Get ready to learn more about the book Widow in this discussion with sapphic author Martha Miller.
Join us for an exclusive peek behind the scenes as we quiz Martha Miller about Widow, writing, reading, and more.
This book is part of the Growing Older category in the 2024 IHS Reading Challenge.
Why did you write Widow?
Bertha Brannon is the protagonist in my first mystery “Nine Nights on the Windy Tree.” I still think that is my favorite book. I reread it before I started “Widow” and couldn’t believe how well I wrote certain passages. (Bold Strokes Books has an ebook, otherwise it’s out of print). In it, Bertha was a lawyer just out of drug rehab. She gets a case that takes her back to her old haunts. A relationship with a policewoman named Toni began in that book and I started wondering how it came out. So I aged Bertha several years and made her a judge. She and Toni are together raising their spirited teenage daughter. Toni is shot on a domestic violence call and dies. Thus Bertha is a widow.
Who is your favorite character in the book?
Bertha was my favorite character. Working with her again felt like being with an old friend. I also loved Grandma. She was my grandma, and she lived at my Grandma’s house, and she was feisty. Her backyard was full of flowers and fruit trees. Behind her garage was a tomato patch where we picked ripe tomatoes and Bertha ate them with a little salt.
What inspired the idea for Widow?
I was inspired by the fact that I wanted to work with Bertha again. For me, sometimes my characters become like family. When I started the first book I wanted Bertha to be the opposite of lesbian characters I saw in other books. No slim, blond, athletic type for me. Bertha was six feet tall, weighed 200 pounds, and was black.
What was the biggest challenge writing this book?
The biggest challenge in writing “Widow” was Bertha’s race. I did a bunch of research, and even then a Black member of my writers’ group corrected me when I called a man “blue-black.” She told me a black person would never use those words. We settled on ebony. Time has changed the words we use and even I am a little embarrassed by the old words. The type of book is listed as Afro-American when it became African-American. The word black now has a capital B. There are more.
What is your writing process like?
I am a pantser. I’ve tried to outline. I even saw the outline of a book by Tom Clancy and it looked great, but when I got to the end, I thought, why write it now that it’s over? I write the book in order. Once at a conference Sue Grafton (author of the alphabet mystery series) said she journaled about 5 chapters ahead and worked from there. I tried it and couldn’t do it. I usually sit down at my computer in the late morning and work till about four. Unfortunately, I use a bunch of time on email and Facebook.Then I write. I’ve seen lesbian writers on Facebook say they write 50,000 words in a day. My brain doesn’t work that fast and I can’t type that fast. I do about three pages–and that’s a good day.
Do you have a pet who helps/hinders your typing?
We have four pets. Our two dogs are poodles–rescues. The male, Willy, is miniature and the female, Angel, is a toy. I chose that breed because I heard they don’t shed. And they don’t, but we have a long haired cat, Gerty, who leaves hair all over the place. Plus we’ve learned that poodles have some peculiar behavior problems. Angel is often under my desk when I write, and our cat, Alice, sits on the back of my desk, in the window. Alice just showed up at our door a few years back and we fed her, of course, and when we took her to the vet to get her fixed, we learned that she was about to have kittens. She nursed those four kittens, in a kids wading pool, right in the middle of my office floor. She did her thing and I wrote. We found homes for those four kittens, but even though they were cute, it wasn’t easy.
What is the most valuable piece of advice you’ve been given about writing, and by whom?
I had a college instructor, Jackie Jackson, who latched on to me and encouraged me. She somehow kept me writing. I am dyslexic and my spelling is horrible. She rarely corrected it. She never used red ink. She used a number two led pencil. She got excited and involved with the things I would turn in. Our chairs in a circle, we went around and read our stuff. I could hear the stories that were good. One gay writer, Gary Smith, was publishing his stories. He gave me a list of gay publishers and by the end of the semester, I didn’t have a single story that wasn’t published. Publishing certainly gives you a sense of success. Then after my first book was published, Katherine Forrest told me I was a good writer.
What has helped or hindered you most when writing a book?
I suffer from mild depression sometimes. I just want to get out of the office as soon as I can. That doesn’t do much for my book. Sometimes I get distracted with a book review, or story or article for the paper. That’s writing. My writing group helps me. I know I want to have something to read and workshop. Other members of the group come without anything to read for months in a row. They talk about work and their health and so on. But they are great and give me a lot of help and inspiration for the little bit I’ve written. It’s the depression that hinders my writing.
What type of books do you enjoy reading the most?
I read a lot of mysteries. That is what I write so it makes sense. I also read a lot of nonfiction. I read Joan Didion’s last two memoirs. I recently read Doris Kerns Goodwin’s new and remarkable book “An Unfinished Love Story.” I really work at finding a lesbian mystery. I don’t care for lesbian romance, which dominates our literature. I want a good mystery.
What books have you read more than once in your life?
The two books I seem to go back to again and again are “My Antonia” by Willa Cather and “To Kill a Mocking Bird” by Harper Lee. Frankly, it’s not the story, although the stories are okay. It’s the way the authors use the English language. Descriptions are rich. I’d like my writing to be that way, but so far it’s not. “He’d be there when Jem waked up in the morning.” and what already happened that night haunts me. I can still see the plow with the sunlight behind it. I can see Antonia with her children in the end–not really pretty, but beautiful in her own way.
Describe your favorite reading spot.
We recently converted our screened-in porch into a sunroom. I have a rocking chair out there and read a lot. Even on a cool day, the sunlight through the big windows warms the room. Soon a cat is in my lap–a bit awkward trying to hold a book around it. Lately, because of some vision problems after a small stroke, I have been reading from my iPad or Kindle Fire. The cat and I work it out. My problem is, two cats, one lap.
