Michelle Herman is the author of the novel “Missing” (1990); the collection of novellas “A New and Glorious Life” (1998); the novella “Dog”(2005); and her first nonfiction book “The Middle of Everything: Memoirs of Motherhood” (2005). Michelle Herman was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. In 1988, she began teaching at Ohio State University, where she co-founded the MFA Program in Creative Writing. Today she is professor of English, and in addition to teaching, she is also the director of the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences Freshman Common Book program and the Graduate Interdisciplinary Program in Fine Arts. She lives with her husband, painter Glen Holland, and their 14-year-old daughter, Grace. Her daughter’s dog, Molly, was the inspiration for her book, “Dog.”

KS: Describe your first nonfiction project, “The Middle of Everything: Memoirs of Motherhood.”

MH: “After 9/11, I couldn’t write. I don’t keep a journal, so I didn’t know what to do with that energy. So I began to write about true things, about my life at home. The book has four essays: Superstar, Enough Friends, Bookends, and Hope against Hope. The first three essays deal with romantic love, friendship (between girls and between women), growing up and aging. The final essay is about my relationship with Grace, my efforts to be the perfect mother, and how I failed at that.

KS: What was the reader response to your memoir?

MH: “Responses fell pretty neatly into one of two categories: ‘Thank you for writing this; I really needed this book.’ Or ‘How dare you?’  Some people believed that I was supporting the idea that children’s problems are always their mothers’ fault; others said I was giving attachment parenting a bad name.”

KS: In what ways did the memoir help you grow as a mother? 

MH: “The growing as a mother led to the book, I’d say, I don’t think writing a book helps the writer grow.”

KS: Your novella, “Dog,”came out in 2005 as well. Describe its process.

MH: “We got a puppy for Grace, and I found myself out in the cold walking the dog a lot. It occurred to me that this dog could take over my life fast if my life hadn’t already been taken over by so many other things. And that’s how Jill, the book’s protagonist, was invented. I wrote the book very fast. And I was surprised to discover how much people really like to read about the relationships that dogs have with their owners.”

KS: Has becoming a mother changed your overall writing?

MH: “Absolutely, in so many ways. On a very basic level, it made me use my time better. I used to be a precious sort of writer, needing a certain number of hours uninterrupted, perfect silence, exactly the right tools in the right place. Once I became a mother, I got a laptop and learned to write whenever I could — half an hour here, two hours there — and in the strangest settings. I wrote much of that book sitting on the floor outside the various lessons I was taking my daughter to. I wrote some of it at an ice skating rink, and some of it at the pool, and most of it at home while my daughter and her friends wandered in and out of the room reading over my shoulder. But it also cracked me open more (and I thought I was pretty well cracked open before then), because it changed my life —because it changed me;it changed me as a writer.”

KS: How has teaching at the university changed over the past twenty years?

MH: “It hasn’t. I can’t make any grand pronouncements about how students have changed, because I don’t see that they have. My MFA students are fabulous, they always have been. And my undergrads? I have wonderful students, I love them as if they were my own children, and even the ones who are challenging to reach, are a pleasure to teach (because I am determined to reach them, and I don’t give up till I do). I took on the work of the Freshman Common Book Program for a chance to get my hands on more of them, to meet and work with the many Ohio State students who will never take a creative writing class. And I especially love the freshmen — all three thousand of them.”

KS: You and your husband both have creative jobs. Is it a challenge to manage?

MH: “It’s easier, I think, than if one of us did some other kind of work. It would never occur to either of us to ask the other to stop working. If there is a dinner party that I need to attend, and Glen is painting, then I go to the dinner party alone. If I’m supposed to take Grace somewhere, but I’m not ready to stop writing, Glen takes her.”

KS: What are some of your new writing projects? 

MH: “First, I’m working on a second collection of personal essays. When I handed the finished manuscript of ‘The Middle of Everything’ to its publisher, I was glad to return to writing fiction, which I had always considered my real work, full time.

“The book wasn’t even in galleys before I found myself immersed in a new personal essay titled ‘Idolatry,’ which was inspired by a chance encounter with the television show ‘American Idol,’ during its first season, and gave me the opportunity to consider the nature of talent, striving, ambition, discovery, and success.  The second essay, ‘Performance,’ was inspired by my then 10-year-old daughter’s announcement that she was going to seek pop stardom as soon as she was old enough. 

“There was a time when I thought of writing nonfiction as being ‘constrained by’ what actually happened, stuck with and tied down by, weighed down by, the inartfulness [sic] of “real” life. As I’ve grown older, I’ve found that what actually happens is at least as interesting to me as what I can make up, and that so-called real life, when looked at closely, is enough like art that the distinction between what is art and what isn’t, is less interesting to me than it used to be. What I am engaged in now, I suppose I could say, is reading life and writing about it.

“I also have several other pieces of fiction in progress, and it remains to be seen whether they’ll be stories, novellas, or novels.”

KS: What advice would you offer to other mom writers? 

MH: “The same advice I offer all writers: to make the time to write, and then sit down and do it. And read as much as you can. Read the kind of writing you admire, the kind of writing you long to do yourself, and read about whatever interests you, whatever you want to know more about. And have patience with yourself. If you keep at it, even if you don’t have much time for it right now, even if you can find only that half-hour there, a lucky two hours here, and you really want to do it — you will.  And if you find you can’t make the time for it right now (I know there are times when there isn’t even a ten minute period free for a shower), be patient with yourself. It’s not going anywhere. And when you do sit down to write, finally, you will be so much wiser than you were when you were younger.”

Kathy Schlaeger lives in Liberty Township, OH with her husband and three daughters. She has been published in "The Cincinnati Enquirer", "CIN Weekly", and the "Pulse Journal."

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