A Wall of Bright Dead Feathers Book Blog Tour and #Giveaway #LoneStarLit

Interview with Babette Fraser Hale

How has Texas and being a Texan influenced your writing?

The stories in A WALL OF BRIGHT DEAD FEATHERS are set in the area of central Texas between Houston and Austin, Brenham, and La Grange. This place is fundamental to my work, providing specific details that both ground and expand the individual stories. The characters, mostly newcomers, transform as they settle in to their unfamiliar new environment, and a richness results. I was defiantly an urban Texan until I met my husband forty years ago. His name is Leon Hale, and he wrote about Texas for more than sixty years for Houston newspapers and in books. You might say he converted me.

Why did you choose to write in your particular genre?

My genre chose me, I think. I’ve tried to write in others, but I lose interest too quickly. I call what I write psychological realism, which is related to what many creative nonfiction writers produce today. I prefer to handle it in fiction, where I’m learning about the characters as I go. A rounder, more nuanced truth is attainable in fiction, I think. I feel more free in fiction.

Where did your love of books come from?

I was read to every night as a child. My grandfather had a wall of books in his library—in three languages. I wasn’t allowed to touch them, but they called to me. Books were valuable—I could see that. And I was given children’s books before I could read, although I did start reading at 4.

How long have you been writing?

Since I was a teenager, writing for school papers. When I came back from graduate school in London, I wrote feature articles for the local newspaper and magazines, but I wanted to write fiction. In the eighties, I enrolled in the graduate Creative Writing Program at U of H, and I’ve been writing fiction ever since.

What kind of writing do you do?

I strive for what was once called literary fiction. Now I think “upmarket” is the word. I’m working on a fictional memoir, at the moment. And I have some stories about England I want to develop. I write a personal essay column for the local paper that I’m allowed to post on my blog. The Book in the Drawer (bookcracker.blogspot.com)­. There are also three of those “books in the drawer.” Novels.

How do you write? Any backstory to your choice?

I use the computer almost exclusively and have for a long time. If I’m stuck or want to let something flow, I will scrawl a page or so in a notebook, but I have arthritis in my hands, and it makes the act of handwriting rather painful.