An Interview with Tiffany Quay Tyson
by Marion G. Barnwell
Tiffany Quay Tyson won the 2019 MIAL fiction award for her novel The Past Is Never. The plot hangs on a summer afternoon in the Mississippi Delta when six-year-old Pansy vanishes, and her older siblings, Bert and Willet, are held responsible. The novel was an Okra Pick for the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance and won a Mississippi Library Association award for adult fiction. Her much-acclaimed first novel, Three Rivers, was published in 2015. Tyson was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi, and attended Delta State University, where she was an excellent student in many of our Languages and Literature department, including mine. We reconnected last year and had a brief conversation when she was a panelist for the Mississippi Book Festival; we continued our conversation when she was recently honored at the 2019 MIAL banquet. But since I didn’t get all my questions answered on those occasions, I decided it would be fun to interview her and find out more.
Marion G. Barnwell: Tiffany, where did this all begin? When did you start writing? As a child? A teenager?
Tiffany Quay Tyson: I have always been an avid reader and my desire to write grew from that. I dabbled with writing in childhood and in high school. I began writing fiction in college. For a while, I mostly wrote short stories, but I really love novels and I always hoped I might be able to write one.
MGB: I know you’ve held several demanding jobs since leaving Delta State and now teach writing at Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver, yet you’ve managed to publish two novels. Tell me how these jobs have impeded or enriched your writing?
TQT: Well, for years I worked in offices, as most people do. I briefly worked as a reporter for the Greenwood Commonwealth straight out of college. Then I moved to Austin where I became the publicist for Austin City Limits, which launched a career working in public relations and communications for PBS stations in both Austin, Texas, and in Denver. Then, for several years I did freelance and some full-time publicity for various nonprofits. Working in those jobs definitely taught me how to meet deadlines, which has been quite useful in my writing life.
But it is hard to get a lot of writing done when you’re working forty to fifty hours a week. So I did what most writers do. I made time. For me, that meant getting up early in the morning—4:30 or 5:00 a.m. most days—and writing for a couple of hours before work. And in Denver, I began taking craft classes and writing workshops through Lighthouse on evenings and weekends.
I wrote seriously for probably fifteen years before I sold my first novel. I suppose it’s possible I could have published earlier if I’d been working less and writing more, but maybe not. Being out in the world and living an ordinary life is ultimately pretty good fuel for writing. It offers up nonstop opportunities to observe people and relationships, which is basically research.
Now I do have more flexibility in my schedule, though I still work. I do some writing and editing on a freelance basis and I teach at Lighthouse Writers Workshop. I will say that teaching writing has taught me more about writing than anything else I’ve done. I learn so much from reading student writing and thinking critically about what’s working and what’s not. And I love talking with writers about what they hope to accomplish. It makes me more ambitious in my own writing.
MGB: Aside from two novels, what kinds of things have you written?
TQT: I’ve written some shorter fiction including flash fiction, but also essays and humor pieces. My shorter work has been most recently published in SmokeLong Quarterly, The Rumpus’s “Funny Women” column, The Belladonna Comedy, the Ilanot Review, and a few other places. It takes so long to write a novel, that it’s nice to focus on something shorter occasionally. I also blog pretty regularly at my website (www.tiffanyquaytyson.com). I don’t know that anyone cares overly much about my opinions on the world, but I find that writing about what I’m thinking is clarifying for me. So I do it.
MGB: In The Past Is Never, the main character, Bert, grows into her strength and determination only after she makes a near-fatal mistake. Do you think this is typical of us humans? That we often come into our power through a mistake?
TQT: I do! I believe we are always learning from our experiences. I don’t think every learning experience needs to be quite so dramatic as the ones in the novel, but I believe we either grow and evolve or we stagnate. And I don’t think it’s only our mistakes that make us stronger. I think we can learn from our successes, as well. Maybe we don’t learn as quickly from doing the right thing, but we’re always learning.
