www.dogtownthebook.com/ featured alum// ELYSSA EAST
After attending Salt, Elyssa East worked as the Managing Director of the Maine Summer Dramatic Institute and Executive Producer of Shakespeare in Deering Oaks Park. In 2001 she moved to New York City to attend Columbia University's School of the Arts where she received an M.F.A. in Creative Writing. After Columbia, Elyssa worked as a Nonfiction Reviews Editor at Publisher's Weekly. Her book Dogtown: Death and Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town won the L.L. Winship/P.E.N. New England Award and was named a "Must-Read Book" by the Massachusetts Book Awards.

//Photograph [right] by Michael Maysarosh

Hear Elyssa talk about her latest book Dogtown in a video by Simon&Schuster.

Q&A//
Salt: Tell us a little bit about the process of writing your new book Dogtown. How long were you working on it?
EE: I worked on Dogtown: Death and Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town over a ten-year period. That's not to suggest that I worked on it every day though a sloth might have researched and written this book faster than me. While working on the book I had various full-time jobs or I was a full-time student juggling a few different part-time jobs. I also live in New York and most of the research I needed to do required that I be in Massachusetts so that slowed things down considerably.

Salt: You've gotten some great feedback on Dogtown, how does that feel?
EE: It's extremely gratifying. I feel very grateful toward all the people who've supported me with this book, particularly given all that was involved with it. Receiving support from writers such as Joyce Carol Oates and Elizabeth Strout and many others helped validate the time, effort and emotion that I poured into this project. I am especially appreciative of the fact that my intention to capture the spirit of this unusual and enigmatic landscape was recognized by most everyone.

Salt: What are you up to these days?
EE: Dogtown was published in December 2009 and up until May I was promoting the book pretty much full-time. In June I started working on something new, but I'll also be putting my publicity hat back on in October when the paperback edition comes out.

Salt: Can you tell us about a project past or present that you're particularly close to? What's your favorite?
EE: I made the choice to really focus on one project over doing a lot of shorter pieces so Dogtown is the project that I'm closest to at this stage. The main threads of the book are the story of a true crime and my explorations of this mysterious, forgotten place, but they are woven through with four hundred years of history, folklore, geology, and art. There were so many different components to the story researching each was not unlike having a bunch of smaller projects that were eventually folded into one.


Elyssa at Dogtown's launch at WORD Bookstore in Brooklyn, New York. //Photograph by abdi aminlari of 3 PHOTOGRPAHERS

Salt: Who are you listening to/looking at/reading right now? What inspires you?
EE: For me, inspiration is a state of mind that attaches itself to something either concrete or abstract so I can be inspired by anything, really. You could say I read a lot though I truly don't read enough. Recently I read two stunning books set in Kashmir by writer named Jaspreet Singh. I just started Flaubert's Sentimental Education and am re-examining parts of Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, which is one of many books I frequently revisit.

Salt: What's your 5-year plan looking like these days?
EE: I don't think in terms of five-year plans. To me, writing -- and life -- are processes of discovery. It's hard to be open to possibility if there is a plan in the way.

Salt: Can you tell us about something you learned or experienced while you were at Salt that you refer back to today?
EE: Pam Wood, who was the director of Salt when I was there, had long wanted a story on country music in Maine. No one was willing to cover it and though I'm not much of a country music fan by any stretch of the imagination, I was game because I knew Pam wanted the piece. The first country music event I went to was so derivative and boring I almost fell asleep. I thought this topic was going to be the death of me and wondered if Pam was crazy, but I trusted her. She knew Maine better than me and also knew that country music satisfied an emotional need for Mainers that I hadn't yet tapped into. But while at an event when I was beginning to wonder if I should switch topics, I learned that Maine is full of b.y.o.b. country music dance halls called Bottle Clubs where people go Friday and Saturday nights. The Bottle Clubs were tucked in the woods seemingly in the middle of nowhere and were a world unto themselves. They were also regularly packed with hundreds of people dancing -- some beautifully or and others hilariously so. I loved them because of the fearlessness with which people threw themselves into expressing their longings and desires. Even though initially I couldn't connect to country music as a subject, I trusted Pam's experience and had the doggedness to figure out how to make the story mine. That still works for me today.

Salt: What advice can you offer fellow documentarians?
EE: The advice I often give people is to not give up. Most of writing is re-writing so persistence is as important as talent. Patience and discipline are also critical. You have to give a story time to see how it will shape itself and come to life.


Elyssa visits Salt!