Eliana Ramage - TO THE MOON AND BACK

[00:10] Cindy: Welcome to Thoughts from a Page, a member of the Evergreen Podcasts Network. I'm Cindy Burnett, and I am so glad you're here. I personally select and read every book featured on the show so I can bring you thoughtful spoiler free author interviews.

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[01:04] I am so grateful.

[01:06] Today, Eliana Ramage joins me to chat about To the Moon and Back. I am always totally intrigued by stories set about space or in space. It's something that I think would be absolutely fascinating to do.

[01:18] This one also appealed to me because it is partly set in Oklahoma, where my entire family is from.

[01:23] I love reading about that part of the country.

[01:26] Eliana holds an MFA in Fiction from the Iowa Writers Workshop. She has received residencies and fellowships from the Kimmel Harding Nelson center for the Arts, Lambda Literary, Tin House, and the Vermont Studio Center.

[01:38] A citizen of the Cherokee Nation, she lives in Nashville with her family.

[01:42] I hope you enjoy our conversation.

[01:47] Welcome Eliana. How are you today?

[01:49] Eliana: I'm doing so well. Very happy to be here.

[01:51] Cindy: I'm so glad you're here as well. And I thoroughly enjoyed To the Moon and Back and I cannot wait to chat about it.

[01:58] Eliana: Thank you so much.

[01:59] Cindy: Why don't we start out with you giving me a quick synopsis for those that haven't read it yet?

[02:03] Eliana: Yes,

[02:04] okay, so this book is called To the Moon and Back.

[02:08] And just starting at the very beginning, we have Steph.

[02:13] She's our main character. She's five years old, in the backseat of a car beside her sister and their mother. Hannah is driving them through the night out of one life and into another.

[02:22] And while that's happening, Steph is picking shards of glass out of her little sister's hair and staring up at the moon.

[02:29] And by morning the family will have run away, but also run back to what was home a couple of generations ago.

[02:39] They're going to be in a small Cherokee community and also Steph will have become absolutely determined to become an astronaut.

[02:47] From there we have a book about ambition.

[02:50] It's a family saga about mothers and daughters, about sisters,

[02:55] about queer chosen family.

[02:57] And it is a coming of age novel.

[03:01] Cindy: Well, the first thing I want to ask is a little more personal to me. My family is from Oklahoma and I have spent so much time there. I loved that a portion of the story was set there.

[03:10] How did you decide to do that?

[03:12] Eliana: How did I decide to have the first part of this be in Oklahoma? I didn't know about the astronaut stuff right away,

[03:21] but I did know that Steph was going to have a mother who was really concerned about this idea of going back and this idea of home. Cherokee Nation is fascinating to me as the largest federally recognized tribe.

[03:36] And a whole another conversation just how tribal citizenship works. Basically we have a lot of Cherokee Nation citizens like myself who did not grow up in Oklahoma.

[03:46] And so for my family that means that my grandfather on my mother's side is the one who left Oklahoma, went from there to Texas,

[03:57] Georgia, east Tennessee. So all of this kind of wandering around like World War II. And all along there was such a feeling that he imparted to the next generation and now the next of what home is, even if that's like geographically not where he was raising his daughters or where I was raised.

[04:14] So I knew before I even knew that Steph was an astronaut. I knew that there was going to be a Cherokee character, in this case Steph's mother, who had a really strong sense of identity that could be attached to place.

[04:28] But in her case she did not grow up there. And in her daughter's case, her daughter wants to be on the moon. Um, so what do we do with that in terms of what makes a person Cherokee?

[04:37] Cindy: I loved learning more about Cherokee history as well. Was that interesting for you? Did you know most of it already? Did you have to do some research? What did that look like?

[04:46] Eliana: Oh gosh, I love that question. Because I was thinking about it actually right when I started writing the book, um, I was in college and thinking for the first time about what it would mean to be Cherokee outside of my parents’ home.

[04:57] And that was when it really occurred to me that the first Cherokee story I'd ever heard was probably the first Cherokee story that a lot of non-Cherokees also here, which is removal and the Trail of Tears.

