Both Dena Moes and Lisa Romeo are writers, wives and mothers. Their memoirs explore family connections and the adventures they’ve taken to get to know their loved ones– and themselves– more deeply. 

Dena Interviews Lisa. . .

Dena Moes: You have been a writer for much of your adult life. You have worked in journalism and PR, gotten an MFA and helped found a writing program where you taught. Is there a pivotal point at which you knew you wanted to be a writer? What were your early inspirations?

 Lisa Romeo: I learned to read and write just before I turned five, thanks to my much older sister. Books, stories, and reading were a focal point of my childhood. My father was always reading the newspaper and Mom wrote letters constantly. I read every book I could about horses; National Velvet is one I remember keeping under my pillow for a long while. I started reading the New York Times in grade school too, and for a rather long while I wanted to be a sportswriter. (I did eventually cover horse sports, so in a sense a part of that dream came true!)

Going from reading to writing felt like the most logical leap. I recall a moment—maybe in third grade—when I read aloud a true story I’d written (about getting run away with by a balky horse who suddenly came too life), and the entire class laughed in just the right spots.  I remember thinking, “Oh, I know how to write!” Then, my friends and I wrote a neighborhood “newspaper” that my dad copied at his office. We sold it for a nickel—very gripping news stories, like: “Mrs. B’s schnauzer Sir Bum pooped on Mr. M’s lawn yesterday…”

DM: Many writers struggle with impostor syndrome, and self-confidence issues exacerbated by rejections and roadblocks to publication, not to mention writer’s block. Then, there is the gender issue – as a woman, the fear or lived experience of not being taken seriously. Were there any periods in your life when these things reared their heads for you? What have been your obstacles and how did you overcome them?

LR: I suppose there must have been many more obstacles that I now don’t remember (or have chosen not to recall). I was taught early on to find a way around and so that was my usual way of dealing. When I was working in agency public relations, I had a huge amount of responsibility, but my all-male bosses and male clients excluded me from “meetings” (aka golf games, late night drinks) where key decisions were made. Once, a major client told me to (wink, wink) “get girls” for an event and my boss tried to gloss it over (“Oh, he must have meant models.”). Soon after, I left and started my own PR agency, working with clients who treated me with respect. I guess that’s always been my M.O. Find where you are affirmed, or create it yourself.

In terms of writing, the biggest gender-related obstacles for me have always been about time and mental space, and shouldering what’s now termed the “emotional labor” of family life, especially when my sons were young (they’re 20 and 24 now). Saying no to school volunteer activities and carving out time to write amid motherhood at times seemed insurmountable. But, I found ways. I have so many memories of writing in the stands at my sons’ baseball games! Eventually my husband and I had a reckoning and from that moment, he (and the boys, as each grew) have taken on more and more — cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping.

A big problem for women writers (especially married women) is saying NO to all sorts of requests and expectations—that you will be at every single extended family function, be available to help at any time, push your writing aside (especially when you don’t yet have a book contract). About eight years ago, I began opting out of events I felt weren’t essential, so I’d have more time for writing. Not everyone was happy about that. Oh well.

DM: From your bio, you have lived a lovely, sort of “typical” American life. You married your high school sweetheart, raised good kids and live in the New Jersey town where you grew up. How have you explored your inner life to come up with the material for your writing? Are their tools or techniques for self-exploration that help you? What advice do you have for other writers who feel they are too “normal” to be artists or writers?

LR: Oh, that’s kind of funny! There’s so much we can’t and don’t say in a bio that are the scaffolding behind the actual story. For example, yes, I dated my husband Frank in high school, he was my biggest crush…but he also dumped me, shattering my 15-year-old heart. Then we didn’t see one another for about seven years and during that time, Frank married his best friend’s girl (and then his best friend married my best friend…already not so typical!). When Frank separated from his first wife, we dated again, then he broke up with me again. See? So much percolating below the surface—which is where you have to go as a writer of personal nonfiction (My essay about our romance, with all its warts, is listed in Best American Essays 2016).

While the bestseller racks might suggest it, one doesn’t have to have had a tremendously traumatic life to write compelling memoir or personal essay. What’s essential is the willingness to probe way underneath what look like still waters, and find meaning and connections between the events, people, circumstances, and outcomes in our lives. There’s always much to write about when you are willing to let your own flaws show and to let the light in through the cracks.

DM: Your beautiful memoir Starting With Goodbye was published this year. Now that you are a few months post-publication, how has the experience been? How has the publication of your book changed you? What has been the most important thing to keep you grounded and calm in the whirlwind of a book release?

LR: It has been a whirlwind, good word! Exhausting and exhilarating. Launch and post-publication is hard work; I did (and am still doing) a lot of events and appearances, writing essays and guest posts, social media, to drive book sales and awareness. That’s not a complaint; it’s exactly what you work so hard for as a writer, the reason you want your book published in the first place—to have that chance to put your book in front of readers and see what happens.

