What if you knew you wanted to write a novel, but you didn’t know what to write about?
For more, stream KCBS Radio now.
This was the unique predicament that Bay Area author Lee Kravetz found himself in before releasing his first novel, "The Last Confessions of Sylvia P.," which he began writing when he was pursuing his master's degree in psychology.
KCBS Radio political reporter Doug Sovern spoke with Kravetz on KCBS Radio's "Bay Current" on Tuesday to explore how the author began his first novel.
"I was trying to become a writer. I was just struggling, and couldn’t figure out what to write," Kravetz said on KCBS Radio's "Bay Current." "I went back to graduate school to become a therapist. I did post-graduate work at a mental hospital in Menlo Park. There was a kiosk where patients would wait, with all these paperback books, and 'The Bell Jar' was there."
Kravetz said that 'The Bell Jar' was a turning point for him in his writing career and inspired him to write about confessional poetry, which was started by a series of writers in 1950s Massachusetts, including Plath, who were suffering from mental health disorders.
"Confessional poetry was the first time we were getting at the raw emotion and thoughts from people. This was born in mental hospitals," Kravetz added. "You had Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Robert Lowell, all of these poets who suffered from mental illness. They converged at the same time at Boston University, and they wrote poetry that changed the way that literature evolved from that point on. I realized that was the story I wanted to tell."
Kravetz said that while his newest work is his debut novel, he's not a stranger to writing nonfiction books, like his acclaimed project "Strange Contagion," which explores a string of suicides that occurred in Palo Alto in 2009. But he said that making the switch to fiction storytelling was more difficult than he imagined.
"The transition was not easy, but once I had it, it was like riding a bike," Kravetz said. "But in the back of your mind, you hope that you don’t embarrass the people you are basing your novel on. I’m writing about Sylvia Plath, who has been dead for about 60 years, so you do have an obligation to treat historical figures with respect. You want to be honest and true about who they are, and I was very careful to capture her tone and her thoughts because I had to get that right."
To learn more about Kravetz and his work, and to hear about future projects, visit his website.
LISTEN to KCBS Radio
FAVORITE KCBS Radio
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
Related
