Arthur Q&A: Arthur Wooten

Today we chat with author Arthur Wooten. The New York City resident grew up just north of Boston in Andover, Massachusetts. His newest work, Birthday Pie, is a very southern work and Wooten, a man from the Northeast explains the creative process and more.

Where did the idea for Birthday Pie come from and describe the writing process?

Writing Birthday Pie was an extremely cathartic experience. Back in 1990, my father was in the last stages of cancer, and it was a very emotional time for my family and me. It was so intense. I started writing down feelings and scenarios that were happening just so I wouldn’t explode.

At first Birthday Pie appeared as reflections in my journal and I put it away for a while. But after my dad’s death, I revisited the work and felt that maybe what I experienced, a lot of other people might resonate with. I also sensed it would make a good play. So I looked to my favorite playwrights – Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill, Beth Henley – to see how they structured their work.

Flashback – When I first moved to New York City after attending UMass at Amherst, I pursued an acting career. And I’m pleased to say that for ten years I made a living at it. I had to. No one would hire me as a waiter. I studied with Uta Hagen, the sublime actress and teacher at HB Studios down on Bank Street. She wrote a brilliant book, Respect For Acting, which not only had a profound impact on my acting career but it also changed my life. With that education, I understood how to dissect my characters and understand them. I knew them inside and out. What they were thinking, what they were doing – off stage and on.

Hence, when it came time to sit down and write Birthday Pie the play, it’s almost as if I was a camera in the room watching these people. I could put them into any situation and they would write the material themselves. I know it sounds…spooky-wooky…and when it first started happening, I was wigged-out, but it’s the truth. I’m typing as fast as I can, watching and listening as they interact. And I’ve used that same writing technique with all the other projects I’ve written – plays, screenplays, teleplays and novels.

Long story short, Birthday Pie the play won the Key West Theatre Festival competition in 1998 and had its world premiere at the Waterfront Playhouse, Key West, which then eventually evolved into to Birthday Pie the movie (which is now optioned) which evolved into Birthday Pie the novel.

Birthday Pie has had a lot of birthdays and reincarnations! But what’s truly exciting is to realize that after all these years, the story and the characters, are just as alive and relevant as when they were first created twenty years ago.

How did a New Yorker end up writing about a southern family and style of living?

My dad was from Alabama. Born and bred. His family also has deep roots in Mississippi and Tennessee. A scientist and chemist, he went to the University of Michigan, and after meeting my mom up there and having us kids, he moved us to Andover, MA in the early 1950s.

But my dad never lost his thick and luxurious accent. I can remember kids coming over to play and he’d say something like, “I’m drivin’ ove tuh Methoon…” (translation: I’m driving over to Methuen), and the kids would like at him like he was an alien. The funny thing is if I drink a little too much bourbon, I start speaking with a Southern accent. It’s true.

Then, when my dad retired, he moved back down South with my mom where he became the Dean of the School of Forestry at Mississippi State. Back on home territory, his Southern style really flourished again and my mom started to pick up on it too.

And although I lived in New England till my early twenties – my dad’s deep Southern sensibilities had a strong and ever-lasting influence on me.

You are originally from the Boston area, does this area have a lingering influence you?

It truly does. I loved growing up in Andover. I loved the house we lived in, on Dascomb Road. I’m so pleased to discover that it is now on the National Register of Historic Places. Built in 1716, I used the Andover house as the blueprint for the house in Birthday Pie that the Martindales live in. And I use streets that I remember as well as villages and schools. Country Clubs and public watering holes as well as variations of names of friends appear in the book. Friends from Andover who have already read the book have written to me laughing, “Rattle Snake Road, Indian Ridge, Pomps Pond!” You’d hardly think it was New England. Doesn’t it sound Southern?

Recently, I revisited the house on Dascomb Road and the woman who bought the house from us in 1973 still lives there. We’ve become good friends. I have such fond memories of that property that my siblings said, “Don’t go back. You’ll be disappointed.” But they were wrong. The house and property look larger and more beautiful than I remember. I’ve discussed it with the owner – I’m tempted to buy the property back.

What is your next project?

Immediately, I’m working on the eBook versions of my first two novels, On Picking Fruit and its sequel Fruit Cocktail. Also, Fruit Cocktail has sold out its printing with my publisher Alyson Books and rights have reverted back to me. The Author’s Guild has offered to republish it and before that happens, I want to add an additional chapter.

Fans of the “Fruit Series” are aching for a third book, so that’s in the back of my mind. And already, reviewers and readers are asking if there will be a sequel to Birthday Pie. I think because my novels don’t have tidy little bows that wrap everything up in the end, they lend themselves to…well, what happens next? And I like that. It’s the way life is.

What are you reading now?

I just finished as stunning book, Blind: A Memoir by Belo Cipriani. A young gay man is beaten senselessly by his best friends who also happen to be gay. But this is not a depressing story. It is about Belo’s rediscovering himself and his life, now as a blind man. It is painfully honest. Shook me to the core.

And I’m just about to start Broken April by the Albanian author Ismail Kadare. Supposedly an intense novel about how the past affects the present. Sounds Karmic.

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