We Women Writers
Inspiring and encouraging women to write, to develop a personal writing practice through exploring the real-life writing stories of other women
We Women Writers
Diana Kuper - Transformative Power of Writing: Diana Kuper’s Journey
In this episode of the We Women Writers Podcast, I speak with Diana Kuper about her writing journey, the importance of themes in memoir writing, and the healing power of storytelling. Diana shares her experiences with trauma, the challenges of finding her voice, and the significance of authenticity in writing. They discuss the daily practice of writing, the publishing process, and the impact of sharing personal stories. Diana encourages aspiring writers to embrace their narratives and highlights the transformative nature of writing.
Takeaways
- Finding a cohesive theme is crucial in memoir writing.
- Writing can be a means of reclaiming one's identity and self-worth.
- Everyone has a story worth telling, and it's important to share it.
Quote:
“The truth of my knowing coming out of me, flowing out of me, and then seeing it on the paper and then riffing off of that and learning more and more deeply who I was, what I saw, what I knew, what I thought. Seeing it on the page revealed myself to me. And that was powerful.”
Resources:
Finding Refuge: a memoir: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1957468033/ref=
Diana Kuper’s Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Diana-Kuper/author/B0BPS4H2FS?ref=
Jane Jones (00:00)
Hi there, I'm Jane and this podcast is designed for you. Five minutes of daily writing can change your world. Come with me as we explore the stories of women who transformed their lives through writing. Welcome to the We Women Writers Podcast.
Hi everyone, and welcome to We Women Writers. Today we have with us Diana Kuper she is going to tell us about her writing story. Before we get to that, we're going to tell you a little bit about Diana. I'm going to read so that I can make sure I get it right. Diana is a graduate of the University of Michigan, Tel Aviv University, and the Merrill Palmer Institute, which is now the Michigan School of Psychology. She spent seven years in Israel, and when she was there, she counseled adults for the Community Mental Health Center in Jaffa, and she facilitated support groups for the Ministry of Defense. Diana is a psychotherapist and she's in private practice, and she counsels individuals, couples, and groups. She's taught courses on the psychology of women and relationship classes for women.
She's grateful for her writerly imagination, which she has found has sustained her throughout her life. Diana divides her time between Michigan and San Miguel de Allende in Mexico. And she is the author of Finding Refuge, her first book. So, welcome, Diana.
Diana Kuper (01:41)
Thank you.
Jane Jones (01:43)
So, thank you for being here with us. Okay, so we'll jump right in. And the first question I ask everyone is. Please tell us about your writing journey your writing experience.
Diana Kuper (01:56)
Okay, I'd love to do that, and I will give you the long version. I hope that's okay.
Jane Jones (02:01)
Excellent. We'll keep on, we'll work with you. We'll be happy to hear that one for sure.
Diana Kuper (02:06)
So, I wrote, when I was a little girl, I used to write. I wrote stories and I would read them aloud to my mother, even when I was six and seven years old. We were immigrants, and so just having paper, and pencil and, pen was a big deal to me, and I just loved it. And I would write short stories and read them to her. She was sweet enough to listen. I've always written a journal, and then I would write fiction pieces, memoir pieces rather than fiction pieces. I always wanted to make meaning. And I love the memoir genre. I'm totally enamored. I've read over 360 memoirs.
Jane Jones (02:55)
Wow.
Diana Kuper (02:56)
I love it. I love stories. I want to hear about people's inner lives. And I've always wanted to write a memoir.
And then, I really don't know how it finally happened, but I started writing. I thought all I had to do was write a chapter. I don't have to write a book. And so, I started, and I wrote, I would write chapters, and I loved it. I loved the process. It just flowed out of me. I wasn't sure what the theme was that I was writing about.
But I just had to tell these stories. And so, I wrote parts one, two, and three of my book just really flowing. I would write the chapter, I'd work it, work it, work it, work it, work it, go on to the next chapter. And it just, something in me knew what to do and knew how to write and knew I wanted it to be mystical and engaging and honest and authentic and to speak from my heart, and it was almost like having my say. And so, I wrote parts one, two, and three of the book, and then I was stuck because I didn't know what the theme was. And memoir needs a cohesive theme that you're not just telling an autobiography, no, but you're not Tolstoy. Nobody wants to know about your life.
Unless you want to impart something about the human experience, the human condition, you want to shed light on something. And I didn't know what my theme was at all. I just didn't know. It wasn't about being a single mom, it was about being divorced, it? I don't know, depression. I didn't know what it was about. So, I stopped writing. I also had an experience with a writing teacher in San Miguel who is a cold person and she discouraged me and she said you she said you know you have to go to medical school to practice medicine what makes you think you can write you didn't study it and between that and not having a theme I stopped writing for four years my memoir the parts one two and three just were deep in my computer somewhere I couldn't even look at it
And then one day, I was walking in the woods with my bike. was, you walking through a part where you had to walk, taking bike ride, and a woman popped out of the woods. said she literally, she was with a friend of hers, guy. And she said, “Whatever happened to the book you were writing?” Because during my writing days, I had read to her.
