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We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Loretta Goldberg. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Loretta below.
Loretta, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.
I’m honored to share my small story with your readers. I haven’t run into burning building to save victims, alas, but I have taken risks with my creative work: author now and professional pianist before.
The risks I took to realize my ideas have blocked me from some opportunities, but unimagined rewards have come, so I’m excited to float in this zone of uncertainty. First, I was retired when my first novel was published by a small traditional press, and my second novel six years after that. One thing I don’t worry about is a decline from youthful success! It’s soothing; I can have a sense of humor about my rejections and mistakes.
With my second novel, Beyond the Bukubbuk Tree: A World War II Novel of Love and Loss, (published June 2024) I took a big risk. It’s set in Rabaul, Papua New Guinea. The inspiration was an army uncle doctor I never met. He sent the family this photograph of a young Tolai girl before the Japanese invaded Rabaul. She’s compelling; she screams to me to be a character. It’s currently not acceptable practice here for a white author to create a character with a point of view and race that isn’t the author’s own; it’s called ‘cultural appropriation.’ But I felt strongly that the diverse population of Rabaul required representing the POV of the majority indigenous Tolai community and the Chinese entrepreneurs in the colonial town. A top developmental editor advised me to only see the Chinese and Tolai characters from the perspectives of the white Australian soldiers, as US publishers would reject any cultural appropriation in a ms.
I couldn’t do it; the Japanese invasion upended everyone’s life. Although indigenous Tolai were exploited and treated with cruel contempt by the colonizing Germans then Australians, they kept some of their land; their experience was different from African American slaves or the decimated American Indians. After immersing myself in Tolai anthropology and mythology for three years, getting a Tolai Sensitivity Reader and doing site visits, I submitted the manuscript. I got several rejections, but two non-US small presses offered me a traditional contract. I hired traditional garamut (slit log drum) players for the book trailer. Being engaged with Tolai culture has brought me new friends I cherish, and, based on the industry and customer reviews so far, readers here really appreciate this aspect of the novel.
In my debut novel, The Reversible Mask: An Elizabethan Spy Novel, I took a different risk. I wated to explore what a compartmentalized life felt like. My fictional anti-hero was modelled on a double agent of the time, Sir Anthony Standen, a sincere Catholic who left Protestant England and served Catholic monarchs in Europe until they threatened England, whereupon he rediscovered his equally sincere patriotism and became Elizabeth I’s best spy abroad. I was fascinated by how a double agent for whom betrayal is the job, squares his conscience. Spies motivated by idealism have to create their own moral codes, red lines they won’t cross. Staying with my protagonist’s unresolvable conflicts doesn’t satisfy a reader’s natural emotional need for a good versus bad-guy ending– I have this need myself in fiction and TV series– but The Reversible Mask is true to its tumultuous time. I’ve received amazing letters from readers who identify with my protagonist’s struggle, although they aren’t spies. I’m humbled and grateful that both novel have won multiple awards.
As a professional pianist, I had a solid classical training but never felt my interpretations of Schubert added anything to audiences. One life choice would have been a PhD and academic career, which many of my close musician friends did, an integrated focus. I’ll never know what that life would have been like. I supported myself by building a financial services practice, during which I managed to pursue my fascination with new music that explored the evolving piano technology, premiering works written for me to perform and record. It was a less integrated life, but on the other hand, I understand money, which is lovely, and useful to my family! In my first CD Tone Over Tone, I played two pianos at once, tuned differently. This allowed for 24 tones per octave, opening up a wide range of new possibilities. It was a fantastic adventure, if athletically harrowing. Still, bringing new woks to life was worth every discomfort, and some of discography are in over 700 libraries.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I was born and educated in beautiful Melbourne, Australia, an only child of a mother who died far too young. I’m a citizen of both Australia and the USA. I earned a BA (Hons.) in English literature, Musicology and History at the University of Melbourne and taught at the English Department of the University of Melbourne, But I didn’ feel life-spun enough to teach literature or write. I came to the USA on a Fulbright scholarship to study piano and stayed. For many years the rightness or wrongness of a note in music felt more grounded than words. In 2014 I sold my financial services practice to write. The wheel turning full circle and however well or badly I do, I’m home. I commute between Connecticut and New York City, and am lucky to have a loving spouse, family, colleagues from all my professional ventures and good friends.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
Moving from piano playing to writing, I assumed that structure would be no problem, trasferring that skill would happen naturally. As a piano interpreter, structure was what I did best. I did good climax!!! But, silly silly me. That was conveying some great composer’s or modern young composer’s hard-won choices of what they left OUT to make structure. At the begnning of my writing I had verbal diarrhea. It too a very long time before I went back to some of the starkest music I liked and looked at what the composer left out. Additionally, I came to historical fiction from a love of history. I loved facts. Factoids sent shivers of excitement down my spine. These I had to learn to leave out in order to create character driven arc.
Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
When I graduated from high school I wanted to be a journalist. There was a good technical school in Melbourne. But my parents discouraged me, persuading me to do a standard full college degree, and the University of Melbourne where I had a scholarship, and it is a great university. Still, I regret the skills I missed: mastery of research tools, pursuing investigative stoires, and writing sharp and short.
Contact Info:
- Website: https:lorettagoldberg.com
- Instagram: Instagram@lorettagoldbergwriter
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/LorettaGoldbergAuthor
- Linkedin: Linkedin
- Youtube: Loretta Goldberg + Mazeppa
Image Credits
Garamut players: Francis Toiar and Francis Totu, garamut owners Edward Malana and Oscar Toma in Rabaul. The Book Trailer has just won an Honorable Recognition from the International Firebird Book Awards.
Loretta Goldberg standing by a bukubu tree
At book signing January 21, Henry Carter Hull Library in Clinton, Connecticut. With Jack Knapp, expert in vintage car technology who helped with the two car crash scened in Beyond the Bukubuk Tree.
https://canvasrebel.com/meet-loretta-goldberg/