MGB: What was the germ for The Past Is Never? Did anything like this child snatching occur within your experience?
TQT: When I first started writing this novel, I was mostly interested in how people can experience the same event and come away with vastly different perceptions and memories. I started with siblings, because I do believe that no sibling grows up in the same family. Depending on birth order and formative events, every sibling ends up having a different perception of family. So I wanted to explore how two siblings would react to the disappearance of a third sibling. Then I got very interested in the idea of cursed places, so I created one with the quarry in the book. I don’t have actual experience with a missing child, though it seemed for a while that the news was full of missing children or children who turned up after being gone for years. I think all of that probably seeped into my consciousness as I was writing. But I was determined to write something different than the usual child-gone-missing narrative. I worked hard to stay away from some of the more predictable possibilities and to provide an unexpected resolution. I hope I’ve done that.
MGB: In enthusiastic reviews, critics have called The Past Is Never “southern,” “Gothic,” “suspenseful,” and “mythical.” Proof for the first three adjectives is evident, but what caused these critics to call it “mythical”?
TQT: Well, much of the story is based in myth and legend. Early in the book, Bert references fairy tales and my writing is definitely influenced by classic fairy tales. I have always loved stories about children heading into the woods and encountering something spooky. So that was a catalyst in this story.
I love to think about how stories evolve and spring up from certain places and events. Why do people decide to tell a certain story about a particular place? Why are some places considered good and others bad? In thinking about all of this, I began to create both a history and a bit of folklore for the fictional places in my book. And I think those historical/folkloric sections are what led reviewers to call it “mythical.” But even more simply, Bert takes a mythic journey in the book. She seeks truth, slays dangerous creatures, and faces her demons. In many ways, she’s a classic mythical adventurer. And it all starts with that spooky trip into the woods.
MGB: The novel ends in the Florida Everglades, a place where, to my knowledge, you’ve never lived. Yet the description of it is as sharp and real as the description at the beginning of the novel, set in the Mississippi Delta, which you obviously know well. How did you manage it?
TQT: When I was writing the novel, I knew I wanted to set a portion of it in a place where a person could effectively disappear. I wanted a place that would seem exotic and new to Bert but would also be accessible to her. I considered some mountainous regions, but ultimately I was drawn to the peculiar beauty and potential danger of the Everglades. Because the book is set in the 1970s and early 1980s, I did some research about what was happening in various places during that time. When I read about the marijuana smuggling in the Everglades, I knew it was the right place for the story. So I convinced my endlessly patient and indulgent husband to take a trip with me. We stayed in Chokoloskee and drove all over Everglades City. We went kayaking and used our “monkey arms,” just like Bert does in the book. And we took a boat trip around the Ten Thousand Islands, where we got to watch the birds congregating in the rookery. As it happens, our boat captain had been caught up in the smuggling business back in the 1980s, and he agreed to meet us for drinks after the tour. I took a ton of notes and asked a bunch of nosy questions. I’m sure I got some things wrong, but I did my best to capture the essence of the place through the eyes of someone like Bert.
MGB: The title, The Past Is Never, is ingenious. You’ve lifted four words from Faulkner’s famous quote and given it a whole new twist. Tell me how you came up with it.
TQT: I’ve always loved that quote. So much of the novel deals with the past and how it influences the present, so when I was thinking about titles it seemed a natural source. But I do like to subvert things a bit, so I cut it short in the hopes that it would inspire a bit of curiosity even for readers who aren’t familiar with the original quote.
One interesting thing about titles is that publishers don’t always use the author’s original title. And, in this case, my editor did ask me to brainstorm some alternate titles. The concern, I think, was just that the reference might not be completely clear to many readers. We came up with about two dozen ideas, but ultimately the editor decided that the original title worked best. I’m grateful for that, though I do think it’s always good to consider other options.
MGB: What’s next? Can your fans expect a new novel soon?