And I said, “Oh, I had to leave it. I couldn't find the theme”. And she said, “That's so too bad. You're such a good writer”. And then she said to her friend, who's an editor and writer, “She's such a good writer.” It's really a shame. And I said, “Yeah, I know”. I couldn't finish the book. So, I went along, and I felt a little ache in my heart.
Jane Jones (06:15)
mm-hmm.
Diana Kuper (06:17)
A few days later, I was walking on a suburban street, taking a walk, and I saw a woman who I had taken a writing class from, a very short little writing class. And the beginning of the book, last days, I wrote during that class, you know, during the time of that class. So, she said to me, “Whatever happened to your memoir. Did you ever finish it?” And I said, “No, I didn't know the theme”.
I left it and so we parted ways, and I went that forward and she went the other way and then she called to me from down the street and she said “Diana, I just want you to know I don't tell this to my students, but you are a very good writer”.
So, then I went home and I thought, somebody's trying to tell me something. Think women within a matter of days that I hadn't seen in years, and both of them from my writing days, and I just inched towards my computer. So, with trepidation, I could barely look at it. And I sort of looked at it from the side of my head, and I started reading what I had written. And I thought, it's obvious what the theme is.
It's just in every page. I don't have to change a word. The theme is trauma and healing from trauma. That's the theme.
Well, a few days later in my inbox comes an invitation to see a film called The Wisdom of Trauma with Gabor Mate and a five-day seminar on trauma - free. A free seminar from the SAND corporation – the SAND organization. Yeah, and so I watched the film. I watched a lot quite a few of the presentations. I saw that it totally fit what I was doing and I said I said to myself you're going to finish this book you have to write part four. It's the book isn't finished but I saw that the theme was throughout.
The theme was carried through. So, I took part four into my consciousness. It was much harder than one, two, and three. It didn't flow as easily. I worked hard at it. I gave myself a date that I had to be finished by, and I finished it. And then I talked to a friend in San Miguel, and she pointed me to a hybrid publishing team, a woman who's the editor who I happen to know from writers’ conferences in San Miguel, and a woman who's the graphic designer, her partner. And within six months, the book was published. It worked and worked, and it was published.
Jane Jones (09:21)
Excellent, excellent. Okay, so I got a number of questions and I'm thinking maybe some of the listeners are these little things ringing in their in their ears a little bit. Can we just go back a little bit when you, when you were a little girl and just tell us could you tell us a little bit more about the stories you wrote and the experience of reading them to others and what you got from both writing and then reading them.
Diana Kuper (09:51)
I have no idea what I wrote. I don't know idea. I never kept it. I only read to my mom. For me, as I told you earlier, it was much more about having paper and pens and that, you know, we didn't have paper. Like there were newspaper drives in my grade school. We didn't have stacks of newspapers. We were immigrants. We came with a few suitcases, so, having paper and pens and writing, writing, writing, I would read all the time my mother read to me before I learned how to read. And I just made up stories. I've always had a writerly imagination. In fact, right now in my life, I have several novels that I've outlined with the whole lives of the characters, the timelines, and everything. And when I ride my bike or take walks, I just live with my characters.
I love stories. I love novels. That's my bent. That's my writer-ly self. So that's what I can tell you about.
Jane Jones (11:01)
Okay, so like this idea to follow this thread through, for me, it's popped up a couple of times in what you've told us so far. And this idea of writing a story and reading it to somebody and having feedback. I really appreciate what you've just told us, given us more context to it, that it wasn't so much about writing to achieve something or to, but it was this experience of having a pen and a paper and having the experience of writing and then reading it. And that's a developing experience. That's a formidable experience that you have that doesn't have a lot of specifics about, yes, I can see that how important that particular thing was, but you can see the threads of it. So, you can see the value of it. Because when you talked about these, the writers’ groups that you were involved with, then talk to this person who says, and I'm paraphrasing, I hope I get it right, is that you're not a writer. You didn't study writing. You can't write. But you have been writing. You have been taking classes, you are achieving something, and that person's perspective really put a damper, just actually put the brakes on everything. So, could you tell us a little bit more about that experience, about somebody just really undermining your confidence?
Diana Kuper (12:42)
Well, Jane, I feel differently about it than the way you're describing it. I only took a very short writer's class, maybe for four sessions. Otherwise, I did all my writing my own. The inspiration I've ever had was when I lived in Israel. I had a friend who was a writer. And she would stay up all night. And in those days, there were no computers. She would type.
She would sit on the floor and have her typewriter on her bed and she would type, and type and she published several books, and I was on the cover of one of her books with my back, three women with our backs. That was the most inspiring to me. The reading to people is just me telling stories as I do all the time. I love to tell stories. But that wasn't the powerful part of writing for me.
