“Fertile”
Note: this piece was previously published in HFR issue 69.
Jennifer Murvin is the author of the forthcoming chapbook She Says (Small Harbor Publishing) and story collection Real California Living (Braddock Avenue Books). Her stories, essays, and graphic narratives have appeared in The Southampton Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, DIAGRAM, The Florida Review, Catamaran Literary Reader, CutBank, Indiana Review, Post Road, American Short Fiction, The Sun, The Cincinnati Review, and other journals. Jen is an Assistant Professor of English at Missouri State University and serves on the faculty at the Solstice Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Pacific University and is the owner of Pagination Bookshop in Springfield, MO. Find more at her website.
Scott Adiconis: What has influenced you on your path as a writer and artist?
Jen Murvin: My biggest influences are reading and teaching, which at this point in my teaching career (year 15!) have become completely intertwined! Because I’m constantly reading both published works (on my own and with my students) and also works in progress from my students, I’m constantly in conversation with the practice of writing. Even if I’m experiencing a lull in my writing, every day I’m working with writers who are actively crafting, and I’m also reading – and rereading! – books and essays and stories I love and admire (and in many cases, know by heart). The influence of this everyday activity in my life can’t be overstated! Reading is truly my very favorite activity in the world – the impulse to write myself was something that came much later for me.
SA: You call “Fertile” a graphic essay. What was the pivotal inspiration or moment that led you to combine your creative writing with graphics?
JM: I’ve always been drawn to reading graphic narratives, and when I started teaching comics and encouraging my students to make their own, I thought it was only ethical that I try out the prompts and assignments myself. Once I started, I realized how much I had missed drawing – a practice I’d enjoyed as a child but had moved away from. Because I started drawing comics as a sort of extension of teaching and for discovery and enjoyment, I think I was able to engage in that practice away from what cartoonist Lynda Barry calls the “Two Questions” (these two questions are, “Is this good? Does this suck?” – which can be very toxic to creativity!). This was a huge gift! Later, I had the confidence to share my comics with others – again, my students’ model helped me in that regard, too. I’m always inspired by their openness to learning and experimenting.
SA: Are there specific artists whose work has played a significant role in inspiring your own? Could you mention a few artists you admire and how they have impacted your creative journey?
JM: Lynda Barry is a huge influence in both my writing and teaching of comics – her philosophical approach to writing and drawing as an innately human impulse has opened me up to be vulnerable with my art and generous with my understanding of what an artistic practice means in relationship to a fulfilling life. This exists completely apart from the business of publishing, which I think can often creep in and poison our wells. When I’m feeling self-conscious or getting too concerned about the “product” of my writing, I go back to her comics and her philosophies about the essential role of art in the human experience. She writes that words and pictures together are one of our “oldest natural and spontaneous languages.” Her collection of essays One Hundred Demons! and her story collection The Greatest of Marlys are absolute genius. I also love the cartoonist Jillian Tamaki – she is such an inspiring artist! Jillian Tamaki also makes beautiful quilts and needlepoint art – she’s just constantly evolving in her practice and exploring new mediums and forms. Roz Chast is another model of this!
SA: Is "Fertile" based on a real-life event or personal experience, and if so, how did those experiences shape the narrative of the comic?
JM: Yes, everything in this essay is true, and I’m very grateful to my sister for supporting me in making and publishing it. My relationship with my sister means the world to me. I was deliberately drawing throughout our trip – I was trying to practice daily sketching – and I do think that helped me retain a lot of the conversations we were having throughout those four days we spent together in Arizona, on the cusp of my sister’s IVF treatments. A little bit after I came home, I started writing a draft of the essay itself, and it took a bit for me to understand that I wanted this to be a graphic essay rather than prose. A few years passed between the trip itself and the final draft of my graphic essay – in fact, my baby niece Ella, who was born as a result of my sister’s successful experience with IVF, is a model for some of the drawings.
SA: The use of sensory details like the smell of coffee and oranges seems deliberate in "Fertile." Could you share the significance of these elements and how they enhance the storytelling?
JM: Science tells us that there’s a huge relationship between smell and memory – I don’t know exactly how this works of course!, but as someone who’s experienced that sort of time travel certain smells can inspire, I understand the power of this relationship. The sensory experience of this trip was so intense to me – coming out of an especially cold winter in Missouri, it was incredible to feel warm again outside, to smell oranges, to swim in the chlorinated pool water. I remember when my sister and I had the conversation about her starting her journey with IVF, the bar we were in had a very distinct smell, overwhelming at first, even, when we walked in – musty, maybe, or like heavily fermented wine. Sensory details can be so important when writing, because it not only brings the reader into the experience, but in CNF, it can also transport the writer back, too, inspiring the recognition of small, important details. Later, as I was shaping the essay, the metaphorical opportunities of the oranges started to emerge, and I found an opening, there. I loved drawing the orange trees – as a native Southern Californian, drawing orange trees makes me feel closer to home, and by extension, closer to my sister, and my family.
SA: What overarching message or themes do you hope readers will take away from "Fertile" or your other works?
JM: When I read my graphic essay now, I can see that I’m exploring my relationship with my sister, women’s bodies, and motherhood and fertility. The more I wrote and revised, the more these subjects sort of rose to the surface. As far as the idea of the essay communicating a message, I always think of my writing professor Debra Gwartney, who says (and I’m paraphrasing!), “Good writing doesn’t answer the question, but rather deepens the question.” I love this way of approaching the idea of themes and messages in essay writing, because it invites an openness to a state of awareness of not-knowing, a sense of ever-evolving recognition and discovery that is, in a very important way, ongoing. I hope this makes sense! I do have a lot of ongoing questions about women and motherhood, as these are subjects I return to again and again in my writing, both in comics and prose.