April 1, 2024 • 13 mins
Do you think you might have a book in you? What is the story you want to tell, and how do you tell it? Our guest is Philip Cioffari, who’s spent decades teaching writing as a professor--currently at William Paterson University with a PhD from NYU--and fiction teacher for Gotham Writers in New York City. He’s written six well-received, character-driven novels and short story collections including his latest: NIGHT & ITS LONGINGS.
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(00:02):
Welcome to Get Connected with Nina delRio, a weekly conversation about fitness,
health and happenings in our community onone Oho six point seven Light FM.
Good morning and thanks for listening toget connected. Do you think you might
have a book in you? Whatis the story you want to tell in?
How do you tell it? Ourguest is Philip Chaffari, who spent
(00:24):
decades teaching writing as a professor currentlyat William Patterson University with a PhD from
NYU and a fiction teacher for GothamWriters in the City. He's written six
well received character driven novels and shortstory collections, including his latest novel,
Night and Its Longings. Philip Chaffariis also an award winning film writer and
director, and his plays have appearedoff Broadway. Thank you for being on
(00:44):
the show. Oh, I'm happyto be here. So we're going to
talk about your book and writing.Being a professional writer, in my mind,
is to wrap yourself into and aroundan incredible story. So I wonder
if we could start, just maybewith the first story you wanted to tell.
Do you remember what that was andwhere that came from? Yeah,
the first stories I told were basedon my growing up in the Bronx,
(01:11):
and I wrote a lot of storiesabout young boys, you know, eleven
to thirteen who were finding out somethingabout the world through exploring some part of
the you know, of the Bronx. I use a lot of the parkland.
There's a lot of swamp land inthe Bronx which most people wouldn't know,
but there's there's you know, considerableamount of I don't want to call
(01:34):
it wilderness because it's surrounded by bythe city, but there's a lot of
you know, open land, forestedland, swampy land where you know,
where little boys could you know,go and play and you know, be
on their own. You know.It's like a little bit of Lord of
the Flies. So that those originalstories then became the basis for my first
(01:57):
novel, which was called Catholic Boys, about actually a housing detective who investigates
the murder of some high school studentsin the nineteen sixties in the Bronx.
Which is interesting in a way becausethis novel, the new novel, The
Night and Its Longing, is alsoabout a search and you know, it's
sort of that same similar thread.Yes it is, and I guess,
(02:20):
you know, for me, it'sa way of building a narrative that that
offers me kind of a structure andkind of a step by step way through
the novel. So you're right,I mean, the idea of investigation has
a significant part of my writing,and I'm always working with two levels of
(02:43):
that. Like so there's the externalinvestigation in Night and its longings for a
woman who's disappeared, who happens tohave had an affair with the writer investigator
ten years before, and he's neverforgotten her. She's the love of his
life and he wants to He doeswant to find her and reconnect and see
what's left, you know, ifwhat, if anything is left of their
(03:07):
love. That's the external journey thathe takes. But the internal one is
equally important, probably more important,which is how he learns about himself through
this search and comes to understand notonly you know, his present, but
his past and the things that he'sdone and things he might do better in
the future. For writers who arekind of trying to put this stuff together.
(03:30):
You talked about a structure, andmaybe this sort of novel has a
rhythm and a tempo that kind ofyou know, you're aware of, you're
familiar with do you actually plot thatstuff out in advance, so you're kind
of making sure that everything is gearedtowards that end goal. Well, eventually
you have to do that, butI do that during the revision process.
(03:53):
The initial writing is really pretty instinctualfor this book. In his longings,
what I began with was these imagesof night and you know, night in
the city, night in central Park, a night on a deserted street.
