Bonjour, Commonwealth Reading Series!

An Interview with Artsake 
for The Commonwealth Reading Series

 2011 Commonwealth Reading Series 

The series 

continues this Friday, March 18, 7 PM 

at Grub Street, Inc. – Boston’s hub of 

literary community and just general coolness. 

One of the writers reading at Grub is

the superb Jamie Cat Callan(Fiction/Creative 

Nonfiction Fellow ‘10). We had the chance 

to ask Jamie about her writing, books, and 

unmistakable joie de vivre.

ArtSake: Your writing experience is so 

varied - young adult novels, short 

stories, screenplays, relationship 

advice, writing tips, memoir. When 

you conceive a new work, is 

the form (novel, script, nonfiction 

work, etc.) immediately apparent, or do 

you sometimes have to explore different 

forms to find the right fit?

Jamie: And you didn’t mention poetry
and plays!

Honestly, I just like to write.

Still, I suppose the form is very much 
determined by the influences in my life and 
who is around me. For example, I wrote 
short stories and plays during a time 
when I belonged to The Writers Bloc, a group 
in Los Angeles made 

up of writers and actors. Then, I wrote

 screenplays while I was getting 

my MFA from UCLA film school. 

After film school, I began teaching 

at Wesleyan University, Educational 

Center for the Arts, NYU, Yale and then

 at Grub Street, and so I created 

The Writers Toolbox, out of the games

 and exercises I used in my classes.

Most recently, I’ve reconnected 

with my French roots and discovered 

more history relating to my French 

grandmother. I loved how she had 

this spicy marriage with my 

grandfather. They didn’t always agree, 

but they certainly adored each other. 

This is how I became inspired to 

write French Women Don’t Sleep Alone. 

I think I wanted it to be an advice book 

because I wish my grandmother could 

sit down and tell me her secrets to 
romance,

love, marriage and elegance. Oh, and
how to make a great coq au vin!

My latest book, Bonjour, Happiness!

 is an interesting mix of memoir and 
advice.

I actually wrote a proposal for a memoir 

about my travels to France (beginning in 

the 1970’s and up to the present) and my 

editor said she wanted the book to be 

“prescriptive” but that it could be still 

be “narrative.” And with that, I think I’ve 

created a hybrid genre - the literary advice 

book!

Anyway, perhaps this is another answer to 

your question about what determines the
form my writing takes - it’s unpredictable 
and it’s just how the stars happen to align.

ArtSake: You mentioned Bonjour, 

Happiness! Secrets to Finding Your 

Joie de Vivre, which is just about to 

be published. But you won your MCC 

award by submitting a work of fiction. 

Writing is rarely ever easy, but does

 either form, fiction or nonfiction, 

come more naturally to you?

Jamie: For me, fiction is delicious and 

dreamy. I enter into an imagined world 
and just let it lead me into surprising, 
sometimes illogical places. Along the way, 

characters introduce themselves to me, 

take me by the hand and together we get

 into trouble. Lots of trouble (narratively 

speaking, of course). For the story that 

won the MCC grant, I was inspired by my 

husband who told me that when he was 

growing up in Madison, Connecticut during 
the 1960’s, the town was mostly a summer 

community and that because only a handful

of people stayed over the winter they 

formed a “Winter Club.” This is where the

 title “Welcome to the Winter Club” comes 

from. I envisioned the club as a metaphor 

for loss of innocence and adulthood. 
From here, I imagined what it would be like 
for an adolescent boy experiencing his first 
sexual awakening in this community in the 
1960’s during the Camelot years, when 
Kennedy was in the White House and 
Vietnam was a shadow in the not-so-far 
distant future.

In terms of craft, when I am writing fiction, 

I write fast and let the characters lead me. 

At the end of the day, I put the work away. 

The next morning, I look at the writing with 

fresh eyes and see where I may have gone

off course, or if I let one of the characters 
take over the story or lead me astray, and 
so I trim and edit and bring the story 
back into alignment.

Now, you might be surprised to learn that 

when I am writing nonfiction, this process 

is rather similar, because I am still writing 
stories. The difference is, these stories are 
framed by a more obvious lesson or 
suggestion in terms of creating a happier
life, as with Bonjour, Happiness! Even 
with this book, each chapter offers it’s 
own mystery to me and 

while my characters are real French (and 

sometimes American) women that I’ve 

actually met and interviewed, there are the 

same challenges as with fiction, in that 
I let a kind of narrative grow out of the 
basic idea of a chapter topic (for example, 
why lingerie is very important to a French 
woman’s confidence!)but then in the 
clear light of day I may find that perhaps 
I need to edit and trim that part about

 the history of lace corsets. Wink. Wink.

ArtSake: How did Bonjour, Happiness! 
come to be?

