Dr. Susan K. Perry

Interview by Catherine Tudor

CT: Tell us how your latest book, LOVING IN FLOW, came about.

SP: I had already found out everything I ever wanted to know about how novelists and poets find their flow, and I had written that up in WRITING IN FLOW. Now I figured it was time to tackle what I consider the most meaningful aspect of a life: relationships.

In particular, I sought to explore how couples overcome daunting odds and create flowing and positive relationships that last. My husband Stephen and I have now been married for 20 years, but we hit bottom about a decade ago. Yet we worked our way back up to being far happier than we'd ever been. Had other couples managed a similar feat? How? What could others learn from all this to save themselves the misery of a marriage that's alive in name only, or worse? This is what I had in mind when I began to research and write LOVING IN FLOW.

CT: You share a lot of personal information. Has this process helped your own relationship? Were there ever any times when you disagreed?

SP: Stephen and I are both among the most honest and open people you'll ever encounter. He sometimes includes aspects of me in poems he's writing (he's a New Yorker-published poet), and I've gotten used to that. I asked him if he could handle full disclosure of our lives in LOVING IN FLOW, and he was fine with it. He read each draft, of course, and when he saw how balanced my account was, he never suggested I hide anything. I can't say it specifically helped our relationship for me to write the book, since we'd worked out our own "issues" in full before I was ready to put pen to paper.

CT: What does it feel like to live with another writer?

SP: I can only compare it to living with an engineer, my previous husband, and I have to tell you, this is great. We understand each other's need for at least a little alone time, and we can share what we've each written--at times--and actually be understood. Above all, we both value words and ideas intensely. We don't read the same books very often, but that doesn't matter. Even two writers have distinct personalities and tastes, just like anyone else.

CT: How long did it take you to write the book?

SP: It took about two years altogether, including the research (books, journal articles, interviews), writing the proposal and sample chapters, rewriting those, rewriting those some more, adding more sample chapters, and then finally completing the book. Figuring out how best to organize the material and integrate my story with those of three dozen other couples' and get my points across without over-complicating or over--simplifying--that took months.

CT: How did you find people to interview?

SP: I asked friends, relatives, colleagues, writing network buddies, former students, and an old pen-pal, if they knew a super-happy couple who might want to answer a lot of personal questions. Everyone knew one couple, it seemed, and some of those panned out, and some of them referred me to others. All contacts were essentially personal. What I sought was people in a relationship for at least a decade who would agree they were somewhere above, say, 90 on a scale of 1 to 100, when I asked, "How happy or satisfied would you say you are in this relationship?" And I sought out diversity by geography, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation.

CT: What is the process you used to compile LOVING IN FLOW? Journaling? Outlining? Brainstorming? Did you use any of your methods from WRITING IN FLOW? If so, which ones?

SP: I certainly brainstormed for ways to organize the book and for pithy unusual chapter and section headings, such as The Garden of Dorian Gray, Putting Your Best Knee Forward, The Hose of Death, Somewhere Under the Rainbow, Schrödinger's Bunny, and so on. Various kinds of outlining, sure. But what I really did was pick an easy one to get myself flowing at the start. That was the chapter about all the ways my beloved mate drives me crazy. Once I had that one in the bag, I was able to move on to the ones requiring more reflection.

CT: If another author wanted to put together a similar type of book, but on a different topic, how are these kinds of personal anecdotes added technically? Do the subjects receive monetary compensation? Do they each sign a contract?

SP: You never pay someone for being interviewed. For legal coverage, I have the interviews on tape, showing they consented to be interviewed, plus for those that agreed for me to use their real names (rather than having me use fake names for them), I got them to send me an e-mail agreeing to that. And this was after I had already sent drafts of what I was going to use from the non-anonymous interviews and from many of the others whose stories I intended to quote at length. In other words, I made sure everyone was happy with how their lives were being construed. You wouldn't use contracts any more than you'd use them when you interview someone for an article.

CT: You thank your editor for making the process painless. How so?

SP: He didn't change very much. He only nitpicked over a few phrases here and there, but mainly kept it all the way I wanted. Of course, at the last minute he and another editor did make some drastic cuts without asking, to save space. That smarted. Nothing is pain-free.

CT: What kinds of marketing strategies have you used, and which ones are your favorite methods?

SP: In person, I've done hour-long talks at bookstores, given talks at a Hadassah meeting and a Mom's Club, led workshops on what I call "intimate nonfiction" at various writers' organizations, been on a panel at a book fair, and more. I've done more than 50 radio interviews. I've actually been on TV, including Inside Edition and local news programs a few times. On the Internet, I've gotten LOVING IN FLOW reviewed wherever I could, asked those who've admired the book to please post a reader review at the online booksellers' sites, done interviews like this one. I've managed to get myself some columns as an expert in my book's topic. A good up-to-date Web site is invaluable for getting some of these gigs. My publisher's publicist helped with some of it. I put in long hours doing most of it!

I've worked hard to get print reviews, since I figure that's a big part of my audience. I made contact by e-mail with members of a couple of organizations that are related to my subject, like the International Association of Relationship Researchers and those on a Positive Psychology listserv (both of which I joined and participate in a bit). A few of those contacts panned out: those people had an outlet to do a review of the book. I've gotten myself quoted by many national magazines as an expert on relationships.

My favorite? The Internet. I'm an introvert and this doesn't cause any stage fright or anxiety. You can do it in little bits and pieces any time you want.

CT: WRITING IN FLOW made it on the bestseller's list. Did that change your life in any way? If so, how? Did being a bestselling author live up to all your expectations?

SP: I was so surprised when WRITING IN FLOW showed up one day on the list - and then appeared three more weeks--that I jumped for joy. Literally. But, alas, the book didn't sell that many books after that period, and, most disappointing of all, I didn't command a very big advance with my next book, even with that on my list of credits. I think it was because it was a regional bestseller rather than truly a national one. Regional I could handle myself. To get known nationally would have taken touring dollars and being backed by a publisher willing to shell out real money. These things don't just happen.

CT: What did you learn about yourself while working on this book?

SP: That this is the last one of these kinds of books (nonfiction with lots of research) that I want to do. I learned that I love fooling around with words even more than telling others how to live their lives.

CT: What's something new you learned about your relationship?

SP: Probably that we're as different as a couple from other couples as we are each different from other individuals. It's been a privilege for me to delve into the intimate lives of a batch of strangers and see the diversity of ways there are to deal with crisis and with everyday stress and strain. Just like there's no one right way to write, there's no one right way to love or accommodate to another person in an intimate relationship. Which is immensely liberating.

CT: What is your next project?

SP: I don't want to jinx it, but I do plan to immerse myself in more creative writing in a few months. I've written poetry and short stories in the past, though not for years, and I want to try something lengthier that I can sink into for a while. I know for a fact that I can no longer face making a living or a life out of trivial popular nonfiction articles, no matter how well they can pay. I'm hungering to spend time with more substantial themes. That's all I can say, since I don't know if I have what it takes to really make up stuff, after all these years writing nonfiction.

About Dr. Susan K. Perry

Copyright © by Catherine Tudor, 2003.
Catherine Tudor (formerly C. T. Atherton) founded One Woman's Writing Retreat in 1996 in order to create a network for writers at all stages in their careers. Read more about her here.

Relevant Links:

Author's Web site
Order Loving in Flow at Amazon.com
Writing in Flow an Interview by Jillian Leslie.
Classes at Writers Online Workshops; Instructor's Page

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