So I didn't even have a character. I just had visual images in my
head, and I was drawn tothe idea of you know how you know
(04:14):
we're alone at night. I meanreally, even if we're with someone,
there's a sense that the external worldis stripped away and we're kind of confronting
our inner being, you know,our soul. It's easier to do it,
you know, in the dead ofnight, if you can't sleep,
or you know, if you're upfor whatever reason. So I was using
that. That's how I began.And then the idea of having Oki,
(04:38):
this crime writer who lives in GreenwichVillage who's pining over a loss his one
true love, then that came secondly, and then from there I came up
with the idea of the husband comingto ask him for help and finding this
woman. So it evolved in stages, and I think that's what trips a
(04:59):
lot of people up, is thatthey think they have to have this all
worked out in advance, and thatis not the case. In fact,
I think you write a better storyif you are allowing yourself to tap into
your unconscious, meaning that everything isnot plotted out in advance. You know,
you're following what you wrote the daybefore, what the character did the
(05:21):
day before, and then what wouldhe or she do next. So I
think that instinctual process is something thatis fearful to a lot of people,
because you know, we like tohave something to hold on to, to
cling onto. But I don't thinkit's necessary, and I think if you
wait for it, you might waityour whole life for the complete idea to
(05:43):
come. For sure, I wantto ask you about that in just a
second. Let me remind everybody whowe're speaking with. This is Get Connected
on one O six point seven lightFM. I'm Na del Rio. Our
guest is prolific writer and writing professorPhilip Shafari. He teaches writing at William
Patterson University and Gotham Writers. Hislatest novel is night and its longings.
You know, part of the jobis getting started, and you're talking about
(06:05):
kind of keeping it going as you'regoing. But it occurs to me,
you know, you have to comeup with ideas from some place. What
are you reading, what is feedingyou the news, other novels where you
you know, as people are puttingthings together, it's all of those things.
Yeah, be you're right. Imean so much goes into it,
and you really so much goes intoit that you really can't really separate it.
(06:30):
I mean there have been books whereI, you know, okay,
I definitely I needed to research certainthings. But I think it's important for
writers or would be writers just tobe open to, yes, as you
said, what's going on in theworld. You know, so you're reading
the newspapers, you're reading current events, you're reading you're reading novels that that
(06:50):
you like, that that have impressedyou so that they're they're they're in themselves
learning tools. And you're also andmaybe most importantly, looking at yourself.
And I think probably every writer,although that's maybe too grand a statement,
but certainly for me, I haveto find some personal connection to each of
(07:14):
my characters. I don't mean thatit's you know that it's a literal autobiography
where this actually happened to me.But there has to be something in every
character I write that connects to methat is meaningful to me. Maybe it's
a certain characteristic that a character mighthave a passion or a desire or a
(07:34):
regret. But I've got to findthat one thing that connects to me in
order to write a fully formed character. I don't know if that answers your
question, but but I'm willing totry again. No, it's great,
it's great, it's great. Iwas thinking, you know, you have
written plays, screenplays, novels.How do you know when the story you
(07:55):
want to tell is a play,a movie, or a book or something
else. That's a very good question, and I don't know that I have
a clear answer. It's usually morelike a feeling. Well, okay,
I think this will be work betteron the stage in a confined space where
because I can't have a character climbingthe mountain or doing it, so certain
things seem to lend themselves more tothe stage. You know, a confined
(08:18):
you know area in a novel,you've got more expanse. You can you
know, you can go in differentdirections. But to answer your question,
I think it's just a feeling,you know, a sense of And then
one thing you can always do isif you're not sure, is try it
in one genre but it's not comingout well, or you think it could
come out better, then try itin another genre. And I've done that
(08:41):
often. Sometimes I've written a storyand then also written it as a play
or written a play and then said, Okay, you know, I think
it's will work as a story aswell, and write it as a story.
So it's not a bad idea toyou know, if you're not sure,
to try it in different forms andyou no pretty quickly. Yeah,
it just seems to be right.You've been doing this a long time.
(09:05):
What are some of your biggest revelationsabout the process for you and things that
come up every time that a newwriter might not be aware of. One
thing is that I think everything thatyou write challenges you in a different way
and bring something different out of youand you learn something from it. In
Night and Its Longings, what Ilearned was how to really match the voice,
(09:31):
the narrative voice of the of themain character with the story so that
I, you know, I triedto refine the style and make it as
tight as possible word wise, imagewise, so that it had the sense
of propulsion that mirrored my main character, Jake's drive to find this woman,
(09:54):
you know, his first love totry to find her. I wanted the
the writing style to match the journeyof the of the main character, and
so I thought this time, Ireally really worked to get the voice of
the of the narrator as a reflectionof what's going on in the story.
