Charlotte Readers Podcast: Paula Martinac

In this episode, author Paula Martinac reads a short story called Good to the Girls, published in Hippocampus magazine and written in response to the “Me Too” movement. She also reads the opening chapter from her fourth novel, The Ada Decades, a finalist for the 2018 Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction, about the life of a lesbian school teacher in Charlotte during the 50s and 60s when being out was not an easy thing to do. And finally, Paula reads a chapter from her fifth novel, Clio Rising, that will be published by Bywater Books in May 2019. It’s about a newly out young woman in 1980s New York who embarks on a job as a companion to a literary giant of the “Lost Generation,” a closeted lesbian who accomplished just one great book.

Paula is the author of four novels, including the Lambda Literary Award-winning Out of Time. Her short stories have appeared in Raleigh Review, Main Street Rag, Minerva Rising, and others; and three of her nonfiction books and numerous essays have been published. Also a playwright, Paula’s plays have been produced in Pittsburgh, New York, and Washington, D.C. She teaches creative writing at UNC Charlotte and is an instructor and writing coach at Charlotte Center for the Literary Arts.

The readings – in order:

Good to the Girls

In this flash fiction piece, a woman deals with the fall-out of saying no to sex with the man at the top.

“It starts with the elevator. The doors slide open and your stomach flips. The Commissioner is standing in the car, alone. You’re a lowly civil servant. He is the guy at the Top, who answers to the Governor. The Guy Who Summons People.”

[The rest of the story is on the show]

Private Things

In this first chapter excerpt from the Ada Decades, Ada learns about discrimination and injustice and it sets the stage for her life as a closeted lesbian school teacher.

“Ada’s daddy kept a postcard of three dead colored men in his toolbox. He stashed it in the bottom well, under the removable tray, in a ratty, soiled envelope.

“She had volunteered to fetch the wrench. At almost twelve, Ada took pride in knowing the difference between a wrench and pliers, because most girls her age didn’t and her mother thought she shouldn’t bother. ‘You won’t need that when you’re married,’ her mama, who wed at just seventeen, said. ‘That’s what husbands are for.’”

[The rest of the excerpt is on the show]

Clio Rising, Chapter 2

In this excerpt from Clio Rising, Livvie Bliss leaves western North Carolina and travels to New York City, armed with a degree in English, to interview for a job in the publishing industry and to live openly as a lesbian. She meets her soon to be boss, Bea Winston.

“On the phone, Bea Winston had a smoky voice, and before I met her I pictured someone who sipped martinis in a sleek black cocktail dress, her hair impeccably coiffed—Marlene Dietrich, maybe. In person, Bea resembled someone’s middle-aged mom, a leftover hippie-type, with shoulder-length salt-and-pepper hair falling loose over a slightly wrinkled plum silk tunic. She came only to my shoulder, but when we shook hands, her grip belonged to a much taller woman.”

[The rest of the excerpt is on the show]