Fiction Interview by Kathryn Kulpa
SALVAGING FAMILY, INTERROGATING MEMORY:
KATHRYN KULPA INTERVIEWS LUANNE CASTLE ABOUT HER NEW FLASH MEMOIR SCRAP: SALVAGING A FAMILY 

Luanne Castle’s memoir-in-flash, Scrap: Salvaging a Family, is a kaleidoscopic collection told through vignettes, “interrogations,” and micro memoir. In a recent conversation, Luanne and I discussed her own childhood and coming of age with a withholding, distant, and sometimes violent father as well as her own process of uncovering family secrets, including the mystery of her father’s origin. 

Kathryn Kulpa: The title feels multi-layered. It made me think of scraps of fabric, like pieces of a quilt; of the adjective “scrappy,” a word I associate with old-fashioned stories about tough little kids; of leftovers (“scraps” from the table); and of fighting (getting into a “scrap”).

[Interviewer’s Note: When I first sent Luanne my interview questions, I wrote Scraps instead of Scrap, which led to Luanne talking about how the title came to be.] 

Luanne Castle: Kathryn — note, the book title is Scrap, not plural. The reason it’s singular is it feels more like a verb as well as a noun. I realize “scraps” is a form of the verb “to scrap,” but as a title it sounds decidedly like a noun, and I wanted both. 

Of the zillion reasons why, of course, is how my father’s father made him feel. By treating my father, my grandmother, and Dad’s siblings as a secret, my grandfather made my father feel that they were discards, pieces or scraps of a family thrown away. My father’s family would never feel complete to him without his father, but my grandfather’s public and claimed family didn’t even know of my father’s existence, nor would they have been accepting.

Kathryn: Scrap has so many interweaving elements, from the dictionary definition of “bastard” you start with, to childhood memories, to letters and photos and bits of family history, and also the detective story aspect of you uncovering your father’s roots. Where did it begin? Are there one or more stories that got you started and made you think about creating a collection around this personal and family journey? 

Luanne: As a curious child drawn to mystery stories, I read every Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, and Judy Bolton book I could get my hands on. Because of that, it seems natural that I would be sensitive to the rough edges of family secrets and the gaps of information imparted to children. I grew up with three very involved grandparents, and for some time I didn’t wonder about another grandfather, but then certain books, such as The Little Colonel and, in sixth grade, Gone with the Wind, occasionally reminded me that my father must have had a father, a man who would be my “other” grandfather. 

It was when I was reading the latter book that my father stopped by my room to see if I was ready for ballet class. This event is recorded in Scrap, and in many drafts it was the opening scene of the book. I lifted my head from the open book, and, without thinking, I asked my father where his father was. His response completely sealed off the subject for decades. It put a wall or barrier between my father and me that could not be breached. 

Kathryn: The “Early Years” segments that you do begin with are not as harsh as that moment, but there are hints of darkness from the very beginning as well as images that suggest fractured identities. The cartoon picture of you and your father, the spanking scene, and the wonderful image of the two-sided doll that transforms from Little Red Riding Hood into the grandmother and the wolf. I love how the “wolf face” becomes a recurring symbol of your father’s rage. I assume this was a real doll, but how did you get the idea of bringing it into the story? Was there a fairy tale prompt? In general, are you inspired by fairy tales? 

Luanne: From the time that my father gave me a fairy tale collection, I felt a strong attachment to the genre. I began to understand the world through the harsh justice and colorful symbolism of the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault. My identification with Red Riding Hood came even earlier from a different source. My mother purchased me a Little Golden Book of the story at the grocery store. I asked her to read the book over and over again. I even remember dreams of walking through the woods with my basket. The story and my doll became intertwined with the mythology of my childhood.

Kathryn: As you know, I’m adopted, and the theme of a search for identity often shows up in my fiction. How do you think the central mystery of your origin affected you as a writer? 

Luanne: This unknowingness that I was forced to accept may have fostered my interest in history and genealogy. I studied history in grad school before changing to English and creative writing. I began to study what I thought of as my “¾ family history” — researching the branches of my maternal grandparents and my paternal grandmother. It turned out that this experience helped prepare me for the time that I would learn the identity of my father’s father and wish to learn more about him. 

In addition to my father’s extreme response to my innocent question about the whereabouts of his father, the way he treated me throughout my childhood was very confusing to me. When he was elderly he finally told me who his father was, but even before that, I wanted to understand my father by writing about our relationship. 

Kathryn: Can you talk about the process of putting all these pieces together? I know sewing and fabric is a key part of the story, and I imagine that writing a collection like this must have been like creating a quilt, piece by piece, and then stitching it together. Were there certain stories you always knew had to be part of it? 

Luanne: In 2008, I began writing this memoir and, in 2009, took my first memoir workshop through the online writing site, Gotham. I felt a need to write about my childhood and my father, so I started with memories that rested at the forefront of my mind. Over time, I took other writing workshops — online — and joined a small in person memoir workshop. Four of us met monthly for breakfast and chapter critiques. I applied and was accepted to the creative nonfiction/memoir program run by Stanford University’s Continuing Studies. 

