Liz Scott is the author of This Never Happened: A Memoir and Lies: The Truth about the Self-Deception That Limits Your Life. Her essays have been published on The Millions, the Powell’s Book Blog, and The Next Best Book Blog, and her fiction piece “Solstice” was the winner of the 2018 Berkeley Fiction Review Sudden Fiction contest. In addition to being a writer, Scott is a licensed clinical psychologist who earned her PhD in 1980. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

EB: How did you start writing in general and nonfiction in particular?

LS: This might be a long answer.

EB: Go for it!

LS: I spent my childhood wanting to not be like my mother. She was a writer herself who had some modest success, but she wanted nothing more in life than to be famous as a writer. So, I don’t think I ever let the option of being a writer even enter my mind until much later in life. My husband died in 1999 and an old friend who was also a widow suggested we do something we’d never done before, just as a way of infusing us with some new energy and life. We decided on taking a week-long writing workshop that I’d heard about for years, and I was bitten by the proverbial bug. In fact, the genesis of one of the chapters of my book came to me in that workshop. It would be years before I started on this project though. I joined a writing group and spent years writing short stories—a form I love—and was grateful to have many of them published in literary magazines. At the same time, my friend Bridget, who took the writing workshop with me and is also a psychologist, suggested we write a self-help book together. We had such a blast collaborating on that book, I must say. The memoir and the essays that followed it came much later.

EB: And how did your book This Never Happened come about?

LS: I had always told stories about my mother and can’t count the number of times I heard, “You should write a book!” But along with the almost phobic reaction I had to the notion of being a writer there was frankly so much emotional noise in my head around my relationship with my mother that there was little space for creative musing. It was only after her death in 2005 that I began to vaguely entertain the notion, and as time passed, I got more and more interested in the idea. I think I started writing the memoir in earnest in about 2016.

EB: A lot of memoirists have said they can’t write the stories they want and need to write until after someone has died. It’s interesting, though, that once your mother the writer died you were able to finally fully find yourself as a writer. Having a parent who is a writer is tricky! Anne Fadiman has written and spoken about that.When writing about your mother, did you ever turn to her writings for reference?

LS: I mention in the book that I took very few things that belonged to my mother after she died. One of those things was a box of her writing: a zillion short stories—none of which were published, I believe; copies of newspaper columns; poetry—unpublished; and a 600-plus page unpublished novel. I’ll say this: she was persistent and she had a particular voice, but—and this is of course nothing I would say when she was alive and I even feel a little guilty saying this now—her writing did not inspire me and as a writer she is not one I would turn to for reference.

EB: When I teach classes on writing memoir or other personal nonfiction, my students often ask me how to deal with holes in their memory or in their resources—for example, what to do if someone has died without sharing everything about their life, or if there have been long-running family secrets that you don’t know the truth about. This is obviously something you had to deal with because of your mother’s PTSD and narcissism, which you write about in the book. How did you handle when you encountered a lack of information while writing your memoir?

LS: Oh, boy, did I ever have to deal with this!

EB: [laughter]

LS: There were two big challenges for me. First of all, I have a terrible memory. I only have a handful of actual memories I can call up without being nudged. This seems to be a family trait, actually, shared by my sister and both my grown daughters. I often wonder if it’s something about the way our brains are wired in this family or if there’s a more psychological explanation.

And second: our parents gave us no information at all about their families, our heritage, their histories. Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Zip. This was really the impetus for the book—trying to understand at least some of the many mysteries of our family. Also, my mother really wouldn’t have known the truth if it bit her in the ankle so turning to her for information was useless. I have a chapter in my book of the frustrating, infuriating and heartbreaking tease of her offering information when she was on her deathbed.

EB: I both loved that chapter and was so frustrated by it!

LS: Me too, frustrated to distraction!And since I had so little information I made use of photos and letters and newspaper articles and anything else I could find to help fill in the blank spaces. I am sad to say that the truth of many family secrets will most likely never be revealed.

EB: My students also always want to know how to handle contradictions in memory and accounts of events. I love how in the very first chapter of your book, you directly state how your mom would contradict herself or deny facts. How did you grapple with these contradictions while writing?

LS: My mother was most certainly not a reliable narrator. And as I said, I have a poor memory. But I think memoir is different than autobiography in that it is more about the emotional truth of a life than a factual recounting. This is my story, in that it is my impression and my emotional truth of the experience of my family. My sister would tell a different story as, of course, would my parents.

EB: Good point. Also, contradictions and secrets and holes in memory can actually make for great tension in a story. When I interviewed Cameron Dezen Hammon for this series, we talked a lot about manufacturing tension in a memoir by playing with the timeline and order of events. I love how your book is made up of a series of short vignettes that bounce around from different times and places. How did you come up with this structure? Why did you settle on it?

LS: I’m so glad you liked that. This was such an interesting aspect of creating this book for me. First of all, along with my poor memory I have a short attention span, so what worked for me in writing this book was to not worry about a timeline or order of events and just write a stand-alone chapter about whatever was present for me. I told myself I would worry about ordering them later. I ended up with 72 chapters, some of them only one word or one sentence. I knew when I wrote the chapter that would become the last chapter that it was where I wanted the book to end, even though I still had more chapters to write. When I thought I had a complete piece of work, the challenge of ordering was the next task. I must say it was a fun project, figuring out what to do with these 72 chapters. I put each title on an index card and spread them out on my living room floor, shifting the order multiple times, asking the advice of my writing group, shifting the order again and again.

