Hope Ewing is the author of Movers and Shakers: Women Making Waves in Spirits, Beer and Wine, published by Unnamed Press on October 9, 2018. She has worked as a grant writer, a letter writer, a story writer, a memo writer, a screenwriter, a copy writer, and a food and drink writer. Ewing received her MFA from Columbia University, where she worked as the Web Editor of Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art. She likes hard cheese, soft eggs, gamey wine, California vermouth, and agave in any form. Ewing currently lives in Los Angeles.

EB: So when I first met you, you were getting your MFA in fiction at Columbia, and now here I am interviewing you for a series about nonfiction. When did you make the switch from fiction to nonfiction, and why?

HE: I’d always written both. I chose fiction because I had to choose one or the other for grad school.

EB: Fair. Lots of people write both. I often complain about MFA programs putting writers in boxes, but that’s a rant for another time. Please continue.

HE: The reason that my first book ended up being nonfiction was because I found a big project I was really interested in and excited about and wanted to write, and it happened to be nonfiction. I felt burnt out after graduating from Columbia, I hated my [fiction] thesis, and so I decided to move to Los Angeles because my boyfriend at the time was looking for work in film and TV. I had so little lingering interest in the NYC-based publishing scene that I was ready to go wherever he wanted. Interestingly enough, I’d never even been to Los Angeles before we moved. I had no idea that LA was opening some of the most exciting restaurants in the country and was definitely home to the best food writing in the country (RIP J. Gold). So it turned out to be very fortuitous that my money-making skill set (hospitality) matched up so perfectly with my artistic skill set (words) in the place where I happened to land.

When I first got to LA, I was floundering and working in bars, and I also started trying to make money by freelancing. While bartending, I started writing about booze, and then I started becoming obsessed with writing about booze. I guess it means you’re a writer when you get obsessed with something and need to write about it. You know, perhaps it was because I specialized in fiction for my MFA and felt so down about it after graduating that I turned to nonfiction.

EB: That’s so funny. Maybe MFA programs should add that as a disclaimer: “Choosing this genre may drive you to an entirely different genre in two years.” So that’s how you started writing nonfiction about booze in general, but specifically how did your book Movers and Shakers come about?

HE: I had connected with Olivia Taylor Smith, Executive Editor of Unnamed Press, and she knew about my writing for Punch. Olivia reached out to me to see if I would be interested in writing a book about women working with booze. She wanted a book like this to exist because there really wasn’t anything—usually the only times women write about alcohol are in sobriety memoirs. Don’t get me wrong, I love a sobriety memoir—I just finished Leslie Jamison’s book, and I haven’t picked up my jaw off the ground yet—but Olivia wanted something that showed all the positive work women are doing in the world of alcohol.

EB: So how did you land on the structure for Movers and Shakers? I love how it is a series of profiles of all these incredible people. Was that always the format going into writing the book?

HE: Originally the book was going to be an anthology that I edited. But as the project went on, it evolved into a book that I wouldn’t just edit, but a book that I would research and write myself. Which was a lot more work for me! [laughter]

When I first went into it, I had a long list of people I wanted to interview. I used the book as an excuse to approach all these people I thought were really cool, and I wanted to look at the industry through a broad lens, not just focusing on one thing—not just bartenders, or just brewers. But, whew, doing all the research first was a horrible idea!

EB: Really? I remember hearing Susan Orlean talk once about how she always does all her research first and never writes one word until she feels like she has exhausted every possible research angle.

HE: Well, when I started writing, going through all that research material at once was overwhelming, and I definitely did more research than I needed, because I wasn’t sure exactly what I would be writing. But I will say that looking at all the interviews at the same time made it possible to see patterns in the things they were passionate about, which ended up being the structure for how I ordered the interviews. At first I thought maybe I would do it chronologically or by age or by region, but I ended up deciding to sort people based on what they cared about: people who love beer, people who love wine, people who are also as obsessed with agave as I am.

EB: That’s good at least? The research though—it was so much! When I was reading Movers and Shakers, all I could think was, holy shit she did so many interviews. I was so impressed because, honestly, even though I interview people pretty regularly (like for this series) it still makes me so stressed every time I have to talk to someone. Like why did I choose to write nonfiction which involves me having to talk to strangers all the time?

HE: My boyfriend is the kind of person who can ask strangers questions about their lives, and I definitely am not. But it’s very helpful for me, like when we were in Boston and he started talking with the bartender at Green Street and found out she was a poet, and then suddenly I had all these things to talk to her about.

EB: Oh, it’s so nice when someone can break the ice for you! Every time I have to cold call someone I feel like I am going to puke.

HE: Yes! I always am worried I am bothering people by asking them questions. Though what helps is reminding myself that the person I am interviewing agreed to do the interview for a reason. They want something out of it too—to tell their story, to get their name out there, to have free publicity. Plus, remember, not everyone is a writer! I think it’s easy to forget when you’re a writer and you know a lot of other writers, but people who are not writers think being a writer is cooler than I think it is and they get excited to talk to one.

EB: So, do you have any tips for doing interviews?

HE: Transcribe them right away! Don’t let them pile up! You will have a meltdown. As for when you are doing the actual interviews, be as organized as possible. You should have an idea of what you want the piece to be about going into it. Not that you shouldn’t let your interview subject surprise you and let the conversation take a different direction. But you should know really well what information you want, because you might not get to talk to the person again. Doing an interview is sort of like waiting tables: as the server, you make the customer think that they are in charge, but actually you are telling them what they want the whole time, and the customer has no idea. You have to be in charge of the interview without the interview subject knowing it. So write your questions down before you go into it––do not trust yourself to remember them––and always have more questions than you will have time to ask. And know what information you need to have by the end of the interview.

