Time In With Forest

This is my very first interview. I am here with my friend Charlotte Bennett. She is a writer from Queens, New York and moved here a couple years ago and is on her way to earning her bachelor's and is completing a book of short stories. It is called A Good Fit and Other Stories. And here she is.

Forest: Charlotte thank you for joining me.

Charlotte: Thank you for doing this with me. I am very excited about getting my degree and working on this book.

Forest: Can you explain what the book is about?

Charlotte: Yes, it is a compilation of short stories that I had written when I was in middle school. At a time when we both were coming up. A very awkward point of my life but those are long gone.

Forest: could you elaborate on the title of the first story A Good Fit?

Charlotte: I wrote it around tenth grade. It was about me being a first time student at Martin Van Buren High School and I had a very nasty run in with a girl named Karen Hendricks. She had been a repeating freshman and she had two other girls with her.

Forest: What was she like?

Charlotte: She had a real bite to her bark. I tried not to say anything too negative about her as I found out halfway through the school year her parents divorced when she was young and all that hostility she had was stemming from her relationship with her father.

Forest: And you felt that was the reason why she was acting that way?

Charlotte: Yes very much so. It actually took our teacher putting us on an assignment together for us to finally get along. I was doubtful at first because everything that happened back in September of 2013.

Forest: Yes, those schools in the city can be tough and I started eighth grade at that time.

Charlotte: Once we had finished the project, we finally got along and slowly built up a friendship. She told me that she was actually jealous that I had a better relationship with my parents. But I'm not excusing anything. So the title means I’m wondering about how I’m going to fit in high school because being a freshman was hard.

Forest: Middle school was just as hard for me, probably worse. Now about the story, Birdsong. Can you explain that one?

Charlotte: I had written that as part of my English class during my first year of college. I was thinking about my time at Van Buren and it was around freshman year and I had already hit a rough patch with my mother. I was skipping school, smoking cigarettes and I began hanging out with a crowd that I had no business being with. We had a little joyride and we got caught by the police. Luckily, the police let me go. But my mom and I were having a hard time processing things. And I didn’t want her to know about school until I told her at that moment. So Birdsong is actually about how our relationship evolved at that point. I am very thankful for her helping me through that tough time.

Forest: Who would you say is your biggest inspiration for writing?

Charlotte: Both of my parents. My mom has been a teacher in New York City for twenty six years and my dad is a firefighter who collects books of different genres. They helped me with my homework, guided me through the difficult parts of high school and right up to college. Even my brother and sister are right there with me.

Forest: Charlotte, thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking this time with me.

Charlotte: You’re welcome.