As I wrote both for the workshops and outside of them, the memory well was filling as fast as I used it up. I wrote about each memory that arose. Sometimes I wrote about the same memories from different perspectives or tried out a fresh style. Eventually, I had more words written than I like to admit, but I still had no book. I was “expected” by my instructors, mentors, fellow students, the memoir world at large, to create a book shaped like a novel with even length chapters telling a cohesive and chronological story. I also had a problem. My story took place over a lengthy period — from before my father’s birth until his death. Memoirs are “supposed” to be about a slice of time. After all, they aren’t autobiographies.

Kathryn: Did this memoir go through different versions before being published? Was an editor or publisher part of the process? What were some of the steps along the way, and were there resources you found helpful, such as classes, writing group(s), genealogy groups, or craft books about memoir? 

Luanne: In addition to innumerable revisions, I wrote at least two traditional versions — possibly three; I don’t care to go back and look. But they never felt right to me. I was adding unnecessary words, dialogue, and transitions. The story didn’t feel the way my memory looked. But my writing was improving with every revision. Stuart Horwitz’s craft book Book Architecture should have led me to a successful structure. I put in a lot of work, making a binder for each theme I found in my story and creating poster boards with theme wheels. Ultimately, I didn’t use this work for structure, but it was invaluable for isolating the important themes and images/symbols/metaphors of my story.

I began to get frustrated. Then I took a flash fiction workshop from Meg Pokrass and became hooked on small prose. As a poet, the form — especially microfiction — really appealed to me. Workshops taught by you and by Sarah Freligh and writing exercises by Kathy Fish were very helpful to me in crafting the flash pieces that became part of Scrap. 

Back when I started in the small in-person memoir workshop I had begun by presenting little “scraps” of scenes. This wasn’t well received, but now I think it’s because we were all intent on writing a classic memoir structure and because I hadn’t yet gained any experience writing flash prose. Once I thought of writing Scrap in flash, the borders of the genre came tumbling down, at least in my head. I thought, “Why not include some prose poems, lyric poems, a play script?” 

Kathryn: I think, often, writers feel they have to fill in every detail and provide “connective tissue” between scenes to give their memoir continuity. A memoir in flash allows for more white space, gaps in the narrative. Can you talk a little about the process of both cutting and adding sections? 

Luanne: Once I knew my form, writing the flash stories and prose poems was not difficult. I had already worked through the material by writing about it in chapters. So many stories began to seem unnecessary. But there were certain memories that had to be explored. For instance, the scene where I ask my father where his father is. The gun on the kitchen table. My grandma’s distress when I tell her the sandals that I want at Woolworths. Core stories of my confusion. Once I began to put my stories together, I realized that I needed to be more direct about my own interior struggles with events and what I was learning from them. That is when I wrote interrogations of my memory and history. 

The final piece came to me as I thought about the importance in memoir of memory and reflection. If my memories were written in micros and poems, then certainly my reflections could be written in direct language in a type of short essay. That’s how I developed the “interrogations” I use in Scrap.

Kathryn: Scrap ends with your father’s death, which feels like a natural ending, but was that always what you were writing toward? Did you begin working on this piece before his death or later? Do you think that writers may need a “cooling off” time before they are ready to write about life trauma or family secrets? 

Luanne: Around the time I began working on what would become Scrap, my father turned eighty. Within a year he told me who his father was. My father had begun to mellow, and I thought he had many years ahead of him. I had no idea where my story would lead me. But in the last six months of Dad’s life, as he was dying, our relationship changed. After he died and I had a chance to absorb what we had just been through, I saw my story now had an arc and an ending.

Kathryn: Do you have any advice for people who know they have a story to tell, but may be overwhelmed or confused about where to start? 

Luanne: My advice to writers working on memoir or those who are considering it is to take workshops and learn the craft of writing about your own life. It’s not as much like writing fiction or poetry as you might think. Don’t imagine what you are writing as the next step of what is going into the memoir. Don’t envision the memoir ahead of time. Just write your memories related to the subject you are focused on until you write them all out of you. Then revise. And go from your gut when you finally shape the finished book. You will have wonderful material to choose from. Finally, don’t fall so in love with a scene that you keep it even if it’s not working for the book or is repetitive, just another version of a different scene. Only keep what is necessary.

Scrap: Salvaging a Family was published by ELJ Editions on February 26, 2026. Below is a video of Luanne reading from the book’s opening chapters.

Luanne Castle’s hybrid flash memoir, Scrap: Salvaging a Family, is a finalist in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards and earned a starred Kirkus review. Her story “Garden Seasons” was selected by Diane Seuss for Best Microfiction 2026. She has published four award-winning poetry collections, and her ekphrastic flash and poetry collection Hunting the Cosmos is forthcoming from Shanti Arts. Luanne lives with her husband and two cats in Arizona along a wash that wildlife use as a thoroughfare. 

Kathryn Kulpa is a New England-based writer and editor with stories in BULL, Claudine, Fictive Dream, Flash the Court, Ghost Parachute, Moon City Review, The Sunlight Press, and Wigleaf. Her work has been chosen for Best Microfiction and Best Small Fictions and nominated for Best American Short Stories.

Read more from Cleaver’s Interviews.