Q. In your bio you state that you’re a public media producer as well as a writer. Does your work as a public media producer influence your writing?
A. In some ways, yes! Writing for radio has taught me to use an economy of words and to make sure that every single word, and every single sentence, serves a purpose.
Q. Was this job influential in your decision to become a writer?
A. I have always loved to write and believe that writing is at the core of any storytelling medium. So, I’d say it’s the reverse: Writing is what inspires my career.
Q. Could you talk about your inspiration for “Little Minnie?”
A. I went to a screening put on by the Silent Clowns Film Series in New York City –– a double feature of Charlie Chaplin’s “The Kid” and a short called “The Kid Reporter,” starring the child actor Baby Peggy. At the screening, a film historian shared some of Baby Peggy’s biography. She was enormously successful as a toddler, but her career ended by the time she was seven. Later in life, she changed her name to Diana Serra Cary, became a film historian, and lived until she was 101, becoming the last surviving silent-film star. One thing the historian said especially intrigued me: She had incredible recall for specific details of the movies she’d made at such a young age. That’s when I got interested in writing a story based on memory and the archives.
Q. The insertion of the film description for the rare Little Minnie film was delightful. Are you a film aficionado? What genre of film is your favorite?
A. I love movies! When I watch a silent film, I love how the intertitles can convey so much wit and melodrama (or both!) and make the screenwriting visible. But I’d say my favorite genre is a screwball comedy: “Bringing Up Baby,” “His Girl Friday,” “The Lady Eve.” My favorite actors are Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, William Powell, and Groucho Marx.
Q. The nostalgia and beauty of old Hollywood is juxtaposed nicely with its cruel realities, specifically, the grueling events and stunts the protagonist endured. Scandals like these often fill the news and audiences consume it like film. How strong of a hold do you think the charm of old Hollywood had on its audiences in spite of learning about scandals similar to what the protagonist went through?
A. The stunt in the story was inspired by a real stunt that Baby Peggy performed in a movie called “The Darling of New York.” In an interview, Diana Serra Carey said that the door she was supposed to escape through caught on fire, so she had to climb out a window. You can find a clip online –– it’s terrifying! It’s sobering to learn about these physical dangers, as well as the emotional toll and financial exploitation that affected child stars like Baby Peggy. I think it’s possible to admire the craft of these films while also remembering that the working conditions might have been painful. And for the actors, I think it’s possible to look back at your work with pride while also feeling that pain, like how Veronica reflects on her past as Little Minnie.
Q. What do you think makes some people today feel the same about current Hollywood, or its “Golden Age” and its celebrities, in spite of this generation starting more progressive movements?
A. It’s good that there is more awareness of the issues today, but I think the business interests of moviemaking continue to wield so much power in elevating celebrity culture, curtailing reform, and turning scandal into buzz.
Q. There is a running theme of love sinking under the venom of fame. The mother-daughter relationship seems to never have existed in this story as anything more than a transactional one, and yet the protagonist still cares for her mother, still visits, even longs for her love, or at least, for her mother to love the things and people that mattered to her. Are the gestures of the protagonist the bare minimum of familial duty, or is there possibly still a longing for her mother to be motherly towards her?
A. There’s still longing, I think. When Veronica bakes the popovers, she is trying to relive a good memory with her mother. When they reminisce about the films, they are connecting through a shared history that only they can understand. But there is also the burden of role reversal, of Little Minnie taking care of her mother financially, and of Veronica taking care of her mother physically.
Q. The adults involved in Little Minnie’s career strove to stunt her growth, keeping her typecast as the same character for as long as money could be made from her, or simply only saw her as a little girl because it seemed to make them happiest. It seems like commentary on the infantilization of girls as they age, and later of women, especially considering how the mother mostly thinks of her daughter as Little Minnie. Could you talk more about this?
A. I wanted to explore how the inevitability of Little Minnie aging affects the different players in the story. The mother and the studio both have a financial interest in her staying young, while Veronica becomes increasingly disdainful of childish things. In the present, Little Minnie’s youth is preserved in the archive, in memory, and within Veronica herself. Throughout the story, I tried to show moments where that part of Veronica comes out.
Q. Returning to the mother, all she has in her later years are the memories of Little Minnie’s success. She retreats to them often in conversations with her daughter, seemingly as a deflection to avoid accepting who her daughter has become. But it also seems to serve as a sort of purgatory. Did you consciously decide to use the mother’s failing memory as a sort of retribution against her?
A. For me, it’s not so much that her mother is refusing to engage with who Veronica has become. She doesn’t really know Veronica because they were estranged for decades. I think it’s open to interpretation why memories of Little Minnie surface clearly, while the rest of her memory suffers. But I think instead of just exploring their tension, I wanted to tease out the tenderness that could still exist between them as they reminisce.
Q. Your protagonist tells a success story post-Hollywood that few people expect. How she values normalcy, especially in her second marriage to Jim. What prompted you to craft her in this way, finding more fulfillment in the life she led after acting?
A. I wanted to show that her path forward was reinvention: She goes from Little Minnie to Veronica Earl, from successful child star to unsuccessful teenage actor, from failed first marriage to fulfilling partnership. Through reinvention, she ultimately discovers that what she wants most is simplicity, anonymity, and intimacy.
