Tammy has received grants from the Sherwood Anderson Foundation, the Christopher Isherwood Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and, most recently, the Maryland State Arts Council. Two Rivers was named 2009 Best General Fiction Book at the San Diego Book Awards, and Grace received the same award for 2012. Five of her novels have been BookSense76/IndieBound picks; This Glittering World was a January 2011 selection, and Grace was a selection in April 2012. Her eighth novel, Bodies of Water, was released in October 2013 and was a finalist for both a Lambda Literary Award and a San Diego Book Award. She teaches creative writing for San Diego Writer’s Ink, Grossmont College, and online for The Writer’s Center. She and her husband, Patrick, live in San Diego, CA with their two daughters. She is also an aspiring photographer. More information on T. Greenwood can be found at her website: http://www.tgreenwood.com and her blogs: http://www.mermama.blogspot.com and http://www.ephemerafiles.blogspot.com
Bonnie ZoBell: I love Bodies of Water, Tammy. What was your inspiration for writing the book? Did 
you read an article somewhere about a situation like this or were you simply wondering “What if . . . “, or ?
T. Greenwood: The story was inspired by a family story that I had not heard until a few years ago. We were stuck on the East Coast on our way back from our annual trek to Vermont, with Hurricane Irene bearing down on us. And so we all hunkered down and started telling stories. The love story at the heart of this was inspired by a true story (though it ultimately took on a life of its own which is very much fiction).
BZ: The way the novel starts out so calmly and then before you know it we’re in the throes of huge tension with regular old people reminds me of Alice Munro’s writing. Did you spend a lot of time deciding what tensions to dole out in certain places along the way?
TG: This book, because it was grounded in truth, actually came with its own skeletal structure. I felt like I was just really fleshing the whole thing out along the way. And the tension and drama really came organically from the characters’ situation. It was an explosive premise…writing it felt like lighting a fuse and then just waiting for it to blow.
BZ: Speaking of structure, Bodies of Water is put together in a way that wouldn’t work for every book but works well here. You don’t start at the beginning but at the end and then do some going back and forth, though not too much of it—just the right amount. Could you talk about how you do that in the book and what made you decide to structure the book that way?
TG: I have a difficult time with linear writing. I use this technique in a number of my books – mostly because I tend to resist the chronologically told story.
BZ: Billie Valentine, the female narrator, had some previous sexual yearnings for women when she was younger, which even as an adult, at least at the beginning of the story, she still feels humiliated and embarrassed by. As far as we know, though, Eva, the woman across the street she has the affair with, has no same sex romantic background. You do such an excellent job of making their awakening and then ongoing relationship believable. It’s seamless, but I’ll bet it wasn’t all the easy to do. In what ways was it difficult?
TG: This was a scary project for me. Not only did I want to do justice to the women who inspired the story, but I also felt compelled to represent gay women in an authentic and credible way. I am straight, and it is always just a little bit terrifying to take on the voice of someone who is very different from one’s self. But they are also women, mothers, and so I related to them both on a very fundamental and important level.
BZ: When Billie is a girl, her mother tries to get her to act less mannish, to wear more feminine clothes, to act differently around men, or she was never going to marry or fit in. If you had a daughter that showed signs that she might be gay instead of straight, what would your reaction be? Would you want her to find her own way without your influence, or talk to her about it so she’d not feel like she was some sort of outcast? Or ?
TG: I do have daughters. One is ten and one is twelve. Just recently, we were discussing crushes, and I asked if either of them had a crush on any boys in their class, and I later realized that this is the default – to assume a child is straight. That this is where shame begins – with a sense that one’s feelings or choices are not the norm. I will never make that assumption again. And if one (or both) of them is gay, then at this point, my primary concern would be with how the rest of the world would treat them, the obstacles and cruelties that they might face. The mama bear in me would definitely be put on guard.
BZ: Are your young daughters allowed to read this book now?
TG: Not yet. They’re still a bit young. My older daughter has some interest in my work. But my younger one finds the whole thing (my writing, that is) pretty boring.
BZ: Without giving the ending away, there are some very sad things that happen here, things that seem unfair, and that kind of remind me of how we’re fighting these days for gays to have all the same rights for marriage, adoption, and so on. Do you think this story could still happen now, or it’s a period piece?
TG: I think it could, and does, happen still. We’ve come very far, but not as far as we like to think, I fear.
BZ: I know you’re finishing up or have finished a new book. Do you mind telling us its name and a little bit about it?
TG: The Forever Bridge will be out next February (2/15). It’s the story of an agoraphobic woman, her eleven-year old daughter who is obsessed with bridges, a pregnant teenaged runaway, and a hurricane.
BZ: Can’t wait to read it!
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