FAQs
Eleanor Vincent: Swimming with Maya FAQs
Q. Why did you write this book? Why would you want to relive such a painful experience?
A. I wrote the book as a love letter to both of my daughters because they are such a deep and fundamental part of who I am. I wanted to memorialize Maya’s life. But I also wanted to celebrate the way that Meghan and I have gone on to incorporate Maya’s death into our lives and to help one another to heal.
Reliving the experience was very difficult at times, but also very much a part of my recovery and my ability to integrate Maya’s death into my life in a positive way.
I also wrote the book as a tribute to the healing power of organ donation. I believe it will give readers an inside view of the very human dimensions of this high-tech medical miracle. If even one person signs a donor card and discusses his or her wishes with loved ones as a result of reading Swimming with Maya, I will consider the book a success.
Q. What does this book have to say to other bereaved families and/or the general reader?
A. Well, for bereaved families I think it offers hope and a road map for how to grieve in a healthy way. Grieving is one of the hardest jobs (next to parenting) that I know of. It takes work. I really believe that learning to deal with death and grief in a constructive way is the mark of the emotionally and spiritually mature person. We hear a lot of misleading information about “closure” and “moving on” all with very unrealistic time frames attached. My book tells it like it is – losing a child is not something you “get over,” rather you learn how to incorporate the loss and the memories, good and bad, into your life. Maya is always with me at a very deep level.
For the general reader, I think the book is a compelling story with many dramatic and inspiring aspects, and I hope people will enjoy it on that level. I wanted to make this book a good read, and I believe I succeeded. Even though the story is tragic, it is also uplifting. As with so many things in life, it’s a paradox.
Q. What do you think Maya would say about this book?
A. I think she would be pleased and proud, first of all for me, but also because the book paints a very accurate picture of aspects of her personality and her life. Of course, it is impossible to entirely capture the complexity of a human being on the page, especially someone as close as a much loved daughter. But I really gave it my best, and I know she appreciates that. She’d really get a kick out of seeing her picture on the cover. Maya was a ham – she loved the spotlight.
Q. Your portrayal of the experience of donating your daughters’ organs shows both the challenges and the benefits. How do you feel about it now?
A. Overall, extremely positive. It gave me hope when I thought all was lost. I believe it helped me make it through the early years of grief when killing myself was always a tantalizing possibility – not so much because I wanted to die, but because I wanted to be with my daughter. I had another child to be on hand for, so I made a conscious choice to live on without Maya. Meeting Fernando and his family really lifted my spirits, and made me realize that, as I had hoped, Maya was still alive in some form.
For people who are offered the option, I think donation is a wonderful opportunity. However, it is a very personal decision and I would never impose my views on anyone who had to make this very difficult choice at a time of overwhelming sorrow and loss.
Q. Are you still in contact with Fernando or any of the other recipients of Maya’s organs?
A. Fernando died in 2006 of cancer. He was a warm and wonderful man, exactly as the book shows him to be. I am very grateful to him for being so open in sharing his life and his feelings with me – not everyone would have the courage to do that with a grieving parent. He was an extraordinary person, and he was terribly proud of me and of this book. In early 2012, I met with Fernando’s daughter, Olivia, as I recount in the Afterword, and I keep in touch with his widow.
I am also in contact with the liver recipient, a lovely woman whose daughter was only seven at the time of her transplant. Now that young woman is a law student, and recently got married. I cannot tell you how much that means to me, and also to her mother, of course, who did not believe she would live to see her daughter grow up. We share a wonderful bond of being mothers, and of being good friends who happen to share a lot of life experiences and values in common.
The transplant network has told me that the other recipients are healthy, but I have not met them or corresponded with them.
Q. What does your daughter Meghan think about your book?
A. Meghan, 32, is a wonderful writer, web designer, and marketing manager at a green technology company. Her support and critique of my work have been crucial ingredients in my writing process. She was involved every step of the way, reading drafts of chapters, offering her insights, correcting me when I forget something, or made a factual error. She keeps me honest! She is tremendously proud of the effort that has gone into Swimming with Maya, and she knows how much writing about her sister has assisted me to heal.
Q. You mentioned that writing the book helped you to heal. In what way?
A. It made an unreal tragedy, one that I initially experienced in a complete state of shock, more real and more comprehensible. Maya’s death was such a bolt from the blue that only through writing and processing what happened over and over could I make any sense of it at all. During the initial writing from 1993 to 1996 I think I was just coming to terms with the reality of Maya being gone, and in a way, trying to resurrect her.
