Little Avalanches by Becky Ellis

INTERVIEW WITH BECKY ELLIS

March 15, 2024

 

GENERAL QUESTIONS

HOW DO YOU BEGIN WRITING A NEW BOOK?

This is my first book! I spent twenty years in publishing, selling other people’s beautiful books, and now I have one of my own! Little Avalanches started on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon while making a tuna sandwich for my 89-year-old father. He sat at the kitchen table and asked if we had any issues to clear up. We had issues! But I wanted to understand why we had them and where they came from. My father and I began a year-long conversation that day, and I began writing it all down as a way to understand our lives more deeply. With this one out in the world now, I’m about to find out how I will begin the next one.

 

What was your favorite book as a child?

I loathed reading when I was young. My brother always had his nose in a book and I wanted to play catch or chase or cards with him and books felt like competition. The only book I can remember reading is Walter The Lazy Mouse by Marjorie Flack. Walter was so lazy that he was chronically late, like me to reading! When I got to college I fell in love so in love with books that I made a career of selling, promoting, and making them.

 

Do you listen to music while you write, or do you need complete silence?

Both! I need silence at my desk, but I live in a small town outside of Portland, Oregon, and the closest I get to quiet is rain tapping on the window or a train rumbling through my backyard. For me, writing extends into the forest, where I walk and think and work out the knots of a story. That’s when I listen to music. There are a few songs that I played on repeat while “writing” this story on the trail. You can find them on the Little Avalanches’ playlist.

 

Do you think being a writer isolates you or connects you to other people?

Shared passion is very connective and one of my favorite things to do is talk about books and writing. I have a wonderful writer’s group that I meet with every other week. I volunteer regularly at a local high school, helping first-gen college-bound students with application essays. And I have a book group I’ve gathered with every month for twenty years.

 

What advice would you give to a new writer?

Keep going! I wrote so many drafts of this book that I’ve lost count. I changed the structure alone five times. It’s important to learn craft, practice, practice, practice, and keep going!

 

BECKY SPECIFIC QUESTIONS

HOW HAS WRITING THIS BOOK CHANGED YOU?

I had built a carefully curated life with granite countertops, kids’ soccer games, fun birthday parties, and a good career. I tried hard to raise 3 daughters and keep it all together. While this life looked beautiful on the outside, it felt like it was held together with scotch tape. And every time my father visited I felt that delicate tape peel back and the foundation fall away. I ultimately realized that I hadn’t escaped my past, I was hiding from it. Repeating my childhood. I finally got an opportunity to work through this with my father and find a place of empathy for him and compassion for myself. I realized that we are profoundly shaped by the secrets we keep and forever changed by the stories we share. Through writing this book and sharing this story I’ve come out of hiding and into a more compassionate life.

 

WHAT IS YOUR HOPE FOR THIS BOOK?

I hope readers are able to experience life the way I did – to stand in other shoes for a moment and really see things from a different point of view. And I hope they are filled with empathy the way I was when I heard my father’s story, not for the people in my life, but for the people in their lives. Ultimately I hope it inspires readers to engage in open dialogue with those they love most so that we all feel more connected and less alone.

 

WHAT WAS THE MOST SURPRISING THING YOU LEARNED FROM WHILE WRITING THIS BOOK?

That intergenerational trauma is not always obvious. I honestly had no idea that I had experienced trauma as a child. I knew I had an unusual childhood, and I knew it was hard, but I didn’t value my story. I was this little kid and my father was this big war hero and it took me time to come around to the fact that my story was as important as his. 

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