Through her writing, Carol Jeffers blends
narrative nonfiction and fiction to more fully explore the human condition. She
is the author of works both in short- and long-form. Her forthcoming book, The
Question of Empathy, was named a semi-finalist in the 2017 Pirates’ Alley
William Faulkner Writing Competition (Walter Isaacson, judge). A Professor
Emeritus of Art Education, her interest in empathic listening began in the
classroom years ago when she and her university students explored works of art
that served as personal metaphors. These experiences and related interactions
with art, self, and others were the subjects of Carol’s academic writing
published in refereed journals, edited volumes and a single-author book (Spheres
of Possibility: Linking Service-Learning and the Visual Arts) during her
university career.
WEBSITE & SOCIAL LINKS:
Title: THE QUESTION OF EMPATHY: SEARCHING FOR
THE ESSENCE OF HUMANITY
Author: Carol Jeffers
Publisher: Koehler Books
Pages: 209
Genre: Creative Nonfiction/Speculative Nonfiction
BOOK BLURB:
What if we all had a power to connect with others,
to understand what they are feeling, what they are thinking? What if such a
power was flighty, unreliable, open to true understanding or total confusion?
Would that make us better human beings? In The Question of Empathy,
Carol Jeffers explores a power that exists today within each of us and its
ability to connect and to delude.
Have you ever wondered about empathy, what
it is and why it matters? What makes us human and capable of incredible caring,
total savagery, or worse, complete indifference toward each other? Are you
looking for ways to better understand yourself, the people around you and
across the world? The Question of Empathy entreats you to explore this
hard-wired capacity, not through rose colored glasses, but with an honest look
at human nature. Philosophy and psychology, neuroscience and art lead the way
along a journey of discovery into what makes us who we are and how we connect
to others. It isn’t always easy, but then neither is real life. The Question
of Empathy offers a roadmap.
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Thank
you for this interview! I’d like to know more about you as a person first. What
do you do when you’re not writing?
I read as
much fiction as I possibly can. After a long career as a university professor
with barely enough time to keep up with the academic journals in my field, I am
excited, even a little desperate to discover the world of good creative
writing. I want to learn all I can about how a well-crafted piece can stir the
reader, use metaphor to distill the essence of human nature.
When I say
reading, I should clarify. I mean listening to audio books and to The New
Yorker podcasts. Good writing is very rhythmical, which is wonderfully
apparent when read aloud. Not to mention that my hands are free and I can knit,
run through my exercise routine, make lunch, make the bed, do those otherwise
boring household chores barely noticeable in the flow of fresh, intriguing
writing.
I also go
walking with my husband in the evenings, a brisk pace that for thirty minutes
allows us to reflect on the day’s events as we work to keep the cholesterol and
blood pressure down, the energy and spirits up.
When
did you start writing?
I began
writing creatively after my retirement from academic life in June 2014. I am
getting a late start. Funny, I had been a full professor for fifteen years, but
learning to write creatively for the first time, join writers’ group and attend
conferences made me feel like I was starting over. I was back in grad school,
so to speak, learning the ropes, cobbling together a program to prepare me for
what I hoped would be a new career. It was exhilarating, interesting,
challenging as I groped for handles to hold on to while practicing my craft. I
found some online writing courses that really helped propel me forward, walk
upright, gain confidence and get vital feedback.
As a
published writer, what would you say was the most pivotal point in your writing
life?
Like any
university professor, I focused on all things academic. Conducting research and
publishing the results in journals (publish or perish, as it were). I was always
interested in the ineffable yet powerful relationships between human beings and
works of art and focused on the key question: what does it mean “to be human?”
Dry, boring, jargon-filled academic writing always fell short, was never able
to capture the nuance, the richness and ineffability of profound experiences
with art and experiences with each other. Indeed, a “telling” approach
acceptable to journal editors was not acceptable to me. Or to readers, as I
soon discovered.
I found
that “showing” readers what human beings were doing in the art museum, showing
how students felt about works of art that served as their personal metaphors
was more revealing and far more satisfying to readers and to me. I began to
include classroom vignettes with my articles and was able to get them published
in academic journals.
A good
friend and colleague told me about “creative non-fiction” one day, a new genre
gaining some traction in the writing world. “That’s what you’re doing,” she
said with a smile. That changed everything for me! I smiled back, loved having
a name for what I knew I wanted to do.
With
retirement coming, I couldn’t wait to leave academic journal-writing behind and
learn all I could about “creative non-fiction.” In fact, the first order of
business was to rewrite the existing draft of my empathy book, to take it from
the academic “telling” and move it into creative “showing.” The book and I came
to life, oxygenated, inspired. It was a way to reveal our search for empathy
and Empathy’s search for us.