The powerful part of writing for me was the writing itself. The truth of my knowing coming out of me, flowing out of me, and then seeing it on the paper and then riffing off of that and learning more and more deeply who I was, what I saw, what I knew, what I thought. Seeing it on the page revealed myself to me. And that was powerful. It wasn't other people and that one teacher yes she was terrible was more of a she it was terrible but what really stopped me was that I didn't have a theme if I knew the theme back then she wouldn't have been able to stop me it was I didn't think so to me it's not about other people that's my personality it's not about other people it was about my own creative life coming forward, the richness that I could feel of who I was and what I had to say and how it all came together and what happened to me and how I felt about it. That was the powerful aspect, not other people.
Jane Jones (14:54)
Not other people, help me understand where the idea for the theme comes from. And how does that, how important is that in your writing to have a theme, to be aware of the theme?
Diana Kuper (15:09)
Well, if you're writing a memoir, I mean, like I said, I've read hundreds, and they all have a theme. They're all trying to tell something, illuminate something about life. That's what a memoir does. It's a slice of life illuminating an aspect of our humanity to each other. So, for me, writing a memoir, I needed to know what am I pointing at?
What is this all pointing towards? What am I trying to share here? And so, once I had the theme that I had the theme all along, I just didn't know.
Jane Jones (15:47)
Yeah, but that's one of the things that's important in my mind with that I'm picking up is that some people approach writing to say well need to have a theme and then I got to write around the theme but you wrote and then what you didn't know the theme was but then when you came back to it and looked at it the theme came out to you.
Diana Kuper (16:06)
Yes, because I my stories and then I saw that they all revolved around trauma.
Jane Jones (16:15)
It's totally okay to be writing around a theme, that's fine, but sometimes, if you write, and then the theme comes out. That's an important aspect for people that are writing. As you say, they're writing the place of having the experience of writing and seeing what comes out on the page and what does their writing reveal to them about themselves and about their lives and how, you know because it sounds like from reading your book, it's come, you've come around. And you know, this really nice, nice journey, difficult, hugely difficult at times, traumatic. Having said that, it's a journey that you've come around to a good place.
As you said at the very end, think it's there's this phrase that your mother says in Yiddish, which is you can say what it is because I'm sure don't think I could read it very well.
Diana Kuper (17:21)
“Az me lebdt, derlebtmen.” And it means if you live long enough, you'll live to see something good. You know, if you keep living persevere, you'll see something good.
Jane Jones (17:33)
Yeah, yeah. And that's what I find in your writing. you come to that place. You talk about being in San Miguel de Allende, right? So that's wonderful. You made an interesting picture, was it, there was this “ache in my heart” when you were coming back to the writing. Could you tell us a little bit about that?
Diana Kuper (17:56)
But well, I felt sad that I'd left it. I felt sad that I didn't complete this project, that meant so much to me. It's not a project, complete the story. And so, I felt sad thinking about when I... I felt sad for the whole four years about it. I tried not to think about it, but I...
I felt sad during those four years when I wasn't writing that I didn't finish the book. So, once I went back to it, the ache went away.
Jane Jones (18:34)
It's nice, nice. You use this phrase, work it, work it, work it. When you went back to it and you started to work it, work it, work it. Help me understand what you mean by that.
Diana Kuper (18:48)
That wasn't when I went back to it. It was all along. Like would write a chapter and then I would read it and fix it and read it and fix it and read it and fix it. It was just fine tuning and learning how to write by reworking and it was just like, I guess the fine tuning would be the word. I don't know what other word I would use at this moment.
Jane Jones (19:16)
That's an important piece is that you're coming at something you just said, I was learning to write through reworking it and that's not exactly...
Diana Kuper (19:26)
A more juicy writer by keep going back to that chapter, each chapter as I wrote it. I didn't go to the next chapter till I felt very good about the one I was on. So, I wrote it, but then I made it better. And I kept learning as I was going how to how to do that, how to write more beautifully.
I think I have an innate knowing of writing well. I'm a storyteller. I've been reviewed as an eloquent and gifted storyteller, but I learned how to do it better.
Jane Jones (20:05)
Yeah, and the concept in terms of inspiring women to write, my experience with a lot of writers, new writers, young and old age, doesn't matter, is that they feel that they have to get it right. They feel that has to be, their grammar has got to be okay, or they have to find the right word on the first run through. And then what I hear you telling me is that there's this wonderful experience of putting it down on paper and then going back over and over it and perfecting it and making it.
Diana Kuper (20:38)
Making it literary, making it beautiful. The other thing is though talking about talking to writers, women who want to write.
Tell your story honestly.
Be authentic. That's what I think makes beautiful writing. Just be deeply within your experience and authentically share it. Don't try to be a good writer. Be a giver of authenticity.
Jane Jones (21:13)
This word authenticity, because it comes up in my conversations with other writers often, sometimes there's a, well, let me just ask you, could you, a little bit more about what the experience of authentic is.
Diana Kuper (21:31)
When you really know that you've excavated down to truth, emotional truth.
