Lara Tupper
Author photo by Elaina Mortali
Lara Tupper is the author of Off Island, a novel, A Thousand and One Nights, a novel, and Amphibians, a linked short story collection forthcoming in 2021 (winner, Leapfrog Fiction Award). Lara taught creative writing at Rutgers University for many years and now teaches, writes, and sings in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts. A jazz/pop performer who has traveled around the world, her latest album is This
Dance.
Twitter: @laratupper
Is there a work of art that you love. Why? Have you ever visited it in person?
I love Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty in Great Salt Lake, Utah—the scale and whimsy of it. There’s something about the spiral shape. It’s mystical (labyrinths) and commonplace (snails). Smithson made something both supernatural and mundane. I like the idea of earthworks, of ruins, of nature reclaiming what humans make. The spiral changes, depending on the water level of the lake; it’s in a state of flux. I haven’t seen it in person but I hope to someday. As a New Englander, it’s a work of art I’ll have to trek to. The pilgrimage will be part of the adventure. I’ve also spent a lot of time thinking about Paul Gauguin’s Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? (1897-98), which I saw years ago at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. I appreciate the title—I fixate on titles in museums. These three questions are funny because they sound like pick up lines. (Where you from? What’s up? Can we hang out later?) And they’re also the three most important questions we can ask ourselves. I used them as framing devices in my novel, Off Island, which features Gauguin as a character.
Is there another profession you would like to try?
I’d like to be a librarian, to be of service to book lovers and make recommendations. It would be less lonely than writing and I’d be surrounded by books all day. (I idealize the job, I realize.) My local librarians find the titles I want again and again. I see this as a noble act, selfless. They want to help others. Which is why I would deem libraries “essential businesses” right now (with necessary safety precautions intact). And bookstores.
Do you have another artistic outlet in addition to your writing? Do you sew? Paint? Draw? Knit? Dance?
I sing, and this is a great release. I studied jazz in college and considered music as a major for a time. (English won out.) After college, I worked as an entertainer (singer/dancer) on a cruise ship(sequins, feather boa, the whole get-up) and then as a vocalist in a music duo in Hilton hotels in Asia and the Middle East. It was a wonderful way to travel and perform and pay my dues. But it wasn’t as glamorous as I’d hoped. The staff cabins were dark and cramped, well below the water line; the crew mess was disgusting. I based my first novel, A Thousand and One Nights, on these adventures.Now I sing with my husband (Bobby Sweet), a singer-songwriter, and other talented musicians in intimate spots in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts. I love the immediacy of singing to an audience. I know right away if I’ve hit the mark. With writing, I can’t quite know. I don’t get to see the reader’s reaction. Unless I’m at a book event and can gauge a listener’s response. I love that kind of interaction too.
If you could create a museum exhibition, what would be the theme?
I’d like to see an exhibition dedicated to the spouses of famous painters, the ones who enable the artist by taking care of children and home, by setting the stage for art to happen. I’d call it The Shleppers: A Retrospective. Mette Gad Gauguin would be included. She took care of five kids in Denmark as her husband, Paul Gauguin, painted and drank absinthe and had affairs in Tahiti.
What brings you great joy?
My Little Free Library, a birthday present from my husband, complete with cupola, tiny bell and solar lights. He built it by hand and it stands on our driveway for neighbors to leave and take books. I keep it well stocked, which gives me the chance to be a Little Free Librarian.(See above, re: alternate profession.)