That’s been the highlight—talking to and hearing from readers who found in the book something worthwhile, something that resonated for them in their own experience. Because Starting With Goodbye is largely about grief—both its unpredictability and also the upside of grief (good memories, re-establishing connections)—it opens a common language with readers. Everyone has grief in their lives, in one form or another, especially unresolved grief, the kind that our culture shies away from discussing. The book has allowed me to listen to others’ stories and I hope has given readers some encouragement to speak more openly about grief experiences with their own friends and loved ones.

I don’t think the book’s publication has changed me in any fundamental way. It did dramatically confirm for me just how supportive my husband is, how much he and my sons are proud of me, how integral all of their help has been along the way. Surely at times I’ve ignored their needs in favor of a few more hours behind my office door.

DM: As someone who has been a professional writer over many years, are there certain themes in your work that are most important to you that you keep coming back to?

LR: I’m pulled most by what’s lurking underneath the stories we keep retelling, those stories we tell the same way over and over around the dinner table that we think we know everything about. I like to muck about underneath the accepted narrative and figure out what may have really been going on, what threads connect different events, what it all means—especially from the distance of time and intervening events. That means I’m always looking at relationships, beginnings, endings, pivotal moments. And in my life, that often brings me back around to horses, Italian-American culture, my early family life, money, men, and raising sons, among other themes.

DM:  A career in cerebral work like writing requires balance with more physical activities or interests. What are your other passions besides writing? How do those passions inform your writing?

LR: You’re so right, but I’m awful in that department—far too sedentary for my own good. For many years, I rode horses, ran every day, skied, hiked, played tennis, gardened. Now, because of bad knees and bad ankles and vertigo, all I do—and not that often—is swim and walk. Many weeks, what counts as “exercise” away from my desk is my time in the kitchen. I love to cook, go to farmers’ markets, dive into cookbooks and experiment. Sometimes I’ll cook for hours on a Sunday, immersed in the smells, textures, feel, and look of the ingredients and what emerges. I guess it’s creativity of another sort—beginning with a bunch of stuff that may or may not work together and figuring out as you go how to make it into a harmonious whole hopefully without wasting too much.

DM: What are you working on next?

LR: You and my agent would both like to know! Actually, I just sent her a few ideas for a next book. I’ve made a personal promise to myself to get started one way or another early in 2019. Whether I’ll be writing about horses, postpartum depression, or the pleasures of raising sons—who knows. Stay tuned.

Lisa Interviews Dena. . .

Lisa Romeo: Your first book, The Buddha Sat Right Here: A Family Odyssey through India and Nepal, will be published in April 2019. So, you’re probably in the thick of production details Are you finding that to be a satisfying part of the creative process, or more freighted with worry?

Dena Moes: Revisions are actually complete, and the first Advanced Reader Copies are going into production as we speak. I will see the first copies of my printed book very soon, and it is hard to surrender to being finished with revisions. It took less than two years to write the book (four drafts), and then two years after that to get it published. In that extra two years, I revised parts of the book about five more times! I am sure I will think of things I want to revise, but it is going into the world as is.

LR: Since this is a memoir about a family experience, and your daughters are now teenagers, are there any special challenges surrounding the parts of the book about them? What about including your husband in the memoir pages?

DM: The challenge of writing about my family is less with my kids than with my husband. My oldest daughter, now eighteen and off to college, told me when I started writing the book, “It’s fine if you portray me as snarky, because that will make an interesting character.” And she was snarky at 14, and she did add quite an element to our family dynamics. The diary she kept on the journey was so amazing, that bits of it are excerpted throughout the memoir to add a vibrant alternative voice to the narrative. I have shared the work with my family throughout the writing process – reading sections with them, and hearing them help me remember certain things

But my husband – well, all the issues from 18 years of marriage bubbled up towards the end of the trip, resulting in some serious drama between us. At first, I thought I would end the book before all that happened, but as I wrote I realized that this is what makes us human, relatable, and makes the story one about the subtle nuances of love and forgiveness. It makes for a great story, but it has been tender territory to tread. I have gone over and over the marital conflict moments with my husband to make sure he agrees with my publishing the very honest and vulnerable material. How does one write about marriage problems and keep the marriage? I’m going to find out if I managed it!

LR: You and your husband did something I can’t ever imagine doing—went with your two daughters on an 8-month spiritual trek living in foreign lands. I’m envious and also incredulous! When did you realize you were going to write about the experience? Did you keep that to yourself at first, or share it?

DM: I did not consider writing about our trip until after we returned. I kept a travel journal, and so did my daughters, because I have journaled all my life – especially while traveling. We made a very simple blog where I updated friends and family about our whereabouts once a month or so. Upon our return, two things happened. One is that when people asked “So, how was India?” I could not possibly answer the question with a pat little “great” or “amazing”. I thought, “I need to write a book to answer that.”

Second, my tribe of blog readers said they loved the blog and I should write a book. I thought, “Hmmmm, I have an Eat, Pray, Love with Children here.” I joined a writing group and began writing after we were settled in back home. Then the writing took on a life of its own. I relished the experience of writing it, getting to reflect on and process the journey in profound ways I could not when we were in the thick of our travel adventure. And I discovered that I adored writing, which was full circle because I was an avid writer in my youth, then became very busy with my midwife career, and now have rediscovered writing again.

