirty-something RayAnne Dahl is navigating a new job as a consultant for the first all-women talk show about fishing on public television (or, as one viewer’s husband puts it, “Oprah in a boat”). After the host bails, RayAnne lands in front of the camera and out of her depth at the helm of the show. Is she up for the challenge? Meanwhile, her family proves as high-maintenance as her fixer-upper house and her clingy rescue dog. Her dad, star of the one-season Big Rick’s Bass Bonanza, is on his sixth wife and falling off the wagon and into RayAnne’s career path; her mother, a new-age aging coach for the menopausal rich, provides endless unwanted advice; and her beloved grandmother Dot—whose advice RayAnne needs—is far away and far from well.

But as RayAnne says, “I’m a woman, I fish. Deal with it.” And just when things seem to be coming together—the show is an unlikely hit; she receives the admiration of a handsome sponsor (out of bounds as he is, but definitely in the wings); ungainly house and dog are finally in hand—RayAnne’s world suddenly threatens to capsize, and she’s faced with a gut-wrenching situation and a heartbreaking decision.

First published in 2015 under a pseudonym, this first installment in a trilogy filled with hilarity and heartbreak unspools with the gentle wit and irresistible charm that readers of Sarah Stonich have come to expect. Fishing! eases us into unsuspected depths as it approaches the essential question . . . when should life be steered by the heart, not the rules?

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