YA Author Interview: Beth Fehlbaum

I have always admired authors who write from their own experiences. Child abuse, especially sexual abuse, is not something most people talk about openly. But Beth Fehlbaum has the courage to dig in and show how complex the healing process is. Recovery is possible.

It has been two years since I last interviewed her on her first book, Courage in Patience. When she told me about her second book, Hope in Patience which will be out this month, I was happy to ask her some questions on her journey.

Congratulations again, Beth, for your second book, Hope in Patience (WestSide Books, Fall 2010). Can you tell us about this sequeal?

Thank you, Feng! Well, Ashley Nicole Asher, 15, is a mess. She's starting a new school in the tiny East Texas town of Patience, Texas, but that's not her biggest problem. It's her mother, Cheryl, who can't see that the sexual abuse perpetrated on Ashley for six years wasn't Ashley's choice. A woman who, even after her husband, Charlie, breaks Ashley's arm in an attempt to take her back to their home in the suburbs of Dallas, still testifies on his behalf at his trial for injury to a child. Ashley's stuck in a cycle of self-injury and self-hatred as a result, and the people who love her are struggling to pull her out of it.

David, Ashley's long-absent father, hadn't seen his daughter since infancy, until he showed up in the offices of Child Protective Services to bring her back to his home in the woods of East Texas, and the life he's built with his wife of ten years, Beverly, and their son, Ben. No longer a heavy drinking rage-a-holic, he's sworn he'll spend the rest of his life making up lost time with Ashley, and hopefully earning her trust and love.

Beverly is balancing her life as stepmom to Ashley with her job as a high school English teacher, and her reputation in the community as a magnet for controversy.

Scott "Dr. Matt" Matthews, a slightly unconventional, drop-kick-the-teddy-bear and kick-the-desk therapist, is determined to pull Ashley out of the darkness she crawls into when her self-destructive tendencies overtake her better judgement, and the "squirrel on speed" that gets going in her mind is making laps and chugging Red Bull.

More than anything else, Ashley craves normalcy. She envies girls who can experience relationships with guys without fear of being touched, and she wishes that being a consistent back-of-the-pack finisher in cross-country was her biggest problem.

But..do other people have it that easy? Krystle "K.C." Williamson has an electric guitar named Kurt and a mother who believes that the best cure for K.C.'s homosexuality would be a trip to J.C. Penney's to pick up some cute skirts instead of the t-shirts and jeans that K.C. wears every day. Pam Littlejohn is driven by jealousy and insecurity to push herself hard for a cross-country medal in State, and to spread the rumor that Ashley moved to Patience because she had an affair with her stepfather Charlie. Marcus Merriweather is so afraid of not having all the answers, he hides behind THE Holy Bible (the only "version" that's right), and a stiflingly narrow world-view. T.W. Griffin quit his position as running back for his father's Patience Panthers football team, and now his dad's hell-bent on making Bev Asher pay for taking his son from him. Zaquoiah "Z.Z." Freeman, self-described as "bountiful, bodacious, and beautiful", is fighting the urge to knock Pam's smirk right off her face and beat Marcus to death with his holier-than-thou attitude. She's still reeling from her cousin, Jasper, being nearly beaten to death earlier in the year, and depends on dancing to help her deal with the fear that comes with being a racial minority in small Southern town.

In a shocking turn of events, Ashley is forced to choose between living her life or longing for a relationship that was never what she had convinced herself it had to be. Will her new family be enough to keep her from treating her skin like a scratching post, sliding back into suicidal fantasies and hiding in small dark spaces?

I remember Courage in Patience took you a year to write. How long did Hope in Patience take? Was it easier to complete a sequel than the first book? Any struggles?

Hope in Patience was not a quick write, and while it was a healing experience, I was less frantic-feeling than when I wrote Courage in Patience, which was really about processing unfathomable pain. The pain was beginning to settle, but I was struggling mightily with the notion that the losses I had experienced were not just temporary. I started writing Hope in Patience the summer after Courage in Patience released, mainly because I realized that Ashley had unfinished business, and that was acceptance of the situation with her mom. Ashley—and I—were still waiting for the people who should have loved and protected us to—you know—snap out of it! Ashley thought her mom had to change because, well, she’s her mom, and no mom could really be that cold and messed up… could she?

You may remember that I wrote Courage in Patience during the school year (I’m a teacher), mostly in the middle of the night. By the time I started Hope in Patience, there was no more middle of the night writing: my body had readjusted to a normal schedule, and I could not pull the all-nighters that I had with Courage in Patience. I treated writing Hope in Patience like a full-time job. The entire summer (between “Mom Stuff” I did with my college-age daughters, that is), I wrote from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. I did a lot more research than I did for Courage in Patience. Unlike Courage in Patience, which takes place during the first summer that Ashley lives in Patience, Hope in Patience takes place during the regular school year. I researched World War II, since the Ashley’s American history teacher, Coach Griffin, is a WWII fanatic. I bought an American History textbook off Amazon and used it as the basis for what Coach Griffin teaches.