[05:08] It's a story that's set so deeply in the past and that's set in tragedy. And so going from there as a young adult, like a new adult, I guess, 12 years ago,

[05:19] I knew that I would need to have a stronger understanding,

[05:24] not just of Cherokee history, outside of that narrative, in, like, a fixed point of time where everything after it is, like loss and moving away from a purity that I don't think is real.

[05:34] So I knew I needed that in terms of history, but I also needed an understanding or even a context in which I could ask what was next. In this case,

[05:43] we're talking about the moon and Mars and space.

[05:46] We're talking about all kinds of possibilities that I didn't feel were possible to me when my Cherokee understanding was so set in the 1800s. And one small thing I need to add to this is I really don't think I can talk about Cherokee history without mentioning that my brother is a Cherokee historian.

[06:05] So that was really lucky and really helpful for me.

[06:09] Cindy: So you had a great connection,

[06:11] someone who was steeped in all of that, that you could chat with and ask questions and then also figure out other ways to learn more.

[06:18] Eliana: Absolutely. On a practical level, he took me to the archives.

[06:22] I learned a lot that way. But even more than that is the years of conversation I had with him where I was able to learn something about Cherokee people as a whole from,

[06:34] like, you know, a history book. And then I would go to him and he would say, well,

[06:38] yes, that's absolutely true, but think about who is not included in that story, or think about, you know, what you know about our family and how that fits into that story or doesn't fit into that story.

[06:48] So he was able to question the simpler narratives that began, let's say, with, like, my fourth grade Tennessee textbook.

[06:56] And that, I think, is what made the experience of writing the book so much richer for me as a writer and for the characters who were coming from that Cherokee history.

[07:05] Cindy: I love that. And I have always been completely fascinated with space.

[07:10] So that was what drew me to your story originally.

[07:13] Tell me about that aspect of it, like why you chose for her to want to be an astronaut, what kind of research you did for that.

[07:20] Eliana: The easiest version of that answer is that my brothers and I watched Star Trek when we were kids.

[07:25] And I think it's important that that was the way in because a lot of people talk about how Star Trek is optimistic. So that really grounded me in terms of how I'm going to think about space and then moving from there.

[07:39] If we fast forward many, many years.

[07:42] One way that showed up was I'd already started writing this book with a version of Steph who's not an astronaut. And I was in college,

[07:51] there was this particular experience where I was in a group of native students at Dartmouth College. There's a pretty big native student group there. And we were all doing independent projects involving our individual tribal nations.

[08:06] And we were going around, all of us freshmen, talking about what we were interested in researching as part of this program. And all of our stories were pretty past facing.

[08:14] There was a sophomore not much older than us, but there was a sophomore in the room that day who said that if any one of us became an astronaut, then that would be part of the story of our people.

[08:25] And it was a while after that that I started writing about an astronaut. But I remember just being surprised as a freshman that there was a sophomore who was sharing something like that.

[08:35] And it was an experience of like, oh, we can learn from each other, you know, different from in high school. It's, it's a little bit more. You have a, you have a teacher, you have someone much older than you.

[08:46] And that was an experience of, oh, we are learning from one another. Which has been, you know,

[08:51] a continued experience across adulthood. One more thing I want to say about space is that sentence in college mattered, but what mattered the most was just the context for how as I got older and you know, there, there's always a risk of becoming more cynical, leaning into science, even as someone who's not very good at it,

[09:08] leaning into science and space is a way to sort of opt in to curiosity and hope and this like group project for, for humanity and making things better for the next generations.

[09:18] So I would say that I'm most invested in Steph as an astronaut in terms of what that means about her as a person and the people around her.

[09:26] Cindy: Well, and it gives her a very long term goal. Something that might not be possible to accomplish, but could be accomplished.

[09:33] Eliana: Yes,

[09:34] a really a goal where when you were asking earlier about research, I had no idea what it would take to be an astronaut. And I've learned that it's really hard.

[09:44] Cindy: Yes,

[09:45] it's something I've always been interested in. So I always gravitate to those stories.

[09:49] I don't think I could have ever gone myself, but it would be so cool. And I love reading about it.

[09:54] Eliana: I also love reading about it and I think there's nothing in,

[09:58] in the world, there's, there's nothing in life that I would less want to do. Double negative. But I, I would really, really not like to go to space.

