Books That Inspired My Writing
By Milana Marsenich
The Beginning
When I was a young
girl living with my parents and three brothers in Butte, Montana, my father
often read Robert Service poems out loud. I grew up listening to The Spell of the Yukon, The Shooting of Dan
McGrew, The Cremation of Sam McGee, and The
Men Who Don’t Fit In. I loved my father’s voice, his conviction, and the
dark words about these wild times in the cold and the snow, the great alone,
the search for some kind of magic that sets a person’s life right. On those
long winter nights in the Rocky Mountains these poems worked their way into my
young psyche and never left. I’m still amazed by wild towns and mountains. If
anything ties my two novels together it is this sense of something wild and
unbroken, in spite of the odds. Copper
Sky is the story of a tragic time in Butte, Montana’s history and the love
that ultimately pulls the town together. The
Swan Keeper is the story of a girl, a violent crime, and the wild beauty of
the Mission Mountains. In both of these books the characters find courage and
beauty in spite of the unimaginable heartache they endure.
Poetry
I loved poetry and
wrote hundreds of poems as a teen and young woman, almost all of them
unpublished. I was fascinated by the use of language in poems and would read
them over and over. Richard Hugo’s book The
Lady in Kicking Horse Reservoir
practically fell apart in my hands I read it so many times. “You might come
here Sunday on whim. Say your life broke down. The last good kiss you had was
years ago.” These lines are burned into my brain from Hugo’s poem Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg. My
grandmother was born in Philipsburg, Montana. I have a soft spot for the little
town and the nearby Pintler Mountains. It’s always like that for me—towns and mountains
together. Richard Hugo liked towns with rivers. I took a class from him once. I
was terrified to submit a poem for critique. And when I did submit my poem,
Hugo was not just disappointed, he was mad. He said I was a bright young woman
from Butte and he wanted me to go home and write him something real. I did. I
went home and worked so hard on my next poem. I stole the words from the fabric
of my life. I emulated his style, which was impossible, but it made me a better
writer. I read his poems for years, learning to pair the sacred with the
trivial, to twist the sentence on the last word, to bring the main concept back
around at a richer level—all things I learned from reading Hugo’s poems. His
poetry and my love for language inspired the writing in Copper Sky and The Swan
Keeper.
Novels
It took me a long
time to learn how to tell a story rather than write a poem. Even now I love the
mystic of poetic language in stories. The novels that most affected my writing
have a mystical edge to them: Winter’s
Tale by Mark Helprin, I Heard The Owl
Call My Name by Margaret Craven, The
Likeness by Tana French, The Dress
Lodger by Sheri Holman, Fata Morgana
by William Kotzwinkle, Bull from the Sea
by Mary Renault. Once I love a novel I read it again and again. I want to know
how the author came up with the story. I want to experience the magic of it. I
want to learn and grow and be amazed all over again. And each time I read any
of these novels I am enchanted again. Even though I already know what is going
to happen. These novels are like old friends that I haven’t seen for a while
and we pick up exactly where we left off. The White Dog in Copper Sky was directly inspired by the White Horse in Winter’s Tale. The ending in The Swan Keeper came from a desire to
end a book in the way that Mary Renault ended Bull from the Sea. The magical realism in William Kotzwinkle’s Fata Morgana found its way into Copper Sky and The Swan Keeper. The true humanity of Craven’s I Heard the Owl Call My Name inspired compassion in both novels.
The Dead in The Dress Lodger gave me
courage to let the Dead live in Copper
Sky. Tana French uses such beautiful and surprising language in The Likeness that I tried to emulate
her. Again, it was impossible. But it made me a better writer.
Non Fiction
It would be
difficult to write a book set in the mining town of Butte, Montana in 1917
without having read Copper Camp by
the Montana Writers Project and Fire And
Brimstone by Michael Punke. Copper
Camp served as initial inspiration for Copper
Sky, and Fire and Brimstone
served to review the research. Both books talk about the many mining accidents
in the town, the fires, and the political climate of early Butte. Swans of The World by A. Lindsay Price
and Giving Voice To Bear by David
Rockwell both helped shape The Swan
Keeper. I had so many questions about trumpeter swans and their migrating
and mating habits. I wanted to know what they ate and how they treated their
young. They are birds that mate for life, and they are fiercely protective of
their young. Swans of the World
answered many of my questions. The Native American myths, rituals, and images
of the bear in Giving Voice to Bear
helped me to find words to portray the mystical spirit of the trumpeter swans.
Rooting these stories in real details gave me a lot of freedom to invent,
twist, change, and to allow the mystery of each book find its voice. Copper Sky and The Swan Keeper both come out of my love for reading, language, and
research and I am so grateful for all of the books and authors that inspired
them.
Copper
Sky
The
feminine spirit of the West comes alive in early twentieth century Montana.
Set
in the Copper Camp of Butte, Montana in 1917, Copper Sky tells
the story of two women with opposite lives. Kaly Shane, mired in prostitution,
struggles to find a safe home for her unborn child, while Marika Lailich, a
Slavic immigrant, dodges a pre-arranged marriage to become a doctor. As their
paths cross, and they become unlikely friends, neither knows the family secret
that ties them together.
“A
dazzling heartfelt epic of friendship and loss, love and renewal. Copper
Sky conjures the unimaginable heartbreak of Butte’s history with
compassion and grand vision and a storyteller’s genius. If you love Montana’s
rich and ghosted past, don’t miss this read.”—Debra Magpie Earling, author
of Perma Red
“A
riveting story of darkness and redemption...”—Phil Condon, author of Clay
Center, Montana Surround,and Nine Ten Again
“This
splendid debut carries readers into the textured dimension of Butte’s vivid and
perseverant heart.”—Sid Gustafson, author of Swift Dam
Open Books • Amazon US •
The Swan Keeper
From USA
Today featured novelist and Western Writers of America Spur award
finalist Milana Marsenich, The Swan Keeper is an historical,
coming-of-age novel set in 1920s Montana.On her eleventh birthday, Lilly’s family visits the Cattail Marsh to see the newly hatched cygnets. The family outing turns tragic when Dean Drake shows up with his shotgun. Lilly sees him kill her father, injure her mother, and slaughter the bevy of trumpeter swans. The sheriff, her mother, sister, and best friend all think Lilly is trying to make sense of a senseless accident by blaming Drake. But Lilly knows the truth. Left alone she must bring him to justice.
“Author Milana Marsenich has penned a dramatic page-turner brimming with authentic detail. She knows this Montana countryside inside and out, her vivid descriptions capturing the spirit of the craggy Mission Mountains.”—Maggie Plummer, author of Spirited Away – A Novel of the Stolen Irish and Daring Passage: Book Two of the Spirited Away Saga.
Milana Marsenich
Milana Marsenich lives in Northwest Montana near Flathead Lake at the base of the beautiful Mission Mountains. She enjoys quick access to the mountains and has spent many hours hiking the wilderness trails with friends and dogs. For the past 20 years she has worked as a mental health therapist in a variety of settings. As a natural listener and a therapist, she has witnessed amazing generosity and courage in others. She first witnessed this in her hometown of Butte, Montana, a mining town with a rich history and the setting for Copper Sky, her first novel. She has an M.Ed. in Mental Health Counseling from Montana State University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Montana. She has previously published in Montana Quarterly, Big Sky Journal, The Polishing Stone, The Moronic Ox, BookGlow, and Feminist Studies. She has a short story included in The Montana Quarterly book: Montana, Warts and All. She has two published novels, Copper Sky and The Swan Keeper.
I love learning about what inspires authors to write their books. I shall have to check out some of the books that you have mentioned!
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