Member of the Month: Teri Fink

At Write On The River, we love the diversity of our vibrant writing community.  Besides hailing from all over our region, Write On The River Members come from every age, background, career and experience.

Last fall we were thrilled to learn of the success of one of our Write On The River Members and Conference attendees.  Teri Fink attended the 2011 Pacific Northwest Writer’s Association’s annual Conference in August and submitted the manuscript of her nonfiction book to their Literary Contest.  Not only was she a finalist (in itself an amazing accomplishment and honor), but her manuscript took First Place in the Nonfiction/Memoir category.

Because of her inspiring success and her consistent support of our organization and Conference, we’re proud to make Teri Fink our featured Member of the Month for February 2012.  She was kind enough to sit down and answer some questions from Write On The River about writing, writers, and reading.

What kind of writing do you do, Teri?

Professionally I write news and feature articles for the Wenatchee School District, and did the same for Wenatchee Valley Medical Center for eleven years. Personally I have had about a dozen nonfiction magazine and journal articles published nationally and locally, and have written a couple of novels that will never see the light of day. Most recently I have written the biography of Isak Gaši, a Yugoslav champion athlete who was interred in a concentration camp during the Bosnian War. The book is called My River Sava.

Writing a biography about a living person must have been interesting.  What was the writing process like?

Teri Fink with Isak Gasi, Wenatchee, WA

I spent one evening each week for about five months interviewing Isak and his wife Jasminka in their home. Luckily for me Isak and Jasminka live here in Wenatchee, and we’re friends, so I’ve interviewed them many times since then, filling in the gaps. I felt strongly that the story needed to be told in Isak’s voice in a first person narrative. Literary agents who read the first chapters from my first draft said my writing didn’t wow them. So I went back, reorganized the narrative, and rewrote the entire book using more literary language. I submitted the book to the Write on the River contest, and the judges talked about what they liked, but said I used too many similes and metaphors. I scaled the flowery language back a bit, submitted my work to the Pacific Northwest Writers Association Literary Contest, and ended up winning first place in the nonfiction/memoir category.

How does Isak feel about the book?

Isak and Jasminka are with me on this project 100 percent. They really do have an incredible story to tell. Isak had it all. He was a member of the elite Yugoslav National Canoe/Kayak Team, a national marathon champion three times over who also competed internationally. He and Jasminka were very happy together, and after nine years of marriage had just started a family with the birth of their daughter, Adna. Isak’s best friends were Olympic Gold medalists, and he may have been, too, had he not been so outspoken against the Communist leaders. But, like the Berlin Wall, it all came tumbling down when the Bosnian War broke out. Isak was arrested and interred in a concentration camp. He was beaten and tortured. He witnessed killings, and was forced to help dispose of the bodies. Concentration camp officers scheduled Isak for execution. Jasminka, in her very fearless and independent way, convinced a top-ranking paramilitary officer, the notorious Captain Dragan Vasiljković, to free her husband, telling him that if Isak had killed anyone, Dragan could go ahead and kill Isak. It was a daring ploy, but it worked.

How many Write On The River Conferences have you attended?  What have been some of the highlights?

I’ve attended two Write on the River conferences, and been a member for three years. I read the WOTR website regularly. I experienced my first pitch to an agent at the WOTR conference and received great instruction on what a good pitch should be, advice I’ve used many times since.

What’s the last great book you’ve read?

I really enjoyed Unbroken by Lauren Hillenbrand, the story of an American interred in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp during the Second World War. The book that inspired me with its amazingly beautiful language was The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.

You received quite an impressive honor with your First Place win in the Pacific Northwest Writers Association Literary Contest, Nonfiction/Memoir category. Describe that experience. 

I told my husband – other than marrying you, honey, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. The PNWA people really did it right. The conference was held at the Hyatt in downtown Bellevue. About 500 people attended the award dinner. The awards were presented just like the Academy Awards. They announced the finalists in each category as finalist’s photos and work titles were projected onto a large screen, then they announced the winners. After the awards ceremony the winners were whisked away to a beautiful penthouse with a huge balcony overlooking downtown Bellevue. It was a perfect summer night with a full moon hanging over Lake Washington. We schmoozed with all the literary agents and editors while enjoying cocktails. Business transpired and cards were exchanged. It was thrilling.

How do you feel local writing organizations and conferences such as Write On The River help developing writers?

Getting together with like-minded people, taking workshops from a variety of professionals, and having the opportunity to meet agents, editors and authors is, in my opinion, tremendously important. I was terribly nervous at my first WOTR conference, practicing my agent pitch in a cold sweat. Whether it’s writing, or pitching, or giving readings of your work, the more you do it, the better you get.

What is your best advice for someone who is looking at taking on their first book-length writing project?

They say that eighty percent of success is showing up, so I scheduled time every weekday to write, even if I could only spare forty-five minutes, and did my best to stick to that commitment. On the weekends sometimes I didn’t write at all, and sometimes I wrote for hours.

Do you have your next project in mind?

I do have an idea for another novel, but I’ve decided to devote all my energy to trying to get this book published and marketed. I’ve created a Facebook page for the book (called My River Sava by Isak Gaši and Teri Fink), and we’re in the process of making a book trailer with local filmmaker Preston Herrick.

Why do you write?

Whenever I sit down to work on my book, I know that I’m going to blink, and hours will have elapsed. I’m always shocked. Psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi called it flow. I write because I love being in flow, and because for some inexplicable reason, I’ve felt compelled to write since I was nineteen-years-old. Also, as good as I know Isak’s story is, I realize that it may never get published in the traditional sense. It may never be a hard cover book sitting on a shelf in a bookstore or library. The PNWA award was a huge emotional reward for me, but even without that I wouldn’t begrudge a minute of the time I’ve spent working on My River Sava. I enjoy writing as much as I enjoy reading and watching great films. That said, I would love to get the book published and widely sold.