Dorothy Rice, London Independent Story Prize 2024 2nd Competition Flash Fiction Finalist 'The Pastel Palace'

London Independent Story Prize 2024 2nd Competition Flash Fiction Finalist 'The Pastel Palace' by Dorothy Rice

- Can you please tell us about you and your daily life?

I am a writer and free-lance editor and tend to do writing and editing related tasks in the early morning, though that’s also the best time to walk where I live (Sacramento, California, where it gets very hot in the summer).

I am the Managing Editor of a nonfiction and fine arts journal Under the Gum Tree, a full color, print journal, now celebrating its 13th anniversary. We are open for submissions and are particularly looking for true stories that touch on food, film, music, travel or childhood (personal narrative). I am also a Board Member with a Sacramento area youth literacy nonprofit that conducts creative writing workshops for kids grades 3-12, including incarcerated youth. Thus far, we’ve published over 300 books of youth writing.

In the afternoons, my 10-year old granddaughter walks to my house after school. Most recently, we’ve been playing with clay and doing some sewing (when she isn’t scrolling on her phone). I also travel a fair amount, camping with my older sister, and visiting my daughters in New York—which is where I am often able to get the most writing done.

- When and how did you get into writing?

I fancied myself a writer from a young age. There was a time (10 to 14) when I prided myself on reading a book a day and planned to churn out “popular novels for the masses” (a phrase I used in college applications, sigh). Life intervened. The novels didn’t happen, best-selling or otherwise. I did write scads of regrettable poetry to Mick Jagger, a Wind in the Willows-inspired novella and a horse opera in imitation of William Farley’s Black Stallion.

I began writing in earnest (not just journaling and kvetching about how there was never time for real writing, after I retired from a 35-year career in environmental protection and raising five children. One shocking realization was that, though I’d long dreamed of becoming a big-time famous writer, once I actually had the time to work at it, I discovered that while I’d done plenty of technical and analytical writing, and I’d been writing books in my head while driving to and from work for decades, I didn’t actually know how to write a book, or even a story.

I now appreciate that it’s a lifelong process. With each draft, each book, essay and story, ideally I learn something about my point of view and my particular voice.

I earned an MFA in creative writing at 60 from the University of California, Riverside. My first book, The Reluctant Artist, a memoir and artbook, was published by Shanti Arts in 2015. Gray Is the New Black: A Memoir of Self-Acceptance (Otis Books) was published in 2019. I also edited the anthology TWENTY TWENTY: 43 Stories From a Year Like No Other (A Stories on Stage Sacramento Anthology, 2021). Links to many of my published stories, essays, book reviews and interviews are on my website www.dorothyriceauthor.com.

- How often do you write? Do you have a writing routine? And what inspires you to write?

I want to say I write every day, but it would be more honest to say I think about writing every day. If I’m immersed in a project, I do write or revise every day, sometimes for hours at a stretch if my schedule permits, but between projects I struggle to find my rhythm again. When that happens, it’s generally journaling, the practice of morning pages, that brings me back to the page. Time away from home can help too—distancing myself from the day-to-day distractions of house, family and garden for several days can prove the necessary jump-start for diving into the next project on my list. And as I mentioned earlier, trips to New York, staying with my daughter, gets me out of the routine as well.

All sorts of things inspire me. People, places, events, objects, animals, the weather, and, of course, memories. I keep an idea book where I jot them down. Some are very sketchy and some feel like the material for novels or even a series. Some of the ideas in my idea book have lingered there for a decade; I don’t know if that means they are very good ideas, I’m afraid to write about them or that I’m always drawn to some shinier new idea that comes along . . .

Having turned 70 this year, I committed to dust off a few lingering book-length projects and either bring them to a satisfactory conclusion or strike them from the yet-to-be-completed list. Well, the year is now three-quarters complete, and I’ve finished one draft that I’m reasonably happy with, so that’s something!

- How does it feel to have your work recognised?

It’s the best. Validation from peers, particularly from journals and writers I respect and whose work I admire, reassures me I’m on the right track, and that my work, my voice, has found a good home.

Writing can be a lonely pursuit, one where the feedback loop is primarily an internal one. The occasional publication, and the even-more occasional award serve as milestones, markers or lampposts that let me know I haven’t lost my mind or otherwise gone astray, and I do sometimes wonder, particularly when I’m taking risks and writing into new, unknown territory (which I believe is important to do).

- What's the best and most challenging thing about writing a story? 

Beginnings are hard, wrestling that first rough draft onto the page. What seemed like a promising idea is never so easily captured as I’d hoped it would be. It was a mere glimmer that must now be turned into story, with characters in motion, characters to whom something happens that matters. And I have to care enough about these characters and their story to do the hard work it takes to find the right words and put them in the right order to properly tell their story (and not too few or too many words).

I now trust that if I stick with it long enough, if I do the work, art will eventually emerge from my first ugly-duckling draft. I know this because I’ve now seen it happen enough times. No matter how ugly that first draft was, I trust my ability as writer and self-editor to realize my vision for a story or essay, and to also know when it’s time to concede the initial idea doesn’t hold up or warrant the effort. 

-  How did you develop the idea for your LISP-selected story? Is there a story behind your story? And, how long have you been working on it?

The Pastel Palace is part of a newly minted (and as-yet unpublished) novel in flash called The Thick and Thin House. This particular chapter has a number of stories behind it. Black licorice is my husband’s favorite candy (not mine) and he, like the character in this story, is a man of no discernible vices, which I do find worrisome, though not perhaps to the extent of the character in this story. And licorice All Sorts are very pretty. Many years ago, I found them used in a novel, in reference to the unique strata in a geologic formation; that image stuck with me and I’ve wanted to use them in a story ever since.

As for the mouse mistress, Mrs. Tippy Winkle, she, her ancestors and offspring, are characters in the novel in flash. For the Thick and Thin House, small mammalian and insect populations have proven more reliable over time than its human occupants.

I’ve been working on the novel off and on for about four years, and in earnest for the past year. The project began as a memoir about growing with my two sisters up in a San Francisco row house two blocks from the zoo. Through the magic of a flash fiction retreat with the amazing flash authors, Kathy Fish and Nancy Stohlman, my memoir was transformed—though it’s still about three girls who might be sisters (they can’t be sure) who after falling from the Cradle Place land on a hammock in front yard of the Thick and Thin House, which sometimes feels as hemmed in as a row house in San Francisco. 

- Can you please give us a few tips about writing a story?

Trust your instincts and don’t give up if your first draft is awful! If you get frustrated, set your work aside and come back to it later with fresher eyes or switch to another project then come back to it Sometimes it helps me to switch from working on the computer to writing longhand in my journal, or vice versa.

- What's the best thing and the most challenging thing about competitions? 

Deadlines can be helpful as a prod to get something done that might otherwise linger indefinitely. On the other hand, it’s frustrating when you miss them or realize the second you press “send” that what you’ve send included errors! Also, many competitions are themed or specifically targeted; this can feel encouraging or even fated, particularly when I have a story or essay that I imagine is on point for the topic or I’m the sought-after demographic for the competition. On the other hand, when I’m not selected, that doesn’t feel so great—time to remind myself that it’s simply a matter of taste and not a personal judgement.

- Lastly, do you recommend the writers submit to LISP?

I will now! Thank you!