Author Q&A with Jacqueline Goyette

Jacqueline Goyette is a writer from Indianapolis, Indiana. Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and has appeared in both print and online journals, including trampset, JMWW, Heimat Review, The Citron Review, Eunoia Review, and Cutbow Quarterly. She currently lives in the town of Macerata, Italy with her husband Antonello and her cat Cardamom.

Tell us about yourself.

Growing up in Indianapolis I was always a homebody. I preferred staying home on Friday nights rather than going to school dances, and I spent time writing or playing computer games, or getting lost in a good book. So this move to Italy that I made at 25 years old was a little bit of a surprise for everyone (myself included), and even now there are times all these years later when I wonder how this happened, how did I get here to this corner of the world? I miss home so much, but I love living here now, and I’ve spent twenty years (we just celebrated our anniversary) married to a shoemaker named Antonello who reads my writing along with me — but he reads it translated into Italian. We have a kitten too, and of course, she is bilingual. 

To me “Odore di Neve” not only felt like a response to being homesick but also a response to the fear of losing the memories of home. Tell us about that time of your life when you wrote “Odore di Neve” and how it inspired your writing.

I wrote this piece in the middle of January, and I was inspired by the drive to work, which is mostly side roads actually, and it weaves its way through countryside and farmland and small hill towns — beautiful places. I’m always inspired by the way the land changes in Italy, how seasons can craft a new world every few months, how the chill or the heat or the wind or rain makes such a difference, and the drive itself is always striking. In the winter, though, the holidays are still lingering and it’s homesick weather, and back in the Midwest those winters with their snow and their icy roads carry so much of my childhood with them. So there’s always a part of my heart being tugged toward home, and I think this piece reflects that, and the way we are always moving away from childhood as we grow up — in every year that passes.

At the end of “Odore di Neve” you reference ‘sniffing out the rest of the year like a prophecy.’ What does that prophecy hold for your upcoming year?

My niece Valentina does tarot card readings and before she places the cards down, she has you ask a question of the cards. Go on, she’ll say. What do you want them to tell you? She says that sometimes the questions are more interesting than the readings themselves, and I sense that now. This year feels like a year of questions, for me. Maybe the prophecy lies somewhere inside that notion like we can find the future in how we ask for it. Some years are like that, like Zora Neale Hurston says in “Their Eyes Were Watching God”: “years that ask questions and years that answer.”

What do you hope your readers take from “Odore di Neve?”

I talked to my dad about it when he read it, and he said that there are these universal questions, about friendship, about growing up, about aging, that make it relatable. So much of what we see is through the lens of our younger selves. But I also wanted to focus on the idea of these moments we have in which we observe our lives as we’re living them. Sometimes those moments hit us all at once — a spark, a surprise. I really love Marie Howe and her collection of poems “What The Living Do.” All of the normal stuff, the mundane and ordinary — how all of that everyday living adds up to a life. 

How long have you been living in Italy? What about Italy inspires your writing? 

Italy is inspiring in so many ways. It has made me more aware of my roots, my family, the things we give up before we are ready to, and the things we gain in letting go. I’ve lived here for a little over 20 years now, and Italy is the kind of place that inspires you to bear witness to your life, to take notes as you go. “Odore di Neve” is really just a moment in that process: the things that cause me to pull over to the side of the road on the way to work or wherever it is I’m going and just pay attention: to stop and see, to scribble a line or two about the sunflowers that flood the fields in summer, or the ancient aqueduct I go by on my morning drive.

How has living in a new country changed your perspective on American life?

Living in Italy has changed me immensely, and in many good ways, but for those first few years there was a very tangible sense of homesickness that made it difficult to adjust to life over here. I think I learned to appreciate American life so much more than I expected to: even in the midst of this beautiful backdrop of Italy, I missed the people back home, how friendly we are even to complete strangers — the way we nod, say hello, smile on the streets as we walk by. Just those courtesies. You notice it immediately when you are a stranger to everyone in a foreign country, and it took me a while to get used to the interactions here, how you get to know people better, but you have to give it time. It was the opposite for my husband when he first visited America with me. He kept asking me: why is everyone saying hello to me? What do they want? I don’t even know them! 

As an English teacher, what advice do you give to your students about writing?

I think sometimes I learn more from my students than they do from me when it comes to writing, but one thing I always remind them is to keep things simple. Don’t overcomplicate. Remember how beautiful English can be when it is just a clean line of prose. Great advice if I could only follow it myself! What I love about my students is how brave they are to just get started, to write something out in another language, brand new, however daunting that may be, and find a voice that is all their own.

What is a must-read craft book for any aspiring writer and why?

So many! I love Anne Lammott’s Bird by Bird which I read years ago, and I always find myself coming back to its dog-eared pages and notes in the margins. She’s been there from the start. I also love reading articles on craft, including Brevity Blog, and I love the Craft Talks webinars as well. One of my favorite books though that I return to again and again is Lynda Barry’s Making Comics. She is phenomenal, and I think approaching one art form with another art form in mind helps me to explore all avenues, see where a moment takes me, get my ideas down, and just go. 

“Odore di Neve” is a flash nonfiction piece. Is that your favorite form of expression? Why? If not, what is?

Yes, I do love flash CNF, but lately I’ve really been into writing hybrid work and micro prose, as well as prose poems. I love how visual arts can fit alongside written works — I love exploring new directions. Flash is extra special though, because it pushes us to get straight to the heart of the story, which is always a challenge for me as a writer.

What do you think of when you hear, “the good life?”

When I think of the good life, I think of my very first days in Macerata, twenty-five years ago as a study abroad student, back when I was brand new to this splendid country and my friends and I stood in oversized aprons in our fourth-floor apartment on Via Borghi, and we made up recipes and laughed until we cried and burnt French toast and fell in love with an entire city, an entire language, an entire country. I can’t think of a better life than that.

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Jacqueline’s Flash Creative Nonfiction, “Odore di Neve” is featured in Issue #15 of The Good Life Review.

Thank you, Jacqueline, for allowing us to share a slice of your life with us and our readers and for spending extra time with us on this Q&A. We wish you the best wherever life takes you!