Elizabeth Percer: Subversive Author of ALL STORIES ARE LOVE STORIES

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Hello Reds and lovely readers! Today, I'm delighted to introduce you to Elizabeth Percer, the author of AN UNCOMMON EDUCATION, which I absolutely loved. She's a three-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize and twice honored by the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Foundation.

Her latest novel, just out, is titled ALL STORIES ARE LOVE STORIES. Publishers Weekly calls it "gripping [and] poignant ... an unconventional love letter to San Francisco" and raves, "San Francisco’s unique architecture, diverse neighborhoods, and colorful residents are vividly brought to life. The intertwined love stories in this remarkably drawn setting will keep readers absorbed until the final, tear-jerking moments."

Here's a more detailed description of the novel:

In this thoughtful, mesmerizing tale, the author of An Uncommon Education follows a group of survivors thrown together in the aftermath of two major earthquakes that strike San Francisco within an hour of each other—an achingly beautiful and lyrical novel about the power of nature, the resilience of the human spirit, and the enduring strength of love.

On Valentine’s Day, two major earthquakes strike San Francisco within the same hour, devastating the city and its primary entry points, sparking fires throughout, and leaving its residents without power, gas, or water.

Among the disparate survivors whose fates will become intertwined are Max, a man who began the day with birthday celebrations tinged with regret; Vashti, a young woman who has already buried three of the people she loved most . . . but cannot forgot Max, the one man who got away; and Gene, a Stanford geologist who knows far too much about the terrifying earthquakes that have damaged this beautiful city and irrevocably changed the course of their lives.

As day turns to night and fires burn across the city, Max and Vashti—trapped beneath the rubble of the collapsed Nob Hill Masonic Auditorium—must confront each other and face the truth about their past, while Gene embarks on a frantic search through the realization of his worst nightmares to find his way back to his ailing lover and their home.

And by morning, nothing will be the same.

SUSAN: Welcome, Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH PERCER: Hello, and thank you for having me.

I’m sorry to report that, in recent years, I’ve had more than a few older gentleman explain to me that the novel is on its way out. This is mansplaining at its worst, and I cannot defend it. Of course, sir, I want to say, in earning my B.A. and master’s and Ph.D. and raising three children and living for four decades, I have been waiting for you, a relative stranger, to set me straight on the novel’s place in popular culture.

There are so many ways that being a novelist is counterculture these days, and I’ve never been happier to be straying from the herd. It’s such a delicious thrill, to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that narrative is as essential to our existence as the campfires that inspired it, that to relate to one another’s experience is at the very core of humanity itself, and that no, I do not fear the sort of virtual apocalypse some like to predict. You know the one, where machines take over minds and we all find ourselves in a world of steel and fogs of dubious origin. Blah, blah, blah, snooze, snooze, snooze.

Like most writers, I came to writing through reading, and if reading has shown me anything, it’s that a kaleidoscopic view of the world is the most rewarding one we can take. Extremes can coexist in the most contradictory and fabulous ways possible. A good, old-fashioned novel can be enjoyed just as thoroughly as the latest finely honed technology. I can still bury my nose deep in the pages of a new book and inhale that ineffable olfactory delight that is some mix of paper and ink and glue, and it does not mean that I don’t also thrill at the fact that my Kindle can deliver that novel I’ve been dying to read in less than a minute. As writers and readers, I think it’s so important that we continue to champion the beautiful paradox, the seemingly impossible coexistences that make up our glittering, mysterious world.

My second novel, All Stories Are Love Stories, comes out this week, and its title came to me almost as soon as its subject matter did. It’s about the destruction of modern day San Francisco, thanks to a series of fires that are triggered by two major earthquakes. It’s easy to see that title as Pollyannaish, but the truth is that I see love and fear as two sides of the same equation, that to care at all about something is to also court vulnerability, to be open and exposed to the unexpected. Love isn’t an easy thing in this context, but it’s pervasive, leaking in through even the hardest stories, giving paradox itself the kind of color that we can’t quite define but will happily spend our lives exploring.

So even though certain older gentleman might see a female novelist writing about love as quaint and as easily dismissed as bobby socks and pigtails, I see it as nothing short of the most rebellious act I can muster. To stay soft, and to embrace that softness, that indefinable way of moving through the world with my heart and mind open, is to pay homage to every story I’ve ever read that changed me because I was willing to be changed, to every reader I’ve met who showed me a side to a story only she see, and to every writer who’s taught me more about myself and this world through the narratives that run through it, too infinite to count, too essential to fear destruction.

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Thank you, Elizabeth. 