Jane Jones (21:37)
Wow, we haven't heard that. That's pretty amazing. Yeah, yeah. And you can start it wherever you are and keep on writing because if you're at one level of truth and as you write that level of truth develops.
Diana Kuper (21:54)
Don't think about the reader. That's not about the reader. It's about you. It's about clicking into that moment when you know that you're speaking deeply from your truth. You're not trying to make anybody feel anything or show anybody anything or impress anybody. It's about what is your truth as if it's never going to be read. It's just your truth. Emotional truth.
Jane Jones (22:28)
And so, if one is writing something like that, that is truthful for them and it’s emotional, their emotional truth, it doesn't have to be published. It can be personal. It can be for oneself. And if it wants to come out and be out in the public for people to read, that's okay but it starts with this, with for oneself.
Diana Kuper (22:56)
And I want to say that even if you're writing, it's very important when you're writing a memoir to be very deeply connected to the truth, to authentic emotion. But even if you're writing a novel, when you look at the best novels, they're the best psychologists. I learned more about psychology from literature because they're gifted and really deeply seeing the human story, the human condition, it's so powerful that they feel into things. I've been reading some amazing novels, and I can't believe how these authors know.
The intricacies of interactions and being in the internal life of people is unbelievable. It's the best psychology. No class can teach you what literature can teach you, in my opinion. So even if you're writing a novel, my point is dig deep to what it's really true and authentic.
Jane Jones (24:03)
And it's useful or important to have a level of comfort with being honest, being comfortable with the emotions that you have. And where there isn't that, sounds to me that one of the suggestions you might make would be to read.
Diana Kuper (24:32)
And to be on some kind of path of knowing your inner life, whether it's meditation or psychotherapy or whatever. I mean, I think that it's a gift. I think the great writers, they're gifted. It's a gift from God or from Spirit or from whatever. It's a gift. You can't just be a great writer. don't care how many classes you go to. It's a gift of a sensibility and a sensitivity of how you are in the world. And great writers are different than other people. And even good writers, they're different. They're fine-tuned in a certain way.
Jane Jones (25:20)
But in other people, how would you find out?
Diana Kuper (25:22)
Well, I think there's a difference between I don't know what audience you're working with. Is it journal writing? Or is it writing, you know, books and novels, memoirs for publication or for, you know, something serious or even though journal writing is also very serious, but in a different way. So, I think journal writing, I would scratch everything, almost everything I've said and just say for journal writing, most important thing is to be emotionally in tuned with yourself, emotionally honest, a true journey into your inner life. That's for journals. And as you write more, more will come to you, and you'll see more and you'll see patterns.
But if we're talking about writing a book, a memoir, a novel, it's different. You have to have a certain gift, I think. I do. I really have come to believe that.
Jane Jones (26:26)
Well, there's some of the listeners will be people that believe that they just are interested and have this idea that I think I could write a book. think I have this idea. You know, there's this old saying out there. It's been around since I was a kid is that, everybody's got a book in them. And, a lot of people don't know how to get to that book if that's the case.
So, a lot of our listeners are people that just kind of, I'm not a writer, but it would be fun to play at writing. It would fun to journal. It'd be fun to try trying to write a poem. It would be fun to try to do some of this stuff just to have fun. And then there's people who are writers as a group of women that a bunch of us are together in this group.
And we support and encourage one another to get the writing done, things published. But at the same time as getting something written and getting it published, there's also this aspect amongst even those writers of doing something on a regular basis that's just fun. That's just doing something, prompt writing daily and because I'm a big proponent of picking up a pen and writing for five minutes, you put the timer on and at the end of five minutes you turn it off and you pull your pen off the page and away you go. And that can be helpful to all of those people that are actually ready to publish a book or people that just wanting to try their hand at something and to develop their writing. This consistent writing practices is helpful. There's so many people that don't have that time in their lives where they spend specific periods of times of their lives where they're writing. They're writing for educational things, they're writing papers, they're, you know, things like that, that can be difficult.
So, there's a cross-section of people that will listen to this podcast. And I think the journaling one is important. I have a granddaughter who reminds me that for her that what she gets, those are her diaries. They're not journals, they're diaries. And so, it's important that people start writing, it's important that they, at some point in time, whether they're encouraged when they're young or at any juncture in life, is to pick this book up that you're going to start writing.
Diana Kuper (29:08)
I think that everyone, like you said, everyone has a book in them. I think everyone has a story in them. And I think everyone's story is compelling and I love reading anybody's stories. And I encourage people to write their story and learn about themselves from writing their story. But I was making a distinction between, you know, writing our story and writing a good story and gifted writing that I love to read. They're different, yes, everybody, yes, journal. I mean, my life is devoted to people, to helping people know their inner life, to live in the truth of themselves instead of the mask. That's what my life is devoted to. That's why I've been a... psychotherapist for over 45 years. That's what I think is that that would help our humanity.
Jane Jones (30:14)
Yeah, for people to be honest with themselves.
Diana Kuper (30:19)
And know themselves and understand and have compassion for themselves and kindness for themselves, but to understand what they're really feeling to live not out of the mask, but out of the authentic self.
