Author Jamie Ford speaks: a sneak preview

Ahead of Jamie Ford’s March 6 appearance at the Lincoln Theatre as a benefit for the La Conner and Burlington libraries, Ford spoke with the Weekly News.

Highlights:

On libraries, both growing up and now?

As a kid, I was a total latch key kid. There was a Carnegie library I would walk to after school. My mom would pick me up from her work. I haunted libraries. I met my wife in the Great Falls public library;

On using libraries today

I am active in my own library and am on the foundation board myself. I use them for research, whether it is Seattle and their historical collection or going to my own library here. When my kids were noisier and a bit younger I would go to the library to edit and find a quiet place to work

The importance of a library to a community?

The libraries now are multipurpose and have general collections and music and movies. There are places for kids to do their homework; for parents of small children there are reading hours. It is a fundamental resource. For people on the margins of society it is their only place for knowledge, for accessing the internet. It is a stepping stone for their bettering their lives.

Say something to teenagers who like to read.

We don’t ban firearms in certain schools but we ban certain books. The power of books can really disturb people and that bothers certain people. As a teenager you should pay attention to things that bother grownups. Books make the comfortable uncomfortable and the uncomfortable comfortable.

What will someone find when picking up a book of yours for the first time?

I think of myself as a storyteller first and a writer second I am always trying to carry someone on a journey rather than dazzle them with my prose. I want to take someone on a little journey that might be an emotional experience. I want people to be absorbed into the world, be immersed.

What is your thinking and process when you are at the start of a new project?

I am really looking for an emotional point of view. Is this going to be a sad book? I think of the emotional currency.

You are empathetic.

That’s my weakness and that’s my super power I am overly empathetic. I can be plugged into to certain things and write with an emotional point of view. I am trying to tell an emotional story, maybe a story from a different point of view and for people who read these stories, if they don’t share that point of view, it is getting their interest.

What is the trajectory and growth of Jamie Ford, the writer?

I want to write all the things. I am working on a speculative piece for a short story. I am working on a historical fiction novel and working on a graphic novel. I am writing poetry, spoken word. I want to do all the tonalities of voice that you can when you are a writer.

Plug “Love and other Consolation Prizes.”

It’s a coming of age love story set in and around Seattle’s two world fairs; 1962 and 1909. I think book clubs will like it because there are a lot of historical things, a lot to chew on, things going on culturally and thematically.