Reds and readers, do you think the novel's on the way out? Or here to stay? Is being a novelist, in and of itself, a rebellious act? Subversive? Counter-culture? Are books "too essential to fear destruction"? Please tell us in the comments.

Elizabeth Percer is a three-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize and has twice been honored by the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Foundation. She received a BA in English from Wellesley and a PhD in arts education from Stanford University, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship for the National Writing Project at UC Berkeley. She lives in California with her husband and three children. All Stories Are Love Stories is her second novel.

Alice Bradley on the Stupidity of Writing (and/or Living) for People who Dislike You

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: I'm delighted to introduce today's guest, Alice Bradley. She's a writer (Let's Panic About Babies), award-winning blogger (Finslippy), podcast host (League of Awkward Unicorns), and all-around badass, who's also working on her first novel. 

Recently, Alice wrote a post that resonated with me in a big way, titled "The Stupidity of Writing (and/or Living) for People Who Dislike You." ("It's as if you hear all the voices in my head!" wrote one of her fans — and I feel the same.) 

All of us who put ourselves out there (whether as a novelist, a blogger, or — hey — a human being) can one minute be having fun with our passion, love, and creativity, and then the next hear the negative voices (and there are always negative voices and punishing people — that's one thing to count on in this life, it seems) who seemingly want us to stop, to quit, to play possum, or worse. 

But we can't quit, not if we want to be true to ourselves, make the art we want — and lead the life we want. 

And so, what to do? 

Thank goodness, Alice has some advice. Welcome!

ALICE BRADLEY: Thank you, Susan and Reds. 

Halfway through my senior year of high school, a group of my friends decided they didn’t like me anymore. It felt at the time like the entire class had turned against me, but it was probably about five people. Nonetheless, they were five people I spent a lot of my time with, and they were fairly well-liked, so other people who had once thought I was cool now found me loathsome. I devolved from “somewhat cool to hang out near” to “What? No.” It was…difficult.

It was never clear to me what started it; over a period of weeks 

and months I was just frozen out. People who had once laughed 

at my jokes were now rolling their eyes. Then walking away. And 

when I asked them what I had done, they said, God, you don't 

understand anything. I’d call and their moms would say they were 

busy and their moms would sound embarrassed. Like that. If I had 

to dig through my memory I’m positive I'd find I wasn’t blameless, 

but luckily no one’s making me dig through my memory. (It’s messy 

in there.) 

So that’s hard to remember, but what’s even worse were my attempts 

to change their minds. Because I did not say, “Well, screw you” 
and concentrate on the few good friends who stuck by me. Oh no 
I did not. 

Instead I engaged in desperate and frantic bids to get their friendships 

back. Showing up at get-togethers that I wasn’t specifically not invited

to. Breakin’ the rules and gettin’ suspended to show that I was a real 

bad-ass. (And apparently dropping my g’s.) Worst of all, I made up 

gossip, literally made up dirt on people, to show that I was somehow 

in the know and worth hanging out with. You can imagine how well 

that turned out. 

In my spare time I was learning what "panic attacks" were and 

breaking out into epic rashes (the family dermatologist was fascinated 

by me that year), and when I was at school I playacted at being an 

asshole. Somehow I thought that if they didn’t like me, maybe they’d 

like this frantic, aggressive version of me. 

This strategy, not surprisingly, backfired, in that not only did they 

dislike me even more, the few people who were still brave enough to 

be my friends were beginning to see their point. Is it a coincidence 

that the one friend who was kind enough to sit me down and tell me 

what a dick I was being, and then forgive me when I acknowledged 

said dickness, is now a priest? It is not. She is a goddamn saint. 

The whole situation was pretty excruciating, and the only thing that 

saved me was graduation. 

This particular story was a dramatic example but not an exception to 

how I like to focus on someone who doesn’t like me and try and make 

them like me. I’ve homed in on the one person in my life who doesn’t 

think I’m all that charming and used all my charm to change their 

minds. And do you know what? This has always failed! Sometimes spectacularly! 

If someone doesn’t like you, it’s probably got more to do with them 

than you, but either way, I've learned, there’s not too much you can 

do about it. Unless you’ve actively been a terrible person, in which 

case you should quit doing that, for everyone’s sake. 

I’ve been thinking of this period in my life recently, because I found 

myself recently trying to understand why I’ve struggled with blogging 

over the past few years. Since I started it in 2004, Finslippy has been 

one of the most joyful experiences of my life. I gave it my random 

thoughts and it gave me friends, positive feedback, a book deal, 

television appearances, a stream of writing gigs, crazy speaking 

engagements and video projects, and more than one job. I owe my blog so much.

