Chit Chatting with Alle C. Hall

 Chit Chatting with Alle C. Hall

Interviewed by:  Jill Sheets

J: Tell us about yourself. When did you decide that you wanted to become a writer?

In my early- to mid-20s, I lived in Japan. I’d been there almost three years, teaching English to support myself but not doing anything career-wise and starting to feel it. A friend of mine who had just left the editor-in—chief position  at an English-language monthly, Tokyo City Life News, mentioned that they needed an article on the Tai chi options in Tokyo, and she knew I had a serious practice. I spoke with the new editor, who told me they would pay me 30,000 yen for the piece. That was close to $300. Immediately, I thought, well, this is something I could do for the rest of my life. 

J: Tell us about your book “As Far as You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back.”

A: It’s about Carlie, a teenaged survivor of ongoing sexual trauma who steals ten thousand dollars from her parents with a plan to run away to Asia, travel cheaply until she turns 18 years old, and then move to Japan to teach English. She has no idea how damaged she is until she arrives with all her trauma right there in her backpack and has to contend with life as a survivor. She trades sex for safety, gets lost in alcohol and drugs, starves herself, and finally stumbles across a couple who introduce her to Tai chi. The women invite her to move to Japan with them. Once in Tokyo, Carlie really igs into her Tai chi practice, which guides her healing. This involves learning to do what appears to be simple, things like feeding herself and doing well at her job. Then she takes on the mysteries of love and death. Eventually, she has to embrace the tiger and return to the mountain. 

That’s the name of the chapter where Carlie comes face to face with her parents: Embrace Tiger, Return to Mountain is also the name of one of the movements—called a posture—from the Tai chi form that Carlie studies. As soon as Carlie encounters Tai chi, I name the chapters after various postures. My hope is to give the reader a way to understand how Tai chi feels, how it can assist with your healing. The Tai chi postures literally write the trauma out of you. 

J: How did you come up with the idea for the book?

A: I lived in Japan for three years and traveled a lot in Southeast Asia. One day, I was filing at a job comprised primarily of filing—and thus, BORING—when I found myself wishing that as a teen, I had stolen a bunch of money and run away. Of course, it that was impossible. Children who are groomed from very young to be sexually abused don’t run away. We adapt to the abuse as our reality. But a girl who wasn’t assaulted until her teens could certainly run away. 

So there I was, filing and filing and wishing I made more money—and boom! The story popped: the abuse, stealing the money, fleeing to Asia. The disaster of addiction, the recovery. I knew the recovery would take place primarily in Tokyo and would be Tai chi based, but I had no idea how that was all going to work out. The previous part, the backpacking, was easy. I had no idea that the ending would involve Carlie returning face her parents until someone read the first chapter—all I had written, at the time—and said, “I’m really interested in finding out what happens about the money.” I’d never thought of that. My idea was that Carlie stole it and was out of there, never to come back. Turns out, Becca’s idea was far more interesting. 

J: This is your first novel. Did you have any challenges writing the book?

A: Indeed, this was my first novel. I had every challenge you can imagine because I had no idea how a novel takes shape. I really had to work to understand the basics, like how sentences are structured into paragraphs, which build toward chapters, which become the book. I mean, I knew all those elements existed. I did not understand how to use narration, scene, and dialogue to move the plot forward while developing the characters. Learning all that took years. 

The most important lesson was learning how to write very, very little in order to do the above. My first draft was 400,000 words. No one will publish 400,000 words from a first-time novelist! My next draft was barely 70,000. After I had slashed it down—cutting out every “I,” every “said,” every loose sentence, every idea that did not related to the through-line of this one young woman seeking the love and fulfilling sexuality she deserves—I saw how those change resulted in a terse style that worked for an abuse survivor trying to heal.

J: Are you an out-liner or do you just start to write?

A: I write with no agenda other than to follow the story, then take a look at what I’ve done, get feedback, edit like crazy, write some more. While getting down that first draft is tear-your-hair difficult, it’s also a great deal of fun. However, the most fun I have is when I have a solid draft and some great feedback and I get to play without that pressure of, “What in the Sam Hill is going on?”

J: You won the Richard Hugo House New Works Competition. What was that like?

A: Absolutely thrilling. It was the first prize I won for my writing; the first prize I’d won for anything since winning a dance-off in the fifth grade. The essay is called, “Are You There, Avatar? It’s Me, the 70s.” It’s a reading of Judy Blume’s seminal work from the perspective of an incest survivor. 

One of the benefits of winning was reading at Town Hall, which is kind of the Carnegie Hall of Seattle. The event was my literary coming out as an incest survivor. It was emotional but not difficult. I’d done a lot of the emotional work that was necessary, and the audience was a dream-come-true. They were silent in the best possible way: completely absorbed. They laughed at the funny parts and were clearly touched by the more serious ones. I could not be more grateful for such an amazing evening.

J: What are you currently working on?

A: I’m working on the companion piece to As Far as You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back. This new novel is called Crazy Medicine, which is the English translation for the Thai street drug ya ba: meth cut with caffeine. The story follows a young women, also backpacking through Asia, who comes from a background as traumatic as Carlie’s, although her trauma is very different in nature. Though the two never meet, on the same Thai island where Carlie starts to practice Tai chi—Koh Phangan—the main character in Crazy Medicine, Lena, discovers that the surest way out of her PTSD-feelings comes when she sells drugs. So she becomes a drug dealer. 

That’s the plot. The story is really an exploration of what happens to a traumatized person who chooses a darker path. In As Far as You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back, Carlie chooses the light. That’s me—even though Carlie is not me. But how she goes about healing, her discoveries along the way; I gave her mine in a different format. Lena is all those people I see, all those people I am related to who, for some reason or another, don’t heal. I have nothing but empathy for them, but my real question is: Why me? Why did I get it? I don’t know that I will answer the question, but I am having a great time writing into it. Also, writing a really “bad” character is a whole hill of fun. 

J: You are also a journalist. Where can people read your articles?

A: Oooh, thank you for asking! Three out of four are essays, and all come with trigger warning for everything you can imagine. 

Are You There, Avatar? It’s Me, the 70s. (You have to scroll down to find the title. And click on it.)

Girl Feelings

Round Down

Shekhinagate (My interview with Leonard Nimoy).

https://www.thestranger.com/books/2002/11/07/12511/shekhinagate (For some reason, I can’t hyperlink it)

J: What advice you would give someone who wanted to become a writer?

A: Never give up hope. Expect the miracle, and work towards it. Also, try to write at least five minutes each day. The five doesn’t have to take place at the same time or in the same location—although that helps for consistency. But if you write for five minutes a day, if you make that commitment, the tie ou spend writing will grow.

J: Is there anything else you would like to add?

A: Yes, thank you. Yes: October is Domestic Violence Awareness and Prevention Month. Five children a day die from domestic abuse or neglect. Please take a moment to think about those children. Pray if you, pray. Send your best vibes if that’s what you prefer. Almost two thousand children a year is far too many to lose to abuse.