LR: You’re a certified nurse-midwife and have also worked in international maternal/fetal health, teaching midwife skills. I’m curious: although modern midwifery in the U.S. is vastly different, since the burgeoning U.S. love of the BBC series Call the Midwife (originally based on a trilogy of mid-century memoirs), have you seen more interest in the profession? Do people ask you about it because they love the show? I know you’ve written about midwife experiences too. How are you currently blending your two careers – in midwifery and as a writer?

DM: I love this question because my next book will be about my career as a midwife, and the hook will be Call the Midwife meets “Something, I’m not sure what.” This memoir will chronicle my twelve-year run as a rural home birth midwife which was full of empowering, beautiful births but led to a witch-hunt against me by the local male doctors.

Birth is a highly political women’s issue, and abuse and disrespect of women in institutional birth settings is very real. Home birth midwives offer an alternative to institutional childbirth, and some are threatened by that. I had to stop attending home births in California due to the fraught, politicized environment here, which is actually part of why I had time to write The Buddha Sat Right Here and do the international work you mentioned.

I wrote a blog about birth for years which had thousands of readers from all over the world. The Midwife’s Desk can still be found on www.chicomidwife.com There is a thread about birth and midwifery woven into The Buddha Sat Right Here, but it is one of many strands, and if you want to read more about it you will have to wait for my second book, Rebel Midwife.

LR: I saw on your website that you, your husband, and daughters have for years performed, often at festivals, as the Moes Family Band. Again, something I couldn’t picture doing with my husband and two sons (and not only because I’m officially tone deaf!). Is songwriting another aspect of your writing life? And, frankly, it all sounds like so much togetherness to me! Is it ever too much?

DM:  My husband Adam and I both deeply loved travel and music independently before we met, and then together as a couple. When we had our first baby, I made a vow to myself that I would not stop doing the things I love just because we had children. Adam agreed, and we have integrated our kids into the things we love to do. We never had the kind of extended family around us that would watch our kids for us so our options were to bring them along or do nothing.

I have been a songwriter and performer my whole life, only taking a break when the kids were babies. But when they were old enough to not run over and unwind my guitar strings whenever I picked my guitar up, I started writing songs again and playing out. Adam accompanied me on drums or ukulele. Then one day, the kids jumped onstage with me at a concert and started singing along. They knew all the words to my songs – I had no idea! It was very spontaneous.

From there our family band just took off. We are all natural singers and performers. We went to music festivals and events as a part of the show which is always more fun than being a spectator. Each summer, I say, “Well, you kids want to do the band again?” And they ask, “If we do, then do we get to go here, and here, and here?” And, off we go. Nine summers now. I hope we perform at a few book events– I will certainly sell our new CD, Wake Up!

Going to India had been my dream since I was a young adult, and I did not want to wait until the children were grown and flown to do it. There were no guarantees I would be healthy, or even alive by then. Plus, the routines of our complex American life were driving me mad. I loved my kids, but I hated the way my days were passing by on the hamster wheel I found myself on. So, we talked it over and the kids agreed to the adventure. We planned like mad and went, right in the middle of raising them.  Now, years later, looking back on it, I am slightly amazed that we ever pulled it off. But it changed us all in a myriad of positive ways. There are incredible memories we will always share.

LR: I’m always curious about what books authors read along the way as they dreamed of, wrote, or revised their own books. Can you name a few and what you loved about them? Or how they informed, inspired your own writing? Related, is there an author whose career you look at and (realistically, not fantasy!) think, I’d be happy with a writing life like that?

DM: I have immersed myself in memoirs about travel and family, ranging from classics like  Michael Ondaatje’s Running in the Family and Gerald Durrell’s My Family and Other Animals to Natalie Singer’s 2017 release California Calling and the 2017 Kore Press Memoir Contest winner Ming Holden’s Refuge. I’ve been reading Joan Didion, Maggie Nelson, and Lidia Yuknavitch, not to mention gorgeous books on writing craft from Annie Dillard and Anne Lamott.

Writing my book has been a grand excuse to buy book after book, and amass piles of them around my writing room. In terms of my career, I hope to write a second book, Rebel Midwife, as I mentioned before. Step by step, we will see where my writing takes me.

Main photo courtesy of: Suzy Hazelwood

Horse photo courtesy of: Kenny Webster

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Dena Moes is a Hollywood born, Yale educated midwife with a B.A. in literature and an M.S. in Nursing. Dena is a songwriter, storyteller and the author of The Buddha Sat Right Here: A Family Odyssey Through India and Nepal, which will be released on April 2, 2019. (Pre-orders are available on Amazon.) To learn more about Dena and her work, please visit: www.denamoes.com

Lisa Romeo is the author of Starting With Goodbye: A Daughter’s Memoir of Love after Loss (University of Nevada Press, May 2018). She teaches creative writing and works as a freelance editor. In previous careers, Lisa was an equestrian journalist and public relations specialist. She’s married to her high school crush, has two sons in college, and lives in New Jersey.  Her website is: http://LisaRomeo.net Follow her on Twitter: @lisaromeo and on Facebook: LisaRomeoAuthor