(10:20):
That's another thing to the voice ofthe story. I mean, you have
to decide who is telling the story, whether it's the third person first person,
and what is their point of view. That's fascinating to me, Yes,
absolutely, And that's a good pointis point of view at some point
And if you're not sure at thebeginning, you know, again, I
would just try it in different ways, you know, start it with the
first person and see how that works. If that doesn't work, then try
(10:41):
it in the third person. Atsome point you have to definitely commit to
Okay, what is the point ofview? And you know, and I
think a good way to start isthe eye point of view because it's the
most concentrated and it's the most insome ways, the least complex of the
of the points of view. Youknow, then points of view get more
complex, you know, as youget a combination of mission author And why
(11:03):
is first person the least complicated becauseit's one point of view and the only
thing that the first person I canwrite about is what he or she has
experienced. So I mean there aretricks to get around that he could have
you know, could have heard something, or he can learn it from a
(11:24):
different source, even if he wasnot there participating in it. But because
it's a very focused point of view, I guess that's why why it's simpler
word. Whereas when you started toget into the he and she's, you
know, you could have multiple characterswith he and she, So it just
it's a little bit more complex becauseour audience tends to be primarily adults.
(11:48):
I know, you teach younger peopletoo, but an older writer someone's starting
this later. What does an olderwriter bring to the table. You know,
I think the older you are,the more you have to write about,
the more you've learned, the moremore you've seen, the more you
understand yourself. When you're young,we're soo when we're young, we're so
caught up in the furor of learningabout the world and our usually our own
(12:11):
insecurity in that I don't think wedevote as much time to reflection. But
the older you get, the morewe do reflect on not only what is
happening in our lives, but whyis happening and how we could change,
you know, what is happening.So I think you know, the older
you are, that's just a plus. It's not like you know, you're
a baseball player and you have toquit at forty. No, you know,
(12:35):
you're just starting out at forty.There was there was a woman who
wrote a novel, but Ladies ofthe Club. I think she wrote her
first novel at eighty two. Itbecame a bestseller. What do they say
about poets? Poets are at fiftyyou're young? So right, right right,
there's that right right right, yeah, yeah, So I would not
let that at all be an impediment. You've got you've got more experience,
(12:56):
you've got more details, you've gotmore important life experiences to draw from.
Philip Giafari's book is Night and ItsLongings. Thank you for being on to
get connected. Thank you very much. This has been get connected with Nina
del Rio on one oh six pointseven light Fm. The views and opinions
of our guests do not necessarily reflectthe views of the station. If you
(13:20):
missed any part of our show orwant to share it, visit our website
for downloads and podcasts at one ohsix to seven lightfm dot com. Thanks
for listening.
Welcome to Get Connected with Nina delRio, a weekly conversation about fitness,
health and happenings in our community onone Oho six point seven Light FM.
Good morning and thanks for listening toget connected. Do you think you might
have a book in you? Whatis the story you want to tell in?
How do you tell it? Ourguest is Philip Chaffari, who spent
(00:24):
decades teaching writing as a professor currentlyat William Patterson University with a PhD from
NYU and a fiction teacher for GothamWriters in the City. He's written six
well received character driven novels and shortstory collections, including his latest novel,
Night and Its Longings. Philip Chaffariis also an award winning film writer and
director, and his plays have appearedoff Broadway. Thank you for being on
(00:44):
the show. Oh, I'm happyto be here. So we're going to
talk about your book and writing.Being a professional writer, in my mind,
is to wrap yourself into and aroundan incredible story. So I wonder
if we could start, just maybewith the first story you wanted to tell.
Do you remember what that was andwhere that came from? Yeah,
the first stories I told were basedon my growing up in the Bronx,
(01:11):
and I wrote a lot of storiesabout young boys, you know, eleven
to thirteen who were finding out somethingabout the world through exploring some part of
the you know, of the Bronx. I use a lot of the parkland.
There's a lot of swamp land inthe Bronx which most people wouldn't know,
but there's there's you know, considerableamount of I don't want to call
(01:34):
it wilderness because it's surrounded by bythe city, but there's a lot of
you know, open land, forestedland, swampy land where you know,
where little boys could you know,go and play and you know, be
on their own. You know.It's like a little bit of Lord of
the Flies. So that those originalstories then became the basis for my first
(01:57):
novel, which was called Catholic Boys, about actually a housing detective who investigates
the murder of some high school studentsin the nineteen sixties in the Bronx.