[10:07] Cindy: I would love to go to space, but I don't want to do all the stuff that goes with it. Like I am such a wimp. Like I wouldn't like the, the G force or whatever, you know, all of those things.

[10:16] But I would love to actually be up there. Like if I could just warp, I'd be ready to go.

[10:20] Eliana: Oh, absolutely.

[10:21] Cindy: It would be very cool.

[10:23] Eliana: We need warp.

[10:24] Cindy: Exactly. We definitely need warp in more ways than one. And I have never ever watched Star Trek. Can you believe that?

[10:30] Eliana: I cannot believe that. Well, everyone will tell you a different favorite, but I would start with the Next Generation.

[10:36] Cindy: Okay, well if I get to that. These days there are so many TV shows, like my husband and I have the longest list and we're just very slowly making our way through them.

[10:44] But if I ever am to the Star Trek point, I will start there.

[10:48] Eliana: And there's so much to read. We're just never going to finish any of these things.

[10:52] Cindy: I agree. And the reading is my priority, which is why we don't end up watching that much tv, so. And sports and you know, there's just, just a lot out there.

[10:59] Well, Steph really struggles to find her place in the world. We're talking a little bit about her goals and, and wanting to be an astronaut. But as a result of struggling to find her place in the world, she also struggles to connect.

[11:11] As a result, she has trouble connecting with people. She can be a little difficult. Was it hard getting her down on the page, bringing her to life?

[11:19] Eliana: Yes,

[11:20] it was hard. I had an easier time with it because it's a coming of age novel. I had an easier time with it when she was younger. Children start out self-centered, you know, it's okay.

[11:30] And I love writing young people. Before this novel, everything I ever wrote was some kind of coming of age story.

[11:37] So when she was younger she was in such a small world of like, yes, she can be her ambition, you know, she can, her ambition can be at the center of everything.

[11:48] It can take over the people around her. But the people around her are like her mom and her sister. These people who love her so much and are, you know, they don't want to, but they're, they're somewhat willing to,

[11:59] you know, they're protective of her. And I will say that it got harder to write her when she was older because I was always trying to strike this balance of you want your character to change, you don't want your character to like do what I honestly thought was going to happen for myself,

[12:15] which is that you become an adult, whatever age that is for you, and then you're, like, fully formed, and you're there.

[12:21] So you don't want her to arrive in this place of total understanding of her place in, like, the larger universe right away.

[12:30] But she. Her world expands, and each time she meets someone new or moves somewhere, has a new experience,

[12:35] then there's just a little bit more of, like, the pressure of the outside world challenging is what she wants. Is. Is going to the moon just for her, like, the most important thing in the universe?

[12:46] And of course, it's not.

[12:48] Cindy: I think it's difficult for anyone like that that has such a singular goal to also be able to necessarily get along with people, operate in the world like a lot of us do, because you have to be so focused,

[13:01] and it requires so much effort.

[13:04] Eliana: It's part of what was so interesting and exciting to me about writing an ambition story, because, you know, I started out thinking that it was going to be maybe more of a straightforward story of ambition.

[13:13] We so clearly know who's the character and what does she want,

[13:17] Especially once I understood that she wanted it at any cost. With a character like that, they could just be, like, bumbling around, hurting people, the whole novel, and, like, what do we get out of that?

[13:25] And so that's why I'm grateful that pretty early in the writing experience,

[13:30] it came to be a family saga. Because once we know that this is not actually a story of one person getting to the moon, this is a story of all these other women in her life and how those stories are sort of working together, then it also fits more in my understanding of the world and why we're here and what any of this is about.

[13:53] That this is a book about belonging and that it's all well and good to have ambition. I want people to be ambitious. I want Steph to be ambitious.

[14:01] But that tension between ambition and belonging is interesting to me most definitely.

[14:07] Cindy: And you lead me right into my next question, which is that you weave a lot into the story. Indigenous issues, activism, family and relationships as we have been talking about, and generational trauma.

[14:17] How did you approach combining all of that into this book?

[14:21] Eliana: It took so long.

[14:23] There have been so many different versions of this book.

