Writer Series: Interview with Jennifer Mascia

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Since there are so many incredible women writers on skirt.com, we are doing a summer series of interviews with successful female authors from all genres to inspire the skirt! nation to write their hearts out. We're hoping an insider's view of the writing process will help you in your own endeavors.

From the book jacket of "Never Tell Our Business to Strangers" by Jennifer Mascia:

When Jennifer Mascia is five years old, the FBI comes for her father. At that moment Jenny realizes that her family isn't exactly normal. What follows are months of confusion marked by visits with her father through thick glass, talking to him over a telephone attached to the wall. She and her mother crisscross the country, from California to New York to Miami and back again. When her father finally returns home, months later, his absence is never explained—and Jenny is told that the family has a new last name. It's only much later that Jenny discovers that theirs was a life spent on the lam, trying to outrun the law.

The family sees wild swings in wealth—one year they're shopping for Chanel and Louis Vuitton at posh shopping centers in Los Angeles, the next they're living in one room and subsiding on food stamps. When Jenny, at twenty-two, uncovers her father's criminal record during an Internet search, still more questions are raised. As Jenny unravels her family's dark secrets, she must confront the grisly legacy she has inherited and the hard truth that her parents are not—and never have been who they claimed to be.

Did you always want to be a writer?

JM: No. I was convinced I would be Meryl Streep. I wanted to be an actor. I was a theater major. Right before I graduated my dad died of lung cancer. I never went to an audition. Not one. I became a news junkie instead and wanted to write for the New York Times. Suddenly a light flicked on and everything became clear. I decided to go back to Columbia Journalism School at 27 years old. Now I'm on the Metro Desk at the Times. 

How did you feel when you discovered your dad was a criminal?

JM: I was expecting to see petty theft or racketeering when I went digging into his past. That's what my mom had told me. But then it was murder. I found out he did 12 years in Sing Sing before I was born. He worked with people in the Gambino family. My mom said that she had met my dad through friends but then I found out they connected while he was in jail. They were both in the prison reform movement and that's how they met. After I was born, he was arrested for dealing drugs, which was a parole violation. We ran to Houston and we were fugitives. We used a different last name. I was the only one in the family who didn't know.

What was your dad like? 

JM: He was the black sheep that everyone loved. He was so sweet and nice to everyone. You never would have known. Some years after he died I found out he killed a number of guys after I was born. I had to reevaluate my childhood. 

How did you feel discovering that your Dad had an affair with your Aunt (your mom's sister)?

JM: As a kid I kind of had this feeling about him and Rita. I was 12 when we took our first plane ride to Miami to see her. My mom didn't fly, so my Dad and I went alone. I found out later that's when the affair started. We were living above our means a lot. We went bankrupt a bunch of times. Rita and my dad had a homemade cocaine business over FedEx. My mom always tried to keep him out of jail, so the way he betrayed my mom by cheating with her sister...(pause) it would have invalidated the last 25 years of her life if she had known.

Were you worried about telling this story to the world?

JM: I was worried I wasn't a skilled enough reporter. But I found out I knew a lot. I thought, "I don't have enough of a story with just the three of us. I'm going to have get more opinions, talk to people, etc..." But it was the memoir stuff that the editors ended up really liking. It's the minutiae that people love.

I focused on the memoir part and it was like I was summoning the past. It was my way of owning up to my history. All of it was just waiting to come out.

Can you see yourself writing fiction as well? 

JM: Fiction is a total skill set that I don't have. I want to take non-fiction subjects and explain them to the world. I am a fan of long form journalism and I'd like to stick to that.

Who are some of your favorite writers and websites for writers?

JM: Joan Didion who wrote so eloquently about L.A. versus New York. I was also bicoastal and was always fascinated by that. I'm a newsperson so I love news sites. But also nymag.com, jezebel.com, The Huffington Post, McSweeney's, gawker.com and the blogs on New Yorker are good.

How did you get your book deal?

JM: My master's advisor at Columbia worked at the New York Times. I started writing about my parents and I was going to pitch the story to the Modern Love section of Sunday Styles. I asked my advisor to read it and she said it should be a book. She gave the 7 pages I'd written to one of her husband's agents and he wanted to sign me. I did the proposal and Random House bought it. I immediately thought, "How am I going to get out of this?" (with a laugh).

How important is it to have a good editor? 

JM: I had a good editor who was the head of the imprint. So after I turned in the first draft, that editor was fired. I panicked. I thought the project was dead in the water. Then I got an editor that was 2 years older than me. It was great because we were in the same age range. They all made it so easy. It just poured out of me.

What would you do if you weren't a writer?

JM: It's really the only thing I can do. I've always been a writer. Even when I wasn't a writer, I was a writer. I've always been processing all the stimulus around me.

If you have questions for Jennifer (about writing, her family or the book), leave them in the comments section and we'll get the answers for you and repost them.