EB: What about when you’re interviewing someone you are obsessed with?

HE: Oh, I have no advice on that. There is no good advice for how to approach interviewing someone you really admire. I was so intimidated when I was talking to Joy Spence, the Master Blender for Appleton Rum. I was just giddy and in awe. I wanted to keep asking her, “But how can I be you?”

EB: I’ve had those interviews, too. I always feel like such an idiot after.

HE: Yup.

EB: Actually, speaking of you being in awe of Joy, you actually put some of those feelings into the book and showed yourself in your star struck state. Movers and Shakers is in no way a memoir, but you are definitely present in the book. What role do you think the narrator plays in nonfiction? How did you decide how much of yourself to put in your book?

HE: I had a lot of back and forth with Olivia [the editor of Unnamed Press]. When my writing was straight reportage and just profiling the person, she was less interested. I wanted to make my readers have a reason to care about the material as much as I do, and I figured the best way to do that was to explain why I cared so much about it. And also sometimes after an interview, I would think, okay, that whole situation was so hilarious, I have to tell it like it happened. I mean, maybe also I’m just not that skilled as a journalist. I write features about these topics, but I am not trained as a hard-nosed reporter. My reporter friends are always saying to me, tell the story don’t be the story. And I respond no, you have to be the story or no one will care! So I think the ratio of how much I am in the book is in relation to how much I cared about the thing I was writing about.

EB: Hey, it’s narrative nonfiction! You can be in the story as much as you want!

So, now that you’ve written a nonfiction book, are you a nonfiction person now?

HE: [laughter]

EB: Or are you planning to return to fiction?

HE: Stop trying to put me in a box, E.B.! I’ve always read both and liked both and written both. I haven’t worked on any of my fiction projects in a minute, because I’ve been working on book, but I’d like to return to them.

EB: Is your writing process different for fiction versus nonfiction?

HE: Not really. Doing all the research for nonfiction is different, but then I’ve also had to do a lot of research when writing fiction, like when I am writing a character whose life experiences are different from mine. I always try to talk to experts, when writing fiction and nonfiction. And, for me at least, fiction is always thinly veiled memoir. If you think your story isn’t interesting enough to stand on your own, you start to make things up, and suddenly it’s now fiction. Though I have to say that when I am writing fiction, I give up much sooner.

EB: What do you mean?

HE: With nonfiction, you have a contract. Someone pays you to write a piece based on your pitch and then you have to finish it. I’ve already told someone I would do it and so I have to finish it. With fiction you’re always writing on spec, hoping that someone will buy it one day. Don’t get me wrong, nonfiction is really hard because of all the external work you have to do, but it is much easier to complete that work when you have accountability. And it’s not just accountability, it’s also validation. If someone is interested enough to agree to publish your work based on the proposal, it validates your ideas. Every time I would beat myself up while writing Movers and Shakers and tell myself what I was writing was stupid and that no one would want to read it, I would think, it’s not stupid, Olivia wants to read it. At least one person wants to read it!

EB: I had never thought about that before, but it is so true. I always get such renewed energy working on a piece when an editor agrees to publish it. I hadn’t seen it as validation before but you’re so right.

In general, what do you find most challenging about writing nonfiction, and what do you find most rewarding about it?

HE: Getting all your facts and details straight, because you don’t necessarily have to do that in fiction. The most challenging thing is doing right by your subject, but that is also the most rewarding experience. When I was interviewing L.A. McCrae of Black Star Line Brewing Company, they had been misrepresented previously in the press, so I wanted to make sure I represented them truthfully as possible. So that was a challenge, but when L.A. looked it over after and felt good about what I had written, I felt like I’d done right, and that feels really good. Not to say you should pander to your subject, though I had it easy [when writing Movers and Shakers] because everyone I was interviewing was someone I admired. It would have been much harder if I was doing dirt-digging expose.

EB: Finally, what is a favorite passage of nonfiction by a fellow non-man writer?

HE: I am obsessed with Ursula K. Le Guin not only because of her indisputable badassery, but also because she wrote prolifically across genres—fiction, nonfiction, realist, fantasy, speculative.

EB: I won’t try to put her in a box!

HE: She is my role model for giving zero fucks.

Here is an excerpt from the speech she gave accepting the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2014:

Books aren’t just commodities; the profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable—but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.

If you’re in the Boston area, be sure to come to Hope Ewing’s event for Movers and Shakers at Newtonville Books on Tuesday, October 30, 2018 at 7pm! E.B. plans to attend! Plus, there will be delicious beverages. ☺

E.B. Bartels is from Massachusetts and writes nonfiction. Her work has appeared in The Rumpus, The Toast, The Butter, xoJane, Ploughshares online, and the anthology The Places We’ve Been: Field Reports from Travelers Under 35, among others. E.B. has an MFA from Columbia University, and she runs an interview series on Fiction Advocate called “Non-Fiction by Non-Men.” You can visit her website at www.ebbartels.com, see her tweets at @eb_bartels, and read her haikus about strangers’ dogs at ebbartels.wordpress.com.

Author photo by Tuan Lee.