Alive
An Interview
with author Laurie Lynn Drummond

Laurie Lynn Drummond claims that her biggest challenge with creative nonfiction is “figuring out what should stay and what should go—this frequently involves determining what the inner story of the essay is.”  In her Brevity piece Alive, the inner story of our responses to and inability to overcome fear is effortlessly pieced with Drummond’s personal encounter of a suspected stalker in Baton Rouge.   

Most of Drummond’s work comes out of her experiences as a police officer in the 1980’s.  She explains, “Some material—stories and issues and ideas and incidents—just didn't work in my fiction; it was as though the material told me it needed to not hide behind the veil of fiction.”  One of the things that intrigues Drummond about creative nonfiction is “the vulnerability and honesty [she] needs to bring to the work.”  She says, “It's what I admire most in other writers of creative nonfiction, something David Bradley calls "expensiveness."  I'm also intrigued by the teasing out of the narrative spine--what is this essay about—the probing and exploration of an idea or theme or issue.”

In regards to Alive, Drummond wishes for “another 250 words to play with.  I don't think I conveyed how long I was inside the newsstand and how complex my "dance" with the stalker was, how deliberate—and frightening—his actions were and how certain I was that this man was stalking me.  And how my fear was as frightening as the man—and how angry that made me.  I don't scare easily.”

Drummond’s greatest challenge with this piece:  “The ending.  My original draft was about 1,500 words and after I'd written all but the final paragraph, I said, ‘So what?  Why am I telling this story?  What's the point?’  I kept cutting and cutting, whittling down the draft—at times it felt merciless to me, all that cutting—and each time I'd reach that penultimate paragraph (which was the last paragraph at this stage) and hit a wall.  It wasn't until I literally climbed back into my memory body and cut through all the layers of time and lingering cop machismo that I got my final paragraph.  It still sends chills down my neck when I read it.  I think it's one of the best endings I've ever written, in large part because it's so honest and so accurate.”

Drummond suggests that young writers “Apprentice yourself to the craft. Read, read, read.  And write lots of messy drafts.  Be willing to take risks, and be willing to fail.  Connect to the universal (what it means to be human) as well as the personal.  Tell the truth, even if it makes you wince.”

—Sarah Klingler