Rebecca Meredith’s “Feu Follet” was selected by Kelly Link as the second place finalist in our 2023-2024 Winter Short Story Award for New Writers. Be sure to read Meredith’s bayou-infused twist on Red Riding Hood first, and then check out our interview with the winner!
What sparked this story, or led you to write this piece?
I grew up in bayou country, and its old culture holds just the kind of magic that fairy tales hold. The rather dark twist on Red Riding Hood, in a setting where, as always, power and hunger are the stuff of female lives, really worked in the lore and history of that time and place.
This story is absolutely packed with things I’ll hesitantly call myth, though I’m sure there’s a better or at least broader term for the concepts you’re employing—everything from New Orleans bayou magic to little Red with her basket going to (a) grandma’s house. I love the way you tied them together, so that their existence in the same world isn’t so much remarkable as simply there. With all of those pieces of myth interacting, I’m curious about the way you view their role in the story; do you think of Red, or the grandma, or the wolf, as story templates for a character, for instance, or as opportunities to complicate and break out of traditional mythological roles, or as following along with the instructional mode that mythical tales can often possess, or as all of that or none of that? Save me from my own bogged-down-in-wandering question, please!
Okay. I’m a poet, and metaphor is one of my favorite things. The setting, the language, and the story itself all serve as metaphors for Red’s, and many women and girls’, search for something to call their own, something that insures survival in a world that can be as unforgiving and mysterious as the bayou itself. There’s a saying in New Orleans, “The veil is thin.” The veil between life and death, between reality and magic, between what can destroy you and what can give you power. The altar in Gran’mere’s house mixes Christian and voudoun mythology for good reason, and the overlay of sheer practicality, the trading of medicines for the stuff of survival, makes Gran’mere and Ellie characters who indeed could do the near unthinkable to save and exert control over the unfortunate mother, who fell prey to that world rather than thriving in it. It’s metaphor for all us women who have found ways to function, for better or worse.
Setting is obviously central to this piece, and as a writer of place myself I’m incredibly grateful for how deeply embedded in this world we are at all times. But on my third read-through, I focused in on our sub-header that places us not only in New Orleans, but also very specifically in 1915. Perhaps I simply don’t know enough about this place and time, but I was wondering if you could talk through the role this year played in the story.
I’ve always been fascinated by Storyville, the legal red light district in New Orleans that existed from 1897 to1917. The bordellos gave birth to jazz, the local politicians were deeply involved, and the madams, like Mama Des’ree, had a great deal of power and influence. It was one of the few places at that time that women had power. The others were the Catholic Church, where the sisters nursed plague victims, schooled children and ran orphanages, and the bayou traiteuses, whose medicine was available to the common people who couldn’t afford or wouldn’t be seen by doctors. I chose 1915 because it was well into those years and Red would have had time to grow to her age surrounded by the Storyville culture.
I’m that annoying guy at the reading that always wants to ask the super-cliché questions, so apologies in advance. First, can you tell us a bit about your writing routine? (mornings with coffee pecking at the keys; ten hours in front of a keyboard every day; chunks when inspiration strikes, et cetera?)
I’m pretty much a “chunks when the inspiration strikes” type, though I do like mornings before the world’s madness pollutes my thinking. I’m also one of those writers who gets a great idea when I’m in the car or shower and dashes off to at least try to get it in some form. Since I’m retired I can write at varied times, and that suits me.
And the story process itself: are you a seventeen drafts before even your first reader sees it kind of writer, or does it all flow brilliantly to fountain pen on first thought without stopping (someone someday will reply yes to that, I’m sure), or do you write a single sentence a million times until it’s perfect, or…?
I’m a “pantser,” often to my detriment I’m afraid. I don’t plot things out carefully before I begin, so there’s a certain amount of back-and-fill in my initial process. I do get things in what I think is workable order before I find a beta reader, because it’s easy to go blind and not know what’s on the page and what’s in your head from some prior draft or other. I do have a three part editing process at the end. First I edit on the computer, then print it out and edit on paper, then read it out loud. Each one gives me different ideas and finds different flaws.
Would you talk a little bit about the submission process for this piece? As a story that’s been longlisted at least once previously, it seems like there might be some value for other submitters in hearing the journey this piece has taken to publication.
I’m much better at writing than submitting I’m afraid. I have to fight a “deer in the headlights” feeling. My old therapist self says it’s fear of rejection or imposter syndrome, but the writer in me says the work needs its own life and I need to go on and push that button. I know enough writers to know it’s fraught even when we know the work is good. But I like Masters Review very much, and Kelly Link was just too hard to ignore. She’s been a great influence on the magical realism aspects of some of my work. So I jumped.
Interviewed by Brandon Williams