Original article published in the Mower County Independent, Thursday, June 1, 2023. Reprinted with permission and gratitude.
By Gretchen Mensink Lovejoy
The secret to getting published is moving people from inebriation to brilliant statement, then listening to one’s grandma.
“I walked my resume to MTV. That was 1999, and I started working at VH1, when MTV was still doing music programming. That’s when they started making reality programs, and by the time we got to 2002, I got a call from the higher-ups at ABC to do a reality show called ‘The Bachelorette.’ I spent my time escorting really goodlooking drunk people from mansion to mansion and try to get them to say interesting things,” recounted Hastings, Minn., native and California author Stradal during his appearance at the Spring Valley Public Library (SVPL) earlier this month as part of the library’s participation in the Southeast Libraries Cooperating (SELCO) spring author tour.
The author of three novels – “Kitchens of the Great Midwest,” “The Lager Queen of Minnesota,” and “Saturday Night at the Lakeside Sup[1]per Club” – highlighted how his career progressed from being just a guy from Hastings who aspired to put words on a screen to being a member of pro[1]duction crews for famous television shows and writing books that, according to his website, “received glowing reviews from NPR, People, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Minnesota Public Radio, TASTE Magazine, AARP Magazine, and Kirkus, where it earned a starred review.” He addressed the audience at SVPL and answered their questions related to how he acquired novel-writing skills, saying, “Vanity Fair asked me how I learned to write a novel, and I told them that I had to take hours of footage down to 42 minutes…that’s not a lot of time to winnow things down to tell a story.”
He continued by telling about how he felt that his first manuscript had potential for publication. “I wrote every day for a year before work. I had written a novel before, but this was one that I thought might have a chance, but…my grandma read it and hated it. She told me to my face.” Stradal took questions from his audience related to how the editorial process affected his confidence, and he answered that he’d attempted to challenge one editor on the topic of how many swear words were included in the dialogue and been informed that he’d probably overdone it… eventually learning from his readers that it was better to listen to his editor than to do his best to row against the current. “Editors at every level have been very helpful…and once you get started in the publishing industry, you just keep writing… you get another crack at changes between hardback and paperback for when someone asks, ‘Who’s Blaine?’ and I remember ‘Oh yeah, I forgot I changed his name to Jake.’”
He took some more questions from attendees – particularly one involving whether he’s finished writing or has “more pressure now to write more after first successful books.” He responded, “Yeah, but a tree fell on our house.” That’s a house in Burbank, Calif., by the way, meaning that while he was “just a guy from Hastings, Minnesota” who wanted to use words to make his living, he’s well-traveled, but, he concluded, having a chance to return to the Midwest was a treat he thoroughly enjoyed.
SVPL’s summer program calendar is quite full with author visits, the children’s summer reading program, various educational workshops and more. SVPL’s director, Jenny Simon, encouraged interested persons to peruse the library’s schedule and take advantage of the free opportunities that await, including the return of photographer and author Doug Ohman, who presented in late March on his new book about metal detecting and will return to the library on June 29 to demonstrate how to use metal detectors to find historic artifacts deep underground.
The Spring Valley Public Library is open Mondays and Fridays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Tuesday through Thursday from noon to 7 p.m., striving to find opportunity and ability to reopen on Saturdays, if possible. For more information on library services, log onto the library’s website at www.springvalley.lib.mn.us, or call 507-346- 2100.
Courtesy of the Mower County Independent, 135 E Main St. LeRoy, MN 55951, (507)-324-5325
