BCC Shines a Light On: Allison Field Bell
Name of the piece published by BCC:
When/where was it originally published:
New Madrid, Winter 2018
Tell us more about your piece! What is the background of the piece? What led you to write it? What’s your process?
This is the first story I wrote when I started my MFA at New Mexico State University in 2014. It was inspired by, well, punctuation and two very important professors. I was taking a workshop class with Evan Lavender-Smith, who was introducing me to all sorts of more innovative writers, and I was also taking a class on novellas, punctuation, and Ulysses with Lily Hoang. Between Evan and Lily, I was introduced to the idea that punctuation functions similarly to everything else in a story or book: you can make your own rules so long as you’re teaching your reader how to read them. This was revelatory for me. That punctuation was not at all an objective correct thing to apply, but rather could be flexible, could be inflected by voice.
Now, picture me sitting in a coffee shop in Las Cruces, New Mexico—Milagro, the coffee shop I went to every day to write. On a stool at the front window of Milagro, two or three cups in, I’m at my computer trying to figure out what to write for my first workshop story. I had this document on my computer called camping, and it only had the line: “They are camping and isn’t it wonderful?” I deleted the question mark and put a period there. Then the voice snapped into my head. “They are camping and isn’t it wonderful.”
For me and my story writing process at the time, the only way I knew how to write anything was to discover a voice and follow it. This was my process here. That’s changed a bit in the past ten years, but honestly not much. I never write through plot. And hardly ever write through concept. It’s always voice for me. And in 2014, when I wrote “Be a Woman,” I realized punctuation, paragraphing, everything was part of voice too.
How did you feel when it was first published and how have your thoughts or feelings on the piece changed from then to now?
I was thrilled when this piece was accepted by New Madrid. I had published a few small things before then, and I had one longer story that was published by Gettysburg Review, but this felt like a huge accomplishment. I had revised the story over and over again and submitted it to what felt like a ton of places at the time (probably only a dozen, which is now funny to me—I had another story that ultimately landed in Gettysburg Review as well that I had submitted to over 60 journals!)
Anyway, it felt like a huge win for me, and I was excited to share this particular story because it was the first step to me “finding my own voice” as they say. Maybe Joyce’s influence is a little too obvious in it—or at least it definitely was a first—but it was an important step for me to break free from what I had been writing previously.
Not only had I been writing less voice-driven work, I had also been writing primarily from male points of view. I viewed fiction as a way for me to have an experience of empathy with a character, and I wanted to understand these messed up men. Men like some of the men I was interacting with in real life. Men who catcalled me, who rated women’s bodies on a 1-10 scale, male therapists who hit on their 20-year-old patients (me), etc. While I know thinking about fiction as empathy is problematic, at the time of writing “Be a Woman,” I realized that it wasn’t my job to have the experience of empathy, but rather to facilitate that experience for a reader. I began writing from points of view closer to my own positionality. Coincidental or not, I think I became a better writer. I think I wrote stories with more depth, more interiority. Stories with more truth.
Is there a specific message you would like readers to take away from reading this piece?
It’s tough to say. I suppose that I would like readers to feel something beyond pity for Maddie, the main character. I think what happens (and almost happens) to her is horrible, and I also think early on in the story and even in that moment, she is cruel. I think bad things happen to humans, and I want Maddie to not just be a victim, but a human too. This means she’s not perfect, not innocent, though that word is complicated and problematic for this story. I didn’t have any of these thoughts while writing the piece of course. It’s only now, 10 years later that I can articulate something like this.
What else would you like to tell readers about your writing? (Doesn’t have to refer only to your BCC piece)
I would say that my writing deals with my obsessions and is a direct result of experiences I’ve had—whether they’re fictionalize or not. I think many of us write to our obsessions, and often it feels like I’m writing the same story over and over again. Maybe I am, but I also think that’s okay. That’s how you get it right. Maybe?
Where can readers find more of your work? (Website/social media, etc)
allisonfieldbell.com / twitter: afb16 / Instagram afb1987
