Meet Mary Otis | Writer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Mary Otis and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Mary, what role has risk played in your life or career?
I think that risk is inherently tied to inspiration in that the pursuit of any art form requires risk, but that which inspires you and deeply provokes your curiosity can be so powerful that it eclipses the challenges. Or at least makes them worth it! It can feel daunting to claim oneself a writer, to go all in on an endeavor that might require years before there are tangible results. For many, there are risks that need to be taken whether they’re financial, societal, cultural, or familial.

One of the most powerful things that writing can do is that it enables a writer to take all the mismatched items in your consciousness—the things that call to you and haunt you—the odd observations, half-forgotten memories, mysterious imaginings, and even the way the light fell one afternoon, and weave them all together in unexpected ways, in service of illuminating the truth. When they say “Write what you know” they don’t mean from the events of your life, they mean emotionally, and that can feel risky. But this is where the power of imagination and empathy come in because a writer doesn’t need to have personally experienced something to understand it deeply and write about it well.

Moving to LA was a risk for me, as I only knew one person in the city. I witness a remarkable number of strange, comic, beautiful, and sad incidents in Los Angeles on a daily basis. And it does affect my writing. I walk a lot and am constantly struck by what I see and hear, or what I’m left to imagine. For a sprawling, “open” city, there is so much about it that is hidden or a mystery to me, and it endlessly compels me. I frequently write these things on an index card and sooner or later the image or line makes it into my fiction. The trick is that you never know where you will find what, so I try to dwell in a place of possibility, and sometimes the world leans in and conspires with me to write.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I’m a fiction writer, most recently of Burst, a novel, which was longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Award and won the Silver Medal in Literary Fiction from the Independent Publishers Award. Burst was featured on PBS NewsHour and named by Good Morning America as one of the Best Books of Spring. My stories, essays, and poems have been published in Best New American Voices, Tin House, Electric Literature, McSweeney’s, Zyzzyva, Los Angeles Times, and in many literary journals and numerous anthologies. My story “Pilgrim Girl” received an Honorable Mention for the Pushcart Prize, and my story “Unstruck” was a Distinguished Story of the Year in Best American Short Stories. I was a founding fiction professor in the UC Riverside Low-Residency MFA Program, and I frequently guest teach and speak at universities and writing conferences.

In my fiction I’m pulled to explore the intersection of humor and grief and to locate the extraordinary in the ordinary. In all my work, I’m interested in illuminating character interiority and the mystery of people’s hidden lives, their wonder and shame, longing and will. Themes that are central to a lot of my writing are women who refuse to be defined by societal or family expectations, women, who, to quote a Grace Paley title, face “enormous changes at the last minute.”

One of the best things I’ve learned on my writing journey is to trust your subconscious. It will present you with characters and images you never expected, provide subtextual connections beyond reckoning, and solutions you could have never foreseen.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
To introduce a visitor to some of our varied and vibrant Los Angeles neighborhoods and communities I’ll take them on a drive along Sunset Blvd., starting at Figueroa Street in downtown LA and then head west until we reach PCH. Along the way we’ll pass through Echo Park, Silverlake, Hollywood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Westwood, Santa Monica, Pacific Palisades. Once we hit Pacific Coast Highway, we’d head north to Topanga State Beach for some surfing and a picnic. On the return trip, we’d drive through Topanga Canyon and enjoy the vertiginous route and lush nature.

Other favorite spots we might visit in LA include Lake Hollywood, Amoeba Music, Brand Library, Descanso Gardens, and Honolulu Blvd in Montrose where Lost Books is located, a great bookstore that features a moss-covered ceiling. A new favorite wine bar is Wife and The Somm in Eagle Rock, and for a great piece of fish, I recommend the venerable Fish King in Glendale.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
First, I want to give a shoutout to the brilliant writer and teacher Jim Krusoe with whom I studied early on. He changed the course of my life and was a remarkable mentor. Deeply wise, funny, and intuitive, he has helped a legion of LA folks become writers.

I’d like to acknowledge our LA independent bookstores who have supported my books, hosted events and are my favorite stops for book buying—Vroman’s Bookstore, Chevalier’s Books, Skylight Books, Book Soup, Flintridge Bookstore, Olivia’s Bookshelf, Diesel, Zibby’s Bookshop, and the Last Bookstore.

I also want to give a shoutout to my LA writing students with whom I’ve worked on the graduate and undergraduate levels, in workshops or in an editorial capacity with private manuscript consultations. Our city is brimming with unique talent, and I’ve been inspired by working with so many terrific writers and watching them flourish.

Last, I want to thank my husband, Vincent Oresman, for all his support on my writing journey. He’s often one of my first readers, and I’m grateful for his abundance of great ideas and enthusiasm, and as a documentary editor, his insights and skills transfer brilliantly to the page.

Website: https://www.maryotis.com

Instagram: @maryotiswriter

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mary.otis.7

Other: Link to BURST Feature on PBS

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/brief/458431/mary-otis

Image Credits
Cat Gwynn

Vincent Oresman