It also provided me with the weird sensation of reading about how 

much some people weren’t into me. Of course, right? Once your 

audience extends beyond your friends and family, it’s inevitable that someone’s not going to think you’re particularly interesting. I always 

knew that. I just didn’t know people would find me so not-that-great 

that they’d be compelled to write about it. And that so many people 

would agree with them. 

I am not a special case. This is in no way unusual. It happens to 

everyone who's put anything out there in the world. It’s the byproduct 

of creative output. If anything, I’ve gotten off easy. I’ve gotten off 

easy, though, because I’ve pulled back. And I’ve pulled back because 

the negative feedback was too painful. 

And it’s not like I was being attacked on the regular, by any means. 

All I got were a few comments on a forum here and there. A 

discussion thread or two about how non-exemplary I was. A couple 

of Google alerts let me know that I wasn’t nearly as great as I 

(apparently) believed. A couple of emails informing me that I’m 

a garbage dump of a person. That kind of stuff. 

In realizing that I wasn't alone with this phenomenon, I also read 

scathing attacks on my blogging peers and my friends. I sort of...

obsessed over these attacks. I saw people I understand on a cellular 

level being ridiculed and dismissed. No one was making me read 

those sites. But somewhere in the weird little frightened squirrel 

part of my brain, I was taking notes, trying to figure out what these 

people who hated everything would like, how I could be that cool girl 

who’d get a pass. 

It didn’t take long for me to really get these people's voices in my 

head. I became increasingly careful with what I wrote. I edited and 

re-edited. I second-guessed and didn't hit publish. I became 

increasingly self-conscious and reactive and every post just felt 

harder and harder. And then I gave up. It wasn’t fun anymore. 

But who made it un-fun? I did. I denied myself the joy of writing shit 

that I wanted to write. How stupid is that? Who was this benefiting? 

A few people who probably weren’t paying any attention? Would 

these people spontaneously contact me and say, “You know, I used to 

think you were boring and unfunny, but now that you’re not writing at 

all, you’ve really grabbed my attention. Want to get drinks?” And then

we’d get drinks and we’d be best friends and everyone would like me 

again and I’d be voted Most Misunderstood But Secretly Great? 

This is silly. It’s so silly. There’s always going to be someone who 

doesn’t think you’re great. Don’t read it. Don’t read negative shit in 

general, actually: it’s poison. 

And if someone doesn’t like you enough to fire off an angry missive 

about how you're the worst, just rest easy in the knowledge that that 

person is a miserable chafe of a human being who doesn’t deserve 

your time and energy.

Then reply, “For the last time, I’m not going to have sex with you.” 

This always freaks them out. Because secretly they wanted to have 

sex with you. They all do. Because you’re super hot.

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Thank you, Alice! And you are super 

hot, darling. 




Reds and lovely readers, have you ever gone out on a limb with 
something (artistically, personally) only to get a lot of negativity? 
(Not constructive critisism, of course, but that really personal, 

vindictive stuff?) Did it ever stop you for a while? Did it stop 

you completely? How did/do you deal with it? And how did you, 

or will you, triumph?




Please tell us — and Alice— in the comments!

ABOUT ALICE BRADLEY: I'm a writer, and I live in Brooklyn, 

New York, with my husband Scott, my son Henry, my dog 

Hazel, and Izzy the cat.

I write both fiction and nonfiction. I've written for all kinds of 
publications and websites. So many. At some point I'll provide 

a list, I promise. 

I've been writing Finslippy since 2004. I've been called a 

parenting blogger, but these days I write quite a bit more about 
creativity, art, depression, city life, our surly cat and peeing 
Chihuahua, my extended family, and sometimes, okay, parenting.

I've got a podcast with Deanna Zandt called The League of 
Awkward Unicorns, It's about mental illness (depression, anxiety, etc. etc.) 

and emotional wellness (things that help, whether it's 

medication, exercise, or wrapping oneself up in a Snuggie 

while binge-watching The Mindy Project). Find us on iTunes 

here. 

In March 2011 I co-authored a book called LET'S PANIC 

ABOUT BABIES! with the beloved Eden Marriott Kennedy. It 

was published in St. Martin's Press, and we're quite proud of it. 

You can read all about the book (and enjoy our book trailer, 

excerpts, and reviews) over here.

I love emails from readers, although I can't always reply to them as 
quickly as I'd like. My favorite comments from readers include 

the following:

"You write as if you're listening to the voices in my head."

And:

"I usually find things amusing online, but don't always laugh, 

like with my voice. 

Today I did."

If you have anything to say, I'd love to hear from you. Thanks.