Jane Jones (30:33)
Yeah, a couple of things from the from the book that I've read is that there's a couple of sort of themes that pop out to me is in this amongst this overall trauma theme is that there's this… a focus on what I'm going to call moments. There’s information, there is explanation, there's context, is the word, context around a moment. And that is particularly meaningful. And in your life, in the focus of the book is about traumatic experiences.
And then how you come to, that's where I'm looking for, how you process those experiences, those moments. Because one of the quotes is that, what I took from it was that you couldn't trust the happiness of the moment. And that showed up a few other times in the book. And that you eventually come around to understanding that the moments for me anyway, what I hear from that is that there's moments and you work through them.
Diana Kuper (31:54)
Well, my understanding and what I was trying to show was that when trauma happens to a person at a young age, it distorts their sense of self. They don't have a formed sense of themselves. It's a reaction to trauma. So, my distortion was that I was bad. That's the first line of my book, “Before I became a bad person trying to be good, I wore a blue velvet beret.” There was a moment in my life where there was a before and an after. And so, the rest of the book is about how to reclaim a sense of, a worthy sense of self, to have a sense of self. I was just, you know, as a big, reading a lot even then when I was 11 years old, and there are all these characters, and I was attracted to this one and that one and this one and that one. I was looking for who was I, and that got cut short and I would say, not destroyed because I found who I was, but it was a very, it was destructive to my developing a positive identity and knowing who I was. The traumas truncated that, and the effect of trauma on the body. And that's so important that the body then gives signals of fear and discomfort, and it's so hard. And then the trauma affects your thinking because your body is firing all this fear and anxiety, and feeling unsafe, and feeling like there's something wrong with you and, shame. And so, then your thoughts follow the body. So, my book is about identity and healing.
Jane Jones (33:57)
Yes, and you know, the process of the writing it, so to go through those experiences and now to write about it is the writing is the key, is a key part, of course, to processing that or do you see, begin to see the past differently or more honestly or more clearly?
Diana Kuper (34:24)
No, I don't think I saw more honestly or clearly, but I felt that the writing was reclaiming myself. I felt like as I saw the patterns emerging, as I did the catharsis of some of those very painful things that I was writing about, I felt like I was reclaiming myself. And when I talked in part four about healing and bringing in a loving presence. and going through some of these traumas again with a loving presence, and helping my little girl get the help she needed at the time. Like when my father was shot, no one comforted me, no one touched me, no one held me. And so I brought in a loving presence, and we made a safe tent in the living room of that horrible night, and she held me, and we lit candles, and we prayed, and we sang, and it was totally a different experience for my body. Healing and reclaiming from such intense trauma.
Jane Jones (35:34)
So it's not just the writing. The writing is important. And then there's other tools, there's other things that people are led to and other support things and processes to go through to heal. There’s any number of them. The writing is a vehicle. It's a tool.
Diana Kuper (36:12)
But wait, I didn't write the book to heal. I wrote the book because I love to write. And I write about the healing, but I didn't write the book for my healing. I wrote it, but it ended up being very healing. Yes.
Jane Jones (36:31)
Yeah, and that because that's an interesting observation as well to some people want to write to heal.
They can do that. That's valid. That's important. And then journaling to heal. And then sometimes it's just journaling or sometimes just writing a story. Just kind of have this idea you want to write a story. And then you find out in the pages or in the words there, there's something that comes to you and it's particularly helpful.
Diana Kuper (37:04)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jane Jones (37:07)
That's so important. That's so important. Obviously, it's rolling, it's bouncing around in my brain like a little pinball machine. And so, finding it where it's a bit jumbled. Because I'm thinking about different things in relationship to that and they're not form thoughts. So, I'll avoid trying to make a fool of myself here. yeah.
It’s keenly, keenly important to be able to write to build a pick up a pen and write the experience of writing that would be the other thing that I would maybe take a few minutes to look at is. When you write do you do you write with a blank paper with a pen do you use a computer how do you?
Diana Kuper (37:47)
I write on a blank page. I have to face the blank page, and then I start writing. Once I have writing on the page, then I can make it beautiful. It's the blank page is a little intimidating, but it wasn't. I need to say that writing parts one, two, and three was just effortless. It just flowed out of me.
Jane Jones (38:11)
Yeah. So, the blank pages is a bit, it's not the word intimidating, it's a bit, okay, let's get started. But then once you started, you're fine. But some people find the blank page really intimidating. So, sometimes, some things I'll tell people, just start making a mess. Just start writing.
Diana Kuper (38:28)
Yes.
I write something even if I don't expect it to be good, just start. But my writerly imagination finally had an outlet when I started writing this book. It truly, the first three parts flowed. I had, I just, it was all living, so alive in me, all I had to do is put it on the page.
Yeah.
Jane Jones (39:08)
What was the experience like of saying now I'm gonna give this to an editor? Because now this is about you. It's very personal. It's very honest, and you're talking about your trauma, and you give it to somebody. What was that experience like?