[14:26] I think it's significant to me that my whole adulthood happened while I was writing this book, because just, you know, in life,

[14:32] you're realizing that there are different phases. There are different.

[14:36] Just your life is changing and who you are is changing. You know, if I'd been ready to query and try to get this book published when I was, like, 22, when I hoped I would,

[14:45] then it would not have included all of this other stuff that came to first matter. And then I. And then, you know, I got to question it, and Steph got to question it.

[14:54] And, you know, I understood.

[14:56] I'm basically describing growing up for me and for Steph. But while I was writing this book,

[15:03] it was not just writing the first draft and then writing it again and again to make it better. It was writing several different versions of the book. And so there was a version where the center of the story had to do with a protest that was inspired by Standing Rock.

[15:20] At a time in my life when I was really inspired by Standing Rock, or there was a version of this novel, a draft of this novel where Steph isn't even in it.

[15:28] And we're just following the girlfriend character, Della, through her childhood and into middle age. So the fact that the way this book was written was all of these different. I don't want to recall them.

[15:39] False starts. But all of these different versions of the story meant that when it was time to arrive at this version,

[15:46] I knew that, you know, like life, it was going to be multifaceted. It was going to be pretty full.

[15:52] Cindy: That's so interesting. And that conversation about you writing the book at 22 and writing the book now could be an entire conversation. And I think it's one that is so interesting, you know, that.

[16:03] That it is hard to write about certain things until you've gone through them. And so, like I said, that could be a whole nother conversation, which would be very interesting.

[16:10] But I was glad to hear you say that. Cause I do think there are things that are hard to write about until you've experienced them.

[16:15] Eliana: Yes.

[16:16] That used to be an actual rule I had for myself, which I now, despite what I just said about how much I learned from the experience, I now wish I hadn't had it.

[16:26] Basically, the rule I had was,

[16:28] I think, starting in high school, I said that I should never write about an age until I've arrived at that age. And that's why I have so many words in, you know, different documents on my computer that are all these different short stories involving girls who are 16, girls who are 21,

[16:43] or, I guess, women who are 21. And this character does arrive at an age that's older than I am. But it took a long time to sort of balance that.

[16:54] Yes, I did gain a lot from getting older and having these different experiences, But I no longer would want to limit what I'M doing to the age that the character is because I haven't been to space.

[17:08] Cindy: So I was just going to say that, yes, you can't limit yourself so much to the only the things you've done, because, yes, then you couldn't write about anything but your limited viewpoint.

[17:16] And I agree with that. But I also feel like there is a lot of growth in the 20s, and so sometimes what you're approaching at 22 is vastly different than as you've aged through the 20s, maybe into the 30s.

[17:28] It's just a different time, I think.

[17:30] Eliana: I definitely agree. I think just I was too strict on the specific age thing. But I do think that the general concept of growing up and, like, you're not going to have things happen the way you necessarily thought, and you're not going to be who you necessarily thought.

[17:44] Like, that's a life context that I needed to have before or while writing this book.

[17:51] Cindy: I agree with that, because there are all sorts of wonderful stories where people have written about people in their 80s and they're not 80 yet, and there's nothing wrong with that.

[17:58] But I feel like there is a window of growth that's helpful to have before you start writing some of these stories. So certainly I'm not calling out all these people that have written these wonderful books.

[18:05] Eliana: I didn't think that.

[18:07] Cindy: Yes, there is a window of time there.

[18:10] Eliana: Yes.

[18:11] Cindy: Well, what surprised you the most when writing this one?

[18:13] Eliana: Oh, wow.

[18:14] Hmm.

[18:16] So one thing that surprised me was how long it took.

[18:19] Definitely surprised me. Another thing that surprised me,

[18:24] and this isn't really about the book, but it is about sort of the writing life.

[18:28] And it's that I tried so many different versions of this book, as I said earlier. And then after grad school, I took a teaching job where I had to get up really, really early.

[18:38] And,

[18:39] you know, get up. Get up so early, like 5am, that I decided I didn't want to write before that, and I decided I didn't want to write after that. Basically, the novel had become really hard over all those years and really frustrating.

[18:50] And so I stopped writing it, and I actually stopped writing completely, which I hadn't ever done for two years.

