She also earned a Master of Law degree from The University of Michigan School of Law. She served as associate counsel in a large, prestigious Manila law firm before becoming the only female attorney in the twenty-five-lawyer legal department of one of Southeast Asia’s oldest global corporate conglomerates. She was on track to establish her own law firm when life threw the proverbial wrench at her well-laid plans: she met, fell in love with, and married an American, and moved to the US to build a life with him. The challenges of an immigrant having to start over in both personal and professional lives, plus motherhood sans her support network of Philippine family and friends amid her husband's frequent career-related travel, compelled her to choose to be the at-home parent. It was while raising their young children she rediscovered a childhood passion: creative writing. She wrote while doing laundry, cooking, and waiting for their children to get out of school, private lessons, sports, and other extracurricular activities, and after tucking them into bed. Now, she’s an award-winning author published in fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Her debut novel, THE THOMASITE, will be published and released by Orange Blossom Publishing in spring 2023. It’s a literary historical women’s fiction novel that evokes THE KING AND I meets WAR AND PEACE in US colonial Philippine Islands. She's also the author of the Driftless Unsolicited Award-winning novella, FAITH HEALER (Brain Mill Press, 2016). The first time she submitted to a nationwide short story writing contest, her story, “Portrait of the Other Lady,” won first place, including publication in a Los Angeles area newspaper (Ventura County Star, November 28, 2004). Her poems, some of which have been honored with distinction in poetry contests, are published by literary journals that include, among others, the Crosswinds Poetry Journal, New Millennium Writings, Reed Magazine, Lyrical Iowa, and Dicta (The University of Michigan School of Law literary journal). Her essay, “Gatekeepers and Gatecrashers in Contemporary American Poetry: Reflections of a Filipino Immigrant Poet in the United States,” appears in the anthology, OTHERS WILL ENTER THE GATES: IMMIGRANT POETS ON POETRY, INFLUENCES, AND WRITING IN AMERICA (Black Lawrence Press, 2015). She’s also the author of a new literary women’s fiction book manuscript, DAUGHTERS OF THE BAMBOO, a collection of Filipino American immigrant tales of love, dreams, struggles, and hope, and of THE ACCIDENTAL ITALIAN, a blended women’s fiction-romance genre novel manuscript. Among her works-in-progress are THE JAPANESE LIEUTENANT’S WOMAN, a novel set during the Pacific War in World War II, and MOTHER OF EXILES, a poetry manuscript anchored on the theme of the Filipino diaspora and immigrant experience. Follow her in VictoriaGSmith.com, Facebook at Author Victoria G. Smith, Instagram, and Twitter @AuthorVGSmith. When Victoria isn’t writing, she likes to read or walk in the woods and on the beach with her husband, dogs, and their visiting children at their island home in the Puget Sound. Having imagined herself in her youth exclusively as a professional career woman working outside the home, she's surprised herself by being a happy homebody who, according to family and friends, is also a great, intuitive cook with a like talent and passion for home and garden design. Interview with Victoria Grageda-SmithThank you Victoria G. Smith for taking the time to chat with me. When did you know you wanted to become an author?At ten years old! I had a love for history early on, and, additionally inspired by the Nancy Drew books, I started writing an adventure novel about a girl archeologist traveling to Egypt to investigate a mystery in the pyramids. Unfortunately, that manuscript (handwritten in an elementary school lined notebook) got lost during my family’s move to a new home. I wondered what that book could have been after I watched the movie, Lara Croft, many years later. Why, that was almost the same character I had attempted to create! When did you first consider yourself a writer?Are you kidding? I question it every day! For me, this is like the question, "When would you consider yourself having 'made it' as a writer?" I don't know the answer to this. What I do know is that writing is the only vocation that, for me, doesn't feel like work, that I'm so happy to be doing; when the hours seem to pass almost in the blink of an eye; when I'm happiest. So, I guess, that's what makes me a writer: I'm happiest when I'm writing. Who is your biggest inspiration?As an author, I’d say my biggest inspiration is the Philippine national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal--who wrote the two classic novels, Noli Me Tangere (Do Not Touch Me) and El Filibusterismo (The Filibuster). He was a polymath. Not only was he a doctor of optometry, he was also a painter, sculptor, and writer known for his novels, poetry, and patriotic essays and letters. I’d wanted to be like him since I was a child learning about him in elementary school. How do you come up with your ideas?I get my ideas from what I love: history, nature, other writers’ works, and my family’s experiences living and traveling around the world. Sometimes, I get them from the news. Are your characters inspired by or based on real-life people?Many of them are, although