Alumni Interview: Katerina Cosgrove

by Diana Jenkins

Varuna Alumna Katerina Cosgrove is no stranger to the high price to be paid for fictionalising the stories of real people and places. In the case of her first novel, The Glass Heart, Katerina mined the memories and stories of her own family in Greece, her ancestral heartland. In her latest novel, Bone Ash Sky, Katerina explores the multi-generational impact of war and genocide in Turkish Armenia and modern day Lebanon. It’s a volatile, inherently irreconcilable and deeply controversial space in fiction: where’s the line, and whose story is it to tell? I’m delighted to welcome Katerina to the Alumni interview suite.

DJ: Okay, Katerina, let's talk first about the fall-out from writing aspects of your Greek family's story in your previous novel, The Glass Heart. I'm fascinated by the contradiction between that very basic desire to tell the story and the simultaneous horror of having the story told. You mention in ‘Personal meets political,’ a recent Australian Author article (46.1), an aunt speaking freely while you took notes - surely you were both clear on the implications of that exchange? And yet something happens, doesn't it, after the initial transfer of information? Tell us about your experience.

KC: My aunt, I feel, never believed that her 'lowly' memories would make it between the pages of a book that not only would be published, but published in her own country. She never went to school; she was the product of a widowed father who could not afford to send his oldest daughter to learn, when she could work in the fields and with the animals. Even now, she has not actually read the Greek translation of The Glass Heart. She relied on her daughter's husband, a High Court judge, to tell her that she should be outraged. She comes from a time when women, especially illiterate women, were not encouraged to think for themselves.

I feel that with any exchange between an interviewer and an interviewee, a false sense of security and intimacy is established. It's nobody's fault. It's just that we can't imagine that our confessions and recollections will make their way from such an intensely private space - that of one being talking to another - into a public forum, with all its possibilities for misconception and confusion.

DJ: Ownership of family history is notoriously treacherous territory; some writers are compelled to mine their own but the results can be personally catastrophic. Relationships never recover in some cases. How much thought did or do you give to such possible consequences?

KC: I was young and naive when I started researching The Glass Heart, only 21. I don't think the issues of authorial responsibility, who 'owns' or has a right to tell the family history, or how it would impact my relatives, was on my radar at all. In 2002 I had an article published by Gourmet Traveller on my grandmother's cooking, and an older cousin of mine called me to complain, firstly, that I had no right to use the particular photo that was printed in the magazine (because she claimed it was her father's) and that my grandmother never actually made Greek egg-lemon-chicken soup! So their concerns can be quite petty. I don't feel that those concerns are justified. In the case of my novel, names, dates and places were changed - and the only people who recognised themselves in it wanted to make the connections.

DJ: How does it feel when family members in Greece, for instance, cross the street to avoid you?

KC: In the first instant, on that day on the island of Poros last year, I felt deeply hurt. Then in the next moment I experienced a pang of self-shame (we never wholly escape our conditioning!) and in the instant after that I had a flash of anger. How dare they? After that initial turmoil of emotions, I was surprised to feel free of judgement. I felt lightness and indifference, and didn't carry the burden of my relatives' judgment with me at all that day - or at any time after.

The day before that, my aunt (now in her nineties) had taken me aside when I was at her home and began shouting at me, telling me I had shamed the family, that they wanted nothing to do with me, that I must be crazy and immoral to write things like that. In the next moment, she was embracing my daughter and offering her food, flowers from the garden and chocolates. I was not overly perturbed, having become used to the passionate nature of my family's way of communicating. It wasn't until the younger generation avoided my husband and me that I knew their affront cut deep - and that it would have long-term consequences.

DJ: Did you feel the need to warn them about the coming publication of the novel, or to explain your fictional interpretation of some factual elements, or did you just leave the cards to fall as they may?

KC: I didn't warn anyone. Frankly, I was surprised they had read it. In Greece, only my 'educated' relatives on the island came across it. My closer relatives, in the Peloponnesian villages, knew I had written it but didn't really care. In Australia, all my relatives were invited to my book launch, but none came. You see, for them writing a book isn't an achievement, or something to be celebrated, they care only in so far as their own reputations are intact.

DJ: Do you think there's a generational shift as well? That obsessive preoccupation with what other people think - which is surely at the heart of the unease with being written about - seems to have receded a bit, don't you think? Maybe it's because I'm a writer but I do think my in-laws, for instance, are much more concerned about this than people my own age. But maybe that's naive. Then again, the younger generation, Gen 'i', does seem to be all about incessant disclosure, the absolute opposite of doggedly private, so perhaps there really has been a big cultural swing?

