November 2003
Jacqueline Guidry
Kansas City, Missouri

Jacqueline Guidry's work has appeared in a number of publications including the Portland Review, St. Anthony Messenger, Buffalo Spree, Reader's Digest, Christian Science Monitor, and Whetstone. One of her short stories received a Yemassee Award for best fiction and one of her personal essays was selected as a finalist in the Chattahoochee Review's Lamar York competition.

The Year the Colored Sisters Came to Town received the Thorpe Menn Award in October 2002, was selected for both the McNaughton program and the Pen/Faulkner Writers in Schools program, and was named a Best Book of the Year by the Kansas City Star.

Currently, Jacqueline is hunting for an agent for her next novel and working on a collection of personal essays exploring her Cajun culture and memories of growing up in rural southwestern Louisiana. In addition to writing fiction and personal essays, she practices Social Security disability law part-time and has two daughters.

A Writer at Work
On a Sunday afternoon in early November 2003, Jacqueline Guidry addressed a group of readers at Bishop Spencer Place, a continuing care retirement community in Kansas City; the appearance was part of the events surrounding the selection of her novel, The Year the Colored Sisters Came to Town, as the 2003 United We Read selection.

Dressed in comfortable slacks and a sweater, Jacqueline spoke to the assembled group about the novel, about how it had evolved from a short story, and responded to questions members of the audience had about the book, the topics it raised, and about the writing process in general. She read excerpts in a voice only hinting at her Southern upbringing. She appeared relaxed and genuinely interested in the audience’s questions

The following is an edited version of a conversation that took place after that appearance.

Would you say a little bit about how you got involved in writing?
I started late. I’ve always liked to read. Jane Eyre was one of my childhood favorites; that plays a part in the novel. There came a time, though, when I felt a need to try writing. I had just had the second of my two children, and was sort of between jobs, and maybe a little dissatisfied, and it seemed like the right time to try my hand. I’d always been reluctant to think about writing as a career. It seemed sort of a silly way to try to make a living—“I tell stories” or “I make up untruths.” I just couldn’t say with a straight face that I’m a writer.
It seemed natural to start off with short stories. I remember Raymond Carver saying stories and poems were all he had time for; with kids, there’s not much free time and what there is comes in small chunks.

I write out things first in longhand. After I’ve done that, I’ll enter the text into the computer and do a print out. Then I wait at least six months and do thorough revisions. The editing is very important to me.

The decision to pay attention to writing is something I’ve never regretted. It’s something I now seem intended to do. It’s a calling.

Who are some of the writers you enjoy?
That’s a question I’m asked a lot, and I joke that the list always changes, depending on what I’ve been reading lately. I’d say Eudora Welty, and Anne Tyler. Andre Dubus—the father, not the son. William Trevor. Right now I’m reading a book important to people from this area—Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks, having to do with John Brown.

Would you say that place is also important, as it is with several of these writers?
Yes. The place becomes almost a separate character. The Year the Colored Sisters Came to Town could have taken place only in Louisiana, not in California or even in Kansas City.

Your novel The Year the Colored Sisters Came to Town began as a short story. Would you tell us a little bit about how it evolved into the present novel?
I wrote that story about 10 years ago—in 1993 or 94. It consisted primarily of the arrival of the African-American nuns at the small Louisiana town and the response of a 10-year old narrator to the experience. It ended with the narrator’s declaration that she would never become a part of a Concerned Citizens’ group. I felt it worked as a complete, self-contained short story.

I kept thinking about taking on the challenge of a novel, though, and that short story seemed to include the kernel of what could be developed into a novel-length narrative. It had two important components: the voice of its ten-year old narrator, Vivien Leigh Dubois, and it was a story about an important issue.

The novel gave me an opportunity to expand on what had been in the short story. The family relationships were greatly expanded. I had two additional episodes that I wanted to include: a section on a hurricane, and a section on gathering figs for preserves. The idea of the change-of-life baby became an important symbolic element of the story. In the story, there had been only a passing reference to one character being a change-of-life baby.

It would seem that the novel includes a lot more depth then than what was included in the story. A lot of this elaborates significantly on the concept of racism. I’m thinking about the episode where the banker visits the Dubois household, notebook and pen in hand, to write down comments about how the family lives, the condition of the house, prior to approving a loan to build an addition.
Yes, that’s an important chapter in my own mind. There are different sorts of prejudices, with racism being only one. There’s also the prejudice of class, and the banker treats Floyd Dubois in a demeaning manner. That’s one idea that didn’t really get into the story, how racism allows poor whites to climb one rung up the ladder above blacks, just by virtue of their race.

Then, when I felt the novel was finished, there were two other changes. One agent I approached (she wasn’t the one who finally sold the project, but she was very helpful) told me that the book needed an episode where Vivien Leigh and her sister Mavis visit the black housekeeper Aussie’s house. That was a case where I knew it was necessary, but that didn’t make it any easier. That was the hardest scene in the book to write.
Then, when the publisher Welcome Rain was getting ready to publish it, the editor asked me to take a second look at the Epilogue. The original one was more negative and discouraging. The editor suggested it wasn’t really suitable for this particular book. I took another look and thought he was correct, so I rewrote the short Epilogue.
It’s interesting to see a short story expanding into a novel, and to enjoy the luxury of the novel form.

What are your current projects?
Right now I’m working on finding an agent for my second novel. It’s the story of a mother and two grown daughters and jumps between the period of World War II and the present. The challenge here was to create three separate voices for the three major characters, and the sections set in the present are told in the third person.
The agent I used for The Year the Colored Sisters Came to Town went to another agency where she is now doing non-fiction, and I’d be interested in her again for my second project, a group of essays about growing up Cajun in southern Louisiana.

Given that you have over a hundred short stories, have you ever considered a collection of short stories?
Yes; in fact I’ve tried about three times to do a collection. But I keep feeling the need to have them linked in some way. I know there are collections that don’t do that, but I feel that need.

How do you fit your writing into your schedule as an attorney?
It’s exhausting! I’m hoping that things will get a little easier now that my children are in college. But writing is something that I feel a need to do.

The biography of Jacqueline Guidry is taken from the Kansas City Metropolitan Library & Information Network’s web site. The interview was conducted by Bob Lunn, Customer Services Librarian with the Kansas City Public Library and a member of the Missouri Center for the Book’s board of directors.

Books by Jacqueline Guidry
The Year the Colored Sisters Came to Town, 2001.