Process Talk: Nora Shalaway Carpenter & Rocky Callen on Ab(solutely) Normal

Revealing and hiding the self, finding who you are. accepting that self and all that comes along with it. Accepting others. Refusing to be denied. These are all human ways of being and yet for some of us life itself comes along with labels. Sometimes these can limit and wound; at other times, defining a problem can set a person free. Many ways, many voices, burst out of the stories in Ab(solutely) Normal: Short Stories That Smash Mental Health Stereotypes.

Here’s a glimpse, from “A Body With Wholes” by Texas poet Ebony Stewart:

Note to self: take chances, on purpose.

When the voices turn on you,
When you’re soggy and soiled,
When something is telling you, "You can't do it."
Your insecurities are showing, stop it!
You have permission to fight back.

The multiple voices in this collection fight back against the stereotypes. Please welcome Nora Shalaway Carpenter and Rocky Callen, talking to me about the YA short story anthology they’ve edited. Nora was my student at VCFA, Im proud to say.

This is a diverse collection of stories, in every way—not just the range of voices and circumstances and conditions the characters and narrators bear witness to but also in terms of genre, mood, viewpoints. I asked Nora and Rocky what delighted each of them about this project and here’s what they said:

Rocky and Nora at YALSA, 2021 Image courtesy of Nora Shalaway Carpenter

Nora: Gosh, so many things! First was simply the clear passion the contributors brought to this project. Beginning with Rocky, who responded in I think less than 15 minutes when I first asked if she wanted to collaborate on this book. [laughs] She’d been advised against anthologies in the past (they’re a lot of work, and definitely not for everyone), but she had zero hesitation about going all in on this project with me. I was also delighted (and delightfully surprised) how quickly we were able to fill our contributor list. The writers we reached out to—all of whom had publicly spoken or written about their lived experiences with mental health—said yes so quickly that it was clear each of them were truly passionate about normalizing mental health challenges and breaking down stereotypes. As one educator told me recently, “our kids are not okay.” Teens (and adults) need this book. They need to see themselves and they need to see how to be allies in this fight against this epidemic of declining mental health. Every single contributor in AB(SOLUTELY) NORMAL understands that this book is so much more than another project on their list. I truly believe the anthology is going to save lives. And the reason is the stories, and the incredible heart behind each one.

Rocky: Like Nora said, when I saw her message about this anthology, I was immediately all in. Nora and I both wrote debut novels centered on mental health experiences and it is a mission of mine to use art as a catalyst for meaningful conversations to break the stigma around these experiences. That is what this collection is: art that makes an impact. I was thrilled about the idea, but what truly delighted me is the profound heart and talent that the contributors brought to the page. Witnessing their openness as they tackled their stories was an honor. The other phenomenal part of this whole experience is the community that we have seen gather around this book. We have presented at several conferences and the enthusiasm for this book has been overwhelming. We all need this book. The last thing I have to say is that both Nora and I debuted during the pandemic and to be able to witness the excitement around this book in-person has been phenomenal.

[Uma] What if anything surprised you?

Nora: The amount of heart and openness in each piece surprised me. Even in fiction, mental health challenges can be difficult to write about and sometimes authors overprotect their characters. But every single contributor gave their entire self to their story, and it shows. I tell my writing students that readers can tell when a story is truly cared for by its author and not just written to hit a deadline. These contributors care. The strength of their stories, in my very biased opinion, is phenomenal.

Another wonderful surprise was how open contributors were willing to be in the note to readers that follows each story. Rocky and I asked anyone who felt comfortable to imagine meeting a teen face to face after that teen had just read their story. What would you say to that person? We asked. What would you want them to know? The notes following the stories are one of the most important parts of the book.

Rocky: When we asked for notes from the authors, I hadn’t expected that all of them would want to contribute. It surprised me, but it shouldn’t have. As we have mentioned, our authors gave their hearts to this collection from the beginning. 

[Uma] What did you learn about the process of collecting and curating stories for this anthology? 

Rocky: Nora had tackled an anthology before, but this was my first time. We did share a vision from the very beginning that we wanted this anthology to showcase a diversity of talent, genres, and experiences. We spent a lot of time researching the authors we reached out to and as their stories came in, we thought out the shape of the entire collection. I think that our intentionality early on led to the gorgeously rich, diverse collection that now exists. We wanted poetry, prose, and graphic shorts. We wanted laughter, tears, and swooning. We wanted to see it all in this collection and I think our authors nailed that.

Nora: Once the final drafts of all the stories come in, you start to see a general shape the book can take. We knew as soon as we read Francisco’s play that it would be the perfect ending piece, and I wanted to begin with Rocky’s because I think it sets a nice tone for the book as a whole: genuine, raw, but so full of hope. From there we tried to vary the genre and tones of the stories as we organized them. So for example, one of the anthology’s heavier-toned stories, Sonia Patel’s “Nothing Feels No Pain” is proceeded by my story “Spidey Sense” and immediately followed by Jonathon Lenore Kastin’s “Peculiar Falls,” because my piece and Jonathon’s are two of the lighter-toned pieces. We were also very intentional to space the poetry, graphic short, epistolary, and one-act play among the prose pieces so that the book didn’t end up unbalanced, with one half all prose while the other half was varied genres. On top of that, we also wanted to space out the mental health conditions featured in each piece, both for variety and to give the reader who may be experiencing any of these conditions space to breathe. I love the way the book turned out, and I hope readers do, too.

Includes stories by Sonia Patel, Isabel Quintero, Val Howlett, James Bird, Karen Jialu Bao, Nikki Grimes, Francisco X. Stork, and more. From Candlewick Press, 2023