Jamie: In 2009, the Virginia Center for the 
Creative Arts awarded me a fellowship to 
spend a month writing in Auvillar, France. 
The village of Auvillar is a magical place 
in the southwest filled with fig and olive 
trees, roosters, and a town known for 
welcoming artists from all over the world. 
One day after I first arrived, I walked 
into the village around noon, only to find 
everything was closed. I was able to visit 
the ancient stone cathedral (built in the 
11th century), but the boulangerie, 
the library, the shops and most 
of the restaurants were all closed. 

The streets were silent as if everyone in
town had disappeared.

But then, I peaked through the cobblestone 

courtyards and behind the lace curtains to 

find couples and families enjoying their 
mid-day meals. This is when the thought 
came to me - this is the secret to the French 
joie de vivre. 

Unlike our American “pursuit of happiness” 

the French find happiness in simple, 
pleasurable moments. In America, we 
often think that bigger and faster is 
better. For the French, smaller and 

slower is better. Happiness is an 
experience, not a thing you buy or own. 
And I felt so happy in that moment, 
relaxing in the sunshine of Southern 
France, knowing that the boulangerie 

would reopen at 2 p.m. and I would be 
patient, imagining that the baguette 
would be worth the wait and even 
more pleasurable because of it.

ArtSake: You teach extensively, 
including at Grub Street writers’ 
service organization in Boston, 
and you wrote The Writers Toolbox. 

As a teacher, what do you try to instill in

 emerging writers?

Jamie: Actually, The Writers Toolbox 
is not so much a book that I wrote, 
but a box of tactile writing games 
I created - you know, sticks and 

spiny dials and a little three minute 
egg timer, cards and then an instruction 
book. It’s all based on right brain theory 
- writing from that intuitive, nonlinear place. 
And this brings me to what I try to teach 
emerging writers: 

Follow your muse. Don’t worry about 
where you’re going or where you’ll end up. 
Write from the heart and believe that there
 is a place in this world for your voice, 
your story, your style. No one else 
can be you. You are completely 

unique and amazing in your own way. 
And as long as you stay true to yourself, 
your contribution to the world will be 
completely true and unique. 

Oh, and one other thing. 
Be kind to your writing. 

It lives and breathes outside of you. 
It’s a gift to you from your muse,
 so if you are kind to your own creations, 
your muse will make a habit of visiting 

you often. I don’t believe in tough love 
when it comes to teaching writing. 
I believe in love. 

Kindness. Gentleness. And of course a whole 

lot of joie de vivre. This is why I 
adore Grub Street and the Grub Street 
teaching philosophy. There’s a 

whole lot of love going on and I can’t imagine a 

place where writers receive so much support. 

We’re lucky to have them!

ArtSake: Can you point to any one 
decision you’ve made as an artist 
that has had the 

most impact on your career?

Jamie: A long time ago, I decided to let go
of the debilitating idea of becoming an 
overnight sensation. 

I let go of the notion of the acclaimed 
debut novel. I no longer care about being 
the next new thing.Rather, I’ve embraced 
the idea that I can be that 

gal who has been quietly and consistently 
writing all along (since 1973) while raising a 
daughter, making a living, moving around, 
experiencing all the unexpected ups and 
downs of living a full life. 

The overnight sensation ship sailed 
long ago, but I am here and this is my 
journey.

All this is to say, no one decision had the 

most impact on my career, but the decision 

to move forward, have faith and just write 

no matter what, has made all the difference 
in the world.

ArtSake: What are you reading these 
days? 

What are you writing?

Jamie: I am reading Malcolm Gladwell’s 

What the Dog Saw. I love his writing!

I am writing the book proposal for my 

next book, Bonjour, Beautiful - Secrets to 

Finding your Ooh la la! And I’m also 

working on turning “Welcome to the 
Winter Club” into a novel. If anyone wants 
to give me a nice advance, please speak up
 and don’t be shy!

Jamie joins Cheryl Clark, 
Adam Schwartz, 

Ron Spalletta, and Marc Velasquez 

for a Commonwealth Reading Series 
event on Friday, March 18, 7 PM, 
Grub Street, Inc.

in Boston. Other events include Porter Square 

Books (3/15 and 3/31), Forbes Library in 

Northampton (3/23), and Newtonville Books 

in Newton (4/5).

Jamie Cat Callan is the creator of 

The Writers Toolbox (Chronicle Books, 
2007) and the author of French Women 

Don’t Sleep Alone(Citadel/Kensington, 
2009). Most recently, she received a grant 
from the Virginia Center for the Creative 
Arts in Auvillar, France where she wrote 
her latest book, Bonjour, Happiness! 
(Kensington/Citadel, 2011) 

Jamie is married to a Woods Hole 

Oceanographic climate change scientist. 

The story of how they met (he was a 

student in her creative writing class) and 

eventually married - appeared in the New 
York Times Modern Love column.

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