In 1997 when I signed with my agent, Laurie Harper of Sebastian Agency, that changed. At that point, I became very serious about shaping a story that a publisher would buy. That took the writing to a whole new level. It became less about healing, and almost entirely about craft. The writing took another big leap in the spring of 2000 when I began working with an editorial consultant, Amanita Rosenbush, to hone the chapter structure and the book proposal. For the final drafts of the manuscript, I worked very closely with a writing partner, Sarah Scott Davis, who provided detailed critique and moral support, in addition to the feedback I was getting from my writing group.
Now that Dream of Things is reissuing Swimming with Maya, I can see how very far I’ve come in the 20 years since Maya died. My life is better than ever. That is largely due to learning how to grieve deeply and being resilient – but my recovery was also aided by writing this book, befriending two of Maya’s organ recipients, and interacting with readers.
Q. What was the writing process like for you? Why did it take ten years to complete the book?
A. Initially it was really about just getting it all out on the page, a process that was very liberating and also intense and demanding – a lot of tears, a lot of boxes of tissue hurled at my office walls. I think the writing could only advance as I did my grief work. In the beginning I was just too absorbed in the loss to write a good book.
I had to grieve at a very deep level in order to write, in order to gradually gain the objectivity that allowed me to portray myself as a narrator, to create myself on the page as a character in my own story, if you will. This is a very subtle and difficult process, as anyone who writes memoir will tell you, and it took me that long to both recover and get the hang of what writing a compelling work of creative nonfiction is really all about.
Q. What role did your writing group play in the process?
A. Absolutely pivotal. I could not have done this without the kind of support and honest feedback I got from each one of those women. Each one had a unique perspective that made me see some new aspect of either the story or my own craft that I needed to develop further. We had fun in the process too. I really got a lot out of reading and critiquing their work as well as having my own writing put under a magnifying glass. It was a great learning experience. I would never attempt a book without the feedback of a really good group – writers must have readers – it’s the only way we can improve.
Q. Have you always wanted to write? What motivated you to become a writer?
A. I have always written because life strikes me as mysterious and overwhelming, as well as surprising and beautiful; I am driven to tease out the deeper meaning. I began by writing short stories as a preteen, graduated to journal writing, and then wrote for both my high school and college newspapers. Learning to be a journalist taught me so much about writing for readers, really focusing on what the reader needs to know and in what order. What makes a good story or a compelling lead paragraph – journalism taught me all those things. It also forced me to put my butt in the chair and meet deadlines, a very useful skill if you want to write professionally.
In my mid-twenties I began writing fiction and poetry. By then I was a single mother, and it was all I could do to support my daughter and myself and still keep my creativity alive – somehow it happened and I just stuck with it. Throughout my professional life I have always had a day job as well as been a writer. I guess I am a glutton for punishment! I love to write. And I love to read.
Q. What influence did/do your parents have on your writing process?
A. Their influence on all areas of my life is tremendous, but especially on my writing. It manifests itself in several ways. My mother was a compulsive reader – she loved words, and she loved drama – and she taught me to love them as well. She read to us every single night, and not just children’s books – Greek tragedy, the Bible, Irish legends, poetry. She created a magical world and my sister and brother and I lived in it with her for an hour every night. She was demanding. To hang out with her you had to have imagination and intelligence – you had to be very verbally sophisticated – so I learned to function at her level in order to be with her. Books were like bread in our house, a daily necessity. I did not have TV at home until I was 15.
My father was outgoing, ambitious, driven, and a drama hound – a true culture vulture right down to the Sunday New York Times. From him, I learned how to shape a story for dramatic impact, how to speak in front of people and project passion and personality. My father is a diction perfectionist. Woe be to anyone who mispronounces a word in Dad’s presence. He taught me about the wider world of writers, artists, Broadway shows. From him, I learned you could have a career in the arts, even if you had to supplement it with another, more stable job.
In terms of Swimming with Maya, my father was a great supporter and cheerleader. Sadly, my mother died several years before Maya, but I know she would be so proud of me and of my book.
Q. What advice do you have for other writers who want to be published?
A. Persist. That’s the best advice I can give. Persist and educate yourself. Take classes, go to workshops, form or join a really good writing group. Learn about the business of writing, something it took me an inordinately long time to do. Take classes on proposal writing and marketing. Understand the business structure of publishing. Pick the brains of friends who have published and learn what makes agents and editors tick.
When I first published the book in 2004 with Capital Books, social media was not part of the equation. Now, it is essential for any writer to reach and stay connected with readers. My publisher Mike O’ Mary at Dream of Things is very sophisticated in his use of virtual channels to produce and market the new edition. It’s a really good time to be a writer if you are willing to put yourself and your work out there and use these new channels for promotion.
Publishing is a tough, competitive business. You really have to love writing and be willing to serve your time as an apprentice writer. Above all, write and keep writing. Believe in yourself.