Diana Kuper (39:21)
She didn't change that much. She would just change wording here and there. She sometimes made a sentence more elegant. You know, I can write beautifully, but also my family, my parents spoke English to me, but my father didn't speak English very well. And my mother spoke fairly well, quite well. But like we...
It wasn't like people born in America who speak English. So, like my mother would call the dust pan the little shovel. You know, I didn't even know the word dust pan. So, once in a while I saw in the editing process that there were a few things there that she just, and this is a weird thing to say, but as an American knew how to make it sound better, certain phrases.
She'd, it wasn't like the whole thing was heavily edited at all. Like she'd send me back a chapter, and in like 20 minutes I sent it back to her with all the corrections. It wasn't colors of editing all over the place.
Jane Jones (40:32)
So, what was the, was there any trepidation in giving her the manuscript? Cause now somebody, none at all.
Diana Kuper (40:39)
No, I didn't feel nervous at all. I felt we had enough in common. There were hard things though in the publishing process, but we worked it out. She was struggling a lot. That was the difficulty with my, I wanted to get the book out because there were sociopolitical things that were current. First of all, trauma is so current. And then this whole thing with the Ukraine war, and I'm intergenerational trauma. I wanted the book out, and she was gone half the time.
Jane Jones (41:13)
Yeah.
Diana Kuper (41:14)
All over she's the, you know, Pen Writers International and she was traveling to, my gosh, Finland and all over. So, that was my struggle was that she wasn't available as much as I wish she could have been, and that was hard for me. But otherwise, no, I had no trepidation. I felt her editing was very helpful. There were a few times when I wouldn't accept her editing. I felt she didn't understand where I was going, and I had to send her some information, so she'd understand it better. I don't know if you want to know what that was, but anyway.
Jane Jones (41:56)
Tell us, yeah, what was it?
Diana Kuper (41:58)
Well, for instance, at the very end of the chapter about Hard Bed, about my marriage to a man who became religious. I wrote that we were on different levels of the, I don't remember the wording I use, levels of consciousness. And she felt that I'd been so fair to him all along. Except at the end of that chapter. I left him to his and I, you know, I left him to his. Do you want me to grab it?
Jane Jones (42:30)
Sure, yeah. Sure, yeah, yeah, please. That would be great. Because I'm looking and trying to find it in here. Because I do think it's really valuable. Because for people's, listeners' experiences with editors and things, because sometimes it can be, you know, you want to, it sounds like what you had was a very collaborative relationship with this editor.
Diana Kuper (42:52)
“We lived on different rungs on the ladder of the evolution of human consciousness.” It's at the top of page 152.
Jane Jones (43:02)
I see it now.
Diana Kuper (43:04)
She wanted me to, she felt like I'd been so fair in describing all that had happened, and I hadn't made his wrong and mine right or anything like that. And suddenly I'm saying we're on different levels, wrongs on the ladder of human consciousness. So, I sent her, the spiral dynamics, description of human consciousness, and the layers of consciousness. And she saw what I meant. And I left it. I wouldn't change it. Because I felt like he was in a very different rung in the ladder.
Jane Jones (43:44)
Yes, and when I read it, I was fine with it. Yeah, I got it.
Diana Kuper (43:48)
Yeah, so for instance, that was something I stood at my ground and there were other moments like that. But she helped me with wording, and I thought at times like I was writing like what I call a greener, know, immigrant, a few places where she made it more American sounding. And I was writing, you know, even though I literally went to University of Michigan and so on, I grew up in an immigrant family and I saw little moments where my writing reflected that and she fixed it.
Jane Jones (44:21)
And without changing any of the truth of what you had come to, the honesty.
Diana Kuper (44:30)
Just a few words. It was syntax, usually it was syntax, changing it around a little.
Jane Jones (44:37)
So, the experience you had was fine because some people they write these really emotional pieces, these very processing through trauma. There is sometimes a fear that other people will see it and judge them.
Diana Kuper (44:56)
Yeah.
Jane Jones (44:57)
And that, depending on the level, and so I just like to people that are listening, if there's something like that, that, you know, what you've said, Diana is you write it first for yourself.
Diana Kuper (45:12)
Not for yourself, you write it because you have to write it.
Jane Jones (45:16)
You write it because you have to write it. It's coming out. It is you. It has to come out and it's yours. And whether it goes any further is a decision that gets made later.
Diana Kuper (45:29)
I wanted to publish it when I was writing it. I didn't write it, so I'd keep it in my computer. I was writing a book to publish a book. But I have had people totally not understand it, my book, make it wrong, criticize me. You have to have a thick skin. I've had people tell me I couldn't put it down. I loved every minute of it, and I've had people make it wrong.
I feel like my book is very psychologically oriented, insightful that way. And if people aren't in touch with their... inner life, my book can be threatening. And there's someone I know, for instance, who's of German origin. We actually were born a few miles apart, a few months apart in Germany. And her family's German and mine was Jewish. And she didn't like my book. And she was critical of it. I don't know why, but it could be because she's never worked through being on the side of the perpetrators.