KC: I would tend to agree with you. Older Greeks, especially those from a village background; close-knit, almost tribal - are obsessive about what others think. They hone in on the smallest details. I suppose, in a traditional community, whether you were accepted or rejected was a matter of inclusion or ostracism, life or death. My generation and Gen Y are the opposite of that, yes. We share every moment on Facebook and Instagram. We share our triumphs and our vulnerability in a way that exposes who we really are on a visceral level. We are less interested in roles than unmasking, to have more authentic relationships.

DJ: Contentious material is undeniably delicate; how did you approach wildly different historical accounts and competing narratives in Bone Ash Sky, your new novel?

KC: I tried to focus on the similarities between peoples rather than their differences. I came to the conclusion as I was researching the novel that there are no 'goodies' or 'baddies'; that we can all be victims or perpetrators if given a conducive environment. And so often, as in the case with the Palestinians and Israelis, the victims become perpetrators. So I didn't lay blame, I cultivated empathy for every one of my characters: suicide bomber, militia man, orphan, widow, army general.

DJ: How did you research the novel?

KC: I travelled to Lebanon, Armenia, Syria and Turkey multiple times; talked to people who were the descendants of survivors; read eyewitness accounts of the atrocities; and did a ton of other reading too.

DJ: What interview methods do you use to put people at ease so that they're inclined to open up to you?

KC: I try to be real and authentic. I don't really conduct interviews. I see what arises as we sit and talk, share a raki or a fig fresh from the tree in their garden, I spend a lot of time just being with them. I don't seek out potential subjects, they come to me as I'm just being there, travelling around.

DJ: How much of your novel's aims/narrative imperatives do you share with your subjects? Are they generally interested in your plans for their stories or do you think many fail to really grasp the 'new life' potential of what you'll do when using parts of their history?

KC: I think most people - again, especially the older generation, and of ethnic backgrounds - believed that I was writing a straight non-fiction history. I think at times they may not grasp that 'fiction is the lie that tells the truth.'

DJ: I think there's an element of vanity when people are affronted by the end result, like they wanted to see a particular version of themselves rendered in the world of the book, and if it doesn't match (has it ever matched?! In the whole history of writers pillaging real lives for fictional and indeed non-fictional works, has it *ever* matched?! I doubt it!), that's when all hell breaks loose, whereas if it was just reinforcing their cherished narrative of self, why, yes, you can go ahead and quote me on that...To what extent has that been your experience?

KC: Very much so. There were a number of Armenians - some quite prominent - who were offended or hurt by my portrayal of a genocide survivor, my character Selim, who goes on to be instrumental in the massacres at Sabra and Shatila during the Lebanese Civil War. It was very much a refrain of 'How could you do that to us?' I feel that often races or ethnicities that have been hurt ancestrally tend to carry a victim mentality around with them. I know the Greeks do in regard to the Turkish occupation.

DJ: Why make life so hard for yourself? You're writing novels anyway, so why not just make up everything and everyone?

KC: Well, that's what I'll be doing next! I'm writing a YA crossover dystopian novel. Nobody can get offended at that one - I hope. I didn't make the decision because I was 'burnt' with the other two novels, rather because this is where my interests are leading me these days.

DJ: What is it about these difficult but true stories that inspires you to fictionalise them?

KC: Both my novels were based on personal and/or national histories that have been forgotten and largely untold. The Glass Heart sought to give voice to the experience of women, of the illiterate women who were the backbone of Greek society at that time.

Bone Ash Sky gave voice to the Armenian genocide, which hadn't really been tackled in fiction at that stage, and to experiences that were contradictory, difficult or ignored - that of women and children in war. I've always been interested in secret histories, in taboo subjects, and in the underdog. Both these novels dug into these dark, unexplained places.

DJ: Tell us more about Bone Ash Sky and how it both differs from and relates to The Glass Heart.

Bone Ash Sky is different from The Glass Heart, but also similar in structure. It is imagined on a much larger scale, spanning four generations and many continents. Though The Glass Heart spans generations too, and is set in both Greece and Australia, it is a more intimate account of family, love, birth, death, betrayal. Bone Ash Sky takes those universal themes and paints them on a broader and deeper canvas.

DJ: Is it conscious on your part, this repeated creative excavation of personal history and tragedy? Is this where your writerly heart beats fastest?

KC: It did, very much so. But I've changed in the last four or five years. As I said, I've always been interested in secret histories. I was also fascinated by the Middle East and the Levant, and in making sense of my own place in history. As I grow older, I am more interested in the present moment, and in what lies ahead for myself, my family and the planet as a whole.