TQT: I am working on a new novel. It’s set mostly in Jackson in the 1980s and centers on the slightly dysfunctional friendship of two girls. I suspect it will be a few years before it’s actually in print. I’m not one of those writers who can crank out a book a year and the publishing process is pretty slow. So “soon” is relative, but I definitely will keep writing novels and I hope people will keep reading them.
To become a member of the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters, please visit MIAL’s Membership page online.
Marion G. Barnwell: Tiffany, where did this all begin? When did you start writing? As a child? A teenager?
Tiffany Quay Tyson: I have always been an avid reader and my desire to write grew from that. I dabbled with writing in childhood and in high school. I began writing fiction in college. For a while, I mostly wrote short stories, but I really love novels and I always hoped I might be able to write one.
MGB: I know you’ve held several demanding jobs since leaving Delta State and now teach writing at Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver, yet you’ve managed to publish two novels. Tell me how these jobs have impeded or enriched your writing?
TQT: Well, for years I worked in offices, as most people do. I briefly worked as a reporter for the Greenwood Commonwealth straight out of college. Then I moved to Austin where I became the publicist for Austin City Limits, which launched a career working in public relations and communications for PBS stations in both Austin, Texas, and in Denver. Then, for several years I did freelance and some full-time publicity for various nonprofits. Working in those jobs definitely taught me how to meet deadlines, which has been quite useful in my writing life.
But it is hard to get a lot of writing done when you’re working forty to fifty hours a week. So I did what most writers do. I made time. For me, that meant getting up early in the morning—4:30 or 5:00 a.m. most days—and writing for a couple of hours before work. And in Denver, I began taking craft classes and writing workshops through Lighthouse on evenings and weekends.
I wrote seriously for probably fifteen years before I sold my first novel. I suppose it’s possible I could have published earlier if I’d been working less and writing more, but maybe not. Being out in the world and living an ordinary life is ultimately pretty good fuel for writing. It offers up nonstop opportunities to observe people and relationships, which is basically research.
Now I do have more flexibility in my schedule, though I still work. I do some writing and editing on a freelance basis and I teach at Lighthouse Writers Workshop. I will say that teaching writing has taught me more about writing than anything else I’ve done. I learn so much from reading student writing and thinking critically about what’s working and what’s not. And I love talking with writers about what they hope to accomplish. It makes me more ambitious in my own writing.
MGB: Aside from two novels, what kinds of things have you written?
TQT: I’ve written some shorter fiction including flash fiction, but also essays and humor pieces. My shorter work has been most recently published in SmokeLong Quarterly, The Rumpus’s “Funny Women” column, The Belladonna Comedy, the Ilanot Review, and a few other places. It takes so long to write a novel, that it’s nice to focus on something shorter occasionally. I also blog pretty regularly at my website (www.tiffanyquaytyson.com). I don’t know that anyone cares overly much about my opinions on the world, but I find that writing about what I’m thinking is clarifying for me. So I do it.
MGB: In The Past Is Never, the main character, Bert, grows into her strength and determination only after she makes a near-fatal mistake. Do you think this is typical of us humans? That we often come into our power through a mistake?
TQT: I do! I believe we are always learning from our experiences. I don’t think every learning experience needs to be quite so dramatic as the ones in the novel, but I believe we either grow and evolve or we stagnate. And I don’t think it’s only our mistakes that make us stronger. I think we can learn from our successes, as well. Maybe we don’t learn as quickly from doing the right thing, but we’re always learning.
MGB: What was the germ for The Past Is Never? Did anything like this child snatching occur within your experience?
