Memoir Author Interview: Karen Fisher-Alaniz on Breaking the Code

Post #80 – Women’s Memoirs, Author Conversations – Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler

Women’s Memoirs Welcomes Author Karen Fisher-Alaniz

Women’s Memoirs: Hi Karen. We’re delighted to have you visit Women’s Memoirs today. Before asking you my first question, let me give our readers a little information about your new memoir and the incredibly special MEMOIR GIVEAWAY that you are offering our readers:

“My memoir is the true story of the secrets my father swore to keep during WWII and what happened when he finally began to talk about them. He kept his secrets locked away for more than 50-years. But secrets have a way of taking a toll on their keeper. That’s what happened to my father. Shortly after 9/11/2001, he began having terrible nightmares and vivid flashbacks. He was in his 80’s and I simply wanted to help him. So we set out on an unintended journey.” — Karen Fisher-Alaniz

Karen’s GIVEAWAY. Karen is offering an incredibly special copy of her memoir — autographed both by her and by her wonderful father. There are very few of these doubly autographed copies so this is quite a treat. Want a chance to win a free autographed copy? Leave Karen a note in the Comments section below. Tell her about your father — or about a tie to World War II — or what her article has meant to you. Then we’ll let Karen choose the best comment and that person will receive a copy of  Breaking the Code: A Father’s Secret, a Daughter’s Journey, and the Question That Changed Everything. We’ll contact you to get your address once the comment period ends.

Karen will be back next week discussing her experiences on marketing her book. Be sure to come back then and leave another comment to increase your chances of winning.

Now, on to our interview with Karen Fisher-Alaniz.

Women’s Memoirs Question #1. Karen, I know that in addition to teaching, you have long been writing. Prior to your current memoir — Breaking the Code: A Father’s Secret, a Daughter’s Journey, and the Question That Changed Everything — you wrote children’s books and women’s fiction. What caused you to turn to memoir?

Karen Fisher-Alaniz: The story. Truly, that’s what happened. I had written on and off for years, but just for fun. Then after teaching special education for 14-years, health issues forced me out of the job I loved. I had to rethink my whole life. I was only in my early 40’s and had no plan for the rest of my life.

So, I started journaling. Then I wrote a few novels and children’s books. But none of this felt just right. So I began freelance writing. I researched it to pieces and began submitting things. I found that I was pretty good at it. I was published in teen magazines and regional magazines. My stories appeared in Chicken Soup for the Nurse’s Soul: Second Dose: More Stories to Honor and Inspire Nurses (Chicken Soup for the Soul), and Voices of Multiple Sclerosis: The Healing Companion: Stories for Courage, Comfort and Strength (Voices Of series).

Even though I was finding some success, it still didn’t feel quite right. It just wasn’t that fulfilling for me. Well, a few years prior to losing my job, my father and I had started talking about his wartime experiences. It’s ironic that while I was trying to “find myself” and figure out what to do with the rest of my life, I was hearing my father’s story, which eventually would be the answer.

Women’s Memoirs: Question #2. What was it like talking with your father about stories that he had kept secret all these years? Were their emotional issues for you? What about the technical issues of how you recorded his answers. I am sure that some of our readers would like to get down the stories from their parents, but that isn’t always easy. For example, do you have to prompt your father or did he simply tell the stories?

Karen Fisher-Alaniz: I grew up in a typical middle-class family. My father worked. My mother stayed home until I was in school. Mom cooked. Dad mowed the lawn.

So, when he began having nightmares and flashbacks in his 80’s, I had little to draw upon. I don’t think most of us have a particularly emotional relationship with our fathers and that was certainly true of mine. Don’t get me wrong, my father is a wonderful father and provider. But you just don’t talk to your dad the way you do your girlfriends or your sisters. Dad and I talked at each other. We didn’t talk to each other. And we barely listened.

