E.B. Bartels is a writer, editor, and teacher from Massachusetts. She holds a BA in Russian from Wellesley College and an MFA in creative nonfiction from Columbia University’s School of the Arts. Her nonfiction has appeared in Catapult, Electric Literature, The Believer Logger, The Rumpus, The Millions, The Toast, The Butter, Entropy, FullStop, Ploughshares online, and the anthology The Places We’ve Been: Field Reports from Travelers Under 35, among others. She is a regular performer in Mortified, and her flash nonfiction piece “Vulnerable” was the winner of the 2018 Eldridge Tide & Pilot Book Story Contest. She also writes the monthly column Non-Fiction by Non-Men for Fiction Advocate, in which she interviews women and non-binary people who write nonfiction. E.B. is an instructor at the creative writing center GrubStreet, the Wellesley Writes It editor for Wellesley Underground, and an on-again-off-again bookseller at Newtonville Books. In addition to writing, E.B. also works as a freelance editor, a manuscript consultant, a writing coach, a tutor, and a senior editorial writer in the communications and public affairs department at Wellesley College. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband, Richie, and their many, many pets: Terrence (tortoise), Seymour (dog), Bert, Dan, and Murray (pigeons), and assorted fish and shrimp.
This month’s guest Non-Fiction by Non-Men interviewer is Brian Hurley, an editor at Fiction Advocate.
BH: When did you begin writing in general and nonfiction writing specifically?
EB: I feel like it’s a cliche, but I was one of those people who always liked to write. When I was in elementary school, I went to a Montessori school in Lexington, where we could write little books and the teachers would let you laminate the cover in the teachers’ lounge and then you could bind them together with ribbon. I was a huge fan of doing this, and I wrote dozens and dozens of these little books. Favorites included a multi series book about a hamster named Flower and one about a girl who moves to Scotland and becomes friends with the Loch Ness Monster.
As I got older and moved into high school, I found that a lot of the things I was writing that I claimed were fiction were really nonfiction with names changed. In ninth grade did a project inspired by The House on Mango Street. We were supposed to write vignettes about our lives. I’d never done anything like that before and I really loved it. And then I did more personal writing, taking research from my family and turning it into longer vignettes.
By the time I got to college, I had sort of given up on fiction writing entirely. I took a travel writing class, I studied personal essay, and when I was studying abroad in Russia, I wrote a monthly column for the student life magazine, like dispatches from abroad, so I was writing personal essays every month about, you know, shopping for an umbrella in St. Petersburg or whatever.
When I decided that I wanted to go to grad school, I knew I wanted to do MFA programs in creative nonfiction. So that’s where I looked. It was easier then because not everyone offered creative nonfiction in 2012.
BH: What you said about binding and laminating your early stories reminds me how, when you’re young, the impulse to write is kind of inseparable from the impulse to publish. I think we grow up and we start to think of those as two very different things.
EB: Yeah, that’s a good point. It was all about printing it out, stapling it, showing it to your parents. When I wrote those vignettes, I bound them into little books that I gave to my family members. But writing and publishing start to separate more and more, the older you get. It can be frustrating sometimes, as a writer, to feel like you’re not allowed to have any say or control over things once they hit a certain point in the process. I’ve had stuff published online where I didn’t know what the title was until I saw it live. So yeah, I’m very pro zines and bookmaking and all that.
BH: So about your book. I love the phrase “disenfranchised grief.” I circled the hell out of that phrase the first time I saw it. It’s such a great summary of what your book is about—this relationship that is very common, semi-private, and not very well understood. How did you decide to write about this particular topic?
EB: When I went to Columbia for my MFA, my thesis was in some ways an expanded version of the stuff I was writing in high school about my family. My grandfather owns and runs a small insurance agency in Somerville, Massachusetts. It’s been in our family for almost 100 years. I was writing about what it’s like to run an insurance agency, and about intergenerational anxiety—sad things, hard things. So, to take a break from those sad, hard things, I would sometimes write short essays about pets. They were often funny, and they were often dark, and they always ended with how those pets died.
A friend of mine in grad school read one of these essays and said it could be really interesting if you wanted to expand this—if you did some research on different ways people mourn their pets. She told me what her family would do when their parakeets died and it was totally different from what I did when my birds died, and what other people did when their dogs and cats died, because there’s no standard thing to do for pets. She said, I bet people have interesting stories. And I was like, cool, yeah, I’ll research some fun facts to throw into this one essay.