If you
could go anywhere in the world to start writing your next book, where would
that be and why?
Paris.
Happily, we are bound for the City of Light after Christmas and hope to find a
neighborhood café to have tea and a buttery baguette while we write. I will be
inspired by the many artists and writers who have come before, who did their
best work in Paris, in their neighborhood haunts. I will wonder about the
artists and writers of today, about the edgy work they are doing, the books
they are reading, the museum shows they are seeing.
We have
been to Paris many times before, so our touristy days are behind us. We know
the neighborhood where we like to stay, have a café or two in mind. A real
working vacation ever so sustaining.
If you
had four hours of extra time today, what would you do?
If I had
four hours, I would grab my husband and head for the nearby Huntington Library
and Gardens. This is a huge, restorative place. Strolling through its different
gardens, we reconnect with a botanical world, with each other, remember what it
means to be alive. Lose ourselves in the cactus area with its stunning golden
barrels and prickly pears, the Japanese area with its magnificent koi and moon
bridge, the Zen meditation garden and bonsai collection, the Chinese area
complete with lotuses and water lilies in its sparkling lake. There is the
amazing collection of historic manuscripts at the library and art exhibited in
Henry Huntington’s mansion and in newer galleries. And there is lunch,
reflection, relaxation, renewal.
Where
would you like to set a story that you have’t done yet?
The new
project that calls me will be set in an old Victorian farmhouse we once fixed
up. Our own story about the headache and heartache, the labor of love of
restoring an abandoned house while we started a family, went to graduate school
and commuted to jobs miles and miles away is something to tell.
But I am
much more interested in the first family, the one to build the house, to raise
their children and farm the land around it. What was their story? There are
some interesting historical records that offer a sketch, which further piques
my curiosity. What was their story and how can I best tell it, bring it to
life?
Back to
The Question of Empathy: Searching for the Essence of Humanity, how did
you publish it?
I shopped
the manuscript around and noticed that once the manuscript was named a
semifinalist in the Pirate’s Alley William Faulkner Writing Contest, there was
a bit more interest. Koehler Books offered me a contract, a generous one at
that and helped me follow the steps leading to
publication.
In
writing your book, did you travel anywhere for research?
In a way,
I did travel for the The Question of Empathy, though not with luggage
and a boarding pass. I traveled to my classroom in the Fine Arts building on
campus where my students were in the cockpit carrying me higher than any 747
ever could. Using works of art as personal metaphors, they shared stories in
class that resonated deeply and built caring, cross-connected communities that inspired
me, crystalized in me an abiding interest in empathy. How had it come to visit
us in this classroom? What would it take for empathy to appear in every
classroom or shopping mall or in the halls of justice, the chambers of
legislative bodies?
I was also
inspired by a humble wooden bench on Moonstone Beach along California’s Central
Coast. During one of our get-away weekends to this wild seaside ecosystem, my
husband spotted a small plaque mounted on the old bench. “I shall always love a
purple iris” it read. Such a simple poem, an elegant declaration that inscribed
a mystery even as it stirred my empathy. Finding empathy in two very different
places called me to delve in, do the research to understand this most human
phenomenom.
Where
do you get your best ideas?
As I
mentioned earlier, my inspiration and drive to focus on empathy, share my
journey into its mystery came from my students. Sorting through my thoughts,
making sense of them finding the structure can happen at a place like
Huntington Library and Gardens or during a walk on the beach. But more likely,
it is the shower that crystalizes what is still murky and unresolved. The
shower, where I am relaxed, not thinking about anything in particular, will
surprise me with the “aha” moments, beautiful epiphanies when the steamy mist
parts and everything comes clear. These are such magical experiences that I was
moved to write about them in a personal essay called “Shower Moment” currently
under review.
More about
Carol at www.CarolJeffersWriter.com.
The Question of Empathy: Searching for the Essence of Humanity is
available at Amazon.com and select bookstores.
Why was
it important to write The Question of Empathy
Empathy as
a subject, as a character even, is compelling. Discovering empathy in my
classroom, in the students’ connections to their personal metaphors and to each
other was moving. I wanted to share the students’ stories, describe how empathy
thrived among them.
As I got
deeper into the research, consulted the scientific, aesthetic, philosophical
and psychological literature, it became clear to me that there was much to be
done if the human community was ever to utilize its capacity for empathy. If we
as human beings—Homo sapiens—were to become a better, more caring and
self-actualized species—Homo empathicus—then we must actively search for the
essence of our own humanity. Sadly, the current political and economic times
will make this project more difficult and more necessary. Civility, compassion,
tolerance and cooperation are at stake now more than ever before.