memoir Passport to Paris

Post #245 – Memoir Writing Interview – Matilda Butler

Interview with Memoir Author Glynne Hiller

BOOK GIVEAWAY: Check out this interview with Glynne Hiller. Then if you would like to enter our contest for a giveaway of her new memoir PASSPORT TO PARIS, just leave a comment below. Glynne will chose her favorite comment and that lucky person will receive a copy of her book.

Matilda Butler: Glynne, welcome to WomensMemoirs. I’m excited that you could join us today. We are a community of women writers who share our ideas, inspirations, and concerns about memoir writing. I’m sure that everyone here will be fascinated with your memoir.

I just finished reading Passport to Paris and couldn’t put it down.
Glynne, you know how to bring the reader right into your story in such a powerful and yet engaging way. Would you start by telling our readers about your memoir?


Glynne Hiller: Hi Matilda. Thanks for inviting me. It’s always great to have an opportunity to talk about my memoir.

Imagine yourself back in 1950 and join me as I share my story. Passport to Paris takes place after the end of World War II. US soldiers who had served in the army were given educational scholarships under the G.I. Bill to study at the university of their choice.

When my husband, Joe, elected to take his Masters’ Certificate in Paris at the Sorbonne I screamed: “Ooh la la! How fantastically wonderful!” I looked forward to being among French speaking people and was excited to see the Seine because I knew there were fishermen still fishing in it.

I thought this trip to France might cement our marriage, at least I hoped so. I wasn’t certain any longer that I loved Joe. He was a dear man seven years older than myself, whom I’d married when I was 17. But somehow he no longer made my heart flutter.

Matilda Butler: Prior to your new memoir, you authored two books on teenage health and beauty. In addition you taught courses on Colette, Proust, and Virginia Woolf at Manhattanville College and the New School in New York City.

So you knew the rigors of writing. And yet it took you many years to complete your memoir. This is not unusual. It takes the majority of people a decade or longer to write a memoir. When you reflect on your experience, why do you think it took you so long?

Glynne Hiller: I don’t know. I guess I’m just a slowpoke, and I was busy living my life. I was taking long walks on the beach and welcoming my family and friends to visit. Since I live on the beach, my house is like a hotel! People come, people go and we have huge meals with conversations that last hours. I also did a bit of traveling.

Matilda Butler: Glynne, you’re my role model and hero. I love the idea that when I’m in my 90s, as you are, I’ll be taking long beach walks and having fascinating dinner conversations with friends and family.

But I must admit I think you are being too modest. Memoir writing requires persistence and you certainly have that.

I know that at a certain point in your writing, you worked with your daughter. How did that process get started?

Glynne Hiller: Cathy kept nagging me to finish my memoir and I always said, “All in good time. It will get finished eventually — especially if you stop nagging.” Finally, she threatened me: “It’s now or never! We must get this book out!” Reluctantly I gave her my files so she could edit the book.

A bonus of this form of collaboration was that although Cathy and I had always been close, now we are even closer as we laugh at old memories.
 
Matilda Butler: I’m so glad you brought up that perspective. I’ve known a number of women who consult other family members to clarify their memories. You’ve turned that around in that you have helped your daughter to remember and learn about experiences earlier in your life.

My next question relates to publishing. I wonder about your reaction to the current publishing process today compared with your experience with American Girl books.

Glynne Hiller: It is totally different! I worked on a typewriter and at times even wrote by hand. I just had my pen, paper, typewriter and carbon paper. For Passport to Paris, I worked on a computer, and that turned out to be a problem, as I had duplicate files and disappearing files and computer malfunctions that my computer tech, Jorge, had to fix! Had I just written the book in longhand and typed it up, it might have taken half the time!

Back in the fifties and sixties, I was the beauty editor of American Girl Magazine and consequently the editors arranged for Doubleday and Random House to publish my beauty books. I did not have to worry about that or do anything for publicity! Still, there wasn’t much publicity for those books, though they sold well.

This time we had to find the publisher, Heliotrope Books, and prepare for a publicity campaign involving interviews and readings and a publicist.

Matilda Butler: You certainly have that right. Publishing has completely changed. And I love the way that you’ve embraced the new.

Glynne, your memoir is quite frank about your love affairs. How do you think your family and friends will react?

Glynne Hiller: That’s a good question. They might be a bit startled but not totally surprised – because they know me and they suspect that I’ve always been an adventurous woman! But they probably will react with new interest and perhaps mild shock to hear the details of my early life in Paris. That’s some of what I like about memoir – a part of your past can be made fresh again instead of forgotten or ignored.

Matilda Butler: Memoir writing means the need to be selective in what you write as it is about a slice of life rather than an entire life, which would mean an autobiography. Your first narrowing or focusing was to limit your memoir to your two years in Paris. Within that period, did you still find that there were things you left out? And if so, why did you feel it was all right to ignore those details?

Glynne Hiller: Yes, there are two things that I decided to leave out. First, I was friends with the famous artist, Sam Francis, though we didn’t have a love affair. (Can’t have them with everyone!) He showed me how he made his drip paintings. And second, Cathy had a terrible winter with mumps and scarlet fever. I had to send her to the country to recuperate.

Why did I leave these two part of my life out of Passport to Paris? As I wrote the memoir, I realized that neither of these parts of my life, while important, weren’t important to the central theme, which is how I finally found love. If I were to give advice to other memoir writers, I’d urge them to freely give up even fun and interesting stories when they do not cast light on the book’s theme.

Matilda Butler: Glynne, I think many people reading your memoir today would consider you a feminist pioneer. Do you consider yourself that way?

Glynne Hiller: That’s a hard question to answer. I’d say that perhaps unconsciously I consider myself a feminist. I want to make my own decisions throughout life, as I did in Paris.

I expect I was always a feminist, but I just didn’t think of the word!

Matilda Butler: Well, I certainly think of you as a strong feminist who is still going strong.

Glynne, thanks for this interview. And congratulations on the publication of your memoir.

Glynne Hiller: Thanks Matilda. And I want to urge everyone to leave a comment below. I’ll choose one and the winner will receive a copy of my memoir — Passport to Paris — thanks to the generosity of my publisher Heliotrope Books. And to everyone who reads Passport to Paris, let me thank you in advance and hope it helps you to think about your own life adventures!

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