my characters are mostly amalgamations of people I’ve encountered, including various aspects of my personality or who I imagine I could be if I were living other lives. What comes first, the plot or the characters?For me, it's the character. A vision of a character comes to me--along along with her voice and backstory, and the plot, then, almost writes itself. When I’m writing a new novel, I’m dreaming in its own dream world. I avoid reading or watching anything that takes me away from the voice in which that dream speaks to me. I listen to music most conducive to that voice. I also avoid reading novels that have too similar a topic or tone for fear of infecting my voice with theirs. I always strive to add unique value to what’s already out there--published. And there is hardly a greater contribution a writer could give to the literary world than the uniqueness of one’s voice. What would you say is your most interesting writing quirk?When faced with a blank page, I write based on a rhythm that comes to me. Along with the rhythm comes the mood or “voice” of what seems desirous of being written. Then, I strive to provide the words that suit such rhythm and mood and the idea for a poem or story I aim to write. I suspect I’m a musician at heart; the trouble is--I never learned to read notes! How did publishing your first book change your writing career?It opened many doors for me in the literary and publishing world. I gained friends and networking opportunities with other writers. From the latter, I learned more about writing, which, in turn, improved mine. What I loved was getting invited to speak before readers and other writers. Writing is such a solitary activity, which I love, but I also love being with other people--at the right time and place, that is. I guess I’m a paradox: I’m an introvert who cherishes stretches of solitude. But I’m also a friendly, gregarious extrovert who enjoys a social setting. Thus, being a published writer satisfies both sides of me. Have you ever gotten writers block? How did you work through it?Yes. It happened to me many years ago when I was attempting to write the current WWII novel I’m working on again. The challenge came when I had to write a horrific scene of sexual assault committed against a set of women characters. I felt I did not have enough information and emotional bandwidth to write that scene in an authentic and respectful way for the victims. Thus, I took a break from writing that novel until I’d done more research and found the right tone with which to write the scene. After two decades, I think I can do it. What are you working on now?I’m working on a novel set during World War II in the Pacific. There are many books about WWII, but they’re mostly set in Europe, so I wanted to write a story that features some of the major events of the Pacific side of the war. What advice would you give aspiring authors?In addition to you being judged based on the quality of your work, publishing is a numbers game. The more you write, the more you can improve your writing, the more you can submit to publishers, and, therefore, the more you can publish. Thus, write every day. Soon, you’ll have a body of work ready for submission. Almost everything I wrote in the past twenty-five years has been published. But that was twenty-five years of continuous writing. It’s worth it. And I’m still at it just as passionately as I did the first time I wrote with the idea I was going to be a writer. What do you like to do when you're not writing?I like to travel and experience other cultures. When that’s not possible, I like to walk in the woods or along the beach--and, of course, read. What are three things that are unique about you?Firstly, I’d say I’m an intuitive cook with the uncanny ability to reverse-engineer many gourmet dishes I enjoy in restaurants and others’ homes--although I have not professionally studied to become a cook. Secondly, I have very sensitive senses of taste and smell--which could be a curse or a blessing, depending on the circumstances, as you can imagine. They have certainly been a blessing to me as a cook and as a writer describing a scene to allow the reader to experience the tastes and smells of the setting. My acute sense of smell sometimes makes me fantasize about being a perfumier--especially after I'd read that hauntingly shocking novel by Patrick Suskind, “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer.” Not that I dream of becoming a murderer, of course! Finally, and although I don’t think this is unique enough, I’d say I’m multitalented. My problem has always been deciding on which artistic talent I should focus on. In addition to being a writer, I think I could be a painter, sculptor, or photographer. I’ve always suspected I could be good at anything I put my heart and mind into doing. Yet, as an immigrant, I found this wasn’t how it worked. You don't decide to be one thing forever. Life happens, allowing you to apply yourself in other ways you’re good at to adapt to your changed circumstances. Thus, I was a lawyer in my native country, but when this proved to be an almost impossible career for me to pursue in the US, I realized I'd been given the gift of a second chance at trying my hand at something I've loved since childhood: creative writing. Orange Blossom Publishing Books by |
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