Today I’m interviewing Rachel Rueckert about her memoir, East Winds: A Global Quest to Reckon with Marriage.
Bio:
Rachel Rueckert is a prize-winning writer and MFA graduate from Columbia University. She co-founded KLEIO, a family history writing company, and holds an M.Ed from Boston University. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Independent and dozens of newspapers and literary journals. Rachel now serves as the Editor in Chief of Exponent II, a feminist magazine established in 1974 for women and gender minorities across the Mormon experience. She is a seventh-generation Utahan who splits her time between Boston and Salt Lake City. East Winds is her first book.
Please tell us about your current release.
East Winds comes out on November 15 from BCC Press. It opens with a scene of me panicking as I lay awake on the first night of my year-long honeymoon—a backpacking trip around the world. Though young and in love, I wasn’t sure I actually believed in marriage, let alone the lofty Mormon ideal of eternal marriage. This unconventional honeymoon felt like a brief reprieve from the crushing expectations for a Mormon bride. But this trip also offered opportunities: the chance to study wedding traditions in other cultures and the space to confront what marriage—including my own—meant to me.
Along the way, I got kicked out of Peru, escaped rabid dogs in the Amazon, stumbled upon democracy protests in Hong Kong, launched an unlucky lantern in Thailand, and trekked five hundred miles across Spain in sandals. These experiences helped me confront my tumultuous past, question my inherited relationship models, and embrace my restless nature within marriage—exchanging faith in certainty for faith in the day-to-day choice of partnership and faith in myself.
East Winds is written in the tradition of Elizabeth Gilbert’s Committed, Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, and Tara Westover’s Educated. Too many love stories end with marriage. This one starts there instead.
I’m grateful for the folks who have offered advance praise for East Winds, including Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Phillip Lopate, Gary Shteyngart, Wendy S. Walters, Allison K Williams, and Michael Greenberg. East Winds also received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews, who called it “An engrossing exploration of a hard but ultimately exhilarating trek toward love and commitment.”
What inspired you to write this book?
I wasn’t as much inspired to write this book as I was driven to it. I had to write this memoir. As Toni Morrison once said, “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” This memoir was the missing book I needed to read and thus needed to write myself, a soul-dive of a project extending eight years while wading through many selves. It is the book I wish I could have given to my younger self.
What exciting project are you working on next?
I’m so thrilled about my latest manuscript. Tentatively titled “If the Tide Turns,” this novel is based on a true story set in 1715 Cape Cod. It is a Romeo and Juliet meets the Golden Age of Pirates for fans of Kirstin Hannah’s historical fiction.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
I’ve always known I was a writer, but it took me until my late twenties to embrace that term without qualifiers. I talk about this in one chapter of East Winds. While on a 500-mile walking pilgrimage across Spain, I met a wonderful friend named Kim who challenged me to be able to say “I am a writer” by the time we reached our destination. Ever since, then I’ve tried to own the title without too much self-deprecation, because I worked hard to get here.
Do you write full-time? If so, what’s your work day like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
My first career was as a high school special education teacher. After that, I worked in curriculum. Now, I’m a one-person act juggling writing, teaching, and editing—always writing in the margins of very busy days. I don’t mind the chaos. I spend all my days with stories in various ways, and that fills me to the brim with joy (even if it doesn’t fill the pockets as well).
What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I type really hard on my laptop. I don’t know why, and neither do the people who give me the side-eye in the library. My keys are worn-down like an old piano.
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to be the person who painted seasonal murals on grocery store windows. Maybe there is still time for me.
Anything additional you want to share with the readers?
I often get asked about the Mormonism in East Winds. I wrote this for a universal audience and see myself as a universal character who happened to grow up a certain way that heightened the tension of this pressing question about commitment and marriage.
East Winds is not a spiritual memoir or a book about Mormonism, nor is it trying to be. Mormonism refers to a distinct culture that lives alongside the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Speaking personally, I have rarely seen my complex Mormon experience represented in mainstream comedic farce, polygamy series, or murder dramas—created and at times sensationalized by people who have, more often than not, never been Mormon. My story is just one Mormon’s experience, but it is one Mormon’s experience.
Links:
Website | Social media links | Preorders | Book Trailer
Thanks for being here today, Rachel!