When the Men Were Gone Book Blog Tour and #Giveaway #LoneStarLit

Interview with Marjorie Herrera Lewis

How long have you been writing?

I began writing in the 1980s when I got my first newspaper job. I was a sports writer and sports editor for small newspapers before landing a sports writing job with The Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 1984. In 1986, I was named the first woman to cover the Dallas Cowboys’s beat (which later helped me in identifying with my protagonist, Tylene Wilson). Five years later, I moved to The Dallas Morning News and continued to cover sports for SportsDay for the next fifteen years.

Why did you choose to write a historical novel?

I didn’t so much choose it as it chose me. When I discovered Tylene Wilson had coached football in Brownwood, Texas during World War II, and much of the story had been lost to time, I knew the only way I could memorialize what she had done was to write a novel based on a true story. That’s when everything changed.

How difficult was it to transition from writing for a newspaper to writing a novel?

Writing a novel is much different than writing for a newspaper, which was my only writing experience to that point. Because Tylene was a real person, I felt an ethical obligation to give her story my best effort, so I went back to college to earn a second master’s degree — only this time, an MFA in creative writing: fiction. What a great experience that was! I studied under a number of highly acclaimed novelists, and the finished product, my thesis, was When the Men Were Gone. I’m thrilled that I had that experience, and I feel like I did give Tylene my best effort.

How has your formal education influenced or impacted your writing?

In my life, all roads lead to school. I had a first-grade teacher, Sister Rosa (Catholic school), who kept me after school one day to read a book into her tape recorder. That was huge for me. Then in seventh grade, my teacher, Mrs. Leahy, let me and my cousin write plays for the class and then produce them. That was a great experience! My senior year of high school, my teacher, Mrs. Flinn, also made an impact on my love of reading and writing. From there, Mrs. Cohn at Arizona State University (where I did my undergrad work), Dr. Carolyn Barros at The University of Texas at Arlington (my M.A.), and Diane Les Becquets at the Mountainview MFA. The belief in me and the encouragement from teachers and my parents made a huge impact. Through high school, I learned the rudiments of writing and developed a love for words, ASU and UTA gave me the skills to be a journalist, and the Mountainview MFA turned me into a novelist. I love school!

How do you write? Any backstory to our choice of medium?

I’m trained to work on hard deadlines, so I’ve always written on a computer. I write fast, too. And I don’t edit a word until I have pages and pages already written. When I don’t have a computer at hand but a thought comes to mind, I write it in my phone. I don’t think I’ve written anything in longhand since high school, when my mom would then type it out for me. (She’s a gem).

What did you enjoy most about writing this book?

I enjoyed writing this book in first person. To get into Tylene’s mind, I became somewhat of an actress. Instead of writing during the day, as I had when I’d written the original draft in third person, I wrote in the middle of the night. Around midnight I would sit at my kitchen table, put on a Brownwood letter jacket, place a picture of the real Tylene next to my computer, then set out to write what Tylene would tell us. I put myself in 1944 Brownwood, and when the sun would come up, I’d get the newspaper and be jolted when I’d see 2016 on the date. I really enjoyed taking myself to 1944. Sometimes I’d even play Glenn Miller music softly while I worked.

What I liked so much about becoming Tylene while writing is I could also relate in many ways to her story, and if you consume the book rather than simply read it, you’ll see it is narrated by a grieving mother who longs to give the boys something she could not give her own son. That longing is sprinkled throughout the novel, and at times while I wrote, I would cry. I also loved her perseverance, and that gave me great joy.

If you had a superpower, what would it be?

As you may guess from my last response, if I had a superpower, it would be the ability to travel into time. I’m not sure if I’d like to be a character in time or a fly on the wall. In either case, I’d love to experience different times in history, which is another reason why I love to read.

What’s something interesting, fun, or funny that most people don’t know about you?

I think most people know I was a college football coach, so I’ll go with something else. I used to be a country music singer. I was with a small indie label in Nashville back in the day, and I got some radio airtime. That was fun!!!