Lee Martin is the author of the novels Break the Skin, The Bright Forever (Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), River of Heaven, and Quaker Town; the nonfiction books Such a Life, From Our House, and Turning Bones; and a short story collection, The Least You Need to Know.  His essay “When You Have to Go There” appears in issue 23.1 of The Journal (Autumn 1999).  Recently, Martin spoke with nonfiction editor Silas Hansen about how his work has changed in the past thirteen years, the varying approaches to writing book-length vs. essay-length nonfiction, and his writing plans for the future.

Silas Hansen: Your essay “When You Have to Go There” was published in our Autumn 1999 issue. When this piece was published, where were you in terms of your writing career? What has changed since then?

Lee Martin: At that point, I was, though I didn’t know it, working on my first memoir, From Our House. I’d published my first book, the story collection, The Least You Need to Know, which had the honor of being the first winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize from Sarabande Books, and for the first time I was writing creative nonfiction. “When You Have to Go There” was one of the pieces that became a chapter in From Our House. So, you see, I was at the very beginning of my career as a writer of creative nonfiction. Since then, I’ve published three other memoirs and four novels, one of which was fortunate enough to be named a Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction.

SH: If you could say anything to the younger self who wrote this piece, what would you say?

LM: Don’t be afraid. Tell the stories you need to tell.

SH: You’ve written a number of essays about your family and childhood in rural Illinois, and that was also the subject of your memoir, From Our House. How do you approach these similar subjects in essays versus in a full-length memoir? Are there particular topics you know will be better suited for a shorter piece, versus a book-length project?

LM: I’ve always thought of an essay as a compressed form no matter how associative it might be. In other words, I think essays, whether we’re talking about short pieces of memoir, or personal essays, or whatever other sub-form you’d like to mention, are all headed toward that moment of inevitable surprise at the end, that moment in which something arrives—an insight, a deepening of a question, a new question—and there’s a moment of luminosity. In this way, the essay is very much like a short story. When I have material from my life or from the world around me that fits that description, I know I have an essay. When I have material whose arc, usually narrative in nature, stretches over years, I know that I probably have a book-length project.

SH: In addition to your nonfiction writing, you’re also an accomplished fiction writer. Aside from the obvious, what do you see as the differences between fiction and nonfiction? Do you approach the genres in different ways, either as a writer or as a reader?

LM: The obvious answer, of course, is that nonfiction is true and fiction is invented, but really sometimes I think fiction can be just as “true” as nonfiction, but perhaps that’s a conversation for another time. What I expect from nonfiction as a writer and a reader that doesn’t always apply to fiction is the sense of the writer’s presence. A strong sense of a writer’s sensibilities, sometimes at odds, working to more fully understand something.

SH: What are your writing plans for the near future?

LM: There are novels to write and essays to write and maybe even a short story now and then. My plans are to work a little each day on whatever calls me to attend to it.