About the Author
SECOND PERSON HONESTY:
Writing Through a Filter
Kathryn Hoffman Hughes, author of "Dreamland"

Kathryn Hoffman Hughes uses the hazy memory of second person to recount her childhood in "Dreamland." "It 's kind of like remembering a dream. In memory things get filtered out. This is like admitting to the fact that it isn't precise. As far as I know it is all true." Hughes says the second person came naturally to her as she wrote the essay. She tried it both in the first and the third person but she felt more comfortable writing in the second person. "In first person I wasn 't distancing myself enough from the situation. Everything seems to have to be right on and it has to be authentic versus the 'you,' and you can only see so much of what you do." Hughes posits that one of the things that people do who are avoiding the issue of grief is speak in the second person.

Hughes was obviously devastated by her mother's alcoholism and subsequent death when she was a girl, but rather than sob on the page, she writes evocatively of her loss: Semi-conscious, she seems momentarily aware of drifting in and out of the empty cupboards and dingy bedding of neglected children.

"This essay was sort of a getting off your chest kind of thing. That does something for me psychologically. Even though it is me putting myself out there, it is telling the truth. There is something about honesty that's good for the soul."

Hughes enjoys the form of creative nonfiction because it loosens her from the plot, structure and the narrative requirements of the short story and it "lets me explore the language and the rhythm of language and to work with images and metaphors and all the poetic and lyrical stuff that I love about writing."

"The one disadvantage is the putting yourself out there business of it. My particular piece is about my alcoholic mother and I am going to be reading it in front of strangers. It sounds nice on the page but this is me and this is my mother I'm talking about so you can't hide behind the word fiction."

Part of her would like to share the essay with members of her family to see what blanks she hasn't filled in, because she doesn't remember her mother very well, and because a couple of her brothers didn't remember some of the episodes in her story. But she says she is trying to move on. "I don t want to be known as the one that writes about her mom or the one that writes about rehab or childhood trauma. I want to be more diverse than that."

She says she loves to describe things but tries to avoid dialogue, which she feels is her weakness as a writer. She tends to use repeat images. In "Dreamland." we see the ceiling fans and starched white cotton appear several times. She says that was not contrived or deliberate, just that they kept coming up when she was writing.

She also likes to write vignettes, finding the shorter format of a vignette an attainable goal, something she can finish and put away for a while. "One of the reasons that motivates me is that I don't like to linger too long in one place, not only because I am afraid I am going to start rambling, but because I am afraid I am going to lose my reader's attention." Vignettes are also easy to shape and hone. "You can move them around where with a one piece narrative its harder to cut and paste."

Hughes thinks that personal essay and nonfiction are powerful venues for writing. She is thrilled that people are willing to share their personal stories with other people. Though she thinks it can be carried too far, or, in some instances not far enough. "I intentionally try to downplay everything. I think that the second person has something to do with that. I remove myself from myself by not being 'I '. And I remove myself from being the omnipotent third person narrator. So I put myself in the position of the observer." That frustrates people, she says. They want her to delve more into emotion. "I have a real problem with getting into self realization and self awareness without sounding pedantic or redundant or Oprah-esque. I like to leave a lot of stuff between the lines. I like people to figure out things on their own. I would rather not write enough than write too much." She tries to drop hints but not hit the reader over the head with gory details. "I work extremely hard to show and not tell. But in the process I get criticized for not telling enough and for not staying in the moment long enough."

Instead she uses subtitles, which she says are very revealing. "I love them." She thinks they add to the piece if they are done well. She tries to pick words that could evoke an entire vignette for the reader, something that will take the reader for a ride.

Hughes advises writers to go to school or join writing groups if possible, mostly for the enthusiasm and community. She loves being in the Creative Writing program at Art Institute of Chicago, where she is earning her MA in fiction. "Writing is such an isolating experience that it can be a sickness and to find that community of people who share your passion and the teachers, some of the best writers in America are teaching, that is the only way they can make a living." She says that she has met incredible people in school and learned how to edit her own work. "The reason I went to school is that I was getting so stuck in my own stuff. If you learn nothing else but how to cut out that first paragraph, I think that is worth the 20 grand a year right there."

She has learned to trust her own edits and to take the time to figure out why she writes about certain subjects. "I used to like to just hear myself write. [Now] I like cleaning things up. I am learning how to put on the brakes when someone is trying to take my voice away. Some will criticize and some will love it. There is always somebody who is not going to like it and someone who will. Second thing is to trust your own voice." She is a disciplined writer and sets goals for herself and sends out a lot of work. Though she has only been writing seriously for a year and a half, she writes fiction and is also working on a novel.

Corinne Platt