Mary Elizabeth Summer is a Portland, Oregon-based writer who spends her days writing training materials for various companies and her nights racing pell-mell across the keyboard after her rampaging imagination. She writes novel-length stories with occasional forays into shorter fiction, and she writes for young adults, except for when she doesn't. She has a BA in creative writing (she BSes everything else), and she haunts bookstores for fun. Her current writing project is a young adult novel about a girl on the grift. Non-writing interests include volunteering at a horse-therapy program for autistic children and learning the fine art of parenting from her newborn daughter.
interview by Marcia Peterson
WOW: Congratulations on placing as one of the Runners Up in our Spring 2010 competition! What inspired you to enter the contest?
Mary Elizabeth: Thank you! I was very honored to be chosen from among such talented writers. Actually, I was inspired to enter the contest when I read that I could receive a critique of my entry. I didn't expect to actually place in the contest. I was happily surprised when I did, but also happy to get a professional opinion about the story.
WOW: Glad your expectations were exceeded! Can you tell us what encouraged the idea behind your story, "Of Crepes and Constancy?"
Mary Elizabeth: It's kind of a funny story. My writing group decided to try a variation of the exquisite corpse exercise in which each of us put two sentences into a hat and then draw two sentences out. One sentence was to be used as the first sentence of a story, and the second sentence was meant to be the last sentence of the story. The first sentence I drew was "How many times can you burn a crepe before it really does mean something?" In my original version of the story, I managed to end it with the second sentence, but in the revision process, I had to cut it, because it didn't quite work. As for the substance of the piece, at the time I wrote it, I was noticing a pattern in the relationships of people around me--a certain sort of insincerity that led to mind games and dissatisfaction. I had actually meant it to be a comical story, but it didn't turn out that way. Funny how characters sometimes take a story and run in completely the opposite direction with it.
WOW: For writers who may be interested in what you do for a living, could you describe what it’s like writing training materials for various companies?
Mary Elizabeth: It can be challenging at times. I have to take a bunch of information about something I know absolutely nothing about and shape it in a way that makes sense to someone else who knows nothing about it so that they learn. It involves a lot of adult learning theory and subject matter experts and ridiculous budget constraints and unrealistic turn-around times and blah blah blah corporate blah. It is a pretty sweet job, though. I essentially get to write for a living, which is the golden apple, right?
WOW: It sounds like a demanding but interesting job. How do you switch gears to write fiction at
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Blog: WOW! Women on Writing Blog (The Muffin) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Runner up, Marcia Peterson, writing prompts, flash fiction contest winner, technical writing, Spring 2010 Flash Fiction Contest, Mary Elizabeth Summer, YA literature, Add a tag
By: MP,
on 10/5/2010
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Blog: WOW! Women on Writing Blog (The Muffin) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Runner up, Marcia Peterson, writing prompts, flash fiction contest winner, technical writing, Spring 2010 Flash Fiction Contest, Mary Elizabeth Summer, YA literature, Add a tag
1 Comments on Interview with Spring 2010 Flash Fiction Runner-Up, Mary Elizabeth Summer, last added: 10/7/2010
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Congratulations, Mary Elizabeth! Your answers were very insightful.