[18:57] So knowing how much writing means to me, I'm surprised that I let that happen. Not to be unkind to myself, but I'm surprised that that happened,

[19:05] and I'm really, really grateful that I came back to it. It's easy to say this now that the novel is done and now that I'm happy and, like, proud of where it Landed.

[19:15] But I wish that even if, like, a particular project seems hard or even if life is, like, really busy, I wish that I had.

[19:26] That I had just kept writing in my life for those two years because I felt really different. Moving through the world as a teacher, which is something I love, but as a teacher who doesn't write was just strange.

[19:35] Cindy: But did it give you a new appreciation for the writing when you took a break and you came back and maybe were fresher?

[19:42] Eliana: Yeah. And I think that's probably behind what I just was saying is I don't want to focus too much on. You know, I didn't write for two years, and, like, how.

[19:50] How could I. That's so bad? I think my. My takeaway is really. That I had. It was something that was always there. And then when I decided,

[19:59] you know, that I was done then. Then after that, you're right, I was able to. To understand what it is to, like, have a writing life.

[20:07] Not, you know, the. A published book life, but a writing life, which is, of course, what this is about for. For us readers and writers and to.

[20:16] Cindy: Appreciate what you like so much about writing. I even go through this on a much smaller level with reading, because reading is my job, and I have so many outlets that I need to be responding to and have stories to talk about.

[20:27] But sometimes I'm like, I just need a break.

[20:29] And if I take a week and I just watch TV as we're talking about or do other things, and then I come back to it, and I'm like, I do really love to read.

[20:36] You know, you sometimes just need a bit of a break, and yours was longer, and it's a different thing, the writing. But, I mean, I think you come back to it and think, oh, I really do love this.

[20:45] And you're fresher because you took the break.

[20:48] Eliana: Yes. And it's. It's so great to have something that we love.

[20:51] Something you love. Doesn't have to happen every day, but to be pretty clear on,

[20:56] you're out of high school, you're out of college. Like, you know, you can do what you want with your free time, and you have something to come back to that consistently matters.

[21:05] Cindy: Absolutely. Well, I love to talk about titles and covers, and your cover is just beautiful. Can we talk a little bit about both of them?

[21:12] Eliana: Yes.

[21:13] I mean, the cover I just love as well. I am so grateful for the cover And what was so fun about it is that I always. I didn't picture a cover in my mind, but I just kind of assumed that it was going to you know, be mostly, like, the sky or mostly space or,

[21:31] I don't know, space focus.

[21:33] And the cover ends up having a volcano on it. There's. There's a little moon in the corner. But seeing the cover was a confirmation that the cover artist was seeing the thing that mattered the most deeply to the book, which is about Earth more than it's about space.

[21:49] In terms of the title,

[21:52] the title has a pretty silly backstory, which is that all the way up until, I think, a year ago,

[21:59] the title was Hear Men From the Planet Earth.

[22:03] And if I'm going to tell you that, then I have to say the little speech that I would be giving everyone,

[22:07] if this were still the title, I would have to say, okay, caveat number one, when I say here, it's H e R e, not H e a R. And then caveat number two, it says, hear men from the planet Earth, but, like, it's actually a book about women.

[22:21] And then caveat number three, I'd be like, you probably don't know this, but hear men from the planet Earth is part of a quote that's on a plaque on the moon, and it says, hear men from the planet Earth traveled across the stars, blah, blah, blah.

[22:31] We come in peace.

[22:32] So.

[22:33] So you can imagine that the people in publishing did not want me to have to give this speech. Every time I told people, that's the.

[22:40] Cindy: First thing I thought, I was like, they're like, okay, we might like this title, but it's going to take a lot if she has to explain this every single time.

[22:48] Eliana: You can't choose it because it's, like, big and pretty and, like. But the title was a suggestion by my wonderful, wonderful, wonderful agent, Meredith Kafel Simonoff. And we were going through, like, pages of.

[23:02] ideas as a group. And once she said it and I started working on the next draft of it,

[23:09] I realized that having the title be. Have the and back part to it, it changed the way I was revising it. It sort of brought to the forefront something really important about the meaning of the novel that had been a little bit quieter before.

[23:24] The title kind of guided it there.