Which is interesting in a way becausethis novel, the new novel, The
Night and Its Longing, is alsoabout a search and you know, it's
sort of that same similar thread.Yes it is, and I guess,
(02:20):
you know, for me, it'sa way of building a narrative that that
offers me kind of a structure andkind of a step by step way through
the novel. So you're right,I mean, the idea of investigation has
a significant part of my writing,and I'm always working with two levels of
(02:43):
that. Like so there's the externalinvestigation in Night and its longings for a
woman who's disappeared, who happens tohave had an affair with the writer investigator
ten years before, and he's neverforgotten her. She's the love of his
life and he wants to He doeswant to find her and reconnect and see
what's left, you know, ifwhat, if anything is left of their
(03:07):
love. That's the external journey thathe takes. But the internal one is
equally important, probably more important,which is how he learns about himself through
this search and comes to understand notonly you know, his present, but
his past and the things that he'sdone and things he might do better in
the future. For writers who arekind of trying to put this stuff together.
(03:30):
You talked about a structure, andmaybe this sort of novel has a
rhythm and a tempo that kind ofyou know, you're aware of, you're
familiar with do you actually plot thatstuff out in advance, so you're kind
of making sure that everything is gearedtowards that end goal. Well, eventually
you have to do that, butI do that during the revision process.
(03:53):
The initial writing is really pretty instinctualfor this book. In his longings,
what I began with was these imagesof night and you know, night in
the city, night in central Park, a night on a deserted street.
So I didn't even have a character. I just had visual images in my
head, and I was drawn tothe idea of you know how you know
(04:14):
we're alone at night. I meanreally, even if we're with someone,
there's a sense that the external worldis stripped away and we're kind of confronting
our inner being, you know,our soul. It's easier to do it,
you know, in the dead ofnight, if you can't sleep,
or you know, if you're upfor whatever reason. So I was using
that. That's how I began.And then the idea of having Oki,
(04:38):
this crime writer who lives in GreenwichVillage who's pining over a loss his one
true love, then that came secondly, and then from there I came up
with the idea of the husband comingto ask him for help and finding this
woman. So it evolved in stages, and I think that's what trips a
(04:59):
lot of people up, is thatthey think they have to have this all
worked out in advance, and thatis not the case. In fact,
I think you write a better storyif you are allowing yourself to tap into
your unconscious, meaning that everything isnot plotted out in advance. You know,
you're following what you wrote the daybefore, what the character did the
(05:21):
day before, and then what wouldhe or she do next. So I
think that instinctual process is something thatis fearful to a lot of people,
because you know, we like tohave something to hold on to, to
cling onto. But I don't thinkit's necessary, and I think if you
wait for it, you might waityour whole life for the complete idea to
(05:43):
come. For sure, I wantto ask you about that in just a
second. Let me remind everybody whowe're speaking with. This is Get Connected
on one O six point seven lightFM. I'm Na del Rio. Our
guest is prolific writer and writing professorPhilip Shafari. He teaches writing at William
Patterson University and Gotham Writers. Hislatest novel is night and its longings.
You know, part of the jobis getting started, and you're talking about
(06:05):
kind of keeping it going as you'regoing. But it occurs to me,
you know, you have to comeup with ideas from some place. What
are you reading, what is feedingyou the news, other novels where you
you know, as people are puttingthings together, it's all of those things.
Yeah, be you're right. Imean so much goes into it,
and you really so much goes intoit that you really can't really separate it.
(06:30):
I mean there have been books whereI, you know, okay,
I definitely I needed to research certainthings. But I think it's important for
writers or would be writers just tobe open to, yes, as you
said, what's going on in theworld. You know, so you're reading
the newspapers, you're reading current events, you're reading you're reading novels that that
(06:50):
you like, that that have impressedyou so that they're they're they're in themselves
learning tools. And you're also andmaybe most importantly, looking at yourself.
