A native of Washington, D.C., Ellyn Bache came to North Carolina to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, then left the state for more 20 years before moving to Wilmington NC in 1985, where she lives with her family.

She is the author of three novels, a nonfiction book, and a collection of short stories. Her first novel, Safe Passage (1988), was made into a 1995 feature film starring Susan Sarandon and Sam Shepard. Her second novel, Festival in Fire Season (1992), is set in Wilmington and is based on actual wildfires that threatened Southeastern North Carolina during azalea season in 1986. Festival in Fire Season was a Literary Guild Editors’ Corner Selection. Bache’s most recent novel, The Activist’s Daughter (1997), is a coming-of-age story about a girl from D.C. who flees her mother’s radical activism by enrolling in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the fall of 1963. Her nonfiction book, Culture Clash (1982), is about sponsoring Vietnamese refugees; and her short story collection, The Value of Kindness, won the 1992 Willa Cather Fiction Prize.

Ellyn started as a freelance journalist for the Washington, D.C. newspapers while her children were little and was teaching herself to write fiction. Her first story was published in McCall's, which later published four more before they stopped doing fiction, and she also did commercial stories for other magazines before being published in literary magazines -- which she says, "I think is sort of backwards for most writers. I think the nonfiction background was very helpful -- and think it's helpful for all new writers -- because it taught me to organize material, and to quote dialog without feeling awkward; and, since I was very shy in those days, to call people and ask them questions about things I didn't know about, and to do the necessary research to ask those questions intelligently. All of that has helped me write fiction." Visit Ellyn online at http://www.ellynbache.com

Pageonelit.com: Tell me about your writing career and when and where it all started. Who were your first Literary inspirations?

Ellyn: I started writing in an effort to stay sane. My two oldest children were toddlers; we were living in a small town where I knew no one, and I was completely housebound because we had sold our second car so my husband, Terry, could go into business. My first published pieces were real estate features in the D.C. papers about how to finish vacation cabins like the ones Terry was building. Terry gave me a lot of the information, and I could write when the children were asleep. Soon I began to write short stories. I had a M.A. in English, but my model wasn't anything literary. It was the commercial women's magazine story, which I'd been reading since my mother subscribed to Redbook when I was eight. I was lucky to be selling nonfiction, because it took me six years before McCall's bought my first short story. If I hadn't been doing the articles and getting bylines, I would have been awfully discouraged."

 

Pageonelit.com: How difficult was it for you to get your first book published?

Ellyn: My first book was nonfiction -- Culture Clash, about sponsoring Vietnamese refugees. I sent queries to a bunch of agents, and one of them took it on. She sent it to the New York houses, but the only one that was interested wanted me to make it much longer, which I thought would defeat the purpose of quickly teaching people what it's like to deal with a family from a different culture. So I sent it around myself and sold it to a smaller press that got it to exactly the right audience. The book is still selling after seventeen years. I learned from that how important it is to stay focused on what you're trying to do. A few years later when my first novel, Safe Passage, was going around, a young editor told me the protagonist had too many children (seven) and wanted me to take out a set of twins. But the whole point was that this woman had so many children that she was pushed to do things an "ordinary" mom might not. I had four children myself and didn't feel pushed to that limit. So I refused. A few months later the book was sold to a wonderful editor at Crown, who had just given birth to a set of twins. I always thought the twins in Safe Passage were the clincher."

 

 

Pageonelit.com: You have written non fiction and fiction. Which do you prefer and why?"

Ellyn: I think investigative nonfiction is valuable for any writer. You learn to hear not only what people say but also the way they say it. You get comfortable putting conversation in quotes. You learn to do research. You develop the confidence to ask strangers about topics you know nothing about. When I wrote Festival in Fire Season, about people who get caught in a huge wildfire, four different firemen helped me. I wouldn't have been able to write it without them, and without my journalism background, I wouldn't have had the nerve to ask. I still write some nonfiction. Most writers do. But fiction is my first love.

 

 

Pageonelit.com: Your novel Safe Passage was made into a 1995 feature film starring Susan Sarandon and Sam Shepard. Was this experience what you thought it would be and were you happy with the final adaptation?

Ellyn: Any writer who has her novel made into a major motion picture is a happy woman. She gets paid a lot of money. She sells all kinds of rights that may not have been sold before. The book gets a new life. (Safe Passage, for example, was a Literary Guild selection when it first came out and again when the movie was released.) I thought Susan Sarandon was wonderful. But even if I hadn't liked the movie, I'd be pleased. There's nothing "bad" a screen adaptation can do to a book. The book is never "ruined." The book is still there on the shelf, in its original form, for people to read.

 

 

Pageonelit.com: What advice would you offer a novelist who Hollywood has called for the first time? In negotiating a film contract for a book --- What are the most important areas a writer should be aware?

Ellyn: The most important thing is to have a good agent who will protect your rights. Film is a nasty business; it makes publishing look gentlemanly. If someone offers you a film deal and you don't have an agent, use the offer as a bargaining chip to get one.

 

 

Pageonelit.com: Tell me a little about your last novel The Activist’s Daughter (1997).Where did this story originate and how long did you have the idea for the story before you started writing?

Ellyn: Lots of threads went into that novel. The Activist's Daughter is about Beryl, a Jewish girl from D.C. (where I grew up) whose father was investigated by the McCarthy committee (as one of my uncles was) and whose mother is an embarrassingly high-profile civil rights activist. In rebellion, Beryl flees to college at UNC-Chapel Hill (where I went ), thinking she's going to escape her left-wing ties and blend into the conservative South. But it's 1963, and she's shocked -- not just by race relations. In the dorms, girls have strict curfews but boys have none. Girls are routinely kicked out of school on morals charges; boys rarely are. A black girl lives alone on her hall while white girls are crowded into doubles and triples. It sounds weighty, but it's pretty lighthearted.

 

Pageonelit.com: Can you tell us what you are working on currently? New novel coming out?

Ellyn: I'm on the second draft of a novel about two middle-aged women who've known each other all their lives but find themselves having to unravel secrets they never anticipated after 50 years of friendship -- having to come to terms with their past in order to face their future. The theme is sort of, "women growing older but not yet letting go, no sir, not by a longshot," and a lot of it is set in D.C. in the '50s, when it was a completely different place than it is today.

 

 

Pageonelit.com: What general advice do you have for writers who just completed their first novel? What do they do now?

Ellyn: Completed" ought to mean the writer's critique group has read it and made suggestions, and the revisions have been made. It ought to mean the writer is truly certain that the book is finished. It's really true that the critics come on opening night. There's no point sending out work that isn't ready. Next: a query letter, along with SASE and some chapters (up to 50 pages, 20 is better) should go out to ten agents, asking if the agent would like to see the rest. (Agents will say just send the letter and a synopsis, but I think it's critical to send out a taste of the work itself.) If the agents say no, ten more queries go out. At the same time, the novelist ought to be reading market news and, where possible, trying to sell the book directly. Above all, the writer has to keep believing in the work, keep sending, sending, sending; and keep writing (which is the only way to grow as a writer) so the next book will be even better.