Spotlight On Writers
Pamela Ebel
- Where do you originate from?
My origin journey actually began when my mother, grandparents, and great uncles and aunts joined the diaspora created by the Great Depression. Southerners all, they migrated from Florida to the Sunshine State of California, but not just any city. They settled in Hollywood, where my mother grew up with family who worked for the Studios that created stories that were and still are, ‘The Stuff Dreams are Made Of.’ She graduated from Hollywood High School and then she and my grandparents moved to Alameda, California, where grandpa worked on aircraft engines during WWII at the Naval Air Base. I was born in Alameda and growing up Papa would take me to see the planes he worked on and I sat in the cockpit of the first modern Goodyear Blimp. My stepfather moved us to San Lorenzo, then Napa, then Folsom. After graduating from high school, I went to college at Chico State. But I continued to make trips to Hollywood and the rest of Southern California. So, all of my early years were spent in Northern California and in the 1960’s I experienced the ‘Sex, Drugs and Rock n’ Roll’ culture prolific there. To this day, I miss being able to drive to ‘The Emerald Triangle’ and let the spray of the Pacific Ocean cover my face. But the wanderlust called after I finished my BA in Rhetoric and Public Address. I got on airplane and flew to New Orleans, a city I had never been to but always wanted to visit and to a place where I knew no one, and then by car to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where I spent two years at LSU, and received an MA in Rhetoric and Public Address. Then I made my way back to New Orleans. The ‘Big Easy’ has a special allure of its own and I have made my home here for sixty five years and enjoyed five careers.
- What do you cherish most about the place you call home?
As I write this answer, we are in the middle of Mardi Gras Madness in the City that Care Forgot. For three days, the entire southern portion of the state will celebrate Fat Tuesday. On Ash Wednesday, people will seek ashes and penitence for all the excesses. Then everyone will put the costumes and beads and doubloons in bags and boxes and start to plan for the next Mardi Gras. Yet, we aren’t finished with the celebration because on the third Sunday in March, close to St. Joseph’s Day, the Black Mardi Gras Indians will take to the streets of uptown New Orleans for a magnificent parade of costumes and culture. From there, we will move on to French Quarter Fest, Jazz Fest and on and on and… What outsiders don’t understand about all of this frivolity is that it’s steeped in a deep history rooted in religion and mysticism. We are a ‘Sanctuary City’ in the broadest sense of the word. For a writer, my long time home is a gift that keeps on giving. And as a Katrina Survivor, I, like thousands of others, know how special our home is and what it was like to survive the rising waters, dig out from the mud and debris and keep on going. So much is left to cherish.
- What ignites your creativity?
My educational background and professional work on the faculty of Tulane University for fifty-seven years, my own law practice for seven years, fifteen years as an Associate Dean at Loyola University Law School and ten years as Director of my own Continuing Legal Education seminar business required that I study a wide variety of subjects and to make the information accessible for the various audiences. A line in an old ‘Murder, She Wrote’ episode; a newspaper article; a conversation overheard in a coffee shop; a memory of my family visits to the Brown Derby, Graumann’s Chinese Theatre; conversations from the film crowd in my aunt’s Beverly Hills home, next to Clark Gable’s. Just about anything and everything sends me down the Rabbit Hole for a story. I follow because I love to write in all genres and to fill pages with characters that jump off into the hearts and minds of my readers.
- Do you have a favorite word, and could you incorporate it into a poetic phrase?
I have many favorite words but the one that resonates the most is journey. My current career as a writer is a new ‘journey’ for me.
My sentence “Like the Ancient Greeks and the Irish, a Southern Writer knows that on the journey you can’t outrun your blood.”
- What is your pet peeve?
Having started to write full-time in 2019, and with the world closed down because of Covid, I decided to investigate the state of writing and publishing short fiction stories. I looked at numerous presentations on a variety of topics by a number of individuals, all designated as ‘experts on…’ After two years, I realized that the world of professional writing was no different from all my previous careers. But I have sixty years of work history that have allowed me to avoid the pitfall of the ‘One Right Answer’ approach to anything. I teach ‘How to Write and Market Short Fiction’ with the caveat that there is no ‘One Right Answer.’
- How would you describe the essence of Pamela Ebel?
I consider myself as forward-looking. No matter what occurs, there is a way to make it a learning experience. And I believe it is important to practice random acts of kindness and trust in people until they give you a reason not to. Then, I revert to the approach of my Irish Ancestors – ‘This far and no farther.’
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