DJ: Tell us about your relationship with Varuna and how it's assisted your development.

KC: When I was in the midst of my Doctorate of Creative Arts at UTS, back in 2002, part of my thesis was to write a 90,000 word novel. I applied for a residency at Varuna and was fortunate enough to be able to go there, where I was surrounded by support from Peter Bishop and the other writers who were staying at that time. We workshopped our drafts, talked, walked in the gardens, laughed, ate delicious food. That DCA novel went on to be tightened into a novella, Intimate Distance, which was one of the winners of the Griffith Review/CAL Novella Project in 2012.

DJ: I've heard many times of writers being unable to let go of something they've heard - try as they might, some stories lodge in the mind and refuse to be silenced until the book is written - to what extent has that been your experience?

KC: It was definitely my experience when I first heard and read about the Armenian genocide. That was in 2002, and I had an intense desire to go there. It felt like an imaginary place and a mythic people. So I travelled to those places later in that same year, and grounded myself in those stories.

DJ: What are some of the positives coming out of using aspects of real life and real people in your fiction? Have some family members, for instance, embraced the book/s?

KC: My parents are cautiously proud. My husband deeply understands the writer's struggle. Yet for me, it's not about others' approval, it's simply being able to rest in the fact that I've done what was right for my personal writer's journey of growing and learning, making mistakes, moving forward.

DJ: What's been the hardest or saddest thing for you?

KC: In writing? The amount of time, effort, persistence, patience and faith it takes - with very little return. In regards to my family of origin - how little they understand the alchemy that happens when a 'history' becomes a 'story.'

DJ: Are you prepared at some basic level to do it anyway, no matter what? I know Lionel Shriver has written about this really candidly [unfortunately the 17 October 2009 article I’m thinking of, ‘I sold my family for a novel,’ has been removed from the Guardian’s website], and it can sound so cold and calculated, but I do understand the view that writers must write their truth, always, otherwise it's all pointless. Do you think there are bound to be casualties and that's just the way it has to be for the sake of authentic art, or do you consciously endeavour to avoid writing things that you know will be hurtful to others, particularly when it involves your own family?

KC: When I'm writing, I feel on a profound level that it's not me writing, not the 'I', the ego-driven persona that gets things done, lives in the material world, plays acceptable social roles. I allow something bigger to come through me. So whether or not it offends others, it's not really my concern. If I was writing non-fiction, I would be incredibly careful, as I have been when writing articles in the past.

DJ: What's next for you after Bone Ash Sky? Have you started researching your next novel? What can you tell us about it?

KC: My new novel, as I mentioned briefly, is YA crossover (working title The End of Birth) - with a post-apocalyptic, dystopian theme. It's set on a floating 'seastead' off the coast of Tasmania in 2060. I can't say more than that or I'd give the plot away, but it's all planned out structurally and ready to write. I have become more disillusioned about the publishing industry in the last five or so years; in its ability to make smart choices, and in my earning capacity as a writer - so I'm not spending all of my time writing novels any longer. I suppose I never did. I co-owned bookshop cafes, taught at UTS. At the moment I'm judging the NIB Award, collaborating with visual artists and composers at Eramboo Artist Environment and launching a blog about death and dying, called LifeLifeTwice.

DJ: What are some of your guiding principles and who inspires you?

KC: My guiding principles are authenticity, 'beginner's mind' and being open to whatever is. This is fundamentally true for me in writing and in daily life. My inspirations these days are mostly Zen or Tibetan Buddhist writers like Joko Beck or Pema Chodron. In the past, I would have said Dostoevsky, Michael Cunningham, Plath, Anne Lamott, Tolstoy, Orwell. But the older I become, the more I need 'emptiness' rather than 'fullness' as my guiding light.

DJ: Any writing superstitions?

KC: None.

DJ: How and where do you work?

KC: I send my daughter off to school in the morning and run our dog down to the local beach, do stretches, weights or bodyweight exercises then swim in the ocean pool: same routine summer and winter. I'm a creature of habit in that respect. Then I come home and plan the novel or write - or most often, recently, do other things. I have an autoimmune disease and have survived cancer so a lot of my time is spent managing my health and that of my family. We eat a whole foods, Paleo diet so that takes a lot of time! I also write short stories and enter them into competitions, write poetry and songs, read, design my new blog, meditate.

DJ: It sounds like a very active, creative and rewarding existence, Katerina. Best of luck with your first foray into YA.