Then suddenly he was suffering and I knew deep within me that talking would help him. So, I had to work at it very slowly. The whole story took more than five years to unfold. Talking to your loved ones about your family stories can be difficult. I always had more questions than he had answers. I’d often leave frustrated. His pace did not match mine. But I knew that I couldn’t push too hard either. So, I was careful, methodical. I knew what I wanted answered but if the timing wasn’t right, I had to let it go. The stories he told were out of sequence. So, I simply wrote down what I got and put the puzzle together when there were enough pieces.

Women’s Memoirs: Question #3.Thanks Karen. I can imagine that holding yourself, your curiosity, in check was difficult. You seem wise in the way that you allowed the story to unfold. It is possible to say that your father’s story was thrust upon you. But now that you are into the memoir genre, do you think you’ll write your own memoir? 

Karen Fisher-Alaniz: Breaking the Code is my memoir. It’s a bit different within the genre because it is really based on my father’s story.

I am writing another memoir that is entirely different than this one. My son, who is a teenager now, was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder when he was young. I want to write the story of raising him, but from a humorous perspective. If you can’t laugh while raising a difficult child, you’ll do nothing but cry.

But that aside, I really want to stay within the military genre. There are amazing stories out there that haven’t been told. I’m looking for that story because I believe in the importance of sharing our hero’s stories before it’s too late.

Women’s Memoirs: Question #4.In what ways did writing this story change you, change your relationship with your father?

Karen Fisher-Alaniz: I understand my father more now. Part of that is because of writing his story. Part of it is from understanding what Post-traumatic Stress Disorder is and how it affected the father I knew.

But the biggest reason I feel closer to my father is that I slowed down to listen. When I was young, I was too naïve to listen to my father. When I got older and had kids of my own, I was too busy. When I finally slowed down and listened, it was really about time. We gave each other a gift – the gift of time. It was simply breakfast at a local diner – one hour a week. But it changed both of our lives.

Women’s Memoirs: Question #5. What words of wisdom would you have for our readers who are currently working on their memoirs. 

Karen Fisher-Alaniz: Tell the truth. What I mean by that is that we each have our own truth. Your friends and family may have shared experiences with you. But their story will be different from yours. Of course, when it’s possible, it’s great to get all perspectives. But if there are discrepancies, believe in your own truth.

Do not be afraid of asking for help. Go to a critique or writing group. Attend conferences. Whatever you want to learn to do, make yourself a student of it. Learn all you can.

You can’t tell it all. A memoir is a chunk of your life, not the whole thing. Figure out what is important within that chunk of time and write it. For example, while I was writing my memoir about my father, I was also going through the very difficult time of losing my job. I purposely did not include that. I certainly could have. It would have been very dramatic. But as an artist of words, I made the decision. Including my own struggles would distract from my father’s story and I didn’t want that. But that’s the beautiful thing about memoir – you can always write another one.

Write it down now – because it’s later than you think. We all have someone in our lives whose story is begging to be told; grandmother, father, neighbor. Don’t wait another day. Don’t wait until the kids are a little older or until things slow down at work. Don’t wait until life isn’t so crazy. The time will never be perfect – I promise you. None of us are promised tomorrow, and sadly, when our loved one is gone, so are their stories. So, write them now. Begin today. It doesn’t have to be fancy or written with eloquence. All that matters is that the story is told.

Thank you for inviting me to visit your blog. I’ll be happy to come back to answer any questions your readers might have. I look forward to continuing our conversation next week when I have a chance to share my experiences with book marketing.

Karen has posted some of her interviews with her father on YouTube. These are stories not covered in the book. Here’s one:

[If you are interested in the Kindle version, just click on the image to the left.]

Be sure to leave Karen your comment below in order to entered for a chance to win an autographed copy of Breaking the Code: A Father’s Secret, a Daughter’s Journey, and the Question That Changed Everything.

Tagged as: father-daughter memoir, memoir, memoir author, Memoir Author Interview, storytelling, World War II memoir