Author Insight: Theresa Rebeck

Tell our readers about your background. Where are you from, and how did you start writing? Did someone hand you a diary, or were you a spiral notebook kind of girl?

I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. I knew quite young that I wanted to be a writer and apparently I had a knack for it from the start. My aunt Jeje saved a story I wrote when I was six years old, and just showed it to me recently. It was hilarious and quite short, about a couple of turtles named Dig and Doug. There wasn’t much more to it than that but trust me, it was riveting.

Not long after the Dig and Doug masterpiece, I remember writing a story about a ghost who liked to watch Ed Sullivan. That also got a lot of raves. Then when I was in third grade I had a writing assignment that involved using very odd given words – king, elephant, one shoe – needed to be woven into a short story. I think I remember this so vividly because I was so annoyed to be told that “one shoe” was one word, which it obviously isn’t. Anyway, that won some sort of school wide competition, and I got dragged around to all the different classrooms at All Saints, where I was then forced to read my story about Good King One Shoe to the other students.

Those are the things I remember. I did try to keep a journal more than once, but I found the musings of my own mind too dull and ordinary. I was always more interested in what I might invent.

Other than the book you’ve just published, what else have you written that may not be as well known?
Well, I have quite a substantial collection of plays out there; three volumes of them have been published by Smith and Kraus. People in the theater know my writing much better than people outside of it. I think that most people don’t sit down and read a play for the fun of it. But my theater work is really what I’m mostly known for–I had a play on Broadway several years ago called Mauritius. There is another play, The Scene, which was recently made into an independent feature called Seducing Charlie Barker. That should be getting into theaters soon, or I think that pretty soon you’ll be able to get it online.

I also write for television, which supports my theater and fiction habit. It also supports my family! I like Neil Gaiman, who writes in so many different genres. That’s starting to look like my life.

Where did you get the idea for your current novel?
Years ago I was visiting a friend who was in New York for a conference, and she was staying with her aunt up in a beautiful apartment up on Central Park West. The place had ten rooms and went on forever, and I was fascinated, honestly, by her aunt – Aunt Sherry – who had wonderful stories about living in this historic building.

Then several years ago, a friend of mine told me a strange and terrible story about how she had lost her inheritance to the children of her father’s second wife. That story rubbed up against my fascination for fantastic apartments on Central Park West, and the novel grew out of that.

What is your favorite scene in your current book? (If you don’t want to give spoilers, you can just describe the scene in vague terms.)
I like a lot of the different scenes for different reasons. I think I’m particularly fond of the scenes in the penthouse/greenhouse. I like the way things grow up there.

Do you base your characters on people that you know, or have met?

Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t. There are certainly a few people who appear and reappear in my work. Or maybe they’re just elements of character.

I once worked for a guy who I ultimately found to be both brilliant and diabolical and I’ve enjoyed trying to work toward the center of that particular psychosis on several occasions. But there are also characters to whom I return, who I’m honestly building inherently out of whole cloth. I have a demented and enraged actor who has appeared in several different incarnations that I’m aware of. So he does show up more than once, but he’s not based on anyone I’ve met in the so-called real world. The attempt obviously is to create something new each time.

Tell us about your writing process: how do you write (paper, keyboard, dictation)? How do you approach a book (outline, mindmap, just write, begin at the end)? Where do you do your best writing (your office, curled up in bed, in cafes)?
I always write on my computer unless I get really stuck, then I try to scribble whatever I can by hand, in a notebook. Usually that loosens me up enough fairly quickly, and I can go back to writing on the computer.

And while for a long time I always wrote in exactly the same place–at a little oak desk I bought for myself in college–now I seem to be more of a floater. I have a fantastic office and sometimes I write there, or I lie in bed and write there, or I sit at the kitchen table and write there. I like writing in the kitchen but my family bugs me a lot when I do; they seem to think that if I’m sitting in the middle of the kitchen I’m fair game. Which, I think, is true.
Many of our readers are creative types, but struggle with balancing time for creative pursuits with the mundane tasks required to live life. Walk us through a typical day for you.
My life is kind of boring. I get up in the morning and I write. Then I go to the gym. Then I come home and I write some more. Then my kids come home and I hang out with them. Then I usually have to do something at night–go to the theater, or some kind of function. Then I come home, after everyone is asleep, and I have terrible insomnia, so I read or watch the news.

When I’m in rehearsal for a play I write less during the day and more at night. I also knit a lot, and I used to play the piano, but now I’m just writing all the time. It’s a bit much. Although I will say this, when you write all the time, you get really good at it.

In what ways did your childhood influence you as a writer? As a person?
I grew up in a large family–five brothers and sisters, and dozens of cousins–and I remember feeling both claustrophobic and isolated all the time. So I did escape into literature. I’m sure that was where it all started for me.

Most writers are also avid readers. What authors did you read as a child? What authors do you read today? Do you have a favorite book or author?
My favorite book growing up was the American classic about girl writers: Harriet the Spy. I also started reading Dickens pretty young and I’ve read all his major novels four or five times apiece. My favorites are Great Expectations, Bleak House and Our Mutual Friend but I also regularly check in with Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities and of course A Christmas Carol.

I read a lot of Victorian fiction incessantly. I’ve read Middlemarch probably six times, Daniel Deronda and Adam Bede multiple times as well. I love Jane Eyre, all of Jane Austen, and all of Trollope too, although I’m still making my way through his substantial body of work.

I do read contemporary fiction, just not as obsessively. I recently read Hilary Mantel’s masterpiece Wolf Hall, and it’s gotten me hooked on her; I’ve got several more of her books stacked up by my bed. I also like to read non-fiction; I’m in the middle of a truly great book called The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks right now. It’s tremendous. I also read The Nation and Harpers and The New Yorker for the non-fiction. I just got a subscription to One Story and I have been reading short fiction there.
An internet presence is becoming a key part of every writer’s working life. Where can we find you on the web, in social networks, etc?
I’m on Facebook, and I also have my own website, Theresa Rebeck.com. I am still not so great about keeping it current! You know why? Because I’m writing ALL THE TIME.

Now is YOUR opportunity to tell us what we missed! What question should we have asked, that we didn’t?
Can’t think of anything!

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Theresa Rebeck’s novel,  Twelve Rooms With a View   will  available on May 4th.   Find Theresa on the web: Theresa’s Website  |  Theresa’s Facebook Fan Page  (Photo Credit Monique Carboni.)