If you’re not watching out for Pushcart Prize nominee Mary Thorson, you’re missing out.
The Writer’s Dossier 5/30/2024 – The Mary Thorson interview
Are you creepy?
DOSSIER: You write historical fiction that explores the dark side of past events. Why would you say you gravitated to that? Is it your case of the “morbs,” or did you just watch a lot of scary movies as a kid?
THORSON: I think I’ve just always been a creepy kid. I’m the youngest of five kids (by a lot) and my Gen X siblings were all obsessed with Stephen King and letting me watch really age inappropriate stuff like It and Chucky and Night of the Living Dead. I made my dad read me scary stories for bedtime (Alvin Schwartz illustrations are thankfully burned into my brain for the rest of time). My mom would tell me “Irish ghost stories” that were just paranormal events that happened in her family over generations. All of that on top of being the youngest of older parents and being obsessed with the history that came before me. This is weird and probably very Main Character but I feel like a lot of my friends growing up didn’t have to contend with the fact that so much of their immediate family story happened long before they were born. For me, my siblings had already lived for a decade or two and had these stories that were so formative to who they were, that I needed to know what happened. I wanted to know every single thing so I could pretend like I was there. I’ve carried that into my writing. I want to pretend like I was there.
Deep journalism roots
DOSSIER: As a former journalist for seven years, you understood the importance of eyewitness accounts in a news story. Did you already know that when you went into writing books, or did that journalism bedrock set it up for you?
THORSON: Journalism was the bedrock, without question. My dad was a journalist, my mom was a journalist, all my siblings were, at one point, in journalism. I grew up soaked in local Milwaukee news. One of the biggest things my dad taught me before I even started in my own career was that you have to do hard things in order to tell a story. He talked about talking to the parents of kids who had been killed and how it was his job to tell the story of that kid–how they were more than just the moment at the end of their lives. My dad was a great journalist, and I really wanted to be like him. He is the one who taught me that people were the most important part of the story.
Love your day job?
DOSSIER: When and where do you write, and what kind of environment do you prefer? (Absolute silence/music playing/one of your writing workshops?)
THORSON: Ugh, so I have an office and this beautiful desk that I put together when I was 6 months pregnant with my second daughter and I just never ever use it. All my writing happens in two places: my couch while my husband watches sports or takes the kids to the zoo, OR in the classroom. I’m a high school English Teacher, specifically I teach our writing and composition classes. I love it. During each class I schedule 10 minutes of free write or journaling time. All they have to do is create something or read (so drawing, designing, writing, etc… is all okay), and I do it with them. I think I wrote the entire second draft of my first book during these ten minute increments.
An agent unlike most others
DOSSIER: How has having an agent like Lori Galvin helped guide your writing career so far?
THORSON: It’s a dream. I still can’t believe it happened. She reached out after reading a short story of mine through my then defunct website (thank christ you could still click on the link), and for a solid ten minutes I thought I was being pranked. She’s such a powerhouse and so well-respected and I am just incredibly lucky. I feel like I got into Harvard with her. Working with Lori has been exactly what my writing needed. She’s calculated and knows what a story needs. She’s straight forward. She encourages me to focus on my writing because that’s what I can control, and she lets me know that she believes in my writing, which means everything to me. Every question she asks about a story forces me to consider multiple facets of the narrative and each suggestion is so thoughtful. I’m just beyond thankful to have her.
The Midwest vs the Pacific Northwest
DOSSIER: You’re Milwaukee-based, but you received your MFA from Pacific University in Oregon. What’s influenced your writing more, the depth of your education or your locales?
THORSON: AH! Don’t make me choose. I would say I am a Milwaukee girl, first. My mother’s side of the family has been here since 1848 and my father moved here from Germany after the war which was incredibly common (Milwaukee was full of German immigrants). However, while Milwaukee is part of my identity, my entire writing education hinges on one person who I was lucky enough to work under for both my undergrad at UWM and my MFA at Pacific. I have learned nearly every meaningful thing about the craft of writing from Valerie Laken. She is simply the best writer there is and, somehow, an even better teacher. We’re good friends now, but she’s still too cool for me to hang around. I owe my entire education to her (and probably my parents for actually paying for it, I think I’ll get in trouble if I don’t say that). If I am good at this at all, it’s because of Valerie.
Spooky
DOSSIER: Since you’re into ghost stories (we need to hear about your mother’s!) what’s the possibility of you weaving some spectral elements into your historical fiction sometime? Can The Dossier break some news here with a future project you have in mind?
THORSON: I have written two novels in the last two years that both have a ghost. I don’t think I ever want to write about anything else. The two are really different from one another beyond that. My first takes places in 1849-1850 Wisconsin and is kind of tragic. Maybe a slower burn. The second has a dual timeline of now and 1992 (does that count as historical fiction? If it does, I have to go cry for a bit). I think it’s way more of a contemporary mystery, but it also has a ghost. The second is loosely (in the loosest sense of the word) based off of something that happened to me when I was 4. I was missing for about 12 hours. I made the paper, the police were involved, etc… Obviously my story had a happy ending, but I’ve always wondered what it would be like if it didn’t. How could I not? So I wrote a book.
Discover more about Mary at: Mary Thorson | Instagram | Bluesky