I don't know. Because that is a lot of trauma too.
Jane Jones (46:45)
Yeah, there's a fellow that, you know, and hear from him, one of the things is that to look at people, to view people, that there's a little kid in there. And your generosity towards her is like, you know, wait long enough, like your mom says, wait long enough and something good will come from being patient with her. because its a, there's a reason why people do what they do.
Diana Kuper (47:25)
Exactly, and I talk a lot about that in the book when I talk about rebuilding, interjecting the negative projection, and rebuilding the self, and blah blah blah. I don't need her to like my book. I'm just saying that not everyone's gonna like your book.
Jane Jones (47:44)
Yeah, and that's really important because if there's a vested interest in people liking it, then you're not on such a stable footing.
Diana Kuper (47:57)
Well, I bared my soul. You know, I'm totally naked. So, of course, I want people to understand and have compassion and get me. But if they don’t, I have to accept that. And I’ve learned to do that as much as I can. You know, it’s process. Not everyone’s going to like it. Not everyone’s going to resonate. Not everyone has done this, you know, process of looking at themselves.
Jane Jones (48:26)
Isn’t that something, it comes up in this story, in this in this book. You were just saying that there's echo in my mind about that is just the way that the way the person's looking at it. It has to do with your friends, and in the book where this one of the couple was particularly upset, and then you just had to take time, had to allow the person time. And then you go through this experience where I was maybe, I'm paraphrasing, but a little bit too harsh. You let the relation, without making it worse, without forcing it, but you let everybody be where they are. And then eventually it sorts itself out.
Diana Kuper (49:15)
No, it's not quite that simple. That's a teaching moment in the book where I'm talking about that the person in that experience. Felt very ashamed of something and we were never allowed to talk about it. And I thought after 30 years, I could say something about what she had done and instead of being able to process what I was saying, she attacked me. Because it's easier than feeling your own shame that it's easier to project onto someone that they're bad. And I bring that all the way into the socio-political in the book and talk about several things if you remember.
Jane Jones (50:04)
The Leaders.
Diana Kuper (50:06)
That they couldn't handle loss or humiliation, and they would scapegoat.
And that's what I felt she did with me at that time. My work was to… I internalize my, because I thought I was bad because of my traumas. I internalize people's negative projection all the way, starting with the bullying. There's something wrong with me, not that they're cruel. That was so destructive to my sense of self.
All the way to that moment when I described where she attacked me because she was ashamed. I didn't do anything wrong. But she wanted to make me wrong because that was safer for her.
Jane Jones (50:55)
Sure, and why I bring that up is that this person who reads your book and she's got a negative perspective of it, that's for me, that's an echo of the same, of something very similar.
Diana Kuper (51:10)
Yes, that maybe it's hard for her to face what the German people did since she's German. I wrote so much about that in my book.
And she said to me, “I never knew you felt that way.” She never knew what it was like. I never poured my heart out to her about being a child of survivors and being, you know, living with ghosts. Like I describe in my book, and then here we always just talked about how interesting it was that we grew up, you know, we were born right near each other, and it was so, you know, meet in the middle in Mexico. But she has unresolved in my opinion, in my opinion, as a psychotherapist, she has unresolved feelings of what the German people did.
Jane Jones (51:58)
Right. So, for me, it’s about the context here is that we're looking at writing and putting something out there and somebody is going to project their own perspectives on what we've written, you know, I've had that experience too, although, I have yet to do a story as honest as yours.
But there are times for us to be who we are. And especially when we, we put it in, writing, we put a pen to paper or on the computer, and we put it there. There's, it is going to touch people's sore spots, there's, reasons why people don't process through things. It's there, it's there, whatever, different rung on the ladder maybe, an idea, levels of sensitivity, and sometimes the issue is just so big, and whatever it is, and when somebody, when we write something, which is a concern for some people when they're writing about their trauma. Is that somebody's going to judge me, and somebody's going to maybe attack me. And depending on how, where a person is in their own healing, sometimes it could be better maybe to get it on a paper and then have it quiet and have it hold it still. Because I have belonged to a group of writers where people, we are very honest with one another, and people put something out there. It's like, whoa, and then we respond. I haven't ever been offended, and I think we did pretty good about when somebody's got something that's important to them, then they put it out there. And it encourages people to be more honest and more in a community.
But where that isn't available can be difficult. Like the person that came across that said, you're not a writer. they kind of were part of reason, part of the impetus to set it aside. But you being in community with people, sometimes it's better just to put it down on paper. Pick up the pen, put it to paper, pick up the computer, start writing and let your heart out as clumsily as you feel it is.
Diana Kuper (54:49)
Well, you know, it's just like the inspiration of these women who came forward of the Me Too movement and this current trial with E. Jean Carroll. And, you know, how many people vilified her, how cruel was the prosecuting attorney? I mean, you have to be able to tolerate it if you're going to speak your truth.