Then I started researching and I fell into this black hole. There are so many different ways that people mourn and remember their pets. Some of them are really creative and unique. When a person dies, you usually have a standard protocol to follow. For example, if you’re raised Catholic and someone in your family dies, you do a wake and a funeral. You have a checklist, which is really helpful when you’re in mourning. With a pet, you’re like, what do I do? But at the same time, because you don’t have a checklist, you can do whatever feels right for you.
I interviewed people, starting with my family. We had two dogs. One we cremated and scattered his ashes because he was very adventurous, and he would want to be like free and roaming in the wind. Our other dog was such a homebody that we were like, no, we’re going to just bury her by the house because that’s where she would want to be. And I talked to other people who did all kinds of different things. It was really refreshing and special to see what happens when you don’t have any cultural boundaries or restrictions.
I started weaving in those things. I was writing and it was getting longer and longer. And then in 2017, I’d been teaching high school English, full-time, middle school and high school, and I said, you know what, I’m going to quit. I’m going to focus on freelancing and teaching at GrubStreet [a creative writing center in Boston]. And I put together my book proposal because I realized that if I didn’t try to sell it based on proposal, I would—no joke—spend the rest of my life researching this topic. So I was like, I need a deadline I need like to be held accountable by other people.
BH: That’s great! I love how turning it into a book project was the only way for you to stop writing more and more about it. Did you know, at that stage, what the organizing principle of the book would be, with each chapter featuring an animal and a theme?
EB: Sort of, although it did evolve a couple times. I have always loved nonfiction that blends personal and research. Eula Biss is one of my favorites, and Bonnie Tsui who wrote Why We Swim. I really love it when people mash those two things up.
Initially I thought it was going to be more chronological, 75% memoir and 25% research. But I started to realize the personal stories were a good way to jump into these different topics, and now I would say it’s 25% memoir and 75% research. Mary Roach’s Stiff was a great guide for me, and so was Caitlin Doughty’s From Here to Eternity. In both books, each chapter opens with a personal anecdote that is used to talk about a bigger issue. At first, I felt like I had to talk about all my pets in the order that I had them, and I still sort of do that, but I realized it would help if I if I grouped them into categories based on type of animal.
While writing Good Grief, I read a ton of fiction, too, and I was thinking about what makes good tension. I wanted the stakes to get higher and higher as I was reading, so that was part of why I decided to start with what people think of as the lowest-stakes pets, which would be fish, and then I ended with dogs, which is sort of the order in which kids beg for pets, right? Originally, I had, I think thirteen chapters, and then my editor helped me consolidate and cut it down to eight. Like, I had a chapter on aquatic turtles and one on desert tortoises and I was like, okay, we can just put those together.
BH: Wow. I definitely felt the stakes ratcheting up from beginning to end without being aware of it until just now. You sort of answered something else I was curious about. Did you did you finish your research and then stop to write, or did you research a little bit and then write a little bit before deciding where to go next?
EB: This is something I talk about with my students at GrubStreet a lot, and my personal feeling is… well, let me back up.
Susan Orlean, another nonfiction writer who I admire greatly, was saying that she always does all her research before she writes anything. Because she feels very strongly that she doesn’t want to go in with any preconceived notions. But that does not work for me. For this book, because I wanted to do a broad range of different cultures and countries and past and present, I had to write a bit and then figure out, oh, okay, it would it would help if I interviewed some people who have had their animal taxidermied and then I would write some more and be like, would it help if I talked to some more veterinarians?
I sold the book in January 2019 on proposal and turned in the first full draft in January 2020. When I got my first round of feedback in March 2020, my editor at the time, Naomi Gibbs, was very kind but told me nicely that my book was going to get bumped from 2021 to 2022 because of this “COVID thing” that they didn’t really know much about yet. Also, Naomi said I needed to do more research, because she thought I needed more scenes and more interviews with professionals. So I kind of paused and did more research over that whole COVID summer. I did tons of zoom interviews. That was a very long way of saying I went back and forth between writing and research.
BH: So your editor asked you to do more research. Do you remember which parts of the book wouldn’t have existed if your editor hadn’t done that?
EB: Well, it was really valuable because it made me think about why I love books like Stiff and Why We Swim. I love those interviews with experts and those mini-profiles, and I realized I wasn’t really doing that. Often I was just rattling off a lot of interesting facts or quotes from books. And I needed more people to like, hold and show those facts, you know? So it was really valuable feedback.
Another thing that sort of happened simultaneously was that my editor I realized the vast majority of people I had spoken to for the book were white cis women between the ages of 35 and 65. These were my peers, or people my mom’s age, who had pets who were willing to talk with me. It was interesting to think about who has the means to have pets, who has the means to have an elaborate funeral or create these different memorials. I wanted to diversify the voices I was featuring in my book. So, in that revision phase in spring and summer 2020, I specifically sought out pet owners of color or pet owners of different socioeconomic backgrounds. I took that time to reflect on who I’d already spoken to and who was missing from the text.
