Erica's Traveling Reality Show Tour: Spring '08
I'm in NYC. Visiting my "family." My extended family. We are like a reality show. In fact, there's isn't a reality show real enough for us.I was born on Yonkers, New York. I was raised in several places, including Bermuda where the British teachers hammered the accent out of me. You can tell I am from "up North." But mostly . . . I have kind of an anchorwoman accent--not any one accent in particular. Except when I visit New York. Then, the closer I get to a hundred-mile radius, the more my true New York accent comes out. Get around my family, and I sound just like 'em. For the record, if you are FROM Yonkers, you say it like YAHN-KHUZ.
We are loud. In my real life away from New York, I can be loud amongst friends when teasing during a poker game, but I am quiet more often than not. Not here. In order to get a word in edgewise, shouting is in order. Shouting and cursing. Everyone is affectionately termed a "jackass." It's a form of endearment in this house. If my aunt wants you to get moving, she screams, "move your can."
Get the idea? If she wants you to be quiet, she screams, "Shut your piehole." All said with love. All said with love.
And I am struck, more than ever, about how much where I was raised, my family, and so on, informs my work. Ninety-nine percent of my heroines are from Manhattan. It's because I don't know how to write someone from somewhere else. New York is such a part of you, that it's a woven bit of everything you are.
So this is my life for the next week. Jackasses and screaming and a reality show I wouldn't trade for anything. It's also part of my work.
So how about you? Is where you are from part of your work?
Labels: New York
posted by Erica Orloff at 6:07 PM
13 Comments:
Smiling here, Erica! Your family sounds terrific. And yep, my stories are all in the south. It's where my heart is, and where my family came from. I love that you do the same with your stories too. It's makes 'em real IMO.
Hi Ladonna:
The South is a whole different animal--and just as "reality show," I am sure. But with more restraint. :-)
I was rather quiet and shy as a child, and after my dad died, my mother married an Italian family. LOL, it was something! My father had been the quiet type, too, but not this Italian family, for sure! You either did not speak, or you yelled. There's really no in between.
But, I think, being adopted, even by family, has always made me feel alone and disconnected. Or maybe it was spending my first month in an incubator. Writing a girl with a big family would probably send me into panic attacks, LOL. My heroines tend to have the same traits. Reserved, alone, watching, afraid to put their guard down. They have to be seduced and lulled and coerced into baring the deepest parts of them, the vulnerable parts. But man, I do love the men I write that can do that. :-)
You would ask this after midnight, wouldn't you? I hope you're having a great time in New York! I've always wanted to go.
Oh ABSOLUTELY!!!!!!! I LOVE southern fiction, and i write books set in the south, mostly Texas, but I've done Atlanta and Oklahoma too.
LOL! Sounds like you're having a great time!!
Part of a childhood place creeped into my first book. But for the most part, I try to go to different places. Not enough pleasant memories to go back to....
I did most of my growing up in northern Illinois. Having spent the last 20 years overseas, I've concluded the most distinguishing characteristic of my home town is people there don't drive strangely.
Of course, the correct accent comes out of their pieholes, too.
Heh, yeah, I'm from the south, I generally write about the south. The south is creepy and weird, and anyone who doesn't believe that hasn't been here long enough! Though it's far more pronounced in smaller towns. :P
Hi Spy:
We have a big family, and it's always been close-knit . . . so no one needs coaxing. ;-) LOUD.
HEading into the Metropolitan Museum of Art today. LOVE museums.
Hi Amie:
Funny, when I was picking a pen name, I chose Tess Hudson. For the Hudson River and the famous heroine . . . but I had WANTED to choose Tallulah for the first name. Always loved that name . . . and I was told by my editors it was "too Southern" and readers would be expecting Southern fiction, which I don't do. :-) But I know it's got such a following of fans.
E
Stephen:
Shut your piehole and pass the damn ham.
That was actually a line from Easter dinner last night.
E
zoe:
Southern gothic!
E
hehe yup, I love Southern Gothic. I think some of my stuff has that flavor.
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