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KANSAN.COM
ART5 & CULTURE
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A Lawrence author's road to the NYT bestseller list
Miranda Clark-Urich/KANSAN al' Things." She was raised in
Bryn Greenwood was recently named a New York Times best-selling author with her novel "All the Ugly and Wonderful Things." She was raised in Hugoton, Kansas, and currently resides in Lawrence, Kansas.
▶ OMAR SANCHEZ
@OhMySanchez
Cutting through the hayfields of southeast Kansas in her old Ford Ranger pickup felt familiar to Bryn Greenwood. The Lawrence author had grown up in Hugoton, Kan., a rural community in the southwest region of the state, so nothing about the quiet landscape was going to surprise her. Not only did she know where she was going, but also what she had just left behind as her tires treaded through the dirt road.
Until she heard the motorcycle.
"I wonder who he is?" asked Greenwood, a recently named New York Times best-selling author, as she looked on through her car window. "I wonder where he's going."
Nearly eight years later, that question — the result of a prolonged state of boredom or a measly distraction to any other common driver — resulted in a surprise phone call at 5:05 p.m. on a mid-January day. A call that told her where she would really be going: onto a list of distinguished authors that pointed toward success.
"My editor called me," Greenwood said. "So that's why, whenever you get a call from an unknown number in New York City, you should always answer it."
Her editor congratulated her after the weekly announcement of New York Times best sellers. Her book "All the Ugly and Wonderful Things" that released in August 2016 had just pushed through the threshold to make the list. The fiction love story with the underpinnings of a grisly reality has connected with the hearts of many who have flipped through her third and most recently published novel.
It was an announcement months, if not years or decades, in the making.
On that day in October 2009, Greenwood was coming back from Arkansas after telling her then-husband her intention to file for divorce. She had moved to Lawrence four years prior and had no intention of leaving.
On her way back, when she focused her attention to the man on the motorcycle driving across that dirt road, she said her mind began churning for answers. She began writing endlessly when she got home, trying to connect the dots. Some 300,000 words later, she said, that answer became Wavonna Wavy Quinn — the main character of "All the Small and Wonderful Things" — as Greenwood began to imagine a little 13-year-old girl hiding in those hayfields. The man on the motorcycle would soon be the model for the novel's love interest: Jesse Joe Kellen.
So that's why, whenever you get a call from an unknown number in New York City,you should always answer it."
Bryn Greenwood NYT Bestselling Author
This method of writing wasn't anything new to Greenwood. Ever since her childhood in a house of seven sisters - different combinations living together after her parents divorced at the age of 2 - she said she would rush to write and read as much as she could when she could find a quiet spot. But for her writing as a child, this was seldom the case, unless Greenwood was able to make it to the local Carnegie library or
wait until she went to her grandparents' house in the summers.
There, the basement was cool and away from the scorching sun, but most importantly, away from the chaos.
"I didn't join any clubs when I was a kid. I didn't really have a lot of friends growing up. I'm still not a joiner or a group activity person," Greenwood said. "I'm pretty much a hermit."
"Hermit" may not exactly be the way that Ben Nyberg, professor emeritus of Kansas State University, would put it.
Nyberg taught Greenwood during her master's program in creative writing and they have remained friends since. For Nyberg, Greenwood is someone who is very much her own person, and that the best ways to see into Greenwood's life is through her books.
In addition to 2016's "All the Ugly and Wonderful Things," Greenwood has written 2012's "Last Will," and 2014's "Lie Lay Lain."
"If you want to understand her, read her books. They'll give you everything you need," he said in email.
In Greenwood's time alone after her divorce — albeit with her two sphynx cats Flannery and Sipporah and two boxes Biggie Bigs and Josey — she took those original 300,000 words as clay and sculpted and molded them into an atypical romantic thriller; each chapter is written in the voice of various characters in the book.
The primary storyline centers around Wavy and Kellen's relationship, which was born from Wavy's druglaced upbringing (her father a meth dealer and mother an addict) and then fostered after the care and attention Kellen could give her despite a barrier of age. Kellen is almost 13 years older than Wavy.
1980s. She also became involved with an older man at a young age.
But, despite stereotypes to the contrary, she said the relationship was a positive experience and helped her be who she is today.
"As a young person, when I was 13, to have an adult who respected my personal boundaries and respected me as a human instead of this child object, it was really liberating," Greenwood said. "I finally
felt like, here is someone who actually respects my opinion on things."
Fans of her book relate to this bond and enjoy escaping their preconceived notions about the story's romance. Danny Caine, a bookseller from the Raven Bookstore in Lawrence, said the unconventional love story speaks to a few key themes, but ultimately conveys one main point that is necessary to understanding the story.
"I think ultimately it is making a certain argument about what family means, so to get caught up in how shocking it is, is to ignore the point that she's trying to make," he said. "There's no one single image of family."
Greenwood today not only writes novels, but also works as a secretary for the University's School of Languages, Literatures & Cultures. She said that most of her brainstorming for her current projects take place while walking, whether that's to work or with her dogs. Once she finds the idea, she'll come back home and sit on her couch with her dogs to get ready to tell another story.
"I like to write at my desk, but my dogs just won't put up with that, so I end up writing usually sitting on my couch," she said.
—Edited by Chandler Boese