BH: How do you approach writing about people you love? Did you let your family read things ahead of time? Did you give them veto power? Or did you just say, here’s what’s getting published, take it or leave it.
EB: My family is always aware of what I’m writing about because I’m always texting them and calling them with questions. My parents often joke that they get a text from me and they’re like, oh God, we have to go find the photo albums and help do research. My family is at least always peripherally aware of what I’m writing about, because we’ll have pizza on a Sunday night, and I’ll be casually asking them questions like, so when did Samantha the Yorkie die again?
For this book, it was really important to me that the people I’m closest to felt like I had accurately represented them. My parents, my grandfather, my husband Richie, and my friend Meri—two of the pets I write about are hers. For those people I was like, are you comfortable with me sharing this? My grandfather in particular, because he told me that story about his dog and the really difficult thing that he did. And he cried again when we talked about it, but he was like, you need to write about what you need to write about. And if you think it’s helpful for the book, you should put it in. I think his story is a really important one and a really gutting one. Richie was reading it and he said, I think your grandfather’s the runaway star of this book.
BH: Is this the same grandfather who had had a box turtle named Charlie Brown? And your book is called Good Grief? And the epigraph is from Charles Schultz? Let’s be honest—you’re a little obsessed with Peanuts, right?
EB: One of my first stuffed animals was Snoopy. I don’t know, my family was just really into Peanuts and Charlie Brown and Snoopy.
When I was working on the book proposal, the book was actually called Dead Pets. And when I sold it, the editors were like, we need to change the title, we want this to be a book that you could give to somebody whose animal just died. So we had a long conversation about what to call it, and in the end I came to Good Grief for a couple of reasons. One, it’s evocative of one of the most famous human-dog relationships in literature [Snoopy and Charlie Brown]. And I like how has like an exasperated tone. Like, we keep getting these pets and they keep dying. Why do we do this? And it’s about the type of grief, right? Like if, if having pets wasn’t worth it, we wouldn’t keep putting ourselves through grief over and over.
BH: Were you surprised or inspired by any of the weird stuff that you encountered while researching this book?
EB: Definitely. There was so much stuff that I didn’t know existed.
One of the taxidermists I interviewed, Lauren Kane, will often do a cast of the animal’s nose or like paw prints, because some people squeamish about getting their whole animal taxidermied. She’ll even taxidermy, like, one ear, or just the tail, so you can have this little piece to pet or hold on to. And I’m not going to lie, I’ve thought about doing that with Terrence, my tortoise, because he has this beautiful shell.
BH: We have some friends whose 18-year-old pug died a few weeks ago. And my partner made a lava brownie pie thingy, and decorated it with frosting to look like a pug’s face. I didn’t know how that was gonna go over. Like, we’re gonna go to our friends, who are in mourning, and say, Eat the face of your beloved pet.
EB: Oh, that’s great. So many people feel awkward when a friend loses a pet or and they don’t know what to do. My advice is, think about what you would do if you found out someone lost a human family member and do the same thing. Bring food, send flowers and a card, give them a gift certificate to their favorite restaurant so they don’t have to cook. Grief is grief.
BH: Let’s talk about your writing community. Who do you turn to for support, aside from the people who are mentioned in the book?
EB: I have like a core group of friends from my Columbia MFA cohort who have read different chapters and versions of this book, and all of those writers have pets. So they really get it from multiple levels. I shared drafts with them and we had Zoom writing sessions because we live in different places now.
Some people are extremely guarded about what they’re writing. For me, when I’m in early phases of something, often I don’t want to talk about it because I’m still figuring it out. But once I’m fully immersed in a project, all I want to do is talk about it with everybody.
And I like I feel like I had hundreds of research assistants for this book, because I was posting about it on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook, and people who I hadn’t talked to in a long time would send me a Facebook DM and be like, Hey, I saw this obituary for a tortoise in the newspaper in my town thought you’d like to see it. I felt extremely supported by lots of people who just, like, went for a run and saw a pet cemetery and would text me photos. That gave me a lot of confidence that the thing I was working on had value and people were interested in reading it. Many people have reached out to me when they’ve lost an animal, to see if I can help, and that is really encouraging for me.
It’s been almost ten years I’ve been working on this book. I wrote the first essays in 2012, and I started doing some peripheral research in 2013. It’s been a long time. And my students were really supportive and encouraging. They shared their own pet stories, or they sent me ideas or articles they found. And I am so grateful because when you’re working on a project for this long, there are so many times when you’re like, it’s too much, I can’t do this anymore. I would hit a wall, and then someone would come out of the woodwork and be like, hey, in case you missed it, there was an article about a bridge in Scotland where they think dogs are committing suicide and I’d be like, thank you!
