KARACHI: I try to know what’s going on in the world, and the best way to achieve that is to write about it, primarily the experience of loss. This was articulated by American writer Lea Carpenter while speaking at an event on video call, along with fellow writer Elliot Ackerman, at the Alliance Francaise de Karachi from New York on Thursday.

The programme titled ‘Story Share Initiative’ was organised by the Citizens Archive of Pakistan in collaboration with Shared Studios, USA. A couple of students and a journalist sat in front of the screen to interact with the writers during the event.

Ms Carpenter said she has just published her second novel. What led her to being a storyteller was her father’s death in 2008; he used to be in the US military. After he died she wanted to understand how the military works, so she began to have conversations with people which consequently allowed her to write her first novel, Eleven Days. The novel is about a mother whose son is missing in Afghanistan.

Ms Carpenter said for her second book she was interested in the intelligence community, specifically the CIA. She was not interested in trade secrets or classified information but wished to know the emotional makeup of the people working in the CIA. When she was writing the book she was contacted by a film director, Peter Berg, who requested her to write a screenplay for his movie on a CIA-related subject.

Mr Ackerman said he is a novelist and a journalist. He has an interest in looking at world events. While working as a journalist he sometimes felt that the truth in the stories got lost in the complexities of facts. The first novel he wrote was set in Afghanistan, the second in Turkey and the third in the US. What he does is that he takes world events and tries to set them in an intimate and emotional scenario for everyone to understand. His first book (Green on Blue) focuses on two brothers, second (Dark at the Crossing) on the Syrian civilian war and the third (Waiting for Eden) on a failed marriage. So his job is not just collecting facts but curating those facts for the reader.

Answering a question on the difference between fact and fiction, Ms Carpenter said she tries to know what’s going on in the world, and the best way to achieve that is to write about it, primarily the experience of loss. Shedding light on what the American public is used to seeing on the media, she remarked that many people turn the news off, which is why she in her books wants to make certain news events more compelling.

Responding to the question about how much research goes into his work, Mr Ackerman said since he’s also a journalist his research process is immersive. Writing a novel is not just about gathering the facts, which serve a purpose, but it’s also about experiencing something. He pointed out that he often highlights a metaphor about working on a novel: it’s like as if he’s standing in a field of tall dry grass, his job as a novelist is to light the entire field with fire; he has two flints in his hand, and banging the flints together to create a spark –– you always need those flints.

When asked by a young student whether the writers knew any foreign language, Ms Carpenter said she’d give anything to speak all foreign languages; the barrier is high. She tries to tell a story through research.

Published in Dawn, May 4th, 2019