And I think probably every writer,although that's maybe too grand a statement,
but certainly for me, I haveto find some personal connection to each of
(07:14):
my characters. I don't mean thatit's you know that it's a literal autobiography
where this actually happened to me.But there has to be something in every
character I write that connects to methat is meaningful to me. Maybe it's
a certain characteristic that a character mighthave a passion or a desire or a
(07:34):
regret. But I've got to findthat one thing that connects to me in
order to write a fully formed character. I don't know if that answers your
question, but but I'm willing totry again. No, it's great,
it's great, it's great. Iwas thinking, you know, you have
written plays, screenplays, novels.How do you know when the story you
(07:55):
want to tell is a play,a movie, or a book or something
else. That's a very good question, and I don't know that I have
a clear answer. It's usually morelike a feeling. Well, okay,
I think this will be work betteron the stage in a confined space where
because I can't have a character climbingthe mountain or doing it, so certain
things seem to lend themselves more tothe stage. You know, a confined
(08:18):
you know area in a novel,you've got more expanse. You can you
know, you can go in differentdirections. But to answer your question,
I think it's just a feeling,you know, a sense of And then
one thing you can always do isif you're not sure, is try it
in one genre but it's not comingout well, or you think it could
come out better, then try itin another genre. And I've done that
(08:41):
often. Sometimes I've written a storyand then also written it as a play
or written a play and then said, Okay, you know, I think
it's will work as a story aswell, and write it as a story.
So it's not a bad idea toyou know, if you're not sure,
to try it in different forms andyou no pretty quickly. Yeah,
it just seems to be right.You've been doing this a long time.
(09:05):
What are some of your biggest revelationsabout the process for you and things that
come up every time that a newwriter might not be aware of. One
thing is that I think everything thatyou write challenges you in a different way
and bring something different out of youand you learn something from it. In
Night and Its Longings, what Ilearned was how to really match the voice,
(09:31):
the narrative voice of the of themain character with the story so that
I, you know, I triedto refine the style and make it as
tight as possible word wise, imagewise, so that it had the sense
of propulsion that mirrored my main character, Jake's drive to find this woman,
(09:54):
you know, his first love totry to find her. I wanted the
the writing style to match the journeyof the of the main character, and
so I thought this time, Ireally really worked to get the voice of
the of the narrator as a reflectionof what's going on in the story.
(10:20):
That's another thing to the voice ofthe story. I mean, you have
to decide who is telling the story, whether it's the third person first person,
and what is their point of view. That's fascinating to me, Yes,
absolutely, And that's a good pointis point of view at some point
And if you're not sure at thebeginning, you know, again, I
would just try it in different ways, you know, start it with the
first person and see how that works. If that doesn't work, then try
(10:41):
it in the third person. Atsome point you have to definitely commit to
Okay, what is the point ofview? And you know, and I
think a good way to start isthe eye point of view because it's the
most concentrated and it's the most insome ways, the least complex of the
of the points of view. Youknow, then points of view get more
complex, you know, as youget a combination of mission author And why
(11:03):
is first person the least complicated becauseit's one point of view and the only
thing that the first person I canwrite about is what he or she has
experienced. So I mean there aretricks to get around that he could have
you know, could have heard something, or he can learn it from a
(11:24):
different source, even if he wasnot there participating in it. But because
it's a very focused point of view, I guess that's why why it's simpler
word. Whereas when you started toget into the he and she's, you
know, you could have multiple characterswith he and she, So it just
it's a little bit more complex becauseour audience tends to be primarily adults.
(11:48):
I know, you teach younger peopletoo, but an older writer someone's starting
this later. What does an olderwriter bring to the table. You know,
I think the older you are,the more you have to write about,
the more you've learned, the moremore you've seen, the more you
understand yourself. When you're young,we're soo when we're young, we're so
caught up in the furor of learningabout the world and our usually our own
(12:11):
insecurity in that I don't think wedevote as much time to reflection. But
the older you get, the morewe do reflect on not only what is
happening in our lives, but whyis happening and how we could change,
you know, what is happening.So I think you know, the older
you are, that's just a plus. It's not like you know, you're
a baseball player and you have toquit at forty. No, you know,
(12:35):
you're just starting out at forty.There was there was a woman who
wrote a novel, but Ladies ofthe Club. I think she wrote her
first novel at eighty two. Itbecame a bestseller. What do they say
about poets? Poets are at fiftyyou're young? So right, right right,
there's that right right right, yeah, yeah, So I would not
let that at all be an impediment. You've got you've got more experience,
(12:56):
you've got more details, you've gotmore important life experiences to draw from.
Philip Giafari's book is Night and ItsLongings. Thank you for being on to
get connected. Thank you very much. This has been get connected with Nina
del Rio on one oh six pointseven light Fm. The views and opinions
of our guests do not necessarily reflectthe views of the station. If you
(13:20):
missed any part of our show orwant to share it, visit our website
for downloads and podcasts at one ohsix to seven lightfm dot com. Thanks
for listening.
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