BH: What do you find is the most challenging part of writing nonfiction and what’s the most rewarding?
EB: For me, the most challenging part of this book was synthesizing all the research and the memoir pieces together. In early drafts, I had a more personal and conversational tone when I was talking about my own pets. And then I would shift and put on my journalist hat and have a very different tone for talking about, like, Mozart’s funeral for his Starling and all this stuff. The challenge was figuring out how to kind of smooth those tones together, how to have both voices make sense, how to show moments of humor and absurdity within the research.
Because it’s sort of absurd, right? No one forces us to develop these really intimate relationships where you adopt a dog and you know it’s going to devastate you ten years from now when the dog dies. No one’s putting a gun to your head and saying fall in love with this puppy! I was always trying to figure how to balance the absurdity and humor of it, and the sadness that goes along with it.
The most rewarding part for me, by far, is using writing to connect with other people. That’s why I love nonfiction in particular. In 2014, I had three versions of pet stories [that are now in the book] published on The Toast, and normally I don’t read the comments, but I did read the comments on those pieces. People were sharing their pet stories, and saying, oh, my gosh, I also had a pet that ran away, I’m still not over it. And it felt so wonderful to hear people connect with something I was sharing. Because so often when you’re writing, you’re like, Am I the only one who thinks this or feels this? And when you’re upset about pets, you’re like, Am I the only person who’s this upset about their goldfish dying? And it’s so nice to be like, no, lots of people feel this way.
I joke that now everyone comes up to me and tells me their dead pet stories. But I love it because it means they get to share something that maybe they haven’t shared before. I just started a Good Grief Instagram account where I’m going to be reposting people’s personal stories about the pets they’ve had.
I see nonfiction as a way to start a conversation. I’m not saying I know all the answers about what to do when your pet dies, but I’m hoping this book is a starting point to talk about it.
BH: That’s wonderful. I love that you’re staying in this space and facilitating these connections for people. You’re building a way for readers to connect with each other through your work.
EB: Did you know that most newspapers don’t allow pet obituaries? Some people think it’s disrespectful to the humans who have died, like it’s not appropriate to mix species. But we need spaces where people can share obituaries about their animals, and social media is great for that. People who aren’t interested can scroll by and ignore it. But the people who understand can engage.
When I was nannying for the girl who I write about in the fish chapter, that family also had a cat. And a few years after I stopped working for them, the cat died. I remember the mom posted on Facebook, asking people to share their favorite memories of the cat because she was going to print them out and put them in a book. And I shared a memory of one night when I was babysitting, and I was having a really hard day, and the cat seemed to notice. He was extra affectionate with me. And I thought it was so nice that the mom could use Facebook to gather those stories, like what happens at a wake or a funeral.
BH: You’ve been running this interview series, Non-Fiction by Non-Men, for many years, interviewing a great nonfiction writer every month. How have these interviews influenced your own writing?
EB: Oh my god, I have learned so much from doing this series! I’ve learned how to talk to people and ask better questions. And I’ve learned so much from people sharing their writing process and their craft process. Especially the question you asked about how do you handle writing about your loved ones? I think it was T Kira Madden in particular. We talked about that, and she said you have to figure out what’s right for each project. Like, even if you’re writing about your two siblings, you may have a very different relationship with one than the other. It’s been very reassuring to talk to these super-successful, brilliant, famous nonfiction writers and find out like they also freak out about, like, their mom reading their essays.
I love hearing about the different challenges that people have, because it makes you feel a little less alone. So many people agree with the rewarding element—that it’s about sharing stories and finding connection. The human condition is very isolating sometimes, and nonfiction such a great way to change that. So yeah, I love this series. I would do this series forever.
BH: Last question. What is a favorite passage of nonfiction by a fellow non-man?
EB: Well, I think I have to quote perhaps the greatest animal writer of all time, Sy Montgomery. Maybe my next interview series can be Non-Fiction by Non-Men about Non-Humans?
I love Sy’s memoir How To Be a Good Creature. Read it if you haven’t already!
I often wish I could go back in time and tell my young, anxious self that my dreams weren’t in vain and my sorrows weren’t permanent. I can’t do that, but I can do something better. I can tell you that teachers are all around to help you; with four legs or two or eight or even none; some with internal skeletons, some without. All you have to do is recognize them as teachers and be ready to hear their truths.
Author photos by Small Circle Studio, Inc.