Five Questions For Author Kyran Pittman

Athena McKenzie | June 3rd, 2011

Zoomer chats with the Newfoundland-born, Arkansas-based writer about her memoir Planting Dandelions and her philosophy about sharing her life, warts and all.

Athena McKenzie: When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

Kyran Pittman: I grew up immersed in it. My father was a writer, and I had the bug. I remember being very little and putting together newsletters and different publications, just for fun. I always assumed I’d be a poet, and that was sort of the expectation. But as I grew older, I was burdened by those expectations. I had a lot of preconceptions about the personal cost of what being a writer would be. I had a lot of unrealistic standards to what would count as achievement to be a ‘real’ writer. My dad [poet Al Pittman] and his contemporaries were –  in the 70s –  larger than life, wonderful warm men, but they came from a fairly chauvinistic background. I couldn’t see how to be a grown woman and to be that writer and have a family. Those things seemed very incompatible. I’d watched men be that all my life, but I didn’t know how I’d do it and be a woman. I kind of had to figure that out for myself. I did write poetry into my 30s and I still was labouring under the burden of those heavy expectations and the fears that I’d be opening Pandora’s box or these destructive lifestyle issues.

Then I started a blog five years ago and you couldn’t bring any pretention or high-minded expectations to that. It was just a fun thing to do. For me, it was a place to download the events of the day and my feelings in the midst of this very busy, immersive family life. It was a place for me to get in touch with myself and find a thread of my own identity in that life. I would just naturally go there and I found my own prose voice because I didn’t have any expectations. I was very liberated. I discovered the writer I wanted to be wasn’t that poet but this feminine voice with a  passion for material that was compatible with being a wife and mother.

AM: You’re so open and share so much of yourself. What things are you tempted to hold back?

KP: I didn’t think about that at the onset. The thing I thought about most was safety issues with my children. I was anonymous at first and just watched how people were navigating this brave new world and was able to piggyback on what they were doing. That was helpful — to have this evolving boundary line. But as I grew more comfortable with my readership and the medium, I was able to trust it more and trust that it was a safe place to share more openly. I try not to be reckless. It still surprises me when people say, “Wow, you really put it all out there!” One of the words which comes up frequently with reviews of the book is “fearless,” but to me it’s just how I would talk to my close girlfriends on my porch. I’m interested in being sincere and talking about things that matter. I don’t reveal anything that I’m afraid of revealing. The things I reveal might be judged by people but I’m very at peace with the things that I choose to share. I don’t share things that are still being processed. For example, if my husband and I were going through a situation that was still unresolved I’d draw the line and say “I might write about this later on the other side of it,” but it wouldn’t be fair to expose it while we’re still working on it.

AM: So your husband, Patrick, is comfortable with the things you write about?

KP: Yes, he’s incredibly trusting and generous about it — and my mother as well. I write about my mother’s marriage to my father. Very personal things that are now public. I also share some nitty-gritty intimate stuff from our marriage. I gave them an opportunity when I had the final manuscript and they had a point where they could tell me if there was anything too damaging or something they couldn’t live with. So far, the book has been out in the United States for about a month and that other shoe has yet to fall. They seem to be very proud of it and comfortable talking about it with other people.

I like the idea that being open and being transparent in a controlled way gives other people permission to come forward and share some of the things that really make life matter. To let go of this picture we try to put up there, to keep up with this façade, we could let go of some of that. Marriage, for example — we are all sold this fairytale, but it really doesn’t serve us well to buy into that. For me, it’s been very helpful to hear other women and my mother open up about struggles and the real challenge of staying committed to somebody over the years. That helps me be better at being married. I would love to think my writing could do that for someone else.

AM: Since the book has been published, have you had people talk to you about their own lives?

KP: Yes, it’s been incredible. They respond to it very intimately. There’s a chapter that’s in the current issue of Good Housekeeping magazine and it’s about married crushes. It’s about a summer that I had this infatuation with a man outside my marriage. That was the most personal and intimate chapter for Patrick to have out there. It was a big leap of faith for him to give the okay for that. Nothing ever happened but it was someone who occupied my headspace for a brief period of time. I have many women friends of varying ages and I’m willing to say that’s a fairly universal phenomenon for anybody who’s been married for any length of time. We do have these attractions and sometimes we keep them close to our chest and we’re not willing to give them away that quickly. I think the people who get into big trouble — like we’re seeing these powerful famous people coming out of nowhere with these secret lives like Schwarzenegger —I think people are more susceptible to those destructive ways of acting out when you can’t even talk about these temptations, when you can’t admit your infatuations. The more we have to repress these very natural feelings, the more vulnerable we are to going underground.

AM: Is there any concern for your sons growing up and reading it?

KP: Yes, that’s always a consideration. I’m pretty sure at some point they’ll throw it at me – kids do that and I’ve done that to my parents. I also trust they’re going to receive more out of the experience of seeing who I am as a person. I hope that will serve them well in their relationships as they have their own families some day. They love the attention they get. They see the book’s being very well received. They’re not allowed to read it until they’re 18! I read them sections of it but I’m not sure there’s ever a good age to read a chapter about your parents having sex. They might want to bypass that one!