Ed Cullen: Author Interview by Kathryn Magendie

Ed Cullen's first commentary, "Porch Steps Baseball," aired on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered in July 2001. Since then, he's written humorous sketches about life in southern Louisiana including commentaries on Mardi Gras, science fairs, and the way denizens of Guatemala North attempt to stay cool. Cullen is a feature writer and columnist on The (Baton Rouge) Advocate in Louisiana's capital city and author of Letter in a Woodpile, a collection of essays that includes his commentaries for All Things Considered.

R&T: Tell our readers a bit about your collection of essays: Letter in a Woodpile. For example: What are you most proud of? Do you have a favorite essay?

ED CULLEN: I like “The Manta Ray” and “Heart Volcano” because writing them let me revisit times in my childhood that were so vivid I felt like I'd stepped out of a time machine and into an afternoon at the movies with my father. [Favorites:] ("Manta Ray") and back to science fairs ("Heart Volcano") where I stood sweating in my Easter suit in front of another lame, last minute work in clay.

R&T: How does it feel to open the pages of your book, to see your words there, and to know many others are, and will be, reading your work? Is the feeling different from when you read your work aloud on NPR’s All Things Considered?

EC: I'm print-oriented, but I have come to enjoy the challenge of saying in 400 words for NPR commentaries what I would normally say in 1,500 words. There is the challenge, too, of selling a piece on the radio as a little drama or comedy with pauses and inflections. A test of any piece of writing is how it sounds when read aloud. The reader hears a writer's words in his head just as though they were being read aloud. Reading out loud gives a writer a feeling for the rhythm of his words the way a reader will see and hear them.

I confess to wandering the aisles of Barnes and Noble to discover anew my book in "Essays." It's a wonderful feeling, but by the time a writer gets a book published, he or she has worked so hard there's satisfaction but no magic.

R&T: Who wouldn’t want to wander the aisles to re-discover your own words, there on the shelf! Ed, with your publishing success, do you feel validated as a writer? Or have you always had a sense of completion or success in your career? Perhaps the two are the clichéd apples and oranges?

EC: I felt successful as a newspaper reporter, then feature writer, and now a columnist. Writing commentaries for NPR's All Things Considered that led to Letter in a Woodpile was something good and different at just the right time in my life and career. I was 59 when the book was published.

R&T: How did you and your publisher, Cool Springs Press, find each other?

EC: A woman named Lola Honeybone, her real name though I thought at first I'd been telephoned by a James Bond girl, was a publicist at Thomas Nelson who had a good track record of suggesting books to Thomas Nelson acquisition editors. Working from home in Connecticut, Lola heard me on the radio. She was with Cool Springs Press, then a division of Thomas Nelson. Cool Springs was looking to broaden its list to include literary books. Cool Springs had until then been (and still is) the publisher of great garden books. So, I came to Cool Springs' attention at just the right time.

R&T: It’s Kismet! In the piece entitled, “New Orleans, the Poem,” you write a beautiful glimpse into a slice of New Orleans life—the one “that the tourists miss.” From your perspective as a native Louisianian, how has Katrina affected not just beloved New Orleans, but Baton Rouge? Or are you sick of that question? Perhaps you want to say something completely different; if so, pretend I asked something else and answer it.

EC: I like that essay because it's a love poem to a great old city, warts and all, written about a month before Hurricane Katrina. What the storm did TO New Orleans and to a lesser extent FOR Baton Rouge is something we'll be studying for a long time.

R&T: Your essays hold poignant glances backward to your childhood, peeks into other Louisianian’s lives, and as well, you invite the reader into your own yard to garden with you. Reading, I get a sense of a life well lived. Any regrets? Anything you’d do differently?

EC: People who KNOW me from my newspaper column in The (Baton Rouge) Sunday Advocate, NPR and, now, Letter in a Woodpile know what I choose to let them know. I have the same regrets most people have, but I wouldn't change anything about my life.

R&T: I love that answer, Ed. So, in the essay “Letter in a Woodpile,” your last sentence in a note to your son, reads, “I hope you enjoy your time here as much as your mother and I did.” Does the meaning of this essay, this last sentence, really mean much more than first apparent?

EC: That last sentence, to me, is just what it says. It's something I'd say to my son if we were together stacking wood at the farm. But I've learned that my words are no longer mine alone when read by someone else. Readers make of a piece of writing what they will.

R&T: Yes! and isn’t that one of the wonderful things about writing? But, how is your circle of friends and colleagues reacting to Published Writer You versus the You they know from your thirty-years in The Business—writing for The Advocate, and your work with National Public Radio? Any envy? Any sidelong glances of jealousy? Come on, tell us the scoop!

EC: My friends celebrated with me when the book came out just as they did when I started appearing on NPR. Most of us like to see someone who lives in the same town we do make good. Success makes the air sweeter and routine work less grinding. There's the feeling, too, of if it happened to him it could happen to me.

R&T: Very gracious and humble answer. What do you do to motivate yourself to write when you’d rather be out in your garden—overcoming what some may call “writer’s block,” or just plain, “I don’t feel like it today”?

EC: There's no such thing as writer's block. There IS such a thing as not having anything to say. On days like that, you dig to write a column because you have to. It's your job. Essays, novels, poems that stand up may be inspired but they require work to produce. It's hard work making writing seem effortless. Some days at the keyboard are better than others.

R&T: What is the writing life to you, and how important is it to your sense of well-being?

EC: If writers relied on writing for a sense of well-being, they'd feel lousy all the time. Writing is a struggle. When I finish a piece of writing what I feel is relief. Then, I go play in the garden or take a bicycle ride to feel well be'd.

R&T: (laughing) Well, when your reader turns the last page and closes the cover of Letter in a Woodpile, what do you want to imagine they are feeling, or to take away from the experience?

EC: I'd like for readers to feel reading this book wasn't a waste of their time. Then, I'd like for them to think, "I wonder what I'll have for supper."

R&T: It was certainly not a waste of my time, and I’m having salmon and a salad, by the way, Ed. Now, I have to know: Is Amal still coming around for grubs, despite, or perhaps because of, your extra Louisiana seasonings?

EC: "Amal the Armadillo" was in the garden last night.

R&T: Finally, where can our readers find Letter in a Woodpile, and, what are you working on next?

EC: I like sending readers to Barnes and Noble because B&N put me in all 850 of their stores on Day One and have been great to work with. I like sending readers to The NPR Shop online because a portion of sales goes to National Public Radio. And I like for readers to go to their favorite independent bookstores. Like newspapers, we don't fully appreciate neighborhood bookstores until they're gone. I'm working on another collection of essays.

R&T: Thank you, Ed, for taking time from your busy schedule to talk with me.

EC: You're welcome.

For more on Ed Cullen, visit http://www.npr.org/

Read a review of Letter in a Woodpile.

Kathryn Magendie is a writer, freelance editor, and a Senior Editor & Senior Newsletter Editor at The Rose & Thorn. Feel free to visit her website, GOT YOG? blog, or her personal blog.