[23:26] Cindy: I love that. And the “and Back” ties in Earth a little more, too.

[23:31] Eliana: Exactly. Yeah.

[23:32] Cindy: Well, before we wrap up, Eliana, what have you read recently that you really enjoyed?

[23:36] Eliana: Oh, this is so fun. Okay,

[23:38] so there's a book that I am, like, a chapter away from finishing that came out very, very recently, I think, last month. It's called Nothing More of this Land by Joseph Lee.

[23:49] And that's nonfiction. And then I have two fiction books I've loved, you know, loved recently.

[23:55] One of them is Brotherless Night by Vivi Ganeshanandan. And another one is before the Mango Ripens by Afabwaje Karian.

[24:06] Cindy: I have the Joseph Lee book on my bookshelf, and you're reminding me that I need to get to it. It looks so good.

[24:12] Eliana: It is so good. I'm very picky with nonfiction because, you know, so many novels we have to read and want to read. I love it so much. And the moment I got a chapter in, I started thinking of it as the perfect companion piece To the Moon and Back,

[24:28] because my book is fiction. I think that we introduce these questions about indigeneity and, like, specifically, how does tribal citizenship work? And, you know, all of these complicated issues, but the characters are not studying them in depth or, like, going into long speeches about them because, like, they're, you know,

[24:44] they're novel characters. They're living their lives. And so if you find that stuff interesting, then reading this, like, brilliant debut nonfiction book by Joseph Lee,

[24:56] it really explores those things that To the Moon and Back is, like, hinting at.

[25:00] Cindy: That's so interesting that you suggest the fiction/nonfiction pairing, because that's actually one of the things I'm known for. I do that regularly.

[25:07] I just read an article for the magazine I write for in Houston, where I do a bunch of fiction nonfiction pairings. So I am adding yours to my list for next time.

[25:15] And I do it in my winter and summer guides. It's something I really enjoy because I feel like just what you said, you can't info dump. And the reader doesn't want an info dump in the fiction.

[25:23] But there's often all these questions or you're interested in a subject. And so to be able to pair a nonfiction book with a fiction title to help you learn more is so interesting.

[25:33] Eliana: I can't believe I haven't thought of that before. I am so interested in this. What is it called?

[25:38] Cindy: I just call them fiction/nonfiction pairings. Maybe there's a better name, but I just do that together. And I take two books. Like, there's a recent nonfiction book about Pere Lachaise, the cemetery in Paris.

[25:49] And I had read this other beautiful fiction story set in a Paris cemetery, or actually, it's a small town outside of Paris. So they were, like, great combos together because you want to know a little bit more about what is it like to be a cemetery caretaker.

[26:02] And so it's just there's so many of them, and I do them and I love it. And I'm happy to hear that your book would pair well with Joseph Lee's.

[26:09] Eliana: Well, now, one thing I'm thinking about is so many times people have recommended to me that if you're going on a trip especially to, like, somewhere you haven't been to, like, another country, then you should read a novel from that country.

[26:20] And so now it's like, you know, if you're going to go on a trip to this, like, fictional world, then learn something about it. Nonfiction first.

[26:27] Cindy: I agree. And there's just so many stories like that where you read the fictional account and you're like, oh, that's so interesting. And I don't know anything about this place or this world, whatever it.

[26:37] And it's a great way to then learn more about it on the nonfiction side.

[26:41] Eliana: Yeah, it's really cool.

[26:43] Cindy: Well, thank you so much, Eliana, for taking the time to chat with me. I can't wait for everybody to read To the Moon and Back. And congratulations on your debut.

[26:51] Eliana: Thank you. It was so good to talk to you.

[26:55] Cindy: Thank you so much for listening to my podcast. I would love to connect with you on Instagram or Facebook,

[27:01] where you can find me at @thoughtsfromapage.

[27:03] If you enjoy the show and have a moment to rate it or subscribe to it wherever you listen to your podcasts, I would really appreciate it.

[27:10] It makes a huge difference. And please tell all of your friends about Thoughts From a Page. Word of mouth does wonders to help the show grow.

[27:17] The book discussed in this episode can be purchased at my bookshop storefront and the link is in the show notes. I hope you'll tune in next time.