Four questions with Jennifer Manske Fenske

What was the inspiration for your book?
I visited the Fernbank Museum of Natural History in Atlanta a few summers ago, and while I was there, a wedding was being set up in the main hall. I began to think about what it might be like to have the means to rent out an entire museum: What type of person might do such a thing, and what if the wedding did not take place? My short story about a wedding planner named Grayson (I later renamed her Macie for the novel), the museum, and her wayward bride became the short story, ”In the Okefenokee,” which was published by The Nantahala Review in the summer of 2003. Toss the Bride is the entire story behind Macie, Avery, and a bunch of brides behaving badly.

Who are your favorite authors?
What authors have influenced your book? I adore Flannery O’Connor, Eudora Welty, Katherine Anne Porter, Wallace Stegner, and George Saunders. Add to that list Robert Morgan, Graham Greene, Mark Steadman, Emily Giffin, Mindy Friddle, George Singleton, and Carson McCullers. I read a lot, and find inspiration in almost everything from the latest issue of One Story to the collected stories of John O’Hara, both of which are on my nightstand right now.

How and why did you first start working on your book?
My first job was as a newspaper reporter for a small daily in South Carolina. I was newly married and knew that I had a novel inside me. The trouble was, I was spending precious little time actually writing the aforementioned book. I began to hate going to the bookstore because I knew I would see glossy photos of writers my age and they were actually doing what I was supposed to be doing.

My newspaper sent me to a journalism conference in Atlanta where I attended a break-out session titled something like ”How to Write Your First Novel While Working 40 Hours a Week.” Phyllis Alesia Perry (author of Stigmata) told the audience how she held down a full-time job and managed to crank out a book. I ate her words up. Here was someone telling me that I was never going to have enough time or the perfect opportunity. I simply had to do it. I went home from that conference and made myself start Page One of a book. About three years later, I finished it. That novel did not find a publisher, but it taught me a lot of lessons about writing a longer piece of fiction.

Toss the Bride was a little different. After the short story ”In the Okefenokee” was published in The Nantahala Review, my agent read it and encouraged me to find a novel in the story. I played around with an outline and showed it to her. She said, ”Give me a chapter or two.” Then, she asked for two more. She eventually shopped around about seventy pages of what would become Toss the Bride.

Was it difficult to write Toss the Bride or did it come easily?
I like to write, and I have taught myself to write very steadily. I have always said that being a daily newspaper reporter on deadline was the best writer training I could have had. If I have writer’s block, I make myself start typing anyway. If I don’t feel like writing, I do a few pages. I try to write one page at a time.

Writing Toss the Bride was exciting because I knew that it had been picked up by St. Martin’s. It was also a big responsibility, because I had a deadline looming. I set up a writing schedule and tried very hard to stick to it, even as the summer started and everyone was jetting off to fun, happy vacations. I just told myself that when I was done, I could head to the beach and do nothing for a week.