EB: Yes! I am always telling my students to do this! I am obsessed with using index cards to figure out structure! I appreciate you saying that because now they won’t think it’s just me being crazy, that other people do it too.

LS: I have a strange affection for index cards myself! It was such a helpful tool for me. My book does not really have a narrative arc but it does have an emotional arc and that’s what I hope I’ve achieved in arranging the chapters as I have. Also, this is the way memory works, right? It’s not linear and orderly. Our minds naturally skip back and forth in time organically.

EB: So true. Alex Marzano-Lesnevich has talked about how this is why they chose to structure The Fact of a Body in the way that they did. In addition to feeling like a memory-collage, your book has been described as an “archaeological dig,” which reminded me of Grace Talusan’s memoir The Body Papers, because she also uses photographs, letters, and other documents throughout as a type of familial evidence. Can you talk a bit about your decision to include these elements, and how you decided which things specifically to include and which to leave out?

LS: The photos and documents I included in the book are the scant memorabilia I have from my family. I included everything I had except I did edit a couple of the later letters between my parents—I didn’t want to subject my readers to more vitriol than necessary to make my point.

EB: Wow, that is everything? That really is scant.

LS: I know. It’s quite sad. As a contrast, I have multiple boxes of memorabilia from my own kids’ childhoods. Butthere is one photograph I did not include that I wish I had. I spend some time in the book talking about my childhood best friend and how we really saved each other. I have a photo of the two of us—maybe five years old or so—sitting very close to each other on the grass. It really captures our bond and I could smack myself for not including it!

EB: Now, on a different note, I am always interested to know about writers’ day jobs, because I know that not one day job works for everyone—some people pair writing with teaching, some with editing, some with bartending, others with carpentry. In addition to being a writer, you are also a psychologist, yes? How do you think your work as a psychologist influences or affects your work as a writer? How does the pairing of psychology and writing work for you?

LS: I am! I’ve been a psychologist in private practice for about 40 years, if you can believe it! There is great synergy between these two pursuits. First of all, I think what led me to become a psychologist—though it was not a very conscious motivation—was my need to understand the story under the story. There was so much unknown, hidden and secret in my family that it created in me a hunger for understanding and finding answers. I think about this often with my clients—uncovering the story under the story, helping them solve the puzzles of their lives. And speaking of story: I’ve heard zillions! All those stories swimming around in my head were great grist for writing short stories which was my initial foray into writing. Also, in all of my writing—certainly including this memoir—I am most interested in the psychological and emotional truth of every person.

EB: I love that. The reason I love nonfiction so much is because of this exchange of stories between people.

LS: Me too. People being raw and real. Nothing better.I have a deep belief that we are all mucking around, doing the best we can, and I have tried to bring that philosophical bent toward all my characters, real or fictional—myself included.

EB: Writing can be a very lonely vocation. Can you speak a bit about your writing community, if you have one, and how that community influences or helps your writing process? Who do you turn to for support when writing?

LS: Oh, the Portland writing community! I don’t have enough good things to say about this precious group of people. Maybe it’s the rain, maybe it’s all the great indie bookstores, most notably Powell’s. Whatever the explanation, what we have here is a large, vibrant and supremely supportive community of writers and readers. We attend each other’s events, offer help and useful suggestions, buy each other’s books and on and on. I am also blessed to be in a wonderful writing group that’s been going for about 12 years. I owe them a huge debt of gratitude for their help with my book.

EB: I love that! Speaking of buying books, what are some memoirs that provided guidance and inspiration for you while writing This Never Happened? Or books in general? I know that sometimes a novel or short story can actually heavily influence me while writing memoir or a personal essay.

LS: One of the most important influences was—and warning, it’s by a man—

EB: I swear I read nonfiction by men, too!

LS: —was Nick Flynn’s Another Bullshit Night in Suck City. One of my writing group pals suggested I read that when I was grappling with the challenge of getting my arms around my story. Two things were supremely helpful to me: his is a non-linear story that jumps back and forth in time. That helped. Also, it’s a memoir where there was scant use of the word “I.” For me that was huge. Narcissism is a big theme in my book and the thought of writing a book where “I” was the subject felt like a slippery slope to crazy town. I also thought a lot about Liar’s Club by Mary Karr.

EB: I love The Liars’ Club! She is so generous with her family, even when they weren’t always the best to her.

LS: Me too! I was so impressed by her equanimity and open-heartedness in the way she dealt with her wacky family, and I thought about that frequently while I was writing.

EB: In general, what do you find most challenging about writing nonfiction?

LS: It’s harder to hide when writing nonfiction. And, of course, this is mega true when writing memoir. I put a Post-it note on my laptop when I was writing my memoir: BE BRAVE. There were multiple times when I found myself at a decision point: should I go there or not. My fallback position was that if I were going to do this project, there was no good reason to hold back. I ended up throwing my own damn self under the bus in a way that I may not have predicted when I started the project but, in the end, hard as it was, I believe it was the right thing to do.

EB: I love that, thank you. And yes! You’ve got to throw yourself under the bus, too—I am always telling my students no person is completely good or bad, and as a narrator, it’s important to show your flaws too. Now what do you find most rewarding about writing nonfiction?

LS: It’s prettymuch the same answer. Being brave, owning your story, accepting your humanity with all your flaws and foibles—I felt proud.

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

LS: May I have two?

EB: Of course! I know, choosing just one is impossible.

LS: From Mary Karr: “A dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it.”

And from Toni Morrison: “Make up a story… For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light.”