TQT: When I first started writing this novel, I was mostly interested in how people can experience the same event and come away with vastly different perceptions and memories. I started with siblings, because I do believe that no sibling grows up in the same family. Depending on birth order and formative events, every sibling ends up having a different perception of family. So I wanted to explore how two siblings would react to the disappearance of a third sibling. Then I got very interested in the idea of cursed places, so I created one with the quarry in the book. I don’t have actual experience with a missing child, though it seemed for a while that the news was full of missing children or children who turned up after being gone for years. I think all of that probably seeped into my consciousness as I was writing. But I was determined to write something different than the usual child-gone-missing narrative. I worked hard to stay away from some of the more predictable possibilities and to provide an unexpected resolution. I hope I’ve done that.
MGB: In enthusiastic reviews, critics have called The Past Is Never “southern,” “Gothic,” “suspenseful,” and “mythical.” Proof for the first three adjectives is evident, but what caused these critics to call it “mythical”?
TQT: Well, much of the story is based in myth and legend. Early in the book, Bert references fairy tales and my writing is definitely influenced by classic fairy tales. I have always loved stories about children heading into the woods and encountering something spooky. So that was a catalyst in this story.
I love to think about how stories evolve and spring up from certain places and events. Why do people decide to tell a certain story about a particular place? Why are some places considered good and others bad? In thinking about all of this, I began to create both a history and a bit of folklore for the fictional places in my book. And I think those historical/folkloric sections are what led reviewers to call it “mythical.” But even more simply, Bert takes a mythic journey in the book. She seeks truth, slays dangerous creatures, and faces her demons. In many ways, she’s a classic mythical adventurer. And it all starts with that spooky trip into the woods.
MGB: The novel ends in the Florida Everglades, a place where, to my knowledge, you’ve never lived. Yet the description of it is as sharp and real as the description at the beginning of the novel, set in the Mississippi Delta, which you obviously know well. How did you manage it?
TQT: When I was writing the novel, I knew I wanted to set a portion of it in a place where a person could effectively disappear. I wanted a place that would seem exotic and new to Bert but would also be accessible to her. I considered some mountainous regions, but ultimately I was drawn to the peculiar beauty and potential danger of the Everglades. Because the book is set in the 1970s and early 1980s, I did some research about what was happening in various places during that time. When I read about the marijuana smuggling in the Everglades, I knew it was the right place for the story. So I convinced my endlessly patient and indulgent husband to take a trip with me. We stayed in Chokoloskee and drove all over Everglades City. We went kayaking and used our “monkey arms,” just like Bert does in the book. And we took a boat trip around the Ten Thousand Islands, where we got to watch the birds congregating in the rookery. As it happens, our boat captain had been caught up in the smuggling business back in the 1980s, and he agreed to meet us for drinks after the tour. I took a ton of notes and asked a bunch of nosy questions. I’m sure I got some things wrong, but I did my best to capture the essence of the place through the eyes of someone like Bert.
MGB: The title, The Past Is Never, is ingenious. You’ve lifted four words from Faulkner’s famous quote and given it a whole new twist. Tell me how you came up with it.
TQT: I’ve always loved that quote. So much of the novel deals with the past and how it influences the present, so when I was thinking about titles it seemed a natural source. But I do like to subvert things a bit, so I cut it short in the hopes that it would inspire a bit of curiosity even for readers who aren’t familiar with the original quote.
One interesting thing about titles is that publishers don’t always use the author’s original title. And, in this case, my editor did ask me to brainstorm some alternate titles. The concern, I think, was just that the reference might not be completely clear to many readers. We came up with about two dozen ideas, but ultimately the editor decided that the original title worked best. I’m grateful for that, though I do think it’s always good to consider other options.
MGB: What’s next? Can your fans expect a new novel soon?
TQT: I am working on a new novel. It’s set mostly in Jackson in the 1980s and centers on the slightly dysfunctional friendship of two girls. I suspect it will be a few years before it’s actually in print. I’m not one of those writers who can crank out a book a year and the publishing process is pretty slow. So “soon” is relative, but I definitely will keep writing novels and I hope people will keep reading them.
To become a member of the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters, please visit MIAL’s Membership page online.
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