Ashley’s stepmom, Bev, teaches the novel Farewell to Manzanar, and I reread the novel (I used to teach it when I taught middle school). I wrote to Dwight Okita, the wonderful poet who wrote, “In Response to Executive Order 9066”, for permission to use the poem in Hope in Patience. I also wrote to Densho: The Japanese-American Legacy Project, for permission to quote from a video they have online. I studied World War II propaganda and newsreels. Ashley is in a class called Human Ecology—I LOVE that label!— it’s the study of families and child development. I researched a lot of Consumer and Family Science lesson plans. Throughout this process, I had kind of a spider-web-looking flowchart because I wanted all three of these classes to intersect. Luckily, I have enough experience in planning cross-curricular units that it was not very difficult for me to do.

Ashley’s stepfather, Charlie, goes to court for breaking her arm, so I did a lot of research into the trial process. My brother, Brett, is a police sergeant, and for many years he worked child abuse cases. I peppered him with questions about the legal process and sent him the early drafts of the chapter in which the trial takes place. He walked me through the Victim Impact Statement and told me whether the events in the courtroom seemed realistic.

I drew on my therapist’s expertise not only for myself, but for writing Hope in Patience, too. I needed to understand from an objective point-of-view the “why” behind self-mutilation, because I had never done it to the extent Ashley does, and I needed to know it from the mental health professional’s standpoint, too. I questioned him about how he would actually talk to a teenage girl. I wrote to Tom Russell, a Texas singer-songwriter, for permission to use a few lines from his song, “It Goes Away”, which Ashley’s therapist, Dr. Matt, plays for her during a therapy session.

I even researched haunted houses—you know, the kind that people put on around Halloween-- and Halloween theme parks, so that the Tour of Terror that Ashley goes on would be authentic. Even though I worked steadily on Hope in Patience for one entire summer, it took me most of the following summer to complete it. I really don’t write novels during the school year. My full-time job requires so much creative “juju” that just keeping up with lesson plans, grading, housework, and promotion of my already-out-there- books pretty much leave me too drained to storyweave. That said, I started the third (and final??) book in the Patience series, Truth in Patience, this past summer (between moving two of my daughters to Colorado and working on final edits for Hope in Patience).

Writers worry about characters and voice. How do you find the characters and voices for your books?

I look around for inspiration, and I frequently meld personalities of people I know into an amalgam that becomes a character. Each character has a role to play in terms of moving the story forward. As far as voice, I strive for authenticity and realism. I may want a character to be funny, but I need that person to be believable above all else.

I see Kunati, Inc., publisher for Courage in Patience, is now out of business. When a book becomes homeless, what options does the author have?

Great question!! When Kunati went out of business, all rights were reverted to me. In that case, the author has the right to try to sell the book to a new publisher, or self-publish it.

I am glad that you found a home for Hope in Patience at WestSide Books. Is there any plan of reprinting Courage in Patience with this publisher? What about your third and final book, Truth in Patience?

WestSide Books is the perfect fit for my work! I am thrilled beyond words to be associated with such an outstanding publisher. At this time, we have talked about the possibility of printing a reedited version of Courage in Patience. However, nothing has been set in stone, and it would be down the road and only if Hope in Patience and Truth in Patience do well. I am about four chapters in on Truth in Patience and I anticipate having it finished this coming summer.

What are your plans after the Patience series? Any more young adult books?

I do plan to continue writing. I am very interested in writing a novel having to do with an eating disorder—compulsive overeating. It will be for a young adult audience. I am also considering at some point writing a memoir of sorts about my own recovery from childhood sexual abuse. Both of these are still in the “thinking about” stage.

What message would you like to give writers who had suffered abuse in their childhood? Any message for readers like Ashley Nicole?

Writing can be an incredibly healing, freeing experience. It’s very important to be able to take the stuff that’s in your mind and allow it to escape. Putting it down on paper, kind of allowing it to sit awhile, then going back and rereading to see where you were at the time, can also be enlightening. I would encourage anyone who is suffering abuse to tell. Ask for help. If the first person does not listen, keep telling until someone does. You are not alone; there are many, many of us just like you. It is possible to overcome that which frightens you the most.

Thanks, Beth, for sharing your stories with us in the Patience series. May you sign lots of copies at your book launch in Texas!

Thank you so much for having me! I invite readers to stop by my website, http://www.bethfehlbaumya.com/, and read chapter previews of Hope in Patience and Courage in Patience!