Jane Jones (55:14)
Yes, and you have to be ready. And in a different world, it wouldn't be so, but it is. And then the other side is their perspective, and what they're doing, and why they're doing it and why they behave the way they do.
You come up with the term, you had Solomonic moment, meaning the need for a Solomon who knows, can rightly defied and can come with wisdom and settle a matter. That sometimes
Diana Kuper (55:55)
No, well, yeah, that was specific about the child. Right. You know, the other thing is, and this is important for us to put an emphasis, it's also wonderful because so many people love your story and feel identifying with you and think you've written beautifully and feel like they understand things more about their own life and feel touched by and cry and have tears and, you know its also a wonderful experience of coming together with people.
Jane Jones (55:58)
Yes.
Diana Kuper (56:24)
It's you know, I feel like mostly this has been a wonderful experience for me of feeling deeply affected, connected. I have a relative and I talk about it.
When his family comes from Israel after my dad was shot, it's in that chapter where my father's celebrating, and I see that he's okay, but I'm not okay anymore. That the son of that family, he read my memoir. He cried for days. He told me that he was so affected. It was so beautiful. We talked for two hours. So, that's just one example, but it's wonderful to share your story. I mean, this is our human is to share our stories with each other.
Jane Jones (57:27)
So there is, aside from the fear, there is this, when somebody reads your writing, they are touched, they are changed. They understand something, not just about you, because they have relationship with you, but for people that don't have relationship with you, they understand something about themselves.
Diana Kuper (57:50)
Exactly and even people have a relationship with me understand something about themselves and even you said very inspiring. You know, it's like we touch each other when I write my dedication, when people want me to sign my book, I write from what comes from the heart goes to the heart
Jane Jones (58:09)
Yes, yeah, yeah. Well, the book is, Diana is inspiring and your story of writing it is inspiring. If you could, we'll wrap up now, but if you could encourage a woman was not sure she should write about a memoir about this, what would you say to her?
Diana Kuper (58:31)
The most important thing and this is you said earlier you know I came through it and, everything's okay everything's not okay I'm still working very hard on trauma every day it's a lifelong process and what I'm working on and what I would encourage a woman who's afraid you know to delve into her story is I'm working on what's the word, nurturing and developing a presence within of a presence that lovingly accepts me and abides with me so that I have me and it doesn't matter. I have a loving voice inside. I have a platform to land on. I don't just go all the way down to the basement. There's something there that I land on within myself that loves me and holds me, and appreciates me and sees me. And I didn't have that when I wrote the memoir. I didn't have it fully when I finished the memoir. I'm still working on it. So, maybe for someone who's afraid to tell her story, writing her story would be part of this developing of kindness and compassion towards oneself, seeing what you've been through, seeing how hard you've tried and what you've been up against and your heroism and just living and that finding some place that loves you and appreciates you and cherishes you and has a heart for you inside yourself.
And I'm working on that really hard because that is what I need to. I'm at the end of my life, towards the end. And that is what I need to do yet, in my life.
Jane Jones (1:00:43)
Thank you. Thank you. I apologize that some that I have at times come across glibly.
Diana Kuper (1:00:54)
You have not.
Jane Jones (1:00:55)
Well, in minimizing, saying everything is fine and it's not fine.
Diana Kuper (1:00:58)
No, you I didn't feel you were glibly and my book does end on a happy note I can totally see why you felt that but I’m just trying to be very honest here and tell you that I would like to write a second book called just living and talk about that the struggle unfortunately or the effort continues It's a lifelong process. I got far.
The book is about how far I got, but I didn't get there where I want to be, where they have inner peace and where I have a loving presence, whether someone's projecting their negativity on me or not, that I can still, I still get triggered. I still feel like, you know, I'm scared, but then I can comfort myself. And then there's somebody in here who says, you're not bad. I love you. I see your goodness. I see who you are. I cherish you. So, you haven't been glib at all.
Jane Jones (1:02:02)
No. All right. I appreciate that dismiss.
Diana Kuper (1:02:07)
No, not at all. You've been very respectful.
Jane Jones (1:02:11)
Thank you. All right. yeah. So, everybody, this book by Diana Kuper it's called Finding Refuge, a memoir, and you can get it on Amazon. And I look forward to possibly having another conversation with you as your writing moves forward with the new book. And, you know, we can see how things go for you and learn from you and be inspired by you.
Diana Kuper (1:02:40)
Thank you so much. This has been very wonderful. I really appreciate you. Appreciate what you're doing with your life, helping women to write. It's beautiful. And I feel honored that you were willing to spend this time with me.
Jane Jones (1:02:54)
Thank you, Diane, I appreciate it.
Thank you for joining the We Women Writers podcast today. I appreciate you taking your time to listen in. I do hope that you've been inspired by this conversation, and I'd like to encourage you to pick up your pen today and write for five minutes. I would love to hear from you.
Please subscribe and leave a review. Until next time, take good care and have a perfectly lovely day.