Episode 29: With Author Martha Grover (On Personal Writing, Schooling at Home and in Institutions, Sustaining Creativity, and Family Dynamics)
Martha and I get the audio right. Her dog wants to know what’s going on.
Appreciating Martha’s writing. Memoir/personal essays. Martha has been publishing a print zine since 2001. For a broad collection of Martha’s writing over the last twenty years, peruse Antiquated Future’s shop.
https://antiquatedfuture.com/artist/martha-grover
Perfect Day Press, Michael Heald’s wonderful small press, published Martha’s first two collections of personal essays: One More for the People, The End of My Career.
Martha’s new project, funded through Kickstarter (impressive!): Sorry I Was Gone. A book of lyric essays, poetry and illustrations — due out in November, 2021.
0:07 Martha Reads Her Story “The Math Class”
“This dream was preceded by vaguer dreams: I can’t find my class. I can’t read my schedule. It’s the wrong class.”
Martha’s eye for detail. “All the teachers call me by my last name.” Martha comes from a family of seven children and the high school was tiny. She was another in the line of Grovers passing through the school. It wasn’t expected that Martha would go to college, but she was able to go with financial help from her aunt and uncle.
0:18 Martha’s Family History
Her aunt and uncle helped her. She went to the University of Oregon. Her parents wanted her to get married before she was pregnant. Martha’s family background is Swedish. The Dust Bowl. Sweden to Kansas to Oregon on Dad’s side. Mom’s side. British Catholics to Kentucky and Missouri to Oregon.
0:25 Talking About TV
An HBO Miniseries — The Investigation: Danish Police Investigation of a Murder. Six Feet Under. Alan Ball.
Martha has ADD. She doesn’t watch all that much TV, but she enjoys reality TV that is structured: Top Chef, Project Runway, Alone. Martha loves The Wire, Deadwood, The Golden Girls, Bojack Horseman.
0:31 Medication Helps
Martha is on medication: anti-depressants and anti-anxiety.
0:33 Family Dynamics: Roles
Martha is not the “reluctant glue” of the family. Jonah mentions the show Roseanne and how Martha’s writing “Grover Family Minutes” reminds Jonah of Darlene, the sarcastic character from Roseanne.
0:36 Writing Is…
“Writing comes naturally to me. It is a vessel that can hold so much. If you look at all the other arts, writing is so cheap, low-tech, and yet it can hold so much.”
Artistic Process: creating a practice around writing
Process over product — letting go of external motivation.
0:42 Treating Certain Writers as Geniuses
Jonah talks about how David Mamet’s Glengarry Glenross was taught as if Mamet is a pure genius. Martha’s issue is with how certain canonized authors have been taught in universities. Martha tells an anecdote about a professor who taught Hemingway.
Martha has taught a class called “The Mini Essay.” Flash memoir.
0:47 The Attention Economy
Michael Goldhaber and our attention economy.
“We are always either paying attention, getting attention or seeking attention.”
Martha has begun listening to audiobooks and she is thankful she has regained her book life.
0:52 Online Activism, In-Person Political Discussion and Protest
How we participate in politics online. How we think about politics broadly and locally, in-person.
0:56 Health
Individual health and health of democracy. Only when something is truly threatened, is it fully appreciated.
0:59 Home-Schooling and Fundamentalism: Growing up in a Different Culture
“Why do you care what anybody thinks? They’re all going to hell.”
Martha’s family was very religious and several of the children were home-schooled. “Mom taught us how to read. Tried to teach us math. I got to read all day. It wasn’t all that structured.”
1:03 Fundamentalist Religious Family
Martha’s family was very religious when she was young. Her dad actively rejected religion, becoming an athiest, when she was 15.
1:09 Working Various Jobs
When I became a private investigator, so many people said, ‘You’re doing this just for the story, aren’t you?’ And it pissed me off because all those people were from middle-class families. They could not imagine why I would want the job on its own merits, not as something to write about. I wanted a job where I didn’t do physical labor. That was something I had done my entire life. It had to pay at least $15/hour. I didn’t want to wear a hat, a name tag, an apron. Those were my standards. Having people come at me and be like, ‘This will be great writing material.’ That’s the least of my worries right now. I don’t have any money.
1:15 Family, Marriage and Childhood — Martha Suggests Jonah Writes a Children’s Book
Martha suggests a book about a child of divorce space-traveling from Mom’s planet to Dad’s planet.
1:19 Marriage, Compromise and Partner’s Families
Martha’s Grandmother has been married five times. Widowed three times, divorced two times.
Partners and their families. Martha tells an anecdote about the discomfort of visiting a boyfriend’s family’s East Coast mansion and dealing with his family and their older lady friends.
1:27 Is Writing a way to Help Process Life?
For Martha, writing is more intuitive and instinctual —she wants to tell a good yarn, entertain the reader.
The processes of drawing and painting are more meditative for Martha.
1:32 Writing Fiction
Martha shows Jonah a watercolor she painted. Jesus approaching an actual heart, with a doorway.
1:40 Martha Recommends: The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin
https://gretchenrubin.com/books/the-four-tendencies/intro/
Martha recommends a book about motivation. Turns out she’s a rebel. Not shocking for those that have read her work.
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Keep Creating and Be Safe,
Jonah