{"id":388872,"date":"2023-04-06T06:06:41","date_gmt":"2023-04-05T20:06:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=388872"},"modified":"2023-04-06T06:06:41","modified_gmt":"2023-04-05T20:06:41","slug":"qa-with-chamorro-author-shay-galloway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/qa-with-chamorro-author-shay-galloway\/","title":{"rendered":"Q&A with Chamorro author Shay Galloway"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Chamorro first-time author Shay Galloway talks about her new book with Angelo Villagomez. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Valley of Sage and Juniper\u00a0is a new novel by Chamorro first-time author Shay Galloway. She recently sat down with Angelo Villagomez to discuss her book.<\/p>\n

Question: Can you tell me about your personal connection to the Marianas?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Answer: My grandfather was the late Justice Ramon Garrido Villagomez from Saipan and my grandmother was Phyllis Eileen Selk from Guam. They met while they were at University of Guam, married, and had a daughter, Tiana, who is my mother. I was born in California, but lived in Saipan for a short time when I was very young. I haven\u2019t made it back since.<\/p>\n

Q: And what have you been doing since ever since?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: After living in California, we moved to Colorado and then Wyoming just outside of Jackson Hole when I was in high school. I attended Utah State University and got a Bachelor\u2019s in English, then a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at Roosevelt University in Chicago. Now I teach English composition at a community college in Washington State, where I live with my husband and son.<\/p>\n

Q: And what made you want to write a book?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: I\u2019ve always really loved reading. I read a personal essay in middle school about a kid who decided to become a writer, and that was the first time I realized you could actually be a writer as a job. Basically since then, I\u2019ve wanted to be a writer.<\/p>\n

Q: How did you decide on this genre and story?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: It was a little on accident. I really didn\u2019t like the idea of writing about the West and rural life, or even historical fiction because I didn\u2019t think anyone would want to read about it. But the characters just sparked and I couldn\u2019t stop writing about them. All my most raw, real, and natural writing ended up being about rural life and living in the West, and my professors encouraged me to pursue it.<\/p>\n

Q: And who did you write this book for? Who is your audience?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: Whenever I get asked this question I always joke \u201cWhoever reads it and likes it.\u201d But in all seriousness, the people that will probably like it best are adult women who like more literary work with a kind of historical lean and gritty edge.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Q: I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve seen some of the news stories from across the United States where books are being banned from schools and libraries. Your book has some very adult-themed passages. Do you find it ironic that your book could be banned in the mountain town where you grew up?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: Well, it\u2019s not a book meant for children, or even young adults. I think people can get confused because the characters are minors for the first half of the book, but I never intended it to be for anyone other than adults.<\/p>\n

Q: What do you think about the renewed interest across the United States in banning books from schools and libraries for their adult themes?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: It\u2019s ridiculous. While I can understand being concerned about curating age-appropriate material, just completely removing access because some of the younger students might potentially pick up a book that wasn\u2019t meant for them in the first place isn\u2019t helpful. As a kid who had a high reading level, I read books that were more \u201cmature,\u201d but I never picked up anything at school that was \u201cgraphic.\u201d There was a lot of stuff I wouldn\u2019t have learned if I didn\u2019t pick up some of those books. All banning is going to do is encourage kids to look for those books even more. I mean, I used to read my mom\u2019s \u201cgrown-up\u201d books behind her back, so unless they\u2019re going to somehow cut off complete access to the internet, these \u201cbans\u201d aren\u2019t even going to work in the way they want them to, and will potentially have the opposite effect.<\/p>\n

Q: That makes sense. I\u2019m going to shift gears a bit. There\u2019s a lot of parallels to your life in this book. You also grew up on a mountain surrounded by religion. How much of the book is from your own life?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: The only real intentional parallel is the location. The other stuff just sort of wove its way in, which I think all writers do, even without meaning to. Parts of themselves and their experiences make their way into the pages. One (slightly outdated) adage that pops up in writing classes is to \u201cwrite what you know,\u201d and I knew about religion and small mountain towns.<\/p>\n

Q: There\u2019s a lot of religious imagery in your book, including a flood, false prophets, and characters quoting scripture.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: Yeah\u2026I grew up reading a lot of scripture. The Bible has been a huge influence on Western\/English-speaking literature basically from its conception. Really, the Bible is pretty good in a literary sense, regardless of what you believe about it. There are some great one-liners, and brutal stories that are at least entertaining\u2014action and romance, dystopia and fantasy, poetry and song\u2014it\u2019s all there.<\/p>\n

Q: Your book has two main characters, two sisters named Isaiah and Genesis. In the book, the characters put a lot of thought into the selection of baby names. Is there a deeper meaning to these names that may not be obvious to someone who isn\u2019t as steeped in the words of the Bible as you may be?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: Initially not really. I\u2019ve always been drawn to the idea of traditionally masculine names given to girls, so I was just playing around with that and came up with Isaiah. But that then influenced what type of people would give their kids these names and where they would grow up. I liked the name Genesis, and considering it\u2019s the first book in the Bible, it only made sense to make her the oldest.<\/p>\n

Q: The book has a character who is one-quarter Native American, and you\u2019re one-quarter Chamorro. Was any of that biographical?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: I didn\u2019t draw that connection until you just asked me. Truthfully I wanted a love interest that also feels somewhat isolated due more to circumstance rather than personality like Genesis is, but he also needed to be allowed to move around like he does in the book, and historically, movement was limited for certain demographics unless they could \u201cpass.\u201d<\/p>\n

Q: And finally, how can people get a copy of your book?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A:\u00a0The Valley of Sage and Juniper\u00a0can be purchased as paperback and ebooks on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever books are sold. We\u2019re working on an audiobook edition. You can also follow me on Instagram and Twitter @TheGallowCat and subscribe to my newsletter at ShayGalloway.com for updates.<\/p>\n

Angelo Villagomez (he\/him\/l\u00e5hi) is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Valley of Sage and Juniper\u00a0is a new novel by Chamorro first-time author Shay Galloway….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":388875,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[23782,21,23772,57],"class_list":["post